Have you ever walked into a Calgary wine bar and thought to yourself: uh-oh. I’m a wino, myself. I like a glass of white in the summer, over dinner or while watching TV. And I like trying new whites (reds give me a migraine – tragic, I know) but rarely get to do so in an atmosphere where I don’t feel condescended to. Either you’re expected to know every detail of how a grape is raised and picked and stomped on – stuff that people get degrees in – or the wait staff assume you don’t know your own palette.

I hate that rhetoric. So a chill (pun intended) wine bar is what I’m after. A place where I can go and drink and taste, and ask questions if I want to learn, or just… drink, if I don’t.

Is Zia’s Enoteca the place? They claim to cater to both the novice and the well-educated wine enthusiast; I can’t tell if this translates to “chill” or “we’re going to push our knowledge down your throat, along with our wine.” I do know that ‘enoteca’ translates to ‘wine repository.’

As it stands, the wine list is pretty short, but not shockingly so – I’ve been in plenty of places that have shorter lists. The key, of course, is in the choosing. Zia’s list is all over the place, geographically, which can sometimes hurt a list. Most countries are represented once (a Main Divide Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand) or are far enough away from each other – geographically and grape-wise – that they don’t come close to each other in taste (Feudi di San Gregorio Falanghina from Campania, and Jermann Pinot Grigio from Friuli, both Italian.) There are, lamentably, two Canadian wines on the white list, which, while de rigeur, hurts me, as I am on a one-woman hunt against all Canadian wines. Seriously, we could use that land for something more useful, like growing potatoes for poutine.

Food consists of a series of simple small plates: an array of crostinis (fresh tomato and basil; caramelized onion; olive and sundried tomato tapenade); traditional caprese; eggplants in tomato sauce with parmigiano cheese. Slightly heartier are the pasta and bean soup; the merluzzo alla puttanesca, consisting of cod, tomato, capers, and olives; or the salsicce e rapini, grilled sausage with sautéed rapini. Desserts include a tiramisu, a selection of cheese, and a hazelnut and chocolate torte.