Ecco Domani Wine Review

The girls and I needed a little R&R the other night. Ended up with two bottles of wine (Ecco Domani Pinot Grigio, 2010 & Berringer Pinot Grigio). Although the Berringer was a complete disappointment, the Ecco Domani Was worthy of not only a second taste, but a wine review. 

As I am by no means a wine Sommelier, nor an expect in vinticulture, or just vino in general, so therefore the wine review below was 'borrowed' from eccodomani.com. No copywrite infringement intended.

http://www.eccodomani.com/italian-wine/pinot-grigio.asp

Ecco Domani 2010 Pinot


 GrigioGrapes for our wine come from the Northeastern "Tre Venezie" region of Italy, where the Pinot Grigio grape has been cultivated for more than a century. The Pinot Grigio grape is genetically related to Pinot Noir and Pinot Blanc, and is easily subject to color mutation. The skin color of the grapes can range from a bluish gray to a delicate pink, depending on the clone and the geographic zone. In fact, the word “Grigio” means gray in Italian, although the juice is drawn off the skins before they impart a tint to the wine.

Description
After a cold winter and spring, May and June 2010 saw some hot weather, allowing the vines to catch up on a somewhat slow start. A good level of moisture in the soil made for some excellent growing conditions, resulting in yields that came in about average but with promising fruit. Harvest began about 8-9 days later than the previous year. Some areas saw rain during harvest period, but this was intermittent. Most of the vintage came through with good acidity and sugar content. In the final analysis, hot days combined with cool nights resulted in an excellent vintage.

Viticulture Notes
The Tre Venezie is made up of three smaller growing regions: Trentino Alto Adige, Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia. With a climate known for “cool nights and warm days,” conditions in the Tre Venezie are conducive to exceptional grape maturation. Ecco Domani meticulously combines the inherent strengths of the fruit from each of these premier regions to create full-flavored wines with superb colors and wonderful aromas, backed by fine levels of intensity.

Winemaking Notes
The juice was fermented at 18ºC three weeks in temperature-controlled tanks. After settling, the wine was cold stabilized, filtered and bottled under sterile conditions, avoiding malolactic fermentation and preserving the fruit characteristics of the wine. The wine was aged two months on light lees to preserve freshness.

Tasting Notes
This wine has a clear, straw yellow color, with light golden reflections. A low concentration of surmaturo grapes gives the wine tropical fruit notes that make this unique vintage truly exotic, with apple and pineapple aromas and flavors. The wine is light bodied, with a pleasantly soft palate and a long finish.

Finished Wine
Varietal Content: 88.5% Pinot Grigio, 11.5% Chardonnay
Varietal Origin: Delle Venezie
Alcohol Level: 12.49%
Residual Sugar: 0.35g/100ml
Titratability Acidicity: 0.57g/100ml
pH: 3.41

The Ladies Auxillary

One of the perks of working in a bar that I discovered very early on is getting to witness all the outrageously crazy things that people do when under the influence. Not all of it is pleasant, believe me....but most of it is atleast entertaining.

Earlier this afternoon, one of my co-workers and I got to talking about a particularly funny group of ladies who came in one afternoon to partake of the bar. This group of ladies, or the Ladies Auxillary (from hell), as I prefer to call them, came into the bar around 3:30 in the afternoon and proceeded to order round after round of Cosmos and Lemon Drops. After two rounds, all thirteen ladies in the group had started a resounding chorus of 'shots, shots, shots'. Needless to say the shots came next, followed more girlie drinks and AGAIN more shots.

After an hour or so of this going on, two of the more Sober ladies in the group suggested they all head outside to our patio to continue their drinks and give the rest of the bar some peace and quiet. Believe me when I say we were all grateful to have them gone. The noise level in the bar shrank down to its normal pitch, and both the bartender and I could finally feel our ears stop ringing. I was somewhat distressed however when not even fifteen minutes later, the two semi-sober ladies came back again in again to ask for a few pitchers of water for the other gals outside. Nonetheless, I went out with pitcher in hand to do my job.

Dont get me wrong, when I say I was less than thrilled it doesnt have anything to do with having to serve people drinks; That is my job after all. Its just that drunk people....especially drunk women get really, really loud and obnoxious. Combining thirteen of them together at one table is a servers worst nightmare. And more importantly, it can almost garuntee trouble of some kind.....

And speaking of trouble....as soon as I got outside, I was greeted by a overabundance of giggling and a resounding chorus of "oh look...its the bartender...she's bringing us water...she must want to quiet us down....and sober us up". This was of course punctuated by more giggles. It wasnt until this point that I realized that more than half of the ladies were missing from the table and were instead posing against our heart shaped fence towards the far side of the deck posing topless. Yes, topless.....as in 'no bras- no shirts-no service' topless.

Standing there for a moment, first in shock, and then in deep contemplation about what I should do about the whole thing, I asked one of the topless ladies who was staring at me rather intently "so what are you ladies up to? I mean other than the obvious". My question was followed by a round of uncomfortable giggles, and an immediate shuffle of ladies bumping into each other as they searched around the corner of the deck for their shirts and bras. The only clothed woman out of the whole group, a cute little blonde woman, came over and nervously asked me ' so are you um...going to call the cops on us?' I just laughed and told her that as long as no one complained and as long as I didnt "see it", I didnt   particularly care.  She laughed and looked relieved.

As I was heading back inside I briefly asked her the question I had been dying to know, and which no one had answered. "So seriously though, whats up with the topless pics? Are you guys working on a body friendly collage or something?"

Her response it what keeps killing me, even a few weeks later: "well, we decided to all take pictures of our breasts so that one of my girlfriends could send them to her boyfriend to see if he could tell her breasts apart from the rest of us". Laughing hysterically, I walked back inside.

Its days like that when I love doing my job. 

All Curves, and NO excuses

Here's the deal, if your so skinny you can't carry your own kegs, restock the bar, or kick drunk people out on their ass when they start a fight, you probably should go find a new job ASAP.

Wine In a Box Just Got Cool Again

OMG, Adult Juice Boxes. Picnics just got so much easier....