Sicily's Finest?

Let's start by saying, I've never been to Sicily. My knowledge of the place is pretty much limited to what I learned from 1989 multi Oscar winning movie "Cinema Paradiso", and there wasn't much fine wine drunk in that.  I know, I've watched it more than 20 times (and cried every time!)
I'd love to go, and I've often said, "This year, we'll go to Sicily".  But for one reason and another, I've never made it.  Maybe 2013 will be the year.
I'll continue by saying I'm not exactly a regular shopper at Tesco as my nearest one is some 6 miles away and the kind of megastore that means popping in for a loaf of bread takes about 2 hours and coming home with a new flat screen TV and enough provisions for a journey to the Arctic.
Yet, fate conspired to bring two Tesco "Finest" wines from Sicily to my table this week so I thought I'd bring them to you. It's unlikely they're the finest Sicily has to offer but until I go there and sample more, we'll have to take Tesco's word for it.

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12.5% abv £6.99 from Tesco

First up was a Vermentino, not a grape I've encountered very frequently, but seems to making a name for itself right now. It's a bone dry wine, fresh, crisp with flavours of grapefruit and white peach.  There may be a hint of white pepper in there too, but perhaps the minerality is what struck me the most - a kind of flinty sensation tinged with pine nut.  We teamed it with a simple white fish meal, and it worked well, and being very drinkable, we noticed it ran out much faster than we'd have liked.  Perhaps this is down to the 12.5% alcohol level making it much easier to slurp than some of the heavyweight 14.5% numbers that have been frequenting Purple Teeth HQ lately.
Vermentino is worth having a bottle of in the fridge as it can work quite well with hard to pair foods such as artichoke, pesto, tomato and herby salads.  You might encounter it under it's French name Rolle. Though there are a ton of other aliases this grape goes under, most stores now have a Vermentino in stock.  It's true "finest" home is most likely Sardinia, with it's own DOC "Vermentino de Sardegna".  Nevertheless, at £6.99, there's much to commend starting with this one and working your way around the numerous Mediterranean examples should you take a shine to it.

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13.5% abv £6.99 from Tesco

Next up was Nero D'Avola which is an indigenous grape to Sicily and this Tesco Finest example was my first tasting of the grape several years ago.  It's such a bargain that I've come back to it time after time and I've even had success in converting a "white wine only" drinker onto this one.  If that doesn't convince you, perhaps it'll be by the way this teams nicely with tomato sauce based pasta dishes which are notoriously difficult to match, even with more famous Italian reds such as Chianti.
The wine is medium to light bodied for a red, despite having a dark colour.  It's as fruit forward as an Australian Shiraz with lots of flavour of black cherry and black currant, but a little less mouth filling.
You'll struggle to find a cheaper Nero D'Avola out there that's anywhere near as good as this.  Many stores only have examples in the £10+ price range, while this is currently on offer at tescowine.com for £6 a bottle (if you buy 6) and regularly falls into the in-store discounted offers on the Finest range such as 2 for £12.  You may also find this grape blended with other indigenous Sicilian grapes like Frappato, but to my taste, this one works well on it's on. I hope you'll enjoy it too!

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In other news, readers of my "Hungary for something different" blog post last week will be surprised to hear that this week I found The Half Moon pub in Putney is selling Quercus Pinot Bianco (Pinot Blanc) from Slovenia.  It's not the exact wine I tasted in Hungary but one of the single varietals Quercus now seem to be focussing on.  In the interests of research, I sampled a glass while enjoying live music from Ezio, one of my favourite live bands, and I definitely approve. There's the hint of oak which defines the Quercus brand, light acidity, and it's neutral enough to get along with food or to drink on it's own.  I've only had Pinot Blanc from Alsace before so it was nice to taste an equally elegant example.  The Half Moon's wine list is well selected by a Master of Wine and also includes a very reasonably priced Sicilian Nero D'Avola.  I'm left wishing I lived a bit nearer, and that more pubs took such care with their wine lists.
My next travel destination is Iceland.  Please don't expect me to report back on undiscovered wine gems from there...
Cheers!