Piero Selvaggio and the house that wine built: Valentino's grew as its owner's wine sensibility did. Now, the Santa Monica fixture is one of America's best-known Italian restaurants

Cheers, Jan-Feb, 2002 by Sharon Boorstin

The Growth of Italian Wines

Just when American restaurants like Valentino began serving more refined Italian food, some equally ambitious Italian vintners began taking steps that would change the face of Italian wine, some focusing on getting more out of their grapes, others switching to small French oak barriques instead of the traditional large casks for aging. The results were world-class wines. Selvaggio attributes this development to two winemakers: Angelo. Gaya, known as the "King of Barbaresco" and the driving force among the small vintners in the Piedmont; and Piero Antinori. Though Gaya was essentially a farmer-producer, Antinori came from a noble family that had been making wine in Tuscany for 600 years. "Antinori began creating better Chianti and no longer wanted it branded as a simple table wine," explains Selvaggio, "and he was instrumental in developing the Super Tuscans that are so popular today."

Get Selvaggio talking about Super Tuscans and he lights up, describing the depth and sophistication of these blends of traditional Tuscan sangiovese grapes with merlot and/or cabernet sauvignon grapes. "French merlot and cabernet grapes grow very well in Tuscany," he points out, "and in the coastal area, they're producing good syrah grapes as well, which leads to other good blend possibilities."

Selvaggio predicts that the success of the Super Tuscans will lead to the development of what he calls Super Sicilians: "In Southern Italy and Sicily, young winemakers are abandoning traditional methods of making table wine, and instead blending their grapes and aging their wines for more elegance."

Among the new Sicilian wines, he recommends Santa Cecilia, a blend of the ancient nero d'avola grape with syrah, which is produced by Planeta. In Campania, the area around Naples, the blends he likes come from the ancient aglianico with cabernet, syrah and/or merlot grapes. Selvaggio dubs Serpico by Feudi San Gregorio as a "gorgeous example of this new wave of creative wines."

The Perfect Wine List

Ask a restaurateur with a 25-pound wine list how to build one, and he's full of good advice. For an American restaurant, Selvaggio suggests a list that is 70% American wines-50% from California and 20% from Oregon and washington--plus 5% French and 5%-10% Italian wines, followed by wines from Australia and Spain. Of the California wines, he advises that 30% come from well-known producers and the rest from small producers--both prestigious vineyards and unknowns he calls "underdogs."

For an Italian restaurant, Selvaggio recommends that the wine list consist of 50% Italian wines, 25% California wines and 25% "everything else." "It would be difficult to sell an American audience on an all-Italian wine list," he admits.

As if on cue, Alessandro Sbrendola, Valentino's master sommelier, who hails from Bologna, comes to Selvaggio's table to report on a new Rutherford Hill California Merlot that is being added to Valentino's wine list. He swirls the glass and holds it up to the light. "You can see the intense purple color of a wine in the first stage of maturity," notes Sbrendola. "It will keep for seven to nine years, but guests can enjoy it well before then. The wine's rich flavor will work beautifully with hearty dishes like pasta with meat sauce and rack of lamb with a brown sauce."