An Italian Wine to Swoon Over

I'm terrible about Italian wine; don't understand; often don't like it. So when my friend Alisa and I found ourselves at a wonderful Italian restaurant in NYC last night (Esca), I left it to the sommelier to choose the wine to complement her raw seafood sampler, my anchovy/sardine sampler, her octopus and my pasta with sea urchin and crab.

He did an amazing job.

The wine: Sylvaner Köfererhof 2006 Alto Adige ($47). Wow. Lemony yet with smooth depths that made every mouthful, from the first to the last, exquisite. I don't know about Alisa's food, but it was an ideal match for my dishes, balancing the saltiness and other flavors of the fish with its light airiness and providing the perfect foil for the creaminess of the pasta.

I did a bit of research because, like many Italian varietals, I'd never heard of Sylvaner. It's a white wine grape (duh) originally from Austria. Now, however, it's mostly grown in Germany (hence the German name of the winery). "It creates a gentle, floral white wine that is low key. Because of its gentle flavors, it pairs extremely well with foods that also have mild flavors - rice dishes that do not involve a lot of spices, mild chicken dishes, and so on."

My advice. . . try it! One web site I found showed it retailing for about $18.