Not that this has anything to do with slinging, but the best wine I ever had in my life was Italian Red, made by my Uncle Armand.  He was a friend of the family type uncle, not a relative, but he was as close as a real uncle.  Armand was originally from Italy and spoke with a thick accent.  His family had been making wine since the dawn of humanity I guess.  He grew his own grapes;  little crunchy Champagne type grapes and huge white grapes.  He'd mix the two and the resulting wine was heavenly.  He gave me a bottle for my birthday when I was 12.  It's not that weird;  he was Italian.  My parents doled it out, just like a small glass for each major holiday.  To this day I remember how good that wine tasted and to this day I never had anything better.    

Quote from xxkid123 on Sep 10^th, 2011, 3:53pm:

That sounds like really bad wine. There's a pretty high variety in the stuff, and what is good and what is bad is completely non-intuitive. Greece seems to have managed to get some sort of monopoly on table wine, which is theoretically the cheap and bad stuff, which is nonetheless incredible. Argentina and Chile, neither of which are known for wine, also somehow manage to produce a lot of very flavorful wine cheaply. Its not subtle necessarily, but there is a lot of flavor.

Italy?
Wine?
Here I am!
 
Should you find them, try the following:
 
- Rosso Conero - produced with the Monte Conero grapes, following a 2500 years old tradition - red.
- Verdicchio del Conero - as above - white.
- Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi - white one produced in a small town near to mine, using Middle Age methods.
- Lacrima di Morro d'Alba - probably the best red wine of my Region, when producers send the newest bottles, all the village is invaded by tourists from anywhere.
- Bianchello del Metauro - produced in the Northern part of my Region, a white wine mixing Marchigian flavour with Emilia Romagna's.
- Rosso Piceno, Rosso Piceno Superiore - the same red wine, but the Superiore is more alchoolic.
 
These above are the most important wine produced in my Region.  
Red ones are generally harsh and powerful, except for the Rosso Conero which is more soft. Red ones have from 12 to 18% alchool, and they are used alone, or with meat or desserts.  
White wine are fresh and sparkling, very refreshing, but are generally more difficult to drink than red ones (for example, I can easily drink 1,5 liters of red, but can hardly empty a white bottle). They have around 12% alchool, and they integrate perfectly a fish meal.
 
Other excellent Italian wine are:
- Brunello di Montalcino - red one from Tuscany, very noble;
- Chianti, Chianti Classico - red ones from Tuscany, renowed in all over the world;
- Vernaccia di San Gimignano - white one from Tuscany;
- Lambrusco Amabile, Lambrusco Secco - red ones from Emilia Romagna: the first's sparkling, the second is not;
- Barbaresco -
- Barbarolo -  
- Barbera d'Asti -  
- Brachetto d'Aqui - these four are the most important wine from Piemonte, North Italy: red ones, usually not sparkling;
- Primitivo - strong red one now produced in Puglia (South Italy), but once produced along the Adriatic coast up to my town.
- Rosso dei Castelli Romani - red one produced near Rome, following a Medieval tradition.
For all these wine, the concept is the same: red ones for meat, white ones for fish.  
Red = stronger, white = refreshing.
 
Back to my Region, we also have a huge variety of unknown wine, the most important being the  
- vin brulè - red wine fastly cooked;
- vin cotto - red wine cooked very slowly, with honey in it;
- vino antico - red wine mixed with honey, cloves, sugar and rose's leaves - as the Romans drank it.
Cooking the wine increase its alchool; the slower it cooks, the higher the alchool.  
Vin brulè is a relief when it's very cold outside, in winter.  
Vin cotto is the best to have fun without feeling bad, and vino Romano is a pleasure to drink.
 
What happens when they produce the vin cotto?
This:
 

 

 
an alchoolic cloud inside a house, and just smelling its flavour (= "fà i fumenti") makes you drunk.
A typical dinner during our last archaeological survey mission, October 2010, in the very same places - and year period - where they produce Lacrima di Morro d'Alba, Rosso Piceno and vin cotto:
 

(note the empty bottles...)
 
A prayer: tell me when any of you is coming to Italy, I'd be glad to meet you!!
Greetings,
Mauro.

Quote from HurlinThom on Sep 15^th, 2011, 12:54pm:

 
Canada has some pretty prominent wine regions as well, I live near Niagara region and love going down to the wine route for some wine... though I am more of a mead drinker myself

I was forgetting the most important thing!
 
If any of you would like to drink Italian wine without coming to Italy, I'd be more than happy to send you all the bottles you want!
It may sound strange, but I'm serious, PM whenever you want!
 
Greetings,
Mauro.

Quote from xxkid123 on Sep 10^th, 2011, 3:53pm:

 
  You would have liked this wine, kid. Don't forget, I was a kid.  I didn't have any acquired taste for any sort of alcoholic beverage.  I liked soda, juice, milk, etc., yet this wine was delicious to me.  It was sweet and fruity with no extra evil tastes.  I'm sure you would have loved it.  Uncle Armand's wine rocked.  His grapes were "as sweet as a-honey!"  To this day I'm still trying to find a wine that tastes as good as that Italian Red wine did.  He was an artist and this wine was heavenly.

So I'd suggest Lambrusco Amabile for Rat Man, and Lambrusco Secco for Masi  
 
Timann, I didn't know about these taxes! Are them only valid for Norway? Are they applied only on alchool?
Damn, I'd really LOVE to partecipate to an archaeological digging in Norway, but that's another topic...  
Greetings,
Mauro.

Quote from Mauro Fiorentini on Sep 15^th, 2011, 4:04pm:

In Norway there is a lot of nasty taxes on a lot of things, which often makes importing stuff unreasonably expencive.
But still, alcohol, the devils water itself, recieve special interest from the government.
Somethimes there has been horror stories in the newspapers of Norwegians which have had foreign friends sending them alcohol as gifts.  Maybe it has become, if still expensive, at least easier in the later years, I`m not shure.
 
Guess digging up a viking ship wouold have been rather cool for an archeolog .  Does not happen all that often, though.