Loyal readers and attentive barflies may have noticed the Short Cellar’s absence over the last month. My day job (the thing that editors persistently advise me to keep) got a little out of hand as I entered into a three-week trial. The stress of it was sufficiently great that I gave up wine.
Oddly enough, when I am most stressed, all I want to do in my spare time is read about ancient Greece and Rome. An odd foible, I suppose, but it’s better than the cocaine habit that made the eighties a banner decade for so many lawyers. My anxiety was so profound that I even began trying to teach myself Latin. Mentally declining irregular verbs is a surprisingly comforting pastime while your witness is being cross-examined. It’s a good thing the trial has concluded, because now I can say goodbye to all that and resume frittering my life away on trivialities.
I was a little nervous about getting back into the swing of the wine business. Fortunately, I had just the sort of soft landing I needed. Yesterday, I attended a seminar on Sicilian wines, led by Prof. Attilio Scienza, a professor with more learning about his subject than understanding of his audience’s attention span. When asked to give some background on recent improvements to Sicily’s wine industry, he began in the Bronze Age.
Prof. Scienza lectured about the cultural impact of the Punic Wars and spoke about the grape vines transplanted to Italy by Greek colonists. And that was just his warm-up. Soon, he was giving us an illustrated dissertation on how the ancient Sicilian potters improved the traditional Hellenic amphorae. Judging by their glazed expressions, some of the wine critics appeared bored. Can you imagine? Damnant quodnon intelligunt.
“Geographically, climactically and culturally, Sicily is not an island: it is an entire continent,” said Prof. Scienza. “In fact, it has as many acres devoted to grapes as Australia.” Indeed, the wines of Sicily are difficult for some Canadians because there is so much variety and so many of the great Sicilian grapes are largely unknown in the rest of the world.
My recommendation is to start with whites. Although they come with unfamiliar names (Grillo, Inzolia and Catarratto being the most common), they all share a fresh, flowery and perfumed quality similar to Pinot Grigio or Sauvigon Blanc — what wine critics call “aromatic whites.” These are delicate creatures that match perfectly with seafood.
The Feudo Montoni 2007 Catarratto ($15.95 [Ed. note: No longer available], Vintages #111252) is the best Sicilian white that you can get in the LCBO right now. It offers ripe but refreshing fruit, exceptional delicacy and one quality that really distinguishes the wines of Sicily: a thrilling minerality that comes from the island’s incredible soil. Superb! 90/100
Matthew Sullivan is a civil litigator in Toronto. He writes a weekly blog entry here on lawandstyle.ca. The Short Cellar column also appears in the print edition of Precedent. Matthew can be reached at matthew@lawandstyle.beta-site.ca. Follow along on Twitter: @shortcellar.