Wine Tasting and A Fantastic Lunch

We visited the Argiolas winery (better known as cantina). It is located in the town of Serdiana (which is close to Dolianova). The main building had such an intriguing door. It is filled with sculptured drawings and draws the public's eye to it.

The door

We were given a tour of the cantina and tasted some whites, reds and even an olive oil. I am not keen on reds but did appreciate the complexity of their 'top of the range' wine. It was the Turriga. The 4 grape varieties used in this wine are Cannonau, Carignano, Bovale sardo and Malvasia Nera. Their dessert wine Angialis recently won an award. I must look out for it in Sydney.

The tasting room

One thing I may not have mentioned in my previous posts is how important environmental sustainability is to the people of Sardinia. Everywhere that we have been, there is a constant message of using natural products, using natural energy (as much as possible), producing free range goods and sourcing products locally rather than from the mainland.

By the way, their olive oil was brilliant! I wish they exported it to Australia. Maybe one day it will happen.

After all the wine tasting, we adjourned to a truly 'hidden gem'. This restaurant is run in a very historical house and Bruno and his wife Serafina run a rather tight ship.

For starters we had the traditional antipasto plate and the very delicious broad beans.

Broad beans

We then had culirgiones (akin to a large gnocchi). This was made of potato, mint, garlic and pecorino.  It was served with a tomato based sauce. The only description I can come up with is 'delicious soft pillows of potatoes'!

Culirgiones

The highlight was the suckling pig. Bruno is a master cook in suckling pig! It was so tender and the crackling was 'cracking'!

Bruno tending to the suckling pigs

Bruno cutting up the cooked suckling pigs

The finished product!

Desserts were home made Almond nougat with a layer of wafer at the top and Almond brittle. My verdict: I fell in love with the nougat. I know I keep saying this but it was 'seriously, seriously good!'

All in all, it was a very delightful day. Good one Maeve!