Our editors are often trying to find excuses to grab drinks with Danielle Callegari and Jeff Porter, who review wines from Italy for the magazine. If you knew our Italian wine reviewers, you’d want to invite them for an aperitivo hour, too. Well, we invited them to come on by and help us test this collection. Now it’s your turn. It’s all here: Stuff for spritzes, wine, splashes, sips and snacks.
When we asked Dr. Callegari (who, in addition to serving as Assistant Professor in the Department of French and Italian at Dartmouth College and co-hosting the Gola podcast, is the person you’d most want to get drunk and talk about Dante with) for what she considered aperitivo essentials, she first asked how honest we were being. Then she did not wait and said, “alcohol and cigarettes.” If we are being a little less authentically Florentine or Milanese, she suggests, “really good olives, almonds and potato chips.”
Some of her other essentials are a crisp, salty white wine (such as an Etna Bianco), a proper wine key (see below) and stemless glassware. Why stemless, Dr. Callegari? “So everyone can chill the fuck out.” We’ll leave you to judge just how graceful or clumsy your guests are, a key consideration when deciding whether to put out the hand-blown balloon glasses or the stemless.
Once you have those trusty essentials and maybe some vermouth (try a twist on an espresso martini with coffee vermouth), invite some friends over and make some
This Article was originally published on Wine Enthusiast
