TCLiquors Wine Blog

Today is the last wine tasting day of this month and is the ultimate Italian challenge. Never before on the face of the earth has a wine store - outside of Italy - dedicated so much time to tasting Italian wines. We wrap up this month with four of my favourites selecting from sparkling, white, and reds spanning the range of flavours and prices.

First item of consumption shall be the Cantine Maschio Prosecco Del Veneto. This inexpensive sparkling Italian Prosecco (grape) has a lightly floral nose of pear apples and apricots. In the mouth it hits very much the same- especailly the apple matter. Crisp, clean and refreshing, this is the other perfect summer wine meant to be drunk by itself at a street cafe anywhere in the so-called civilized world.

Nextly we cascade along to a lush white - the Falanghina (grape) Del Feudi, selected from a variety of locales in the San Gregorio region of Italy. The Falaghina grape is a lighter varietal a deceptively nasturiumesque nose but it hits the mouth with an odd combo of banana and scotch. The amazing thing about this wine, though, is the instantaneous creamy mouthfeel that melts away into nothingness leaving you feeling naked and restless. Once again I am reminded of something I can’t discuss on this blog. If anyone is interested in details just stop in the store and mention things unmentionable and you are sure to get a verbal treat hitherto unknown to eminate from anyone’s chewing mouthparts.

Sliding down the slippery slope of fermented fruits I uncork the wisdom of Carpineto’s ‘Dogajolo” Super Tuscan. This Super Tuscan is not even an IGT, but it is one of my favourites in its price catgory. 80% Sangiovese and 20% Cabernet Sauvignon this blend gives good nose of maple and pepper with some dark berry notes (musical fruit). It also gives good mouth offering a full flavour spectrum of dark fruits with a hint of vanilla laden coffee. This medium to full body wine has an excellent tannin structure and is perfectly dry.

To end the evening and the month we induldge ourselves with a 2002 Donatello Rosso di Montalcino (DOC). This wine has a sweet nose of honey and rose and is loaded with fruit accompanied by a warm full bodied mouthfull of dry woodiness. Smooth as can be, for the twenty something dollars a bottle this is a splendid alternative to the full blown Brunello di Montalcino from the same vintner.

I am done for the day. I find wine tasting to be a most tedious task. Most demanding on the mouth and brain. I shall rest well and rejuvenate my palette for next month so I can better serve you.

When I drink Italian Wine I feel like cursing my head off. This is no coincedence. I feel like cursing my head off anyway - sometimes out of joy, sometimes out of frustration, sometimes just for the f of it. So my cursing and Italian wine consumption are linearly independent.

First down the hatch tonight is Nino Franco’s “Rustico” Prosecco di Valdobbiadene. Prosecco, as you know, is a sparkling (spumante) Italian white. Nice tight little bubbles with an overall oral tonailty of sparkling apple cider - a little tart, a little sweet. This sparkling Italian delight falls into the category of sacred treats to be consumed only on festive occasions absent offensive people.

The true treat for the evenining is a white wine from the only truly viable white growing region of Tuscany, San Gimignano. This IGT is comprised entirely or primarily of the Vernaccia grape. If it does contain others they would be the Trebbiano, the Vermentino and Malvasia. Who knows? Who cares? This wine has a nose of smoked apricots and Oak and hits the mouth with the buttersmooth mouthfeel like a chardonnay but is so light it actually melts in the mouth and tastes like the european and asian pears. The asian pear, you will recall, is has an extrememly floral palette. This wine is a must have- at some point in your life.

Lastly we indulge oursleves in Aziano’s DOCG Chianti Classico. This is an unoffensive, medium body, easy drinking wine with no particular depth or charachter. It does have some nice curried sex overtones in the nose- if you are into that sort of thing then this is the wine for you.

Yesterdays blog got trashed as well. There is some bug on this computer and I haven’t been able to fix it.

So here is the recap for yesterday, Friday June 9:

La Cala 2004 DOC: Vermentino di Sardegna - this is a crisp clean fruity and mild easy drinking summer wine. It is also quite inexpensive. People like it.

Belicon: Nero D’avola/Merlot, Sicily - This is a serious wine and is only for the lover of rich intense bold nasty offensive fermented grapes. It is a bellowing nosebleed full of coffee and chocolate with nutty smoke features. Mouthfeelwise it is like turkish coffee and tastes like coffee, chocolate, anise and vanilla.

Four Play 2003: Sicilan blend. Four of Sicily’s indigenous grapes in equal parts: the equivocal Nerollo Mascalese, the fantabulous Nero d’Avola, the subtle Nerollo Capuccio, and the equisute Frapatto Nero. Completely avoiding sexual innuendo, I like Fourplay. It is a medium body wine with nice legs and would be a good first bottle to drink while simultaneously opening something for the main event of the evenings festivities that might be a little more penetrating (like the Belicon) - a fistful of fun.

OK, yesterday is gone and we must move on to new realities. We are still playing around in Italy today consuming a Venezien (IGT) Pinot Grigio in a botttle shaped like shampoo (hence the free bottle of conditioner with each purchase of 3 or more). It is another easy drinking wine, light, a little sweetness, smooth mouthfeel like XXXXXXX, and some citrus zesty tartness all at the nice price of….well, I can’t see the sign from here.

Next on the list of things to drink is an IGT super-Tuscan. IGT means Indicazione Geographica Tipica and is the lesser classification of wine demoninations of Italian Wine Law. It simply means that they are quality wines that do not adhere to the more tradition methods of grape varietals allowed in a wine from a particular region. For example, the Villa Puccini is a 2001 IGT from Tuscany and instead of being 100% Sangiovese grape, it is allowed to contain other varietals - in this case it has 10% merlot grapes grown on the estate. Moreso, the wine is called a “Super Tuscan” because they are allowed to add other things to it other than the Sangiovese. Thus, super-Tuscan must be an IGT since the DOC and DOCG can not contain anything but the Sangiovese - if from the Tuscan Region of France (Italy). If that makes no sense keep drinking and eventually all matters of confusion will spontaneously resolve.

Hitting the best, last, wine sink our tongue into the Salamartano 2001 IGT from Tuscany. This lush wine is a Bordeaux style blend of fitty/fitty Cabernet/Merlot. It is a full body with a rich pomegranite and deciduous forest nose and a chewy woody and chocolatey mouthful with notes of tobacco, cherries, and floral peppery tones similar to nasturtium or poor man’s pepper. A great wine in its price category - normally selling for $30/bottle tonight we are offering it for $26. If you are interested, this is my style of wine. If you are not interested, this is still my style of wine. My wine selections are linearly independent of your interest in my life. However, your wine selections at Town and Country Liquors are highly subject to my a number of factors ranging from what you are having for dinner to the style of person I think you are.
Tschuss till next week.

Happy drinking.

Yesterday’s blog got spliced from reality due to some unknown omen. I figured out how to get around this oMEN relying handily on my spastic memory.

Briefly, yesterday we tasted 4 wines from Clay Stations Lodi Valley vineyards - all at the homeslice price of 10 guilders a bottle. The vionier is a lush nectary herbaceous and floral mouthful of love (eeeeeek). This wine would make an excellent compliment to …..hmmmm, can’t really say that on the blog. The Old Vine Zinfandel was a luscious mouthful of dark berries with some noticable black oil-cured olive notes and full on fruit as a good cali Zin should be. The Malbec, 2003, is a fully even keeled wine blending a nice dry woodiness with the lingery fruit morsels you get out of the zin - actually, but the fruits are more in the cherry than the berry. Lastly, the shiraz - 2002 - is a smoking mouthful of wood and plum certainly a good addition to an evening composed of food, music, and horizontal thrusting gestures (see disclaimer from yesterdays).

Moving right along before I get in too much trouble, tonight we are lapping three treats from California (in preparation for the two ensuing weeks stuck in Italy). First out of the gate is the 2004 Chardonnay from Kali Hart’s Monetery County vineyards. The nose is full of lemon and applepeachpear. It hits the mouth with your classic chardonnay buttery smoothness and yields flavours very much in the grapey/raisiny spectrum finishing with light apple pie and mild floral overtones. Ha. I can’t believe you listen to me spewing this stuff. Well, no one really reads this blog so I am safe.

The Joel Gott 2003 Cab Sauv (blend no 815 (see Dr. Seuss Red Fish Blue Fish for details)) for 16 bucks eine flasche is a noseload full of raspberry jam with old housebeam, fire place and smoke inhalation lung damage. Seriously, it smells exactly like the jam I served at Tsarevitch, a Russian restaurant I waited, bartended, and ultimately became manager at until I moved up here to go to thchool. It was in the west village between Greenwich ave and waverly place on W 10th street. That was a strange time in my life. Mouthwise, Joel God is full body and not intensely tannic but full of woodsmoke and fire with bits of peppery palatte stimulants and some lingering fruit, but not too much. It is a little sharp in the finish at 13.9% ethanol. We’re seeling Joel, for any of you men or women out there interested, for $16 a bottle tonight.

The last item up for consumption is the Napa Valley Silverado, 2001 from the Stag’s Leap district. Normally this is a $70 bottle of wine, but we sell it for 49$ and tonight it is just $44. This thing has a nose of a mild curry with cardamom and sour cherries and chocolate. It has a rich, layered, set of flavours starting with fruit and ending with hickory smoked anything while it runs its course in your mouth you will again be reminded of the asian spices. The 14.5% alcohol definitely stands out and lends a clean finish to the last layer of complexity. Serve in glasses using people to drink it.