I'm always on the lookout for great wines that go well with food. Unfortunately, most American red wines are wonderful to drink on their own but not great with food. This has to do with the way they are made, usually in a very sweet or jammy style. The Europeans figured all of this out centuries ago. They tend to produce wines that go well with food simply because wine has always been a part of the family meal.
This modest Nero D'Avola from Morgante is an excellent example of a wine that is both very nice on its own and great with food. I tried it with red sauce (a litmus test, as it were, to see if your red wine will work with food) and it worked beautifully. I also tried it with chocolate (the other litmus test--most American red wines are killed by chocolate). Again the Morgante worked beautifully. This is because wines such as this one contain good acidity (for the acidic red sauce) and a more complex structure (to stand up to the tannins and volatile compounds in the chocolate). The first flavor to die in a red wine, when eating chocolate, is sugary fruit. If your wine has secondary flavors such as herbs, these flavors will then come to the fore. Since most American wines don't have much complexity, chocolate tends to kill the fruit and leave the taster with-- not much else. When I tasted the Morgante with chocolate, the fruit flavors diminished somewhat, and were replaced with wonderful herbal notes that provided an amazing counterpoint to the chocolate. Kudos to the Morgante!
How much for this wine? You can get it for around fifteen dollars at Sunflower Market.
My score? 88 points.
Incidently this wine regularly scores around 90 points with Wine Spectator and Robert Parker.
Try it, and don't go back to sweet, syrupy dreck.
Cheers!
