Just A Taste
Frank Sutherland's wine column for Saturday 10/23/04
Italian whites growing up
Wine column by FRANK SUTHERLAND
Gannett News Service
Editor¹s note: Frank Sutherland, Editor of The Tennessean newspaper in Nashville, writes a weekly wine column for Gannett News Services. This week, it fills in for the regular Wine Guy column by Star-Gazette Photo Editor Jeff Richards.
The last couple of years have been good for Italian white wines.
In the United States, pinot grigio has been a favorite during recent years, but other quality whites, especially from the Piedmont region, are making the search worthwhile on the Italian shelves of your wine store.
There you will not find the Italian white wines of yesteryear.
Cleaner wine-making operations, stainless steel barrels and an improved winemaking process have all contributed to better white wines from Italy.
I asked the wine-tasting group to compare five Italian whites ‹ none of them pinot grigio ‹ in the $10 to $20 price range. We were all impressed. Here are the results:
2003 Agriolas S¹elegus at $14.99. This wine has an aroma of perfume, honeysuckle, spice and white pepper. The experience on the palate is much drier than the aroma. The wine has good acidity and a spicy, tingly finish. This white blend finished first in our tasting.
2002 Orsolani La Rustia Erbaluce di Caluso at $15.99. This wine¹s aroma teases us with mouth-watering lemon fragrances, with a certain oiliness and honey smell following behind. ³This wine tastes like sunshine ‹ happy and bright,² one tasters said. The erbaluce (ehr-bah-LOO-tchay) grape produces wines that have good acidity. Lemon peel emerged on the finish. This wine finished second in our tasting.
2002 Tramin Pinot Bianco at $17.99. We discovered an aroma of minerals and melon and hints of orange blossoms and Mandarin oranges. The Mandarin orange flavors continued on the palate. There was a slight, citrus orange bitterness on the finish.
2003 Michele Chiarlo Gavi at $16.99. This aroma reminds us of an unusual but pleasant combination of cucumber, ginger and Lemon Pledge. It is very dry in the mouth, very mouth-watering. We tasted bitter lemon on the finish. While it has an agreeable impact at the beginning and on the end, it is lackluster in the middle.
2003 Fiano di Avellino dei Feundi di San Gregorio at $19.99. We argued about whether this aroma was full of candied bananas or banana cream pudding. There was no argument about bananas, though. There is more citrus in the mouth than in the aroma and plenty of citrus on the finish. Each of these Italian whites provides a different experience for white wine drinkers and are worth trying.
The wine-tasting group recently compared three Cru Beaujolais wines, three bottles from that region of France that offers cherry and other fruit flavors and refreshing tastes in many of its wines.
Here are our notes:
2001 Moulin A Vent Potel-Aviron Cru Beaujolais at $19.99. This aroma suggests caramel, black pepper and, of course, cherries, especially black cherries. It is dusty on the palate, with nice flavors of green peppers and cherries, and it was very dry.
2002 Louis Jadot Domaine du Monnet Brouilly Cru Beaujolais at $17.99. This aroma has lots of fruit, particularly cherries, with notes of spice. In the mouth, the wine is round and soft, with tastes of dried or stewed strawberries.
2002 Georges DuBoeuf Brouilly Cru Beaujolais at $13.99. This wine has a brambly fruit aroma that smells younger than the wine actually is. In the mouth, it has lots of fruit ‹ bright fruit with cherries and strawberries.
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