This is a brisk, elegant white wine from the southern shores of Lake Garda in the Veneto region in Italy.   Otella is a small family operation.  Their wine is immaculate — the palest yellow and scrubbed clean.  The nose is delicate and a little briny.  The taste has lemon which is a way of recognizing acid and apple which is a way of recognizing fruit.

Since the Roman empire, Lugana has been made from the Trebbiano grape.  As Rome collapsed in the 6th century, the new order of barbarians developed a taste for the local wines.  Deodatus, king of the Goths, is reported to have ordered great quantities of Lugana wine for his feasts and followers.  One can imagine rough casks of Lugana wine, probably far sweeter than today, carted slowly south over Roman roads to  the halls of the invaders.

This is a wine simply made for fish.  The restraint of the wine –and its origins by the great lake of the Veneto — ask for flounder or sole, served simply with capers.  Or oysters.  Or anything from the sea.

Lugana would embarrass many of us in a blind tasting.  You could mistake it for a chardonnay — an ingenue Chablis, perhaps.  At a fraction of the price, one could put up with the humiliation.  You will find this beautiful wine at Dedalus for $14.50.

Tuta  7/15/09