Rocco Esposito sharing his valuable wine knowledge.

SOMMELIER Rocco Esposito is passionate about Italian wine, especially Barolo and Barbaresco, highly prized reds from the Piedmont region.

In 2004, he and his wife Lisa opened Wardens Food and Wine in Beechworth, with the restaurant quickly winning acclaim for its extensive and sophisticated wine list.

It was the perfect vehicle for Italian-born Esposito to learn more about the wines being produced in the surrounding region of north-east Victoria, where there is a strong Italian heritage and a focus on growing Italian grape varieties.

Esposito, not surprisingly, has become something of an expert on Italian varieties and a great advocate for the wines of north-east Victoria. Today, Esposito has scaled the ranks of his profession to become wine director at Vue de monde, Shannon Bennett's stunning new restaurant on the 55th floor of Melbourne's Rialto Tower. Just as the restaurant has evolved from its earlier locations so too has its menu with its classical roots and European ingredients giving way to a celebration of locally grown produce.

Esposito's task as wine director is to achieve a synergy between the food and the wine, selecting wines that, just like the ingredients on the plate, are true to their origin and an expression of the environment in which they are made.

When Rutherglen and King Valley winemakers embarked on their Tastes of Two Regions road show recently, Esposito was invited to select six wines to highlight in a special Masterclass. What follows are those he considers to be the "best of the bunch", kicking off with a sparkling wine from King Valley producer, Dal Zotto.

The 2010 Immigrante Prosecco is what Esposito describes as a "lovely complex style" with lots of acidity, citrus and floral notes. With delicate bubbles, it's more akin to a table wine than an aperitif style, and he cautions that it should be chilled lest the bubbles disappear completely. "I would suggest having it very cold otherwise it begins to look like a table wine," he says.

For a white table wine, he turns to Rutherglen and the 2009 All Saints Family Cellar Marsanne, a variety that appears to be well-suited to Rutherglen. "2009 was a very hot year so in 2009 they picked a lot earlier," Esposito said.

"It was picked with very moderate alcohol (12.6 per cent). It's a very elegant wine. It has some toastiness, it has freshness, lovely acidity and a bright fruit spectrum."

Esposito says the Marsanne has some sharpness on the palate so he would suggest pairing it with a slightly oily dish such as paté or foie gras, cured trout, a delicate fish dish or tuna carpaccio.

Two unashamedly expensive wines from the King Valley are Esposito's pick of the reds. So taken was he with the 2005 Chrismont Arnaldo Sangiovese Cabernet, which retails for $75 a bottle, that he bought a case, drank three bottles and "told my wife to put the rest away for a long time unless I get very sick".



The label commemorates Arnold Pizzini, one of the pioneers of Italian varieties in Australia, and father of Chrismont owner Arnie Pizzini. Recognising that they had a block of good Sangiovese but that the fruit needed to be blended, the Pizzini's turned to the recipe for a Super Tuscan wine in which Sangiovese is blended with Cabernet.

Esposito said that standing next to an Italian Super Tuscan, it would be difficult to tell the difference. The King Valley wine has a beautiful nose and what Esposito describes as "red cherries, almost a sour cherry character and autumn forest floor" notes. "At $75 a bottle, I think it's well worth it. I'm prepared to put every effort into [selling' that wine]," he said.

Esposito said he's enjoyed it with osso buco and polenta, but says it would pair well with ox cheeks or any braised meat dish.

If there is one variety that excites Esposito "right across the board", it is Nebbiolo. "In Italy they say Nebbiolo is a wine for kings and the king of wine," he said. "It's like a blend of Cabernet and Pinot put together."

Esposito's pick is the 2004 Pizzini Coronamento Nebbiolo, which retails for $135. The same variety as his prized Barolo and Barbaresco, he believes Nebbiolo is the variety the King Valley does best.

Like the Pizzini's at Chrismont, Fred Pizzini was a pioneer of Italian varieties in Australia, planting his first Nebbiolo in the mid-1980s. The 2004 Coronamento is his crowning achievement, hence the name.

It has licorice, tar and rose petal notes. "On the palate it's like a Cabernet," Esposito said. "On the nose it's very feminine, like a Burgundy." The wine needs to be opened a long way ahead of time to allow it to breathe.

To end on a sweet note, Esposito turns to the fortified wines that Rutherglen excels in. He loves the Morris Grand Tokay, still defiantly called Tokay despite Australia's agreement to change the name to Topaque after talks with the European Union.

Under Rutherglen's voluntary classification system, a Grand Tokay or Muscat has a rich cask-aged character and an average age of 13 to 20 years. (Rutherglen Tokay or Muscat is a more youthful style with an average age of two to five years; Classic has cask-aged flavour and an average age of five to 12 years; and Rare has an average age of more than 20 years).

Rich and delicious and certainly under-priced at $35 for a 500ml bottle, the Morris Grand Tokay has a marmalade character and is "incredibly well presented", said Esposito. "It has a fantastic texture, not too gluey, and would be lovely with some petit fours."

Another Rutherglen fortified, Campbells Grand Muscat, completes Esposito's wish list. (Because it refers to the variety of the grape rather than a geographic locale, Muscat escapes the name changes that were introduced after talks with the European Union.)

Esposito appreciates that while the Campbells wine has "a very sweet entry, when you swallow, all the sugar takes a step back". "Although they're sweet wines, [fortified wines like these] have a savoury character but then they go back to sweet."

Campbells has used a five-stage solera system over many decades to age its fortifieds and the result is a complex, intensely-flavoured wine with raisin-like notes.

So what would the master sommelier pair with this most luscious of wines? "That to me is a meal on its own," he said.