Sipping the Il Valore Marchese DePetri, Sangiovese 2009 Giovane

By Steve & Claudia Evans

Welcome to A Wine for All Seasons, which is a modest attempt by Claudia and Steve to discover good wine at an exceptional price. Here, we share our pairings of wines from the world over with home-cooked meals to explore the nuances of the grape while indulging our love of great food. Our goal is to highlight the pleasure of wine without all the pretension that is readily available elsewhere on the Internet.

We commence our journey with a bottle of Il Valore Marchese DePetri, Sangiovese 2009 Giovane. The Sangiovese is a pleasantly aromatic grape from the Puglia region of Southern Italy (known as the Heel of the Boot). This is a young, fruity red wine with a supple finish.

The Puglia region has traditionally been a growth area for mass-produced, cheap red grapes, but the region's rich soil conditions and climate have provoked investors throughout Northern Italy and as far as America to start taking Puglia seriously. Puglia is now considered to have real potential for commercially successful, quality wines. 

The '09 Sangiovese opens with a rich burst of fruit, wet and young. It makes a fine accompaniment to red meats, pasta and especially pizza. "Mild, spicy finish," Claudia says, "but thin, because it's young." Still, this 2009 Il Valore offers extraordinary value at under $5 the bottle. The alcohol content, at 12.5 percent, spurred a pleasant giggle as we reached the bottom of the bottle.

We enjoyed this wine with a delicious early-autumn dish of penne rigate with fresh tomatoes & basil, cubed sweet potatoes and prosciutto.

For an everyday Italian meal, the '09 Il Valore is a fine choice, sensibly priced. The Il Valore would transform a mundane pizza supper into something special.

A Wine for All Seasons (c) 2010 by Steve Evans and Claudia Evans. All rights reserved.