June Wine Club – Torrontés

The Zippy Sauce blog has been a little quiet for the last couple of weeks. Father’s Day weekend prevented us from getting together with Mick and Amy and the week before that we each had separate plans. Thankfully this weekend we will be getting together and we’ll get back to reviewing some wines. In the meantime, Wine Club got together last Thursday to try a couple of new wines.

The meeting was about the 24th one that we’ve had and with a mandate to try as many different grapes and regions as possible we are starting to get more and more out of my comfort zone. This month’s wine was a good example of that as we tasted two wines Torrontés from Argentina. I had never had Torrontés before so I was nervously looking forward to it.

"Two Torrontés from Argentina"

Let’s start with the LCBO information for both wines –

ALAMOS TORRONTÉS 2007

Stock Number – 81539
750 mL bottle Volume
Price: $ 13.95 (+$.20 Deposit)
Wine, White Wine,
13.5% Alcohol/Vol.
Sugar Content : D
Made in: Argentina, Argentina
By: Catena
Release Date: Mar 28, 2009

Tasting Note - Alamos Torrontés 2007 Argentina is a great value example of modern Torrontés ... Torrontés characteristically has a particularly exotic grapey aroma with something floral about it. This example is all that, but it is so rich aromatically that it almost smells like toffee. However there is so much racy, tingling acidity on the palate that it could happily be served with strongly flavoured salads and pasta dishes, although I think it would probably be best as an aperitif. (Jancis Robinson, MW, www.jancisrobinson.com, July 29, 2008)

LABORUM TORRONTÉS 2007

Stock Number – 82404
750 mL bottle
Price: $ 16.45 (+$.20 Deposit)
Wine, White Wine, 13.5%
Alcohol/Vol.Sugar
Content : D
Made in: Argentina, Argentina
By: Bodegas El Porvenir de Los Andes
Release Date: Nov 8, 2008

Description - Hand-picked from vineyards planted at a dizzying 1750 metres above sea level, this fresh and aromatic Torrontés would be a delightful match to baked red snapper in a chutney sauce. It's dry, medium-bodied with floral and juicy fruity aromas and flavours leading to a lengthy finish.

"The comparison bottle."

The Alamos Torrontés was the bottle everyone took home and the Laborum Torrontés was the comparison bottle. Uncorking both bottles I was surprised that the Alamos which was the less expensive of the two wines used a real cork where as the Laborum used a synthetic one. My next surprise was the nose on the two wines; the Alamos had a much more aromatic nose to it then the Laborum.

"The take home bottle."

The nose on both was driving me nuts as there was a super familiar scent profile to both that I’d recognized but couldn’t place. Both had big inviting floral notes and the Alamos had orange on the nose whereas the Laborum had no orange aroma but there was a lime note there. One of the Wine Club members was laughing at my frustration as he knew exactly where this aroma profile could be found. After letting suffer for a moment he simply said “Gewürztraminer”. As soon as he said I realized that he was dead on, the nose on the two grapes were extremely close.

Tasting the wines, both were close in flavour profiles as they both had nice fruit to start, a narrow mouth feel with a touch of oiliness on the mid palate and a quick finish. The Alamos had more lively acidity to it than the Laborum but other than that they were almost identical. I tried to think of other white wines that they were like and the closest I can come up with is a fruit forward New World Sauvignon Blanc with some Viognier blend in but lighter in body than both of those grapes would be.

We had three cheeses with the wine - a Danish Blue, a white cheddar and a goat cheese with brushcetta. The Blue and the cheddar were not bad with it but the goat cheese and the hint of spice it had was really nice with it. I suspect that this wine would be a good pairing for a dish with some spice to it.

I wasn’t overly enamored with Torrontés but with its light and easy drinking style would make a nice summer patio wine. At $14 a bottle the Alamos is at an easy to swallow price point which is a nice break on your wine wallet.

Cheers!

Mark