A Gift from Italy

My cousin Rich, who is stationed in Italy, sent me a wedding present!

His wife is due with their first child any day, and I was tickled to see that items in the box were wrapped in baby diapers! Diapers have come a long way - did you know they have Velcro flaps now? Amazing. Anyway...

They sent us two beautiful Italian crystal wine glasses (suckers are HUGE), a bottle of wine and best of all - boxed wine!

Now, I know what you're thinking. "They shipped a big 'ol box-o-wine to the U.S.?" But that's what's so awesome - it's not what you think it is.

In a cardboard sleeve were three little boxes - juice-box style! Individual servings! I couldn't get over it. So cute!

On the bottle of wine was a blue sticky-note that read "For celebrating!" And the boxed wine has a note reading, "For on the go! :)"

The Perfect Pairing for Vegetarians, Umlauts

Check this out - a wine perfect for vegetarians! Gruner Veltliner

There's supposed to be an umlaut over the "u" - what is the HTML code of an umlaut? (Rummaging around in the Internet . . .) Ah, it's

& Uuml; (no space) for Ü

So, now we have Grüner Veltliner. Anyway, it's a very light, fresh-tasting white. According to the nice folk at winepros.org:

Grüner Veltliner is perhaps the single most versatile food wine in the world, often surpassing even Riesling because of its ability to pair with "difficult" foods such as artichokes and asparagus.

Except for an occasional dessert wine made from botrytis-affected grapes, Grüner Veltliner is usually a full-bodied dry wine (up to 14% alcohol) with a firm mineral backbone, giving it the strength of character to work well with many cuisines. It is especially well suited to modern cooking that focuses on the fresh flavor of local ingredients and the variety is eagerly being embraced by creative chefs and innovative sommeliers around the world.

They compare it to a Riesling, which interests me, because I love Rieslings, and I love un-oaked whites - like Grüner Veltliner.