what:
DOCG
Acqui Terme, Piedmont, Italy
100% Brachetto
can be either still, frizzante, or spumante

where:
(a terrace table at)
Amici Miei
Defensa 1072
Buenos Aires

when:
late summer

 

character:

Adored by every local, yet known by none outside his little corner of the world, Acqui is a small town’s beloved poet drunk. Sitting by a fountain in the town square all afternoon, scribbling in an overstuffed notebook, a pleasing smile on his face, a half-full bottle at his feet, younger than his slightly fraying state suggests, as the town passes by he is good for a line of poetry or an innocent flirtation with a young (or not so young) signora. Ah but when the sun goes down…in the late summer, with a festival swinging through the streets, he comes alive. Everywhere at all times, he becomes the conductor of the chorus, the master of games, the bestower of odes, the serenader standing on an upturned crate pouring out his adoration fortissimo to the cheese maiden across the square. Friend to all, bother to none, he is the embodiment of that ecstatically Italian notion that wine is meant to be drunk, poetry is mean to recited, music is meant to be danced to, and la vita is meant to be dolce.

tastes like:

Singing in public, in Italian.

pairs nicely with:

A late-summer night, a local festival in the old town square, and a comic Italian mask; stemless wine glasses, wine glasses originally intended to hold something other than and quite a bit less alcoholic than wine, and the occasional late night resort to (oh don’t judge) drinking from the bottle; coppa al mascarpone, pandolce, tramezzini di panettone, and strawberries; La Bollente in Acqui Terme (or equivalent), most Italian comic opera, and a deeply held belief that although one has never been given the proper forum to prove it, one really is a rather good singer.