Friday, March 28, 2008

Friday Night Bubbles

2006 Zucchi Lambrusco di Sorbara Rosato, $13, Selected Estates of Europe. I'm a Lambrusco fan, without question. I love cracking open a chilled bottle in warm weather, serving it with a plate of cured meats and cheese, surprising people with red sparkling wine. This one, sadly, was not so great.

We've had the regular Zucchi Lambrusco before and we really liked it - we enjoyed some on Thanksgiving last year. But this bottle, the Rosato version, was not as satisfying. A beautiful light purple color to be sure, but the nose was full of bubblegum candy (no like) and medicine (like). The overall effect was just odd, like drinking herbal grape BubbleYum. And the palate exactly echoed the nose, with no further nuance to lift it up. We saved half the bottle for day 2 (a dead give away that we weren't crazy about it), and nothing changed. I'm ready to hear that I got a bad bottle, because I know that many people love this wine. But I think it's just not my style.

It just didn't feel right to leave you with a so-so bottle on a Friday. So we opened another sparkling wine during the week.

Guy Bossard is an esteemed producer of still wines in the Muscadet Sèvre-et-Maine appellation in the Loire Valley. Certified by Demeter, Bossard's vineyards are farmed biodynamically. I was psyched to see that he makes a sparkling wine too, although to be honest I haven't heard much about sparklers from Muscadet. Cider - yes. Bubblies made from Melon de Bourgogne...new to me. Do the other big-name Muscadet producers, like Olivier, Landron, or Luneau-Papin make sparkling wine also, but wine that is not exported?

Anyway, this wine was quite unusual, and we liked it. As you might imagine, this wine is all about minerals. NV Bossard-Thuaud Vin Mousseaux, $18. The nose was very chalky and airy, a very nice nose. But it didn't gain anything in complexity after the first three minutes open, even on day 2 (again, dead giveaway). The palate is intensely mineral, with bitter preserved lemon and green apple skin hints, and lingering mouth aromas of salty wet rocks.

Okay, not every bottle can be great. That's part of the fun. I hope your Friday night bubbles are a bit more satisfying than these were.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

i had a sparkling muscadet that was offered to us by the owner of the gite my wife and i stayed at in the loire in 2006.
it was my first experience also. i thought it was delicious, but have never seen one in the us.
the wine was unlabeled, so iahve no idea who made it.

Debra Morgan said...

lambrusco--creative choice for Friday night bubbles. One to try: Gelsomina Lambrusco Mantovano--DOC Montovano has higher percentage of ancellotta and is super aromatic and electric ruby colored.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for the reports.
Several grapes are traditional in the Pays Nantais. With grolleau vintners traditionally make a no good rosé or a uninteresting sparkling.
Other big-name Muscadet producers, like Ollivier, Brégeon, or Luneau-Papin do not have plots with grolleau. The financial and quality returns are too small. I don't know about Landron.

Brooklynguy said...

hi Bill - i wish we had stayed in a gite. if we ever go back...that wine was probably the little hobby of the proprietors of the gite.

thanks for the tip Genevelyn, i'll keep my eyes peeled.

my pleasure felicien