Caldora Trebbiano d’Abruzzo 2010

Whether it is an indigenous white grape variety like Trebbiano or one of the region’s traditional reds, a bottle of Caldora wine is always a satisfying hedonistic experience. For starters, Caldora’s Trebbiano delights from the moment it is poured. It captures the eye with a brilliant clarity and a glint of sunshine. And then there is the wine’s fresh alluring bouquet – an aroma resplendent with the soft scents of orchard fruits, minerals, and liquid sunshine. Once it passes the lips, it acts like a draught of spring air. It fills the mouth and leaves the palate refreshed and eagerly awaiting more. Caldora’s 2010 Trebbiano d’Abruzzo could easily serve as a poster child for Trebbiano in Italy’s wild Abruzzo. Enjoy this delightful, fresh, purely made wine moderately chilled (38º-45º F).

The 2010 Caldora Trebbiano d’Abruzzo provides an ideal house wine, for individuals as well as restaurants. The wine’s bright, friendly flavors make it popular with a crowd and able to complement a wide variety of foods, without overpowering them. Trebbiano partners especially well with fish and shellfish. Calamari; linguini with white clam sauce; baby mussels, sautéed in a spicy garlic broth; and shrimp scampi provide excellent partners to Caldora’s 2010 Trebbiano d’Abruzzo. Cioppino is another perennial favorite. However, seafood isn’t the only option. White pizza, antipasti, and fresh buffalo mozzarella, drizzled with olive oil and served with fully ripened plum tomatoes, all provide tasty accompaniments, too. And if dinner isn’t ready, Caldora’s Trebbiano tastes great on its own, so just open the bottle and pour a glass or two; it’s the Abruzzi way. Buon Appetito!

Caldora is a hot young winery that opened its doors in 2003. It’s a partnership between Valentino Sciotti and renowned Italian winemaker Mario Ercolino. This dynamic duo launched Caldora when they leased one of the largest cooperative wineries in the Abruzzo, outfitted it with new custom made technology specified by Ercolino, a winemaker obsessed with attaining the maximum expression of fruit in his wines, and then began fashioning the region’s most prodigious wines from autochthonous varietals. To push Caldora’s wines to an even higher level of quality, Sciotti and Ercolino have established an avant-garde vineyard management system that compensates grape growers who agree to adhere to rigidly specified agricultural standards, by paying them a set amount of money according to the size of the vineyards under production, rather than according to the quantity of grapes produced. The combination of excellent grapes and outstanding wine making have yielded results that speak volumes. In just a few short years, Ercolino's taste for intense, deep fruit in his wines has won many friends and transformed how the wine drinking world views the wines of the Abruzzo as well as the rare indigenous vines of the region. The Caldora production area is located primarily in Ortona, amidst the splendid Moro River Valley. Here a unique ribbon of land lies between the gleaming Adriatic and a precipitous 10,000 foot ridge of the Apennine Mountains. This special land possesses a microclimate that is ideal for Montepulciano, Pecorino, Trebbiano and the region’s other indigenous grape varieties, which explains why winemaking has been prized in this region since the 3rd century AD and why consumers have quickly gobbled up Caldora’s wines.