April Wine Club meeting

This past Thursday was the 10th meeting of Wine Club. To stay on track with our mission statement to not repeat a grape and to try different countries and wine regions this month we took a look at sparkling wines.

Mick served a Prosecco in the recent past that was excellent with the pan-seared scallops topped with crab.

http://zippysauce.blogspot.com/2008/03/saturday-night-snow-problem.html

The Prosecco was $13 a bottle. This got me thinking that I had serious underestimated sparkling wines as a food pairing and that was how this Wine Club meeting was centered around sparkling wine.

For the wine choices we went ‘Old World’ – a Champagne from France, a Prosecco from Italy and a Cava from Spain.

LCBO Information – Santa Margherita Prosecco Di Valdobbiadene (Brut)

Stock Number – 687582
Volume - 750mL
Price: $ $ 17.75 (+ $.20 deposit)
Made in: Veneto, Italy
By: S. Margherita S.P.A.
Release Date: Mar 15, 2008

Description - From the producer of the most popular wine in our Essentials Collection (Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio, 106450), comes this fresh, flavourful, crowd-pleasing sparkling wine. Enjoy it as a palate refresher with which to greet guests or to accompany appetizers such as pancetta-wrapped tiger shrimp and roasted asparagus.

LCBO Information – Codorniu Reserva Raventos & Pinot Noir Brut

Stock Number – 6379
Volume – 2x750mL
Price: $ 25.75 (+ $.20 deposit)
Made in: Penedes, Spain
By: Codorniu S.A.
Release Date: Oct 27, 2007

Description – Producer (tasting) notes: 'Attractive and up-scale premium Cava twin-pack includes the Codorníu Pinot Noir and Reserva Raventós. Codorníu Reserva Raventós: Bright, pale yellow colour. Interesting fruity nose due to the blend of three different varieties and complexity of bottle ageing. Serve chilled. Codorníu Pinot Noir: Pale and refreshing sparkling cherry-red colour along with fine, plentiful and perpetual fizz.' Also, from back labels: Codorníu Reserva Raventós: An exceptional wine from Spain, cava is crafted using the 'traditional method': natural sparkle, second fermentation in bottle, a minimum of 9 months ageing. Codorníu is one of the world's oldest family enterprises, innovative and passionate about cava and winemaking. Reserva Raventós was released in 1997 to commemorate the 125th anniversary of Codorníu Cavas. A unique blend of traditional cava grapes with chardonnay; complex, full-bodied and elegant with fine, persistent bubbles. Codorníu Pinot Noir: Codorníu Pinot Noir is distinguished by an abundance of mature berry aromas and flavours. Balanced with a touch of fresh citrus, elegant and abundant bubbles echo persistently on the finish.' This gift pack offers excellent value and is a much better deal to buy the two together then to buy them separately. Cavas are one of the most reliable sources of good-valued Traditional Method sparkling wine. Traditional Method refers to the expensive process of secondary bottle fermentation that is employed in Champagne.

LCBO Information – Philippe Gonet Blanc De Blancs Champagne (Brut)

Stock Number – 692699
Volume - 750mL
Price: $ 47.75 (+ $.20 deposit)
Made in: Champagne, France
By: Champagne Gonet Philippe Et Fils
Release Date: Mar 15, 2008

Description – As with most great Champagne producers, Gonet selects grapes (100% Chardonnay, in this case) from two superb vintages to make their non-vintage bubbly. In this case, 30% came from the 1997 vintage and 70% from the 1998.

Tasting Note - Great fresh Chardonnay flavors give this Champagne a good lift. It is fresh, but has some good structure, as well as enticing, creamy, nutty flavors. The acidity gives the whole wine a sense of crispness. Score - 89. (Roger Voss, Wine Enthusiast, Dec. 1, 2005)

There is quite a range in price with the single bottle of Cava at $13, the Prosecco at $18 and the Champagne at $49. I was interested to see how they compared to each other.

To go with the sparkling wines, Katie brought in a selection of cheese and crackers as well as a liver pâté and salmon pâté.

All three of the sparklers were ‘Brut’ or dry but there was a big difference in dryness between the three of them. The Champagne seemed bone dry where as the Prosecco almost seemed sweet in comparison and the Cava was somewhere between the two.

I liked all three of the wines as each of them had a strong showing with a different food pairing. The Champagne was really good with the liver pâté as it had some cracked pepper corns in it that spiced it up. The Prosecco went nicely with the maple salmon pâté; the sweetness of both the pâté and the Prosecco work nicely together. The Cava was my favourite with the cheese.

The breakdown on favourites were – 2 for the Champagne, 7 for the Prosecco and 1 (me) neutral. The people who liked the Prosecco, generally did not like the Champagne very much at all. The Cava seemed to be everyone’s second favourite. I think the deciding factor here was the dryness level, if you really like extremely dry, crisp wines the Champagne was your thing, if you like a touch of sweetness to round out the wine, it was the Prosecco.

I wanted to show that sparkling wine wasn’t just for special occasions and that at $13-$18 a bottle it was a very well price alternative to standard table wine. As everyone sat enjoying the wines with the different foods, I think most saw the potential there for pairing them with food courses.

Cheers!

Mark