I love a quiet SUNDAY morning with hot coffee and without the rush of reaching the office by a fixed hour, usually very early. I like to spend quality time with my better half planning the new refurbishment of the house and trying to figure out how to find a good and reliable working team for that. I think that is as easy and possible as finding a free parking place in Piata Romana at noon: it is really about one’s luck. This SUN we invited over our friends Crina and Catalin for a group cooking session. The menu was very simple and easy to make: grilled chicken stuffed with orange, asparagus and mash potatoes. I am sharing the menu with you not because is something fancy, but to give you an idea of why I chose the wines we had: a white Torrontes from Argentina and a red Romanian Cabernet Sauvignon.
Torrontes became the emblematic white wine of Argentina. I believe Argentina is the only country to produce it and therefore it is considered a wholly Argentine variety. One variety that is inexpensive and delivers great pleasure.
Lorca Fantasia Torrontes 2008
This bottle of wine was 8€. The bottle represents the entry level from Mauricio Lorca bodega. He is chief winemaker at Enrique Foster and formerly of Chilean-owned giant Finca La Celia, Catena, and Luigi Bosca. He creates his own wines using grapes from high-altitude vineyards in Vistaflores, Uco Valley.
This wine has a clear medium lemon color. The nose is clean, youthful, with medium intensity of peach, flowers and orange citrus fruit. It has a beautiful structure on the palate, a very pleasant acidity, lots of fruit and floral flavors, mangoes, rose petals, plenty of body for a wine with such delicate aromas and flavors. The wine is quite dry even if it leaves the impression of some sweetness on the finish. Good.
I read a very interesting article this morning published by Financial Times-FT.com wrote by the famous Jancis Robinson on Hungarian wines. It seems that “Hungarians are so proud of their viticultural heritage that they are prepared to pay high prices for their best and/or most famous wines, which tends to make them seem overpriced outside Hungary. The same phenomenon curbs exports of the new generation of much-improved wines from countries such as Greece, Turkey, Israel and Mexico – and even makes the top wines of Spain difficult to sell abroad.”. Full article here.
I believe the same applies to Romanian producers and their wines. It is the case for the red wine we had from Nachbil as our second choice. I tasted several wines from this producer last year: Shiraz 2003, a nice complex wine, Chardonnay 2003 very similar to a good Chablis from Burgundy. Shiraz 2004 and 2005 were big disappointments with very light aromas and pretty much no aftertaste.
Nachbil Cabernet Sauvignon 2006
The wine has a pale clear red color. I decanted this wine for about 1 h. The nose reveals aromas of red cherries, smoke and tobacco. Unfortunately they are overpowered by alcohol. In the mouth the wine has a light to medium body, medium acidity, showing discreet notes of blackcurrant, violets and black cherry. The wine finishes with light aromas of blackcurrant and some slight bitterness in a short aftertaste. I find this wine poor and overpriced,considering the 60 RON price. For the same price Hyperion 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon is a serious competitor.
Dear reader, I’ll finish my post leaving you with a question. If you can spare a few moments of your browsing time please write a comment, you don’t need to use professional words, and share your experience:
- Have you had Torrontes so far and how did you like it ?
Thanks for reading…
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Tomorrow, the 1st of May, I will attend a big celebration at Crama Stirbey as I received an invitation from their winemaker, Oliver Bauer. They are celebrating 6 years from the rebirth of Crama Stirbey .
