Wine Review

If I ever move this site over to my own server, I plan to add an extensive section of wine reviews. I have hundreds of hand-written reviews from my days at Enoteca, and I would like to archive them on the web as much for my own entertainment as anything. In the mean time, I'll throw up a review here and there as it strikes my fancy.

Tonight I had a very appealing and interesting wine that moves me to take a second and write about it. I don't drink a lot of white wine although I enjoy it very much. I think that's largely because I most often drink wine when I cook, and when I cook, there is usually red meat involved. Tonight, my sister cooked chicken with a lemon-pepper breading, so I thought I'd crack open a bottle that has been sitting in my fridge for a couple weeks.

The 2001 Argiolas Vermentino di Sardegna Costamolino is a delightful Italian white. I often find Italian whites to be both too acidic and too thin for me. The Costamolino is neither. The nose is honeysuckle and buttery toast. My sister thought it smelled like Champagne, so I guess she got more of the toast. It is a much richer wine than you probably think of when you think of Italian whites, but by no means is it heavy. The flavor is very floral with lots of honeycomb and a bit of cantaloupe or honeydew. That's a lot of different honey- derivations, but I think it pretty accurately describes the wine. The finish is short, but the wine is very satisfying and delicious.

The bottle was a gift originally intended to be used with a different meal, so I'm not sure of the price. Google brings me mainly Italian websites with prices of around 8 Euros. So I would guess that we're probably talking about a $10 - $12 bottle on this side of the Atlantic. If I was to give this a Wine Spectator scaled score, I'd probably give it an 87. I opened this before dinner, drank it with dinner, and had a little bit left for after dinner. This is a fine wine to go with a light meal upto about a heavy butter sauce or light cream sauce. It also works great as an aperitif or just a nice drink after work. If you stumble across this wine, I strongly recommend it. If you're looking for it in Denver, I know that it came from City Wine over on Colorado. I'm sure Mondo Vino could get it too if they don't already have it.

Jonathan 11/04/2002 09:05:00 PM