Monday, October 27, 2008

Gabbiano Chianti, 2006

At $4.50 a glass at TraVino Restaurant north of Traverse City, this has to rank as one of best values I have encountered. Most house wines are either innocuous or all dressed up with oak chips. This Gabbiano Chianti offers honest fruit aromas and flavors--dark cherry and mushrooms--in a traditional format. There is no evidence of new oak or oak chips, but there are plenty of fruit tannins to give substance and backbone. A delightful match for Gorgonzola-crusted strip steak.

Gabbiano wines are widely available and decent values for about $8 to $12 a bottle. All that may change soon as the Australian makers of Foster's Beer have purchased the property and plan to "modernize" the wines. No thanks, I say.

3 comments:

  1. Fred, was this the Classico, or the regular Chianti?

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  2. Since it was a wine by the glass delivered to my table, I don't know. Considering the price, I would assume it was the regular Chianti.

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  3. I went to this place and also were amazed by the prize of the glass, one of the few places with cheap prices.

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