Were wandering down the road less travelled this week for a quartet of wines that stoke my inner wine geek. You probably wont have to worry about anyone else showing up to a dinner party with these, yet youll enjoy dazzling your friends with such quirky picks!
Sure, the typical Bordeaux white blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon isnt anything new, but the way this wine is crafted certainly shakes things up. While the Sauvignon Blanc offers its trademark citrusy minerality and the Semillon brings a clutch of apples and pears, each vintage of this wine is then blended with a hearty splash of previously-aged Semillon, bringing forth a whole extra dimension of hazelnut, honey and marzipan. The result is a multi-layered wonder that will ably handle poultry, duck and a host of wild game.
Lets step away from the Italian mainland, hop a ferry to Sardinia and jump on the Vermentino train! Why settle for yet another Pinot Grigio, when theres this charmer of a white made from grapes grown on sunny hillsides almost 200 metres above sea level? Get ready to enjoy plenty of complexity and a good dab of richness with key lime pie, nougat, fresh acidity and a finish that goes on and on.
This Salt Spring Island red starts with 60 per cent Pinot Noir, but then turns tradition on its head by blending the balance with Zweigelt, a charismatic Austrian hybrid grape that drinks like a savoury Pinot with the structural oomph of a heartier grape. When they come together, its a lively swirl of Italian plum, black cherry, fresh thyme and the entire baking spice rack of cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg and so on. Serve with a wee bit of a chill and a whole lot of lamb.
First off, its a traditional method (i.e. Champagne method) dry wine made from Pinot Noir. Now, the thing that separates the traditional method from other sparkling out there is that it starts as a regular white wine, and then goes through a second fermentation in the (sealed) bottle by the addition of a little extra yeast and sugar. Bubbles are created, and then, as a winery ages the bottle top-down, the yeast remnants (or lees) collect in the neck of the bottle, eventually being disgorged before the bottles re-sealed with cork and finally sent to market. The longer the wine sits on those lees, the more of those classic biscuit-y, fresh-baked-bread notes youll get. But heres the deal this time around: you get to disgorge this one yourself. Cool, right? (Google Movia Puro Rose disgorge for some direction.) Once unleashed, that lees-y character brings along apple, quince and mandarin in abundance.
As always, if youre having trouble tracking something down, find me via KurtisKolt.com or Tweet me @KurtisKolt.
