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Wine Advisor Express: Heading for Friuli To my great delight, I'm leaving early next week for a few days in Northeastern Italy's Friuli-Venezia Giulia, one of my favorite wine regions. This will mean spotty distribution for The Wine Advisor for a week or so (more about that on Monday), but I hope to gather some interesting stories and wine reports to send your way. Today, to celebrate my coming trip, here's a report on a tasty but modest Friuli white that should be widely available: Albola 1999 Pinot Grigio Friuli Aquileia ($9.99) Although Albola is best known as a Chianti maker (and its pretty Tuscan building is shown on the label), this particular wine comes from Friuli in the Northeast. It's a clear straw color with a greenish hue in the glass, offering delicate but pleasant aromas of almonds and white fruit. Clean and fresh flavors are consistent with the aroma, adding a bit of "damp wool" and a slight but appealing bitter finish as it warms in the glass. U.S. importer: Seagram Chateau & Estates Wines Inc., NYC. (Sept. 24, 2001) FOOD MATCH: Works very well with a meatless tortellini in a light porcini mushroom sauce (the same dish served with the "Est! Est!! Est!!!" reported earlier this week). California Wine Club CALIFORNIA WINE CLUB EXTENDS SALE, ADDS BENEFIT: Twice a year, The California Wine Club offers a highly anticipated Wine Sale to its 10,000 customers across the country. Sept. 30 would have been the last day of the last wine sale this year. We say, "would have," because for this Wine Sale, The California Wine Club is doing something different for a crisis that they hope will never be repeated: The Wine Sale will be extended until Oct. 12, and $5 to $10 from every case sold will go directly to the American Red Cross. The California Wine Club intends to raise and donate between $5,000 and $10,000 by Oct. 12. If you would like to place an order, and live in a place where the Club can legally ship wine, call The California Wine Club at (800) 777-4443. Or visit the Club's website, http://www.cawineclub.com, and click on the "Wine Sale" link. Administrivia This is Wine Advisor Express, daily edition of The 30 Second Wine Advisor, distributed Tuesdays through Fridays. For archives of previous articles, and to read more about wine, visit Wine Lovers' Page, http://www.wineloverspage.com. To subscribe, change your E-mail address, switch from daily to the weekly (Mondays only) distribution, or for any other administrative matters, E-mail wine@wineloverspage.com. In the unhappy event that you must leave us, please take a moment to let us know how we could have served you better. In all administrative communications, please be sure to include the exact E-mail address that you used when you subscribed, so we can find your record. Friday, Sept. 28, 2001 Copyright 2001 by Robin Garr. All rights reserved. Subscribe (free) to The 30 Second Wine Advisor