I was very lucky to get a pre-production bottle of a wine that I really think will have a definite impact on the perception of the quality of this wine region.
The wine is a'Dorah, a sparkling wine from Mastronardi. I should be available this weekend...maybe next... and if you are into bubbly buy a case, its that good.
Terry and I had it on Monday night when I went over for dinner. I just can't drink champagne alone so its not my usual review...no music, no food but excellent company so that makes up for it. I brought two types of glasses: a flute and a hollow stem just to get a varied visual.
First, the bubbles. They are very small numerous and release over time, just as they should. A very nice picture.
The aroma is fresh and smells like a good champagne should...For a Frenchie, I prefer Mumm's Extra Dry. I tried to like Heidsieck since it was Winston Churchill's fav, but I'll stick with Mumm's.
I got that tickle from the bubbles...nice.
Now the taste. Terry noted that it reminded her of their Ice Wine (which is a Gold Medal winner)...and that's great since she raves about it. She loved it.
The wine to me had great mouth feel. This is important to me in champagne and this one felt right. It was smooth and voluminous, or fluffy. The taste was wonderful. There was an initial taste of a light grape and fruit then it finished slightly sweet. It left a wonderful slight sweetness just for a little bit.
The carbonation was not overdone. It lacks the harshness that many bubblies have( I think this is due to big bubbles and too many of them) so it tastes as a much more expensive wine than it is ( I don't know what the price will be, but it is that good). We enjoyed it till the end.
One other note is the use of Portuguese on the label. To me this is refreshing: I'm tired of the faux French names for wine and the names all have meanings. It causes me to remember my days in Toronto when I the carpenter foreman tried to teach me Portuguese ( he tried but I'm no linguist) and about Portuguese wine (that stuck as I really love them). Boy reminiscing is fun, but this is one great wine. I would happily serve this to anyone and it is much better than many French Champagnes that I have had.
So head to Ruthven and get some while they still have it. I didn't try it against others as I feel it should be a singular event, but we had some Friexenet at an engagement party on Saturday and the a'Dorah simply blows it away. Nuff said.
An announcement......I will be a featured speaker at the Wine Fest at Fort Malden......They just won't put me on the website( I wanted to use a picture of Sean Connery but they wouldn't let me so that'll be me) so Ill be on Saturday at 4:30 so if you are there grab a glass and join me.
Topic will be Essex County Wine 101....thats why I wanted the awards cos that's what I want to start with.
Barncat:
This is a rather big red from Sanson Estate Winery. If you are wondering it's on Walker Rd past MacGregor. They make some very good wine so you should check it out.
Music is Tony Bennett with the Count Basie Band and its digital so the sound is bad but the music is great. What a smooth voice. It goes very well with the wine.
I partnered this wine with a grilled steak, mashed potatoes and fresh corn local cut from the cob and sauted in butter. All very nice.
This wine is quite big but rather nice. Like all of Sanson's red it is of the Bordeaux style and just works well with steak. Take this wine as a little brother of 'Bird Dog' which to me is an excellent, excellent bottle of red.
The aroma is wonderful. Lush dark berries and hints of oak and something else. It may be a dark earthy smell kinda like leather. The color is deep red and man it has legs so overall a beautiful wine.
I really taste the oak, but it isn't over oaked but it is there. The tannins are nice and strong and my tongue is tingly but I can drink this sans food. After aeration I get what I often get...the tastes mute out and meld much more. The taste is of an mature wine....its an 01 by the way...this melds so much nicer than a 1 yr old (who'd a thunk it).I get a real hint of a really good grape or blackberry jam and very 'old' grapes.
This is a great wine and one I hope they have a lot of. Winter is coming and I see this one with a roast, stew or leg of lamb. Or just enjoy this one by itself.
Post Script: I just had some un-aerated...aroma is night and day...more fruity and smells a wee bit coarser..still nice but not as nice.
Legs still there.
Tannins still there but the wine is brighter, more fruity...lighter. This is really strange as I think these are different wines. Still really nice, but really different. A good wine 'as is' but a great wine aerated.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Civic Holiday. Terry, myself and the yute took in the Highland Games (we almost became caber kill, but Angus saw better than to toss the caber into the stands we were sitting in....I rather liked that...last year someone tossed a caber right where we sat this year....seven years of university..I know) ate too much, had friends over for dinner Sunday...ate and drank too much....but had a good time.
Now that I have recovered, I had leftovers from the meal and a really nice Tuscan with them.
Music is vinyl (of course) and is a rare find: Kimiko Itoh. She's a Japanese jazz singer whom I discovered while living in Toronto. It's from 1989 and is quite good. She does standards so is similar to many other torch singers, but every once in a while you can hear her accent. It's just really smooth and nice.
Dinner again was warmed up from Sunday. Well Sunday we had bruschetta,cheese, dip for our appetizer. For the pasta course I took grape tomatoes and cayenne peppers from my garden added shrimp garlic, basil(garden again) and olive oil with good pasta. Main course was veal picatta (local veal), local corn and some green beans. Its funny but many people make a big deal about 100 mile meals but this one was either from my deck and local if possible...within 20 miles...Wines served were: Sauvignon Blancs from Pelee Island (The Ladies of course...Walter..please keep making it..please) and from Smith and Wilson.With the pasta we had Pinot Gris from Muscedere and a Viognier from Peninsula Ridge..both very nice. With the veal we had a Vapolicello Ripasso which was very nice along with a Mastronardi and Erie Shores Cabernet Franc. Oi..no wonder I was a mess Monday. Lindsay..can I take that rehab spot off your hands...its obviously not working for you. Well we never did make dessert (wonder why) and it was made by our pastry chef friend...I had some and it was verrrrry nice...a take on Tiramesu.
Well what was nice is that the local wines again were more than good enough. The I Galli Ripasso is a very good bottle of wine and really should have been way better than anything else. It was quite good but the local Cab Francs were more than up top the challenge. I realize the styles and grapes are 180 degrees apart but class is class and all the wines had class...I liked that.
Tonight its another of my Italian treasures. Its from a Tuscan subregion (I believe...I found some cleaning up..and a glass that Terry had dropped behind something during our last dinner party...she broke one of my Rosenthals but we found another German glass so I guess I netted out to no losses). Its an 2004 Rosso Piceno.
As with Tuscans, the color is a nice deep red. I get a nice earthy nose with hints of leather, and dark fruit. Nice blackish fruit like a prune plum. Very earthy aroma.
This wine has tannins. Not like a big Australian, but my tongue is still recovering.The flavour seems to grow. It starts muted then explodes..which is not unlike a good pepper...the taste lingers and again, I find rather dark, earthy. A friend of mine once said that with Tuscan's “you taste the dirt”. This one I certainly do. It just tastes how I imagine Tuscany to be: old castles, old vineyards and grapes. Through the darkness, I taste really good grapes who are just hanging back....leather, some tobacco and dark berries. This is a well made wine.
As with most Italian wine it is made to go with food and does food great and stand alone ok. Give this veal, a Boulognase sauce(with freshly made pasta ..of course) and this would be heavenly.
One more thing...Italian grapes, just don't travel well. I have had new world Sangeovese and it just isn't the same. It must be just the convergence of climate, terroir, grape and that specialness of the Italians that make this grape work.
I never intended to write a review tonight, but 1 sip of this wine changed my mind.
Methinks I haven't spoken enough about Aleksander in the past. They are a small winery in Ruthven and they are really nice people who happen to make great wine.
Tonights wine is Late Autumn Riesling. Its slightly sweet and round and unctuous. This wine is one I really like.
The aroma is wonderful. I am not sure what lichees smell like but if they smell like this wine they are wonderful. It has the exotic overtones which I look for and is just pleasant.
Nice and golden it just looks lovely in the glass.
Taste...well its wonderful. Round, fresh and the taste just lingers. A little citrus and just so much fruitiness . I just love it. I get hints of melon and all sorts of nice flavors. Mouth feel is just excellent and to those who don't get that you are missing something cos its just so nice..just like a proper pasta.
Serve this one on its own or with smoked salmon or maybe prosciutto and goat cheese.. my I'm getting hungry.....
This was the first wine I had from Aleksander maybe 2years ago and I really like it then as I do now. A wonderful semi-sweet riesling which I think is to die for. Sorry this is a quick one but I felt compelled.
Saturday was a wonderful day. Not too hot nor was the sun oppressive. Got up early so that Terry and I could take the yute to his parade, as he is in a marching band. And I just hate parades but hey…ya gotta show up, so we were in Kingsville, so I thought…there is a pier here with a fish outlet……John and Linda told us to go there and since their fish is so good we thought we would give it a try. So its pickerel and perch for dinner tonight with some local corn… yum yum. Since we were in Kingsville, I thought we needed some Sauvignon Blanc to go with the fish and since Pelee Island was right there, we went to the winery and got some more of the “Ladies”. The wine consultant saw us and had us try the Shiraz and boy that was good. Didn’t get any, but the new stuff has a future.
Well, while we were waiting for the parade (Terry failed to tell me that we had to drop the yute off an hour early) we had talked to an orchard guy who said he had #2 peaches. Big deal right!! NOPE, we could make peach cider..hey why not..So we went there and well Terry got us lost, and nobody was there, so we found someone down the street and got some from her. This would be very interesting. I also found “corn water wine”. The corn water wine is very strange but we may try that too. Hey why not and if you can use the corn water to make wine after you cook the corn….. that my friends is free. It may taste awful and I might have to lose some teeth but it would be good to laugh about.
Now. After all this, we were knackered, so we sat down on the deck and had a bottle of wine. Terry had been looking forward to trying this particular wine since we had bought it last week.
The wine is Viognier from Smith and Wilson. Well, it was very nice. Like all S & W wines it is very smooth with no nasty bits. The worst I can say is that is has sins of omissions rather than commission which is really much better than sins of commission.
The nose is not pronounced, but Terry and I noted tones of citrus fruit. I smelled hints of lime for some reason. It was very nice and again absolutely nothing nasty.
The initial taste was on of a nice smooth happy wine. This is no Pouilly Fuisse, but it really shouldn’t/couldn’t be. Terry went gaga over this wine. She feels that after Summer Sun, this is her favorite “on the deck summer wine”. For her to say that is big time.
I found the taste to have hints of citrus and a nice fruity flavor. The mouth feel was excellent, as it had that nice round feel I really like and has it done with technique rather than sweetness. In all a very nice bottle of wine.
In all honesty, I tend to have avoided this grape in the past since most that I have had were very underwhelming…kinda like Chanbourcin, but S & W have really done a wonderful job with this wine. Though not sophisticated, it is a great wine to have around the pool or on the deck. I would happily serve it with seafood and mild chicken dishes. Treat it like you would Vinho Verde and life will certainly be good. And I guess that that sums up what I feel about this wine. It’s like a local Vinho Verde and coming from me that is an extremely high complement.
