Last Saturday afternoon I attended a tasting held at the Italian Wine Merchants wine shop located at 108 East 16th Street near Union Square Park. It was a consumer event and originally was to be a walk-around event. Apparently they didn’t get the numbers they were hoping for and it was set up as a sit down tasting. They poured an interesting line up of eight Italian and French whites. As usual for this venue good cheeses and proscuitto were served.
We began with the Domaine Barat 2010 Chablis 1er Cru “Cote de Lechet”. It was gold in color with a big nose of honey and wild flowers with some nice mouth filling honeyed fruit. A nice beginning.
Hofsatter 2011 Pinot Bianco from Trentino-Alto Adige was yellow gold in color with a nice nose of lavender and herbs with good balance.
Rijckaert 2009 Monthelie Blanc “La Combe Danay”. It was dark gold with a nose of slate, wet rocks with a salty tang on the full finish with moderate acids and was very drinkable.
Antinori Castello della Sala 2009 “Cervaro della Sala”. Primarily Chardonnay, it was very deep gold in color with a nose of ripe mango and melons, full-bodied with some oak notes on the finish. Balanced, this wine was the most Cali-like of the bunch.
Edi Kante 2008 “Vitovska”,Fruili. Bottled in one liter bottles with a skinnier than normal cork. Something different, Vitovska is the grape varietal and it was dark gold verging on brown with a nose of dried herbs and candy (I wrote tic-tacs) and was tight with a salty, citrusy finish.
Gravner 2003 Ribolla Gialla Anfora, Fruili. Something very different. The wine maker is one of those mad scientists wine guys that make wine in a biodynamic manner, in this case using wild yeasts and fermenting the wine in large amphorae that reside underground. The wine was decanted and was bright brown in color with a nose of smoky toffee, dusty with notes of hard candy and was tight with mouth puckering tartness and some wet cardboard on the finish. Unusual.
Domaine Michael Lafarge 2010 Bourgogne Aligote Raisins Dores. Gold with brown notes on the color, closed nose of ripe peaches and was lean and tart.
Conarea 2011 Roero Arneis, Piemonte. Gold in color with green tints with a nose of sweet candy and bread dough with a crisp finish.
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