Ancarani Uva Pessa

On these early spring days, it is easy to think about your garden and light sweater days…even Instagram reminded me that the sun won’t set before 5pm until November (thank god!). But if you’ve lived in the PNW for longer than a nanosecond, you know that it can still snow in April and this may well be a ‘false spring’ and while that could be disheartening, a sip of this wonderful elixir will have you thanking the winter gods that there is still time for port-style wines and maybe a bit of chocolate while curled up on the couch with your love.

Native to Romagna, Centesimino is also known as Sauvignon Rosso and was almost extinct until amazing humans like Claudio & Rita decided to revive it. And tbh, we love their red version of this grape but this time of year (see above), I am partial to this rendition. With it’s silky-smooth-textured tannins and inky blackberry with layer upon layer of balanced black-cherry acidity and ever so slightly floral, notes - this is all at once a dessert wine masquerading as a well-balanced, after dinner glass! 

Picked late which allows some of the grapes to dry on the vine in a style called passito - dried grapes are pressed like normal wine grapes except - well, these ones are dried (some of them) so the juice is concentrated resulting in a higher concentration of naturally occurring sugars. All that fancy talk to say - passito wines are richer, silkier versions of themselves and are best served with chocolate or (even better), a cheese course!

And as a side note, this wine will do just fine in your fridge for weeks or longer so fear not, open it up and have a wee-dram today and then again tomorrow… etc.