New Year’s Eve is upon us and so that means it’s time to sparkle again. After all, what would the New Year’s celebration be without some bubbles?
As we say goodbye to the first decade of the 21st millennium, D’Amore Wine Selections has 4 fantastic sparkling wines for you and your loved ones’ New Year’s Eve fête.
All of the below wines are available for sale retail at Vino Vino in Austin.
German Gilabert Non Vintage Cava “Brut Nature” (Catalunya, Spain)
Imported by pioneering Spanish wine purveyor José Pastor, this Cava has become one of San Francisco/Bay Area’s hottest new bottles on the scene. Wine and Spirits Magazine senior editor Wolfgang Weber called it “delicious” when he tasted it for the first time at his local wine shop in the Golden Gate city: “the tag ‘brut nature,’” he explains, “in bubblespeak means no dosage — that popular, Champagne-hipster-approved style where zero grams of sugar have been added to the wine… The German Gilabert is dry as you might expect, but also quite refreshing in the same tingly way that Dr. Bronner’s soap is. Like, it’s searing at first and then suddenly you feel cool and relaxed.”
Here’s what über-hipster The Spanish Table in Berkeley had to say about this dry, champagne-method wine: “This blend of traditional Cava grapes (Xarel-lo, Macabeo, Parellada) is as crisp and clean as freshly ironed linen. Organically grown fruit from the village of Santa Fe del Penedès is aged on its lees for 16 months with zero dosage, producing a dry, toasty assertively bubbly wine for drinking as a cocktail or with food.”
Sommariva Non Vintage Prosecco di Conegliano (Veneto, Italy)
We were blown away when we tasted Sommariva’s Prosecco di Conegliano earlier this year at the Kermit Lynch portfolio tasting in San Francisco. The venerable Kermit Lynch is renowned for his palate and his ability to source wines from “natural,” artisanal producers and this Prosecco by Sommariva is one of his most recent discoveries.
Sparkling Prosecco (Prosecco is both the grape name and the appellation name) is made using the Charmat method: the wine is fermented in stainless-steel vats and then a second fermentation is carried out in pressurized autoclaves, thus giving the wine its gentle fizziness.
Prosecco is the wine of Venice par excellence: rest assured, residents of the City on the Lagoon will be celebrating with their beloved Prosecco this year on Thursday evening.
Tintero Non Vintage Grangia (Piedmont, Italy)
The Tintero Grangia is made from Piedmont’s Favorita grape, a white grape with bright acidity and minerality, known as Vermentino when grown on the Ligurian coast of Italy or the island of Sardinia. Small amounts of Moscato are also added to give the wine a gorgeous and irresistible fruity note.
The name Grangia is a Piedmontese dialectal form of the Italian granaio or granary: the grapes for this gently sparkling wine grow in the shadow of a traditional A-frame Piedmontese granary.
The thing we love about this wine is it’s low alcohol content (about 12%) and its bright, bright acidity, which make it one of the most food-friendly wines in our portfolio. It’s just so refreshing, with notes of apricot and peach, that you just can’t put it down. But with such low alcohol, you can consume it throughout your New Year’s eve meal without be overwhelmed. Highly recommended.
Tintero 2008 Moscato d’Asti Sorì Gramella (Piedmont, Italy)
Moscato d’Asti is Italy’s sweet sparkler, made from 100% Moscato grapes grown in the Asti township of Piedmont (not far from where Italy’s most famous and most collected wines, Barolo and Barbaresco, are produced).
Alcohol content in this wine is between 7-8% and it has a refined but not overly cloying sweetness to it, making it a great aperitif wine, a great dessert wine, and a fantastic wine to open when the ball drops over Times Square at midnight on Thursday!
Wines from this appellation are renowned for their ability to pair with fresh fruit and here at D’Amore Wine Selections, we call this wine our favorite “brunch” wine for that very reason. It’s our number-one pick for our New Year’s Day brunch, January 1, 2010!
Wishing you a happy and healthy 2010 from everyone at the D’Amore Wine Selections team!
