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.

Frappato di Vittoria - Sicily, Italy

It's kind of hard for me to believe, but today's post marks Fringe Wine's first foray into Sicily.  It's certainly not for lack of material.  Sicily has a substantial number of indigenous grapes and a wealth of interesting topics to write about, but for some  reason, I just haven't gotten around to it.  That will change in the near future as I have several handfuls of wines made from native Sicilian grapes that I'll be posting about in short order.

Sicily is Italy's largest region and, for many centuries, has been a major source of bulk agricultural products.  This bulk product mentality wasn't (and to some extent still isn't) limited just to food products, but it extends into wine production as well.  The overwhelming majority of wine production in Sicily is devoted to bulk wine production and production of anonymous blending wine components that are trucked all over Italy (and likely elsewhere) for use in a wide variety of applications.  By area, Sicily is Italy's largest region both in total land volume and in acres devoted to the vine.  By volume, Sicily is Italy's third largest producer with over 7 million hectoliters of wine produced.  Out of all that production, though, only about 5 percent actually ends up in bottles and only 2 percent of that amount is DOC quality wine.

As in so many bulk wine regions, a handful of producers and co-ops have decided to buck the trends of history and set out to make quality wine, and, as mentioned above, they have ample natural resources at their disposal.  Not only is there a wealth of local grapes to choose from, but the Sicilian climate lends itself quite well to viticulture.  While most of the grapes grown on Sicily are white (most are used in bulk Marsala production), the red wines are really where the cool, interesting stuff is happening.  Nero d'Avola has recently burst onto the world stage and Nerello Mascalese might not be too far behind (we'll consider Nerello in a future post).

Today's post, though, is concerned with Frappato.  Frappato's origins are not entirely clear, as some people maintain that the grape is native to the area around Vittoria in southeastern Sicily, while others believe it may have brought over from Spain during one of the periods of Spanish occupation of the island.  The genetic evidence points in a different direction, however.  In a study published in 2008, the authors found that Frappato (as well as a handful of other Italian grapes) shares some genetic similarities with Sangiovese, indicating that Frappato is actually an offspring of Sangiovese and an undetermined other variety.  This certainly muddies the issue as it makes both origin hypotheses difficult to explain.  It seems likely that the grape was brought over from the Italian mainland, along with Nerello Mascalese, at some point prior to the 17th Century, as the grape has been known around Vittoria for at least that long.

I was able to get my hands on two different Frappato bottlings.  The first was the 2009 bottling from the Valle Dell'Acate co-op which I picked up from Gordon's for about $17.  In the glass, the wine had a pale ruby color.  The grape is known for the light colored wines it produces, but if you associate lightly colored wines with lightly scented and flavored wines, Frappato has a surprise for you.  The nose on this wine was very aromatic with distinctive red cherry and rose aromas.  The perfume was intoxicating and it was difficult to pull my nose out of the glass in order to take a sip.  On the palate, the wine was medium bodied with fairly high acidity and medium tannins.  There were delicate red cherry and strawberry fruit flavors with a flowery, rosy kind of flavor to it.  It's a delicate wine that's seemingly held together with gossamer.  The fruit is subdued and hung ever so lightly over the acid and tannin bones of this wine.  The perfume is the thing about this wine that you'll remember and trust me, you'll remember it for a long time.

The second wine I tried was the more upscale 2008 offering from Occhipinti which I picked up at Central Bottle for about $41, though I've also seen it on the shelves of my friends at the Wine Bottega.  In the glass, the wine had a medium purple-ruby color.  Beyond the color, words start to fail with this wine.  I'm going to try a tangent and see if I can get closer to what I want to say.

When I was in college, I went to a concert at one of the local venues (I attended UGA in Athens, Georgia, so there were plenty around) and a band I'd never heard of took the stage.  Standing behind the keyboard was an absolute vision that I couldn't take my eyes off of.  When the band kicked into the first song, I stood like I was nailed to the floor and felt every note ring through my body.  For some reason that night, every ion in my body was lined up in such a way that the combination of sight of and sound had me completely mesmerized and I stood there, nailed to a spot on the floor, and let it all wash over me, waiting through every moment for my heart to explode.  Life is not full enough of transcendent moments like those where every second that ticks by is both sacred in its own bliss and profane in its temporality and finitude.

This wine is one of those experiences.  The nose here is explosively aromatic with roses, violets and crushed red berry fruit.  That's the objective story of what it smells like.  The subjective story is that I fell completely in love with this wine in the way that you can fall in love with objects and unobtainable things that are marked by their temporary appearance in the timeline of your life.  It's about falling in love with something whose end is not only inevitable and near, but whose end you are in fact bringing about much more rapidly through your enjoyment.  On the palate, the wine was on the fuller side of medium with fairly high acidity and medium tannins.  There were ripe, rich flavors of wild blueberries and tart cherries with wild strawberry jam and a flowery kind of character.  Again, this captures only the objective experience here.  This is a breathtaking wine that was an exquisite agony to drink.  I've been moved by wines in the past, but this touched something deep and has been a haunting experience that I can't get out of my head.  I hesitate to offer this review as any kind of a call for people to run out and try this because it was a very personal reaction that I had to this wine and those rarely translate well between people.  Objectively, it is a very fine wine that is well worth the money, but subjectively, it was much more than that and I get concerned here that people will feel I've led them astray if their experience lacks the profundity that I experienced.  I don't know how to answer that.  It's worth the chance, I guess is all I can say.

Please see this more recent post for a tasting note on another 100% Frappato wine from the Lamoresca winery in the hills of central Sicily.