Odds and Ends - Sparkling Turbiana, Picpoul de Pinet, Frappato, Verdejo & Listán Blanco

Hello everyone and welcome once again to my erratic Odds and Ends feature, where I take a look at a few wines I've tried recently that I feel either don't warrant a full post or which feature grapes that I've already written a full post about.  I've got a handful of interesting wines here that I hope you'll enjoy reading about, so without further ado, let's get to them!

I've written several times (as in my posts on Groppello, Vespaiola, Grechetto and Sagrantino) about the wines of Paul Turina, an Italian importer from Maine who is a friend of mine.  Paul has some distant relatives who make wine in the area around Lake Garda in Italy and I've written about some of their offerings in the post on Groppello linked above.  His family also works with the Turbiana grape, which, as we discovered in my post on that grape last year, is actually Verdicchio.  I've tried a sparkling Verdicchio from the Marche, but I've never tried a sparkling Turbiana from Lugana so when Paul gave me the opportunity to taste his family's wine, I graciously took him up on it.  In the glass the wine was a fairly pale lemon gold color with steady bubbles.  The nose was somewhat reserved with aromas of apple and pineapple and little else.  On the palate the wine was on the lighter side of medium with fairly high acidity and a loose bubble structure.  There were flavors of ripe apple, pear, baked white fruits, candied apple and pineapple.  This is a tank fermented wine that has more complexity and depth than your average prosecco.  It's really a lovely little bottle and those interested in trying it are advised to contact Paul via his website.

Next up is a wine made from one of the very first grapes that I wrote about, Picpoul Blanc.  Even though that post was only the tenth one that I had written, I really don't have any new information to add to it.  Picpoul is a pretty straightforward grape without any real controversies or interesting family connections.  I'm still a big fan of it, though, and this bottle, the 2010 vintage from the Saint-Peyre winery in the Coteaux du Languedoc region of France, was given to me as a gift by my wife (retail is around $11).  In the glass the wine was a fairly light silvery lemon color.  The nose was fairly intense with aromas of grapefruit, grapefruit peel, pear and some grassy herbs.  On the palate the wine was medium bodied with fairly high acidity.  There were flavors of pear, grapefruit peel, golden apple, lemon and cut grass.  Picpoul always reminds me a bit of Sauvignon Blanc, and this wine was certainly no exception.  It's bright and zippy with a wonderful wild, grassy vein running through it as well.

I've mentioned one of my favorite shops, The Wine Bottega in the North End of Boston, over and over again because they always have an interesting selection and are always incredibly nice and knowledgeable about their merchandise.  Matt is one of the co-owners of the shop and he has recently started his own importing label on the side called Selectio Naturel.  Like the Bottega, Selectio Naturel is focused on representing small producers making natural wines.  One of those producers is Lamoresca whose vineyards are located deep in the hills of central Sicily at an altitude around 430 meters above sea level.  Their approach in the vineyard and in the winery is minimalistic, and you can read more about it here.  Matt imports their Rosso, which is a blend of Nero d'Avola and Frappato, their Bianco, a blend of Vermentino Corse and Roussanne which I'll have a full review of shortly, and the Nerocapitano, which is 100% Frappato.  Frappato is absolutely one of my favorite grapes and in my prior post on it, I got a little carried away with an example from Occhipinti, so I had high hopes for this bottle, the 2011 vintage, which I picked up at the Bottega for around $30.  In the glass this wine was a fairly light pinkish ruby color.  The nose was intense with aromas of red cherry, wild strawberry, raspberry and rose petals.  On the palate the wine was medium bodied with fairly high acidity.  There were flavors of bright red cherry, raspberry, rose water and wild strawberry.  While it wasn't as intoxicating as the wine from Occhipinti, it was still gorgeous with a beautiful perfume and pure fruit flavors on the palate (and it costs about $20 less per bottle).

Another one of my very early posts was on the Verdejo grape from Spain.  In that post, I wrote that Verdejo was best known in Rueda, Spain, but the bottle that I was able to try was from La Mancha, which is a little further south, a little further inland, and a bit hotter and drier than Rueda.  I enjoyed the bottle that I had picked up, but I was curious to try a more representative sample from an area where the grape was more traditional and more highly regarded.  I found the 2009 Shaya Verdejo ($17) a few months after I wrote my initial post and have had the tasting note kicking around in a notebook for quite some time now.  In the glass the wine was a pale silvery lemon color.  The nose was moderately intense with aromas of pear, white peach and fresh cut lemon.  On the palate the wine was medium bodied with medium acidity.  There were flavors of pear, lemon peel, and lees with a stony, chalky minerality on the finish.  It was an OK wine, but I didn't like it as much as the example from La Mancha, which was actually a little bit cheaper than this bottle.

A few months ago, I was shopping at another one of my favorite local stores, the Spirited Gourmet in Belmont, and came across a bottle of wine made from the Listán Blanco grape (the 2008 Bodegas Carballo, which cost around $24). I had recently picked up a few bottles made from Listán Negro and was excited to find something that I didn't think I had tried before. I bought the bottle without asking anyone about it or bothering to look it up on my phone and so was somewhat disappointed when I looked it up at home and discovered that Listán Blanco is actually just another name for Palomino, which I've already written about.  This wine was from the Canary Islands, though, and was made with some skin contact, so I was curious to see what it was like.  In the glass the wine was a fairly deep lemon gold color just starting to go bronze.  The nose was intense with aromas of red apples, apple cider, fresh cracked pecans, seawater and autumn spice.  On the palate the wine was medium bodied with medium acidity.  There were flavors of baked apple, apple cider, fresh cracked pecans, toasted walnuts, autumn spice and dried leaves.  When I used to jump into raked leaf piles as a kid, I remember there being a particular smell and taste that would result from the leaves being crushed by our bodies.  A fine powder would form and coat the inside of our noses, our mouths and our clothes and that powder had a very distinct kind of taste and smell that I had essentially forgotten about until I drank this wine.  Everything about this bottle screams autumn and I almost felt like the wine had a kind of mulled character to it.  This was miles better than the Palomino I tried previously and it gives a hint as to what Palomino may be capable of in careful hands.

Verdejo - La Mancha, Spain

Many readers may be surprised to learn that Spain actually is the world leader in vineyard acreage (as of 2008), leading second place France by almost 750,000 acres. Surprisingly, Spain is a very distant third as far as volume of wine produced, trailing world leader Italy by almost 15 million hectoliters. Why the discrepancy? Well, Spain is very hot and very dry (excepting the northwest Galician corner, which will be the subject of a separate post). Because of these conditions, vines are planted much farther apart in many regions of Spain than in the rest of the world. Vines need the extra space so they won't be competing with one another for the meager water supplies. The extra spacing also allows air to circulate, keeping the vines from overheating. The result is that Spain has a lot of land dedicated to vineyards, but that land is more sparsely planted, resulting in lower yields and lower overall production numbers.

Right in the middle of Spain is a region called La Mancha, perhaps best known for being the home of Don Quixote. La Mancha is a large plateau with an elevation of about 2000 ft., which also helps keep the temperatures more manageable, though it is still very hot and dry in the summer. Aside from being home to Don Quixote, La Mancha is the world's largest continuous vine-growing region in the world. They have 190,000 hectares of land devoted to viticulture, which would be enough to put the region 22nd in world production were it a separate country. La Mancha produces more wine than the entire continent of Australia. Most of the production was from the Airen grape which, as a result of the expansive planting in Spain, was (and possibly still is) the world's most planted white grape variety.

For many years, this region was the wine lake of Spain, producing a great deal of bulk and low-quality wine (think of the Central Valley in California or the Languedoc in France). In recent years, though, a few quality oriented producers have stepped up and are making a commitment to produce fine wine in this region (again, similar to what has been happening in the Languedoc recently). One of those producers is Paso a Paso. In addition to the Verdejo that I tried, they also produce a bottling of Spain's most famous red grape, Tempranillo which, while I have tasted and can recommend it, I will not be going into any detail about here.

Verdejo is perhaps most well-known, if it can be considered well-known at all, in Rueda, a small region north of La Mancha and the city of Madrid and just west of the Ribera del Duero. It's actually pretty difficult to find a description of Verdejo that doesn't immediately mention Rueda. Verdejo is native to Rueda and is not planted very extensively in other regions. Jancis Robinson, in her Vines, Grapes and Wines has this to say about Verdejo: "Of all the white varieties among Spain's official top twenty, Verdejo is probably the one with the most discernibly aristocratic character." As a casual Marxist, that kind of description makes me grit my teeth a bit, but I dove in to see what Verdejo is all about.

I picked my bottle up at the aforementioned Gypsy Kitchen in Quincy, MA for $14. My bottle was the 2009 vintage (I wouldn't swear to it, but I'd guess that vintage to vintage variation is pretty small here). In the glass it had a pale straw color and was brilliantly limpid and clear. The nose was exuberant with strong aromas of ripe pears, peachy stone fruit, grapefruit, ripe apples and flowers. The wine is dry and full-bodied on the palate with a rich mouth-feel and medium acid. Apricots and grapefruit peel were the dominant flavors, with some creamy pear. There was a nice minerality to the clean, crisp finish. I would say this wine tastes like a mix of viognier and riesling with the stone fruit and flowers of the former mixed with the citrus and acid of the latter. It's an outstanding wine for $14 that I was happy to drink on its own, but which also has a wide variety of possible food combinations (roasted chicken or Thanksgiving turkey spring immediately to mind as excellent matches). Aristocratic wasn't the first thing that sprang to my mind when considering this wine, but it was warm, friendly and attractive, three characteristics I'd much rather have in a companion than aristocracy.

Please see this more recent post for a tasting note of a Verdejo wine from the Rueda region of Spain.