Pizza & Wine

We usually walk to a local caffe about 10 each morning and on our way back yesterday we ran into a friend who invited us to his house for pizza that evening, actually pizza at 7:00 P. M., which is a bit early but he explained that it was because two of his grand children would be there and they like to eat earlier. So yesterday we had pizza at 7 P.M. Not in any way a remarkable event, though the pizza was quite good, except that after having just written about Italians, pizza and beer, I saaw everything I wrote refuted.

We started the meal with fresh local cheese, bread and home made white wine from my friend's brother's vineyard. The rest of the meal consisted of three different types of pizza, semi-freddo (a sort of ice cream and cake combination that is a personal favorite of mine), fresh strawberries, caffe and a home made bay leaf flavored liquor. The interesting thing to me is that white wine continued to be the drink of adults throughout the meal. The children drank cola and orange. Red wine from the same vineyard was available and at the table but no one drank it.

While I believe my prior reporting regarding drinking beer with pizza is substantially and overwhelming correct as to what occurs usually, what this dinner proved is that Italy is as diverse and mixed in individual approaches to what is drunk with what as any other place. I cannot recall drinking white wine with pizza any other time, I can recall red wine and pizza on many occasions, particularly many years ago, but never white. The point of all this: never take too seriously any observation that usually this or usually that is done; on any given occasion anything may happen.