Well, we just returned from a two-week Mediterranean cruise and added two new grape varietys to our Wine Century Club qualification. We found Roditis in Athens Greece making grape variety #94, and Albarola in the Liguria region of Italy for #95 and almost overlooked #96 Bosco.
I’ve searching for Roditis for a couple of years, ever since Deb Harkness (DrDebs) mentioned it on Twitter. We finally found it at a wine shop in Athens. I didn’t expect much, but it was really good – light and fruity, great color & clarity, and just the right acidity. Very impressive white wine and our #94.
We actually tried several wine shops looking for it, but no one could understand my English and likely mis-pronounciation of the name. On the bottle as you can see in the image to the left it looks like Poditys or something near to that utilizing greek letters and without the accents.
Oh well, it was Roditis and it was good and it was #94!
Friends that were along on the cruise did an excursion to the Cinque Terre area in the Liguria region of Italy and came back to the ship with two bottles of wine – a red, and a white. They were hoping that there was a grape variety there that we could count and sure enough, there was, actually not one variety but two. Albarola is a white Italian wine grape grown in the northwest Italy. It is most commonly found in the Liguria region where producers in the Cinqueterre Denominazione di Origne Controllata (DOC) use it as a blending component. Bosco, also native to that area is generally used in blending, but also 
it is often the primary component of the blend.
The Cian Irti was actually a blend of Bosco,Albarola and Vermentino (another of our favorite Italian white grapes).
So, thanks to our good friends – we tried Albarola our #95 and Bosco our #96.
Only Five to go!
Posted by DRHamp in Wine-Wine-Wine