Winey Tasting Notes: Pinot Grigio in Rome…at Target

Hee hee hee. I’ll bet you all took one look at that title and thought, “She went to Target while she was in Rome? Seriously?”

The Winey Family at St. Peter’s

Allow me to let you in on our little family joke. While we were in Rome this past month, we stayed at a great hotel (Aberdeen Hotel if you are making plans) near the train station. And on the street just behind us, every time we left our hotel and headed out for the day, we saw a sign that said “Target”. Well, of course, we began calling it “tar-jay”, as I pretty much always do back home. And every time we walked out of our hotel, we joked about going to Target. (A bi-weekly occurrence for me these days, as I get ready to send the Winey Daughter off to college.)

On day 4 of our wonderful vacation, we spent the entire, and I mean entire day in Vatican City. (And we still never saw it all.) The Vatican Museums, the Raphael rooms, the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s, climbing to the Dome (narrowest staircase ever). At one point, I was fairly sure my feet had fallen off, since I couldn’t feel them. I say fairly sure because I was too tired to expend the energy to bend my head and actually look down at them, but I’m sure they were gone. It was an awe-inspiring day and we gladly decided to take the subway back to the hotel (usually we walk as much as we can in cities because you see so much more when you are walking through the neighborhoods). As we crawled off the subway, happy, but hungry, we decided that it was the perfect night to check out Ristorante Target (which was its actual name, we discovered). To add to the fun, we found it listed in our Rick Steves’ Italy guide, where he told us that it was highly recommended by all the hotels in that area. And it was right around the corner from our beds.

Ristorante Target – I loved the white baby grand piano in the corner! Our table is the one you see front right.

So, in we trooped. We usually ate outside in Italy, but that night, we needed a little air conditioning and quiet. After the heat and dust of the day, some Pinot Grigio sounded like heaven in a glass to me, so I chose Livon Pinot Grigio (2013, 12.5%, Italy).  The winery is located in the very northwest area of Italy, close to Austria and Slovenia and is called the Collio region. As white wines go, Italians love their Pinot Grigios and after sipping this one, I could see why. The wine itself was a very pretty golden straw color and had a faint nose of kiwi and minerals. It totally drew me in at first sniff!  The first taste was of minerals and then some fleeting flowers. It ended on a tart citrus flavor. Of course, I was taking notes as I sipped, and I now quote directly from said notes: “Wow! Loved this right away.” And so did the Winey Son, who had to have some since I liked it so much.
They were good sports at the restaurant and gave us the (empty) bottle to take home (it was one of the smaller bottles…375 ml, so it was easy to slip inside a pair of socks for safe suitcase travel).

You should be able to find Livon out and about on your wine search. If you like a refreshing, tart but not lip puckering wine, you’ll like this just fine. Pair it with chicken, seafood pasta or with a day of sightseeing in the world’s smallest country, Vatican City.

Cheers!!