Thursday, August 20 2009
Weekly Wined-Up
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me that a frontal lobotomy
It was the missus' birthday this month, so we had a few very nice bottles to celebrate with, as well as some patio weather and whatnot to work through.
Part of the patio set was a wonderful Rosé from Pascual Toso, an Argentinian winery from the Mendoza region. Made from Malbec, it was a lush and very pleasant wine. Malbec is a red grape, usually used to make very dark, inky tannic wines that aren't designed for early drinking: they're made for laying down and avoiding. But with very little skin contact it turns out a gorgeous pink-cerise colour.
I can't resist a beauty shot, and I never have full bottles to show
It's quenching and lip-smackingly tasty, with plums, bright red fruits and a zesty crisp finish. As I recall we had it with crudite and my special super-secret hummus dip, and it was delicious on a hot day.
Next up was a bottle of Gloria Ferrer Carneros Cuvée, a sparkling wine from Napa. You can't buy it where I live, so I had to pick it up right at the winery--something I highly recommend, as the place is beautiful, with a grand patio and a view you have to see to believe. It's a great place to hang out with friends and slurp wine.
The wine itself is vintage 1998 (that's old for a US sparkling wine!) and very old-school French style, with ripe apple notes, wonderfully bready-nutty, hazelnut aromas and an opulently creamy texture. The bubbles are so tiny and fine it hits the palate like whipped cream with a boatload of lemon,
pear, cream,vanilla and toast, but it's never bombastic or sticky. It goes down like water and has a crisply tangy, refreshing finish. I could drink this by the pint mug if I had the dosh to pay for it.
Next up is a bottle we bought by mistake! At the end of the last Vancouver International Wine Festival we hit the on-site sales floor and scooped a few bottles of the wines we enjoyed. Apparently we enjoyed a few too many, because we intended to pick up only sparkling wines, and got the Domain Carneros still Chardonnay instead. It's a mistake I'm glad we made because this wine brimmed with fruit: apple, pear and citrus, along with floral hints of honeysuckle and flavours of apple, pear and lemon coming through to firmly structured oak, toast and spice on the finish. It drank like a really good white Burgundy, and I wish I had more.
From white Burgundy to Deutschland's finest: Weingut Lorch Riesling from the Pfalz. Pfalz is one of the premium growing regions of Germany, has a very warm, dry climate and produces a quarter of a billion litres of wine per year. However, the most interesting thing about the region isn't the statistics, but the drinking glasses: they serve wine out of half-litre glasses called 'Dubbeglas'.
Half a litre: the convenient single-serving size!
'Duppe' means 'dimple', for the indentations on the glass. I assume they assist with your grip after the second or third glass . . . The wine itself is so screamingly delicious that even my over-the-top superlatives can't do it justice. It's like drinking magic Kool-Aid: it's verging on sweet, but with tangy acidity so perfectly balanced it seems barely off-dry, and it's full pf peaches and apples and blossoms and pears . . . I can see why they need great big glasses for it because the tendency is to gulp it down!
Finally one more bottle of California's finest bubbly. This is a bottle of Domaine Carneros Brut Rosé Cuvée de la Pompadour, a wine named for a very naughty French lady who made Louis XV quite happy. Although it's pink (a blend of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay) it's bone-dry and crisp, but has excellent strawberry/hints of raspberry notes, and a peachy finish on creamy bubbles. It's brilliant with dungeness crab. If you have the opportunity to visit Napa, don't miss the chance to hang out at Domaine Carneros: the property is gorgeous and the patio is stunning and there are a lot worse places to spend a half-day sipping sparkling wine and nibbling dainties.
I'd hate to be their paperboy
That's all the drinking for this week, but I'm working diligently on my next update, liver willing and the crick don't rise.
| Posted by Tim AT 10:49PM | 0 Comments |  |
Post A Comment |  |
 |