Punta Crena "Riene", Mataossu, 2009 (Liguria, Italy)
This is a truly special bottle from an equally special winery. The winemaker-- visiting on his maiden voyage to NYC from a sleepy town in Liguria-- stopped by in the middle of a crazy work day, and I tried a sip and had one of those zen moments. I fell in love-- all over again-- with wine.
The grapes are grown on a tiny peninsula that juts out into the Mediterranean Sea, and they aren't just any grapes. The varietal is mataossu-- a thousand year old indigenous varietal that translates in the local dialect to "crazy grape" because of its high vigor.
Its flavor profile is so unique-- I've never had anything quite like it. It smells and tastes so savory like fresh cut root vegetables-- potatoes, jicama, radishes, crunchy lettuce, all spritzed with some lemon juice.
The wine is a dream pairing for the notoriously hard-to-pair foods like asparagus/eggs/eggplant. I paired it the other night with an heirloom tomato salad tossed with shaved radish peels and it was incredible. The next night I paired it with some asparagus puree under crudo sea trout topped with caviar-- the salinity in the wine was amazing with the caviar.
This is a truly special bottle from an equally special winery. The winemaker-- visiting on his maiden voyage to NYC from a sleepy town in Liguria-- stopped by in the middle of a crazy work day, and I tried a sip and had one of those zen moments. I fell in love-- all over again-- with wine.
The grapes are grown on a tiny peninsula that juts out into the Mediterranean Sea, and they aren't just any grapes. The varietal is mataossu-- a thousand year old indigenous varietal that translates in the local dialect to "crazy grape" because of its high vigor.
Its flavor profile is so unique-- I've never had anything quite like it. It smells and tastes so savory like fresh cut root vegetables-- potatoes, jicama, radishes, crunchy lettuce, all spritzed with some lemon juice.
The wine is a dream pairing for the notoriously hard-to-pair foods like asparagus/eggs/eggplant. I paired it the other night with an heirloom tomato salad tossed with shaved radish peels and it was incredible. The next night I paired it with some asparagus puree under crudo sea trout topped with caviar-- the salinity in the wine was amazing with the caviar.
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