Author, historian and culinary explorer Fred Plotkin has been called the Christopher Columbus of the food world. Fred's latest work, La Terra Fortunata, (Broadway Books, 2001), took him to Italy's Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, an area just 20 minutes outside Venice that has one of the most refined food and wine cultures in the world yet is known to and explored by few.
Friuli-Venezia Giulia produces Italy's top white wines and some of its most outstanding reds, along with more varieties than any other region in the country. Here are a few of Fred's picks, all examples of great undiscovered wine bargains to be found in this area of Italy:
Whites
Tocai: dry, nutty, and peachy
Ribolla Gialla: Tasting like "white cream," it's wonderful with seafood.
Sauvignon Blanc: a dramatic, big wine full of flavor.
Reds
Pinolo: Big and fruity without being heavy, this is Fred's "desert island wine." Made by only five producers, it is difficult to find but worth the search.
Merlot: produced in this region since the 1880s
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