Featured Wines - October 2011

Visually appealing, with a glint of afternoon sunshine, this Bourgogne Blanc starts off right and continues to ingratiate from the first sniff until the last sip. It willingly offers a light, haunting fragrance of spring flowers, lemon oil, summer apples, and pure, unfettered Chardonnay fruit. Moreover, all of this 2009 Bourgogne Blanc’s aromatic profile follows through on the palate, leaving the mouth clean and refreshed, and most assuredly eager for more.

One of Carmenere’s attributes is its deep, opaque color, and the 2009 Vina Chocalan Seleccion Carmenere is certainly no exception: it possesses the intense ruby and violet robe that makes authentic Carmenere absolutely eye popping. Chocalan’s Seleccion also exhibits great aromatic intensity, offering up succulent scents reminiscent of ripe blackberries, currants, coffee, wood smoke, and black pepper. On the palate layers of deep berry flavors emerge, mingling with the savor of herbs and spices, all of which are wrapped in soft, round tannins.

Tasting the 2010 Villa Giada Moscato d’Asti is like coming home to a place where you belong, a place where you can revel in the knowledge that all will be as you remember. Very few winemakers are as consistent as Andrea Faccio. Once again in 2010, Faccio’s Moscato d’Asti exudes the pure scent and telltale savor of Moscato: pear, peach, mango, and just enough of that kinky, exotic touch of the Muscat grape to be compelling.

Saturated purple in color and typically opaque, the 2006 offers an immediately gratifying nose of Asian spices, black raspberry and currant fruits, chocolate, minerals, and vanilla to satiate the senses. It follows through in the mouth with an array of polished flavors that invoke the wine’s spellbinding bouquet. Balance, depth of flavor, and overt charm make the youthful 2006 Montecastro Ribera del Duero a true thoroughbred. Moreover, it is already irresistible to drink, even in its tender youth.

Bedecked in a fanciful straw colored robe and endowed with a heady perfume, this Orvieto stands apart from the crowd. It is filled with an inner beauty that exudes savory peach and mint flavors, entwined with herbs and spring flowers. Textured, deep, and imbued with a wealth of nuanced flavors, the 2008 Campo del Guardiano offers a stunning portrait of Orvieto. Yet, as delicious as this wine is now, it will almost certainly improve in bottle for years to come.

The 2010 Dawn carries a pretty scent that offers plenty of up front berry, plum, loam, and spice tinged fragrances that make this quintessential South African blend so immediately appealing. On the palate, savory dark cherry, plum, pepper and spice flavors emerge. Backed by soft tannins from the Shiraz and crisp acidity from the Pinotage, the wine’s gracious fruit flavors seem to dance and glide effortlessly across the tongue. Round, smooth and very easy to drink Seven Sister’s 2010 Pinotage/Shiraz more than brings her welcome with her.

The 2008 Torres Salmos Priorat is an exceptional wine and unequivocally the finest Salmos Torres has produced since establishing itself in Priorat in 1996. A stylish, yet powerful blend of Garnacha, Cariñena, and Syrah, this racy Priorat offers a bedazzling and complex aroma of Asian spices, balsam, black cherry fruit, and lavender. In the mouth, this alluring Priorat caresses the palate with layers of deep down spicy fruit and toasted oak flavors, before finishing with real panache.