Recipes, wine pairings, and a taste for the extraordinary
Pizza Night With The Count
Mortals have long believed that pizza is a peasant's food — a disc of bread, sauce, and cheese, unworthy of a 500-year-old palate. I confess I once believed the same. Then I took a good whiff of a Merlot beside a slice of pepperoni, and I understood: some of the finest pairings in this world require no white tablecloth. Only good company, and the right bottle.
Pizza Night With The Count
Let us be honest with one another. Pizza night need not be a special occasion. It can
be a Tuesday. It can be a box on the counter and a movie half-watched. And yet — of all the meals mortals eat, pizza may be the most demanding on a wine. Tomato sauce brings sharp acidity. Cheese brings fat and salt. Toppings bring char, spice, herb, or brine. A wine that cannot keep pace gets swallowed whole by the slice. Fortunately, I keep three bottles in the castle specifically for evenings like this, and each earns its place for a different reason.
Vampiro Sangiovese — for the classic Margherita or
anything green
If you take a good sniff of our Vampiro Sangiovese, you'll find cherry, dark watermelon, and a whisper of mint rising from the glass. But it's what happens on the palate that makes this the truest pizza wine in my cellar: red cherry, strawberry, cinnamon, and — take note — oregano. A Sangiovese that already tastes faintly of the very herb dusted across your pie is not a coincidence I take lightly. Sangiovese was practically invented for tomato and basil, and this one, with its bright acidity and earthy tension, cuts clean through melted mozzarella without ever losing itself. This is the bottle for a simple Margherita, a white pizza with arugula, or anything where the toppings are still speaking in a quiet voice.
Vampire Merlot — for pepperoni, sausage, and anything that
bleeds a little grease
Our Merlot offers aromas of black cherry and black plum, an elegant texture, and a
long finish where cola and cherry linger well after the glass is set down. That
softness matters here. Pepperoni and sausage bring fat, salt, and a slow-building char, and a wine with sharp, aggressive tannins will fight that fat instead of dissolving into it. Merlot doesn't fight. It wraps around the richness of cured meat the way a cape settles over the shoulders — quietly, completely. This is the bottle for meat-lovers, for a slice folded in half and eaten standing over the box, for the nights when the pizza is the whole plan.
Fangria — for the party, the spice, and the “just bring
something fun”
And then there is Fangria — our Tempranillo and Garnacha from Toledo, Spain, built
full-bodied and fruit-forward, sweet but never cloying, with a lush, lingering finish, at a real 10% ABV. Serve it chilled and this is your pizza-party wine: it has enough natural sweetness and fruit to stand up to spicy toppings like jalapeño or hot honey, and enough personality to be poured straight over ice without apology. Fangria isn't meant to be studied. It's meant to be poured generously while a stack of boxes disappears among friends.
THE COUNT'S RULE —
Match the wine to the topping, not to the occasion. Sangiovese for the classics, Merlot for the meats, Fangria for the party where nobody remembers whose idea the extra pepperoni was. Any of the three will outlast the pizza. None of them will outlast the company, if you're doing it correctly.
Sip the blood of the vine. Save a slice for me.
