We’re exploring the ins and outs of this fabulous Italian grape, why it deserves a spot on your table, and what dishes it pairs perfectly with—hint: think delicious fresh pasta and rich tomato sauces. Plus, I’m bringing in my other half, Michael, for an exciting tasting of our 2022 Sollevato Sangiovese that we’ve been waiting to uncork.

Here's what you'll hear:

• Why Sangiovese is a very versatile grape that pairs perfectly with a wide range of foods.
• I share why, of all the grapes in California, we chose to make this type of wine
• The winemaking process and how this 2022 vintage is or isn't different than it's counterparts
• We taste the newest Olio Novello from American Olive Farmer and see how it compliments the wine!

Visit our website to sign up for the mailing list to know when the 2022 Sangiovese is available!

Follow Sollevato Wines on Instagram

Our Sollevato Sangiovese is available to be shipped to most US States. Use the code PODLISTENER for 10% off. It's a delicious, medium bodied, aromatic red wine that is perfect with pizza, pasta and your charcuterie spread!

You NEED some delicious California Olive Oil from our awesome sponsor American Olive Farmer. Use code SipWithNikki for $10 off your order!

Check out Evan Goldstein's book "Perfect Pairings"

If you'd like to Support the Podcast, you can buy Nikki and Michael a glass of wine and get a shoutout on a future episode.

Please leave a RATING or a REVIEW (on your podcast listening platform), or thumbs up and subscribe (on YouTube!)

Questions? Comments? nikki@sipwithnikki.com

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Do you smell apples and pears?

No. Like cherries and red fruits.

Are they red cherries or black cherries.

Or Bing cherries or maraschino cherries or brandy cherries?

Definitely not maraschino cherries. Those belong nowhere.

If I made a wine that smelled.

And tasted like maraschino cherries, I would dump it.

You would call it banana split.

Why do people ruin a sundae with a red dye cherry on the top?

Hey there. Welcome to Sip with Nikki. I'm Nikki Lamberti here in Sonoma County, California. Regular listeners, I see you, I hear you, shout out, fist pump to you.

Thank you for your loyalty. And hey, if you're a newbie, I'm so excited that you're here. Welcome to the party.

From time to time, I like to drop in an episode that focuses on a particular type of grape and or a particular type of wine. And this is one of those episodes. It's one of my favorite grapes. You guys know it.

I am super passionate about it and I can't say the word without singing it and sounding like Oprah, but it's Sangiovese. You get a Sangiovese, you get a Sangiovese, you're all getting Sangiovese. I get very excited about this.

So today we're going to dive into a little bit about the grape itself, some things that you need to know, why you should be drinking it, what does it pair well with? Hint, olive oil. We're going to taste some of that.

And then in the second part of this episode, for our Sip Spotlight, I am bringing in my other half, Michael. If you are a listener, you have heard Michael making more and more of his appearances in the podcast.

And is this a little self serving that we taste our wine on my podcast? Yeah. But when the podcast has your name and the title, you can do whatever you want.

So we're gonna share with you a little bit about it, some honest impressions. Because we have not tasted it for a couple months because it was cellared and resting in the bottle in time for its upcoming release.

If you're not on the Solevato mailing list, you're gonna wanna be, because you will be the first to get the email when our wine is available and it's coming soon. So visit Solovato wines.com and then click mailing list and sign up there. I'll put the link in the show notes, and that way you can be in the know.

So here we go with Sangiovese. Sangiovese. Sangiovese. San Gio Sange. Men. We call it a lot of different things and we pronounce it in a lot of different ways.

But regardless of how you say it, it is one of my favorite grapes to make wine and to drink wine from. Michael and I have fielded the question for years, why Sangiovese? You make one wine, you're finally doing it.

Why is it that grape that you've chosen to work with? The short answer is, because we love to drink it. The end. But let's dig a little deeper.

I want to give you some general information about the grape and where it's from. I have found over the years that a lot of wine drinkers are not very familiar with Sangiovese or even at all.

But yet, if I say, hey, have you ever had Chianti? They're like, oh, yeah.

And they had the honor system where, if you remember, the Macaroni Grill had white paper tablecloths, and they would give you crayons and you can write and draw on the tablecloth. And they would say, just keep a tally, a tick mark for every glass of Chianti that you have, and we'll tally it up at the end.

Those were the days, right? But for most people, something like that is the association with Chianti.

And for a lot of people, the impression that they have is exactly that it's that table wine that's kind of coifable or drinkable, but not complex or layered or interesting. And that is really anything but true. Nowadays, there are some, whether from California or Italy or even other.

Other parts of the world where they're growing it Some beautifully well made, interesting, exciting and delicious high end wines made from the Sangiovese grape.

But the beautiful thing is they usually don't have the price tag of a Cabernet Sauvignon simply because Cabernet Sauvignon tends to be more expensive to make. Okay, so I digress. But back to your geography lesson. Chianti, not a grape.

Chianti is the region in Italy, actually a sub region within the bigger region of Tuscany. And the leading grape that's planted there forever and ever and even current day today is the Sangiovese grape.

So when you are drinking that wine coming from Chianti, you call it Chianti and it says Chianti on the label. But if it's coming from a neighboring region in Italy, outside of the Chianti region, it might say Brunello del Montocino.

Same grape, different region. Remember, and I've talked about this in previous episodes, when I talk about shopping for wine and reading wine labels.

For the most part, the biggest difference between the labeling of European wines versus the labeling of American and other parts of the, quote, New World. Over there, they label by the place. Over here, we label by the grape. That's a good general rule.

If we are growing that very grape here in California, in Sonoma county, in the Dry Creek Valley region of Sonoma county, which is where our vineyard source is. When we make that wine, we don't call it Chianti or Brunello.

We call it, you got it, Sangiovese or San Joe or Sange, depending on how much of a rush we're in. You know, it's controversial, especially the Italians.

They are curious to put it nicely, about why Californians especially would choose to plant and grow that grape here.

As Californians, we believe that if it's planted in the right place in California, like the Dry Creek Valley, the soils and the elevation and the climate mirror pretty closely to where it grows over there. And therefore we can get a similar expression, but with a little California twist on it.

Generally speaking, California wines, period, are just going to be more fruit driven. And I would say that is the biggest difference.

If I just really simplified it, if I had a glass of Chianti, Classico, very specific region within Chianti, within Tuscany, within Italy, Classico Sangiovese. And I had it next to a California, Dry Creek Valley Sangiovese.

Whether I made it or not, if you asked me what the biggest difference was, in minimal words, I would say the California version was a little bolder and fruitier. And the Italian version was a little more subtle and earthier. Why do we love to drink it so much?

Well, Sangiovese is very versatile when it comes to food and wine pairing.

And if you are a regular listener, you know, I talk about this often, how I love the play of finding the right food and wine together, because Sangiovese is known for having medium tannin. Tannin being that kind of dry, chalky, astringency, fuzzy sweater on your teeth.

It's not super prevalent in that grape as it is in some others, like Cabernet Sauvignon or Petite Syrah. So because of that, you don't need as heavy and bold of a protein or a fat to balance it out.

You could really have a lighter dish and the Sangiovese won't overpower it with those tannins.

And then generally speaking, and it can vary depending on where it's grown, but generally, just the genetics of this grape lead it to have a little bit of a higher acidity in the wine. And acidity, as I always talk about, is that freshness that that palate cleansing sip that you take in between bites of yumminess.

And we want that when we're having a Cacio e Pepe or a carbonara or a Bolognese or a margherita pizza with beautiful buffalo mozzarella on it. Right. It's the balance of it. I also love Sangiovese with tomato based dishes, so I mentioned pizza and Bolognese.

So tomatoes, we know are pretty high in acidity and they really play nicely together when you have that higher acid wine and that higher acid red sauce. One of my Go to Wine books is Perfect Pairings by Evan Goldstein. Evan is a master sommelier.

So if you heard my episode with George Melodis, episode 50, they are in the same club. Evan and George are two of the less than 300 people to ever achieve the Master Psalm distinction.

And Evan wrote a book called Perfect Pairings with his mom, Joyce Goldstein. And I love this book and I'm manifesting right now. Evan, will you please come on the podcast?

Oh, my gosh, I would love to talk to you, but I'm reading out of his book on page 178. This is in the chapter all about Sangiovese. He says Sangiovese is one of the wine world's great gifts to the table.

It's moderate in alcohol, carries with it a sharp backbone of acidity, and by and large has very balanced level of tannins. This basic profile allows it to marry well with many dishes. I second that, Evan, thank you. Here is an interesting thing also from his book.

He said recipes that pair meat or poultry with fruit, especially those with tart flavors like sour cherry, orange, tangerine and fresh tomato. Because, yes, tomato is a fruit. They are quite good with the California fruit forward interpretation of Sangiovese.

And that is what I make also in Evan's book, Perfect pairings. And I'll put the link in the show notes so you can find it on Amazon.

I love that he gives typical categories of flavors and aromas that you can find in certain grapes.

So for Sangiovese, he lists fruit and vegetable notes like cherry, raspberry, red, plum, cherry tomato, floral notes, rose, chamomile, almost like dried floral notes, thyme, caper, earthiness, sometimes truffle and mushroom and smoky and earth. There's the earthy part, wood, of course, especially if it's aged in oak barrels. You can get cinnamon, vanilla, pepper, coffee, mocha nut.

And then for other tar and leather. And I kind of put tobacco in that category as well. And then finally, you've got another class of wines called Super Tuscans.

And Super Tuscan became very popular in the 80s.

If you have listened to the podcast, you've heard me tell my story about the wine that really brought me to tears, gave me goosebumps, and made me decide that it was time to change careers and study wine and make wine. And that wine is called Tignanello, from Antonori and made in the Tuscany region.

And it is a blend of Sangiovest, the Italian grape, with other grapes that are not originally from Italy, like Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc. Those are Bordeaux grapes.

So when the Italians first bucked the system of regulation in Italy, where they said, oh, you have to grow certain things in certain places. And they were like, no, we're going to blend these Italian grapes and non Italian grapes. And they did.

And those are some of my favorite wines to this day. They're so interesting. And that is why I have chosen to make my first blend with a Sangiovese base called Fortunato.

So Super Tuscan is just a general category of wines, and they typically have a good concentration or a good percentage of Sangiovese in there.

And they're just usually a little bit bigger and bolder, especially if there's something like Cabernet Sauvignon in there that's going to add weight and body and tannin and just deeper notes to that wine.

"SIP SPOTLIGHT" (Music)

Normally I thank my guests for.

Being here with me, but we're here in our kitchen, and you live here, so I don't really have to thank you.

Let's do it.

Let's taste the 20, 22. I don't even remember the last time I tasted this. When have we tasted this?

I think you opened a bottle which.

You said in December.

So it's been a month and a half.

Yes. Okay. Anything you want to say before I open it or no?

What do you want to say?

It's good.

We don't know.

We haven't tasted it.

It was good in December. Throw them. You cant it then.

Yeah. So we're gonna decant it even. Are you going for the whole bottle?

Dude, did you say stop? You didn't say stop. You just said going.

I get so many questions, listeners, about decanting, and you are hearing this in real time.

So decanting, you don't always have to.

Let the wine sit there for 10.

20, 30 minutes, an hour.

Just the action of putting into the.

Decanter introduces a lot of oxygen, which is the whole point, which is just.

Gonna let it open up and then you just get to go along for the ride with it. But this, this you pour just right into the glass.

I always pour a little bit because I'd like to just stick taste the difference.

So he decanted a good amount, but.

Then a half bottle.

But then he poured two sips directly from the bottle into the glass.

So.

But that was after the half bottle was decanted, so it wasn't right on the top.

Okay, so we're going to taste right.

From the bottles of the glass first.

Correct.

And then behind it, we will taste.

The wine that has been decanted for a few minutes. Cheers. Oh, my gosh.

Cheers. 20, 22.

22.

Oh, my gosh. Mmm, she smells pretty.

Our fourth creation together.

Remember, this was harvested at the end of August. So this was the earliest harvest we've had from Ramazotti from their vineyard. It was a warm summer, and the grapes were just Ready to go in August.

What'd you smell, you guys? He's already swallowed it. There was no, like, smelling.

I smell the fruit.

What kind of fruit do you smell? Lemons and limes?

No.

Do you smell apples and pears?

No. Like, cherries and red fruits.

Are they red cherries or black cherries.

Or Bing cherries or maraschino cherries or brandy cherries?

Definitely not maraschino cherries. Those belong nowhere.

If I made a wine that smelled and tasted like maraschino cherries, I would dump it.

You would call it banana split.

Why do people ruin a sundae with a red dye cherry on the top? No, it's like a. Just a nice dark red with a stem.

Cherry.

Yeah.

She just pulled off a tree.

Yeah. I get some floral notes. I always get that sort of, like, a violet note, like a delicate purple flower note.

I always like to say lavender, but.

You'Re like, there is, like, an herb.

It's herbaceous.

Herbaceous note.

Herbaceous cherry fruit.

So this aged for 22 months, and we had three barrels, so we have about 75 cases. Those barrels are French oak, but they were very used, so what we call neutral. So there's not a lot of heavy oakiness on there.

But it was aged in used barrels. Oh, my God. I'm excited to take a sip. My mouth is watering. Yum.

What do you think, Winemaker?

I freaking made that. Wow. Big fruit, but not overripe jammy fruit. Just strong fruitiness, which our wine always.

Has great acidity in the front.

We're both doing this.

Yep. It's not overpowering.

Nope.

And then this is the undecant, so I would expect the decanting one to have more mouthfeel in the backside. That's what I feel you get from.

Did you just say mouth feel on the backside? I don't know if we're allowed to say that on this podcast. Which smells like perfume. Just subtle perfume. Wow. There's some layers in there.

And everyone listening is. Yeah, she's biased.

I am biased because we picked these grapes and basically did all of the things to it, even down to the wax on the top and the number on the back of the label.

But puts it down with your feet.

But this one was not feet. Fortunato was feet. But it's fresh, it's rich. It's exactly what I always say. Medium body, fruity, spicy.

There's not a lot of tannin.

As we're sitting here, I'm not like, oh, my God, I need cheese or.

I need a steak.

Although we do have a nice little board here, so I thought it might be fun to try it with some different snacks. You are now drinking the one that had been decanted for a few minutes. Is it any different?

Yeah, it's more mouthfeel, especially. I thought it was gonna be more in the back. It's in the front.

It's like it's spread out on your palate with a little bit of oxygen.

Yeah, it's like all over my teeth. It's a little gritty.

Does it seem more tannic?

Yes.

Interesting because it's usually the opposite.

So let me taste.

But it doesn't have the big tannic on the backside.

But it smells good. Definitely with a little bit of oxygen. It's, for me, has become less linear and more sliding from side to side on the palette, which is. I like that.

It's just more of a mouthful. Yeah.

That's why I like comparing the two. Like people always like, what do you get with decanting? You don't know unless you go side by side. Everything can be side by side.

Yeah. And I always tell people, you don't need a fancy decanter. We have a nice, like, real one here. But it could literally be a gurglefish. A gurglefish.

Just wash the gravy out first.

The Italians put red sauce in. It could be a margarita pitcher. It could be a Tupperware. It could be anything that's just going to get more oxygen into it. So try it at home, people.

Any wine, just try it right from the bottle to the glass and then try decanter to the glass. And then try decanter, sit and glass.

See if you can tell the difference.

If you can do it. If you can't, skip it.

And then try it with some homemade focaccia bread.

Tell us about your bread, Michael.

This is focaccia bread I made with my sourdough discard. It has nice rosemary and parmesan mixed into it. I'm proud of it.

Nice.

I didn't mess it up.

You did great. It's delicious. So we are dipping this in some beautiful olive oil.

And if you are a regular podcast listener, you've heard ads from our sponsor, American Olive Farmer, which is Liz and Don't up in Corning, California. And I just got some of the Olio Novello, which is their brand new olive oil from olives that were just harvested a couple months ago.

So Liz calls this the Beaujolais nouveau of oil. Right.

It's very fresh and we're going to taste that too, because an Italian inspired wine like Sangiovese, with beautiful, fresh California olive oil, they just go together, I think.

Wow. Now you go back to the wine.

What did you just have? When I was talking, I dipped a.

Little bit of the focaccia bread in the olive oil.

Okay, I'll do that.

And then I went back to the wine. And now the wine has so many other notes that you didn't pick up before.

I think the rosemary and the focaccia bread brought more of the herbaceousness of the wine with the fruit.

Can we just talk about that olive oil for a minute? So the color is a little on the paler side, which I think is typical of a fresh press, a new oil, but there is a very slight bitterness to it.

Oh, my gosh. It's beautiful and very fresh. Now I'm gonna go back to the wine. How fun is this? Ooh. Yeah.

Once you have the bread and the oil, because there's also some nice salt and parmigiano Reggiano on the top of your focaccia. Right. So now we've introduced saltiness and a little bit of bitter from the olive oil. And the oil is almost like a little peppery too, I think.

Yeah.

Wow. Let's taste the oil on its own. So we have these beautiful blue glass olive oil tasting glasses that Liz herself designed.

And I am pouring a little bit of oil on each one. And then, listener, if you have not listened to Olive Oil 101 and 102 from last season, go back and listen.

And Liz teaches us the correct way to taste oil. So you hold these glasses in your palm, this beautiful blue glass, and you spin it in your palm to warm the oil.

And then we're gonna sip it just as thoughtfully as we are sipping our wine. And do a little slurp, get a little oxygen in there. Nice.

Wow. It just, like, evaporates into air. That's how light it is. It's delicious, but you still have that peppery note in the backside of your palate.

It's light and delicious.

Mm. It is light. And then you get that little peppery.

On the back end.

Yeah. We have been enjoying Lucero, which is Liz and Don's brand, Escalano and Arbequina. Most recently, I've had the other oils, but not the new oil.

Like a little buttery and peppery and yum.

Michael, when people ask you, why do you make Sangiovese? Of all the things you can make, what's your answer?

I like to take The Road less traveled.

Not a lot of people in California make Sangiovese and we enjoy making homemade pizzas and we like to cook a lot and Italian foods and even some Mexican foods. The Sangiovese does taste good with it because of the middle body of it plays well with foods.

And I always tell people we make it also because we love to drink it. But yeah, I love your road less traveled. That is very much you. Oh, this wine is good. Am I allowed to say that?

There's always that moment, I think, when you're a chef or a baker too.

And you're like about to taste it, that first bite.

It's the first bite of baker.

Yeah. And you're like, you know too much and you're thinking too hard and you're like, please just let it be good.

And I just took a sip and I'm pleasantly surprised at how it has. Has evolved and changed since we bottled.

It back in June.

It always gets a little bumpy and we just kind of gotta leave it alone. So we've been cellaring this for eight months now.

I think when people order this, if they crack into it and are gonna drink it right away, I'm fine with that. I'm not like, oh, God, they have to age it. But because of the structure that's there, the acid and the subtle tannin, it's.

Only going to get better.

I feel like if people wanted to sell her this for at least 10 plus years, they got it.

But buy a lot and then drink some and then seller the rest of it.

I always tell people, and this is not a sales pitch, I tell when I'm hosting people and you've heard me say this, if you go wine tasting, I don't care where it is. When you find a wine that you love, if your budget allows, and that's always the if don't buy one bottle of that wine. Right?

Yeah.

Buy at least three, if not more.

Because one you're going to want to.

Drink right away, but then one lay it down and have it next year and then one forget about it. So.

And then have it on a special occasion.

Yeah. So I think people could definitely do that with this.

Get at least a three pack or six pack and then check in with it over time and see how it's going and it's going to change and evolve. It already has so much since we bottled it.

It's amazing though, that I. I feel like it's just another baby from the 19, the 20, the 21 and 22.

And watching them each year is different, and I can't wait to see what this one is in two years, three years.

For those of you who enjoy Solevato Sangiovese already and our loyal customers, thank you. First of all.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, we love you. But you're probably wondering, like, how is it different from a winemaking standpoint?

This is the same vineyard, grapes grown by the Ramazotti family. The same process of how it's handpicked and crushed. The same yeast that I use, which is a strain of yeast isolated from Italy.

Minimal intervention, as we say. Not much. Just getting it through fermentation.

Right.

And then aging it in neutral barrels. So on paper, my process has changed very little with year four of this wine. But I think this is a perfect example.

And it would be cool if people could have multiple years of our wine in one sitting, because, you know, the winemaking and the people and the process and where it was made and blah, blah, blah, it's all the same.

But if you had a 20, 20 and a 21 and a 22 side by side, you're literally just tasting the difference of the growing season, the weather and mother nature and the composition that was in those grapes when they were.

Picked, all those things.

Maybe we do that.

Do we?

Okay, you're in charge of all things, inventory and numbers as the CFO. Do we have enough of the 20, 21? Obviously 22, where we could do a couple of verticals, sell people a three pack, one of each year.

Will you bless that?

Yes.

Oh, I'm feeling good tonight.

Yeah.

Like, how many do you think we have where we could sell it? Like a vertical? Like that?

Maybe 10 to 15.

Okay. From our kitchen counter to your ears, listeners.

So when we release this, we will also make available what we call a vertical, which is the same wine, multiple vintages or years in a row, a bottle of 20, 20, 21, and 22.

And we encourage you to find the.

Right time, the right people that get it, the right. And try them all side by side. And then let us know what you think we gotta hear. Like, we wanna know, right?

Yeah. Make a reel. Show us what you think of it.

Yeah.

Are we gonna do that? Are we gonna open all three?

Sure, why not?

It's gonna be a good night tonight, people. Last thoughts, pairings. What happens with the cheese?

This cheese, I always love this one, Bellogioso.

That is from Trader Joe's. It is a cheese where the rind is soaked in wine. I think that one. Maybe that's why I like it belgioso. It's a white, higher acid cheese.

It's very milky.

Yeah.

And it's not cold cheese, huh?

No, it's a cow's milk.

And then we've got an Italian truffle cheese here, a little bit of pepperoni, some nice dry parmigiano reggiano, and then some marcono almonds with rosemary on them and then some garlic jalapeno stuffed olives.

So all this stuff is delicious with the wine.

Yeah.

And on your charcuterie board. And.

This wine is good, Michael, we made this.

Yep.

It's really delicious.

Cheers. Delicious.

Delicious, if I do say so myself.

We had fun.

Yes. We finished the bottle and the cheese board and the olive oil.

And I hope that you have a better idea of what this grape is all about, why it's so versatile, why you should be drinking it, and why you should be drinking ours. Sollevato is S O L L E V a T O just like it sounds.

Sollevatowines.com and by the way, if you haven't heard the story in previous episodes, where does Sollevato the name come from? In Italian, it means joyful and uplifted. And y'all know I love me some joy.

Super rare, super collector's items. So look for that on the website. And that gorgeous Lucero olive oil from American Olive Farmer.

We're gonna do some bundles with olive oil and wine because you need both, and we have found two of the best for you. Yes, again, we're biased. Be sure to follow Solavato wines on Instagram to keep up with what's coming next.

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