In a previous life, my wife and I tend to believe, we were Italians. Not Lucrezia Borgia or Casanova or one of the Medicis — what is it with everybody believing they were someone notorious in such scenarios? — probably peasants, but Italian to the core.

Not sure whether we lived during the Renaissance, but we have experienced two renaissances in our (current) lifetimes (partly chronicled in today’s Liquid Assets column).

One of them has been right here in the Twin Cities, where the Italian food and wine scene was pretty bleak when I moved here in 1986, and got even bleaker when CocoLezzone closed. An area that once had boasted a vibrant Italian community now had D’Amico Cucina, a handful of cool food stores (Broder’s, Delmonico’s, Cossetta’s, Buon Giorno) and not much else.

Then along came Giorgio’s, at the time a beacon of Tuscan delights, followed by Ristorante Luci, Broder’s Pasta Bar, Campiello and other splendid trattoria-type eateries. More recently, the late, great (for a while) Pane Vino Dolce, Al Vento, Luci Ancora, I Nonni and Il Vesco Vino have helped make the Twin Towns practically a mecca for Italian dining.

The wine lists, noteworthy at all of the aforementioned spots, have been a big part of the movement. Broder’s has a beautifully chosen, moderately priced compilation. Al Vento offers half-price on all wines on Mondays, as does Campiello on all wines under $100 on Sundays. I Nonni boasts some decent values on all the botles from the adjacent Buon Giorno wine store. Il Vesco Vino’s Henry Buffalo is regarded as one of the best wine managers in the Twin Cities. Good values at sundry price points abound at the two Luci restaurants.

But what makes these lists so swell is the other renaissance: in Italian winemaking. I was stationed in Gaeta, Italy, for three years in the late 1970s, and the wines were a profound disappointment. I read everything I could find on them and tried all the recommedned wines. Est Est Est!, Lacryma Christi, Orvieto, Lambrusco, Chianti all were uniformly disappointing, often downright bitter. Bolla’s Soave, Valpolicella and Bardolino were agreeable but hardly interesting. Aside from a homemade red at La Cisterna restaurant in Capri, no wine I sampled was transcendent.

That certainly has changed, starting at the high end — Piedmont’s Barolos and Barbarescas, the so-called Super Tuscans (which didn’t exist when I was there) — and down through every price point.

Why? Well, for centuries, wine had been more like an everyday beverage for Itailans (especially since in many places, the water was no great shakes). So little care was taken in its making.

In recent decades, most wineries, from smaller family-run ones to huge co-ops, stopped doing things the way their predecssors had done them for eons and embraced some modern techniques. But almost always, as with their other foods, they strived to ensure that the ingredients — in this case one of Italy’s 2,000-plus indigenous grapes — were the star of the show.

There’s still some mediocre stuff coming out of Italy, but now it’s the exception rather than the rule. If anyone’s had a crummy white wine from Friuli or Campania in recent years, or a disagreeable red from Piedmont or Umbria, I’d like to hear about it. Even more, I’d love to hear recommendations for bottles from the increasingly wide and wonderful world of Italian wine.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 27th, 2008 at 8:35 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.