Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Wine Blogging Wednesday #20: Anything but..

This will be my first WBW event and I was particularly attracted by Wine for Newbies theme of Anything but Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc or Riesling. I don't know what other people find, but with Paalo and myself, our white wines tend to enter the cellar and rarely come out.

So, this was the perfect excuse to raid the cellar for one of those neglected whites.

The choice was made as soon as I laid eyes on the bottles of Verduzzo - it's one of those other white wines that start with V.

1-DSC_3672.jpg

Verduzzo is a grape of Northern Italy, in particular Friuli and Veneto (which also happens to be my father's birthplace). I believe that there's only two wineries in Australia using this grape and they are both in my homestate of Victoria - Bianchet in the Yarra Valley and Pizzini in the King Valley.

Bianchet's first Verduzzo was produced in 1986 and it's known as being a full-flavoured food wine. It's recently being offered as Verduzzo Gold - a late harvest dessert wine.

1-DSC_3667.jpg
Wine: 1992 Bianchet Verduzzo

The wine was vintaged in April 1992 and bottled in January 1993 having spent the time in french oak and comes in at a very generous 14%.

Those oak characterics are still alive in the bouquet. It has a smooth, oily mouth feel with a citrus tang at the back pallette. Paalo noted that it reminded him of a Palamino. It's quite a textural wine. The wine also drank well at a warmer temperature (it's recommended around 9°C).

It also proved to be an excellent match for chermoula coated chicken and kipfler potato salad - the wine complimenting both the herbed spiced paste and the lemon mustard vinaigrette.

1-DSC_3704.jpg

Colour wise - it was a rich deep gold, similar in appearance to a Sauterne or aged Semillon.

Verdict: We're both happy there's more of this wine in the cellar and like most Italian wines, it's forms a perfect partnership with food.

Tagged with and

2 comments

  1. Hi, saw your entry in VKN's my dhabha.Your entry looks great.I will be putting your site in blog.Happy posting.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Ramya
    Thank you so much for your comments and for including me in your blog.

    ReplyDelete

© Cook (almost) Anything at Least Once | All rights reserved.
BLOG TEMPLATE HANDCRAFTED BY pipdig