S.W. and Rich Hermansen
Guest Writers
wine@lbknews.com
Italy anchors the “slow food” movement. Meals continue to be gatherings of family and 
friends: Buon cibo. Buon vino. Buon amici (Good food, Good wine, Good friends). By tradition, a dinner during midday or evening becomes an event, not to be rushed.
The amazing range of enhanced wines and liqueurs that Italians drink before and after food and table wine gives us insights into Italian culinary traditions. The classic lead into dinner in, say, a Tuscan ristorante seating between 20:00 and 22:00 (8-10PM) may begin an hour or two earlier at a nearby enoteca (wine bar). An enoteca serves different drinks that help whet an appetite. These aperitivos (apéritifs in French) tend to be less potent than the American cocktail and more a prelude to multiple courses with fine wines and digestivos (digestifs in French) to help diners cope with the aftermath of a surfeit of culinary delights. Usually light in alcohol, a Spritz of liqueur and sparkling water, for instance, will enliven tastes for pasta courses.
Although Italians have created and continue to consume many variants of Apéritifs, such as fortified herbal wines (Compari, Aperol, Vermouth), other countries have their own f