Take A Chance: Pull Out The Unknown

Every so often I tend to get in a rut. I went to the store the other day, heading straight for the cabernet section, and started pulling wine off the shelf.

It’s no secret that I love cabernet, In part because of my day job but also because I love exploring all the different regions the variety is grown: Paso Robles, Napa, Sonoma, Washington.

Then I stopped.

You know what, I thought. I’m going to take a day off. I put the cabernet back on the shelf and started exploring for something else.

I slowly walked around the store, did a pass through all the aisles: champagne, chardonnay, merlot, pinot noir, syrah, AHA! What’s this section? The store is evidently organized by varietal but there looks to be a few shelves for the ‘other stuff’.

My eyes caught a bottle of wine from Lazio, the Italian region that the city of Rome sits in. The Lazio region of Italy gets a backseat since it borders more prominent regions like Campania, Abruzzo, and of course, Tuscany. But this particular wine was worth pulling out because it was a red wine from Lazio, not the typical white wine for which the region’s reputation is based off of.

The wine was: 2011 Arcatura Lazio Cesanese. Cesanese is an ancient grape variety that’s fruity, fragrant, and can easily be paired with anything. It’s in-between a Sangiovese and Nebbiolo, or at least this particular wine was, with a touch of New World.

If you look hard enough you can find rarefied wines like these in stores. It’s often low production (in this case, rarely found in the states) and affordable. Sometimes you might purchase of wine that’s not up to your standards and that’s OK because chances are you didn’t pay much for it. You can always slide back into the cabernet section.

Once in a while, it’s okay to take a chance and pull out the unknown.