Six chilled wine cases glow from within, framing a selection of 180 bottles along the dining room at Acqua Bistecca in Bonita Springs. Michael Mina’s new restaurant opened at the start of the year in Saltleaf on Estero Bay, with a seasonal menu rooted in the coastal cooking of Liguria alongside contemporary Italian dishes. Sommelier Eric Gaboury built the wine program around small-production Italian bottles that can be difficult to find in the States, working with New York’s Tradizione Imports to source the selection. Among his favorites: Deltetto’s 2021 San Defendente Roero Arneis Riserva.
With notes of pear and toasted nuts from time spent in oak, the wine offers a less familiar expression of arneis, the native white grape of Roero in northern Piedmont. “[Oak aging] is not typical of arneis,” Eric says. Since the grape’s revival in the 1970s, producers have more commonly emphasized its freshness and acidity through stainless-steel vinification and earlier release.