How many times has this happened to you? You’re out picking up a few last minute additions for dinner and you rush into a shop to grab some wine. You spot a bottle of Alsatian Gewürztraminer (or Riesling/Pinot Gris) from a producer you’re unfamiliar with, zero information on the bottle other that “Vin d’Alsace AOC.” You get it home and pop the cork, take a sniff and a sip to find out that it’s sickly sweet. Come on Alsace… THIS is why people don’t like you!
Okay, maybe hasn’t happened to you and maybe I should know better than to play residual sugar roulette with a bottle of wine from Alsace, but damn is it disappointing when it’s not the style you were looking for. A lesson in “how to ask more questions before gambling with an unfamiliar producer.”
Domaine Allimant-Laugner ‘07 Gewurztaminer
The nose smells of Swedish Berries and honey. Canned peaches and a hint of spice on the palate - sweet and devoid of nearly any acid whatsoever. If there were some acidity to balance the sugar, this wouldn’t be so bad for a cheap bottle. Might be good served along side baked apple pie with ice cream…but not my dinner. $14ish
The Redemption.
Later we headed to the Campania inspired A-16 in San Francisco’s Marina neighbourhood. The service was friendly and the Margherita pizza was the real deal and best I’ve had since Pizzeria da Michele in Napoli. Every wine we tasted was great, including the most serious Lambrusco I’ve ever tried (producer Lini 910), plus a couple of truly stunning glasses.
Occhipinti ‘08 SP68 - Sicilia IGT
This wine comes from 5 ha of biodynamically farmed Nero d’Avola and Frappato grapes in Southeast Sicily. It’s made by a young woman named Arianna Occhipinti who is the niece of Giusto Occhipinti - the “O” in Sicilian winery COS (I tried one of his wines a couple weeks back here). She has a great website if you speak Italian (I’m guessing as there’s no English version yet).
Light to medium body, fresh oregano and bright fresh intense raspberries, very dry, great acidity and some sneaky medium tannins. For the second time in tasting as many SE Sicilian wines, I’m left thinking…wow is this elegant. Very good and very enjoyable (for me quite a bit more so than the bottle of COS’s Cerasuolo di Vittoria DOCG I tried). Sicily is really growing on me.
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2 Responses:
November 7th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
Nero d’Avola fantastic grape the two trade tasting for italian wine I found that I really enjoyed them. maybe they have good fruity and just stand out in the room
December 27th, 2009 at 11:05 am
[...] This is serious Frappato, and while I did enjoy it, I also think that the $42 I paid for it in the US is high. I urge people to try Arianna’s Nero d’Avola & Frappato blend called SP68 which is great value at $25 (see my brief notes here). [...]