Venice - Torbolino

I came to Venice in October, which is the month when the Venetians drink Torbolino. This is the newly made wine from this year's grape harvest, plucked from the vines just weeks earlier, and fermentation isn't yet complete. To that end it's typically rather cloudy, sweet, slightly fizzy, and delightfully rough around the edges. One of my favourite descriptives of wine in recent months is "barnyardy" and I think that applies here.

The classic accompaniment to torbolino is roasted chestnuts.

Having visited a number of whisky distilleries I'd always been excited whenever I had the opportunity to drink the new make - the spirit straight out of the still before any maturation had taken place. Whilst it was not usually something you'd want more than a single inquisitive sip of, it was fascinating to see the drink at the start of its journey to becoming whisky proper. I suppose torbolino offers that same insight for wine.

Various outlets in Venice sell torbolino in October - from bacari to wine shops (licensing laws seem pretty relaxed in Italy so its usually fine to drink on the premises). Sometimes it is available in late September depending on the timing of this year's harvest. Some places, as pictured above, advertise its arrival with the large fiasco in which it is stored, outside the door. I went to Casa Mattiazzi Di Heidrun Pecher, a wine merchant selling wine almost exclusively from fiasci, wherein the proprietor extracts wines using a siphon, and many customers seemed to be bringing their own bottles to fill.

Casa Mattiazzi Di Heidrun Pecher
Address: 1116 Cannaregio, Venezia, VE 30121, 30121, Italy
Phone: +39 041 524 5365