Bottlenotes

Gretchen Neuman
VinoVerve Editor

I love rose wines. I think that isn’t a surprise if you have been reading my posts at all… So I was pleased when I attended the Bottlenotes tasting, Around the World in 80 Sips. There were lots of opportunities to taste roses.

Interestingly there was a table just full of the little beauties. And they were from Italy.

The first was the 2008 Tesori Lagrein from the Alto Adige region. I thought it was lovely wine crisp with the taste of cherries and almond. The color was less pink and more pale ruby. Unfortunately the table was so crowded that I didn’t get a picture. I looked up the varietal which I was unfamiliar with and found that it is a traditional grape for the Alto Adige and the southern part of the Tyrol (think Geppetto from Pinocchio).

The next was the 2008 Borgo di Colloredo Montepulciano. This wine is named for Gironia which is the location of a battle between the Romans and Sannites who were the native people of the region where it was produced, Biferno Molise. This wine is a blend of Montepulciano and Aglianico (which was originally introduced from Greece). The wine was crisp with the taste of strawberries on the nose and tongue.

Finally, we tasted the nonvintage Azienda Agricola La Tordera Rosato Spumante “Cuvee di Gabry”. The color was a pale salmon and tasted of raspberries and pink grapefruit with a sweet finish. The wine is made of 70% Merlot and 30% Incrocio Manzoni which is a blend of black moscato and Raboso Piave.

After all that pink wine you would think that I would be ready to try something different… but it is summer and I do like the color pink! So you never know.

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Gretchen Neuman
VinoVerve Editor

Yes, that means something. Of course, 20% of the world’s population can already ready read it. It says, “Hello Chinese Wine!” How it is pronounced? Sadly, I do not know. I know that most of the time westerners think of wine China is pretty low on their list. I am sure that most people think of tea when asked to come up with a Chinese beverage.

Wine has been produced in China for thousands of years. Jars containing traces of wine made from rice, honey and fruit have been found that date to 7,000 BC. Grape wine came much later in the case of the wine that I tried Friday night at the Bottlenotes Around the World in 80 Sips event about 9,000 years later.

Dragon’s Hollow’s vineyard was originally planted in the 1990s at the foot of the Helan Mountains in Ningxia. They produce a Cabernet Sauvignon (I tasted the 2005) which was dark and smoky, tasting of tobacco with a hint of cherry. It was truly unique. It made me consider the idea of terroir. A friend of mine recently went to China and came hold and told me about the cigarettes and their distinct aroma and now I could imagine tobacco growing in fields across China…

Dragon’s Hollow also produces an Chardonnay (I tasted the 2006). This wine was more like the Chardonnays that are available all over the world. Produced and aged in stainless steel, I was disappointed not to find something uniquely Chinese about this wine but it was crisp and clean and very nice. Perfect for drinking during the heat of a warm sunny afternoon.

There is a medallion attached to each bottle of Dragon’s Hollow wine. In the shape of a Chinese coin, the medallion contains the only Chinese characters found in the packaging. A lovely addition, but a shame to hide so much of this wine’s heritage. Perhaps they will add more when the world begins to accept Chinese wine more readily.

Both of these wines are available from Bottlenotes.com and sell for $13.00.

How do these wines relate to VinoVerve? Well, we approach local wine the way Tip O’Neill (MA-D, Congressman and Speaker of the House(January 4, 1977 – January 3, 1987)) approached politics. Everything is local to someone.

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