Attention Prosecesso lovers, this one’s for you. Two days ago I talked about a brut nature Cava, a Spanish sparkling wine made in the traditional Champagne method. Today we are going to be covering another sparkler, this time made using the charmat method.
Making traditional method sparkling wine involves starting a second fermentation after the wine has been bottled and then allowing the spent yeast cells from that fermentation to break down and influence the wine’s flavor and aromatics, boosting its complexity and body. Charmat wines undergo their second fermentation in large vats and are filtered off their yeast sediment before they are bottled, preserving the purity of the wine’s fruit flavors and aromas without much influence from the yeast.
Probably the best known Charmat method wine is Italy’s Prosecco, made from the Glera grape. Prosecco is fairly well known and loved for its easy drinking, fresh, and fruit forward flavors, and styles range from the very inexpensive to the refined. Today’s wine, a Durello, is the lesser known sibling of Prosecco, also from the Veneto region of northern Italy, and made using the Charmat method. This one is actually a blend of 85% Durello and 15% Chardonnay finished “extra dry”, leaving just a small amount of sugar in the final blend, giving this wine a very subtle sweetness. I found this one at one of my favorite little wine shops, the Packing House Wine Merchants in Claremont for just around $10.
Golden apples, white flowers, and a very faint kitchen spice quality introduce this wine’s aroma, while a spin in the glass reveals vanilla, something slightly musty, and a very faint note of wet stone.
A lush mouthfeel with a rich, full mousse introduce the palate. Golden apple, kitchen spices, and white flowers define the core flavors, while a delicate acidity and a very faint sweetness come together to create a very easy to enjoy, well integrated and fun sparkler.
Worth Buying. 88 points.
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