Al-Cantara A Nutturna Nerello Mascalese

We'll get back to the name of this wine shortly.  Let's just say this may be the best white wine in the store.  Its bright golden color reflects its nose of pineapple and apricot with hints of minerality leading into the fresh and ample, staggeringly complex palate.  A big part of the mix is the spiciness which continues into the long memorable finish.  Suggested pairings include aged cheeses, white meats and seafood.  Hell, enjoy this wine with anything!  Or by itself!  

A Nutturna is a single vineyard, single varietal Mt Etna, Sicilian white wine made from the Nerello Mascalese grape.  The vineyard is located 650-1200 meters up Etna and features 18 year old vines.  Sicily has one of the longest histories of wine production and Nerello Mascalese is one of its indigenous grapes that has proven its worth.  This example is made with wild yeasts with six months duration on the lees.  It is aged in steel.

Italian Wine Law designates four quality levels.  Our subject today is in the third tier down, an IGT (indication of geographical typicality) which basically means the wine's quality must reflect its origins.  To get way down into the weeds - Its color, aromas, sweetness, alcoholic content, flavors and ever so much more are somehow regulated to reflect that vineyard area of Etna.  If that isn't enough, the text on label then must reflect some of these same qualities.  This, for a wine a step above VdT (vino da tavola)!  What are they thinking!

But we still maintain this may be the best white wine in the store.  Now back to the name - Al-Cantara is Arabic for the bridge.  A Nutturna means at night.  Then standing by itself on the label are the words drinkable poetry and that goes to what they are trying to convey here.  Their metaphorical bridge is one that ties vineyard terroir with art and poetry.  Yeah, it's a little bit heady...but I like it.

At the 2023 Gran Italy wine competition, Al-Cantara was named the Winery of the Year for having eight five star wines, the highest rating possible. 

Pinot Gris/Pinot Grigio

For such a simple white wine, things sure can get complicated when you look at the genetics involved.  We've posted many times about the unstable genome of the pinot grape that seemingly mutates at will.  Pinot Gris/Grigio are the French and Italian names meaning grey pinot, one of six distinct pinot varieties, but like we said, it gets complicated.  On a single pinot grapevine, bunches may vary in color due to ongoing mutations.  Ramato Pinot Grigio, the quintessential orange wine of history, is a classic example of this.  It is a naturally copper colored grape that occurs randomly.

To tell you how screwed up the pinot family is, there is very little difference between most members of the family.  Pinot Noir and Pinot Grigio are very much the same genetically.  Any significant differences existing now stem from centuries ago when a mutation took place in a vineyard somewhere resulting in the change.  That happened over and over again until there are now six distinct pinot varieties.

Today in popular wine culture Pinot Gris is the term for a drier more robust wine style while Pinot Grigio is used for a lighter fruitier simpler version.  But even that isn't clear.  There is overlap in terminology.  Fruitiness used to be a grigio term, as in Italian-style fruitiness.  Now new world gris has obvious new world fruitiness.  Oiliness used to be synonymous with the Alsatian Pinot Gris style but darned if I don't get that in some Italians.  It gets downright complicated.

So we started this post because we got in Kind Stranger Pinot Gris from Washington State and it is a delightful example of new world winemaking.  The back label says "sun-drenched pears and citrus fruit" and that really nails it.  It's a special wine that captures the best of both worlds.  It has the fruitiness of a Grigio summer quaff but also has the body and oiliness of an Alsatian Gris.

Wine Labels

We recently blogged about chain store wine labels and the tranquilizing effect the designs and colors have on the customer facing the display.  We concluded that the wine aisle had much in common with other store aisles where colors are used to soothe customers and perhaps to prime them for additional purchases.  

We also got a little critical of the stupid names or other text on labels that seemed to have nothing to do with what's actually in the bottle and that's what prompts this post now.

What the consumer should know is that the grocery store wine set is the result of incredible research done by the largest wine companies in the world.  Those wines are often amended and manipulated to appeal to everyone and offend no one.  Hence, they lack distinction.  So when I see Tribute Cabernet Sauvignon I know two things immediately: there is no Tribute winery and what's in the bottle is formulaic using bulk wine.  It is not the product of an individual vineyard and more likely the product of a laboratory.

The mass marketers do a good job, by the way.  Joe Six-pack probably gets a better bottle of wine at the end of the day than he would have gotten fifty years ago when we got into this business.  Like we said though, there is little in the way of distinction in this end of the business. 

Anyway, back to the offensive wine names and here's a surprise - You don't have to go to a chain store to see stupid labels.  We have them right here.  Leviathon, True Grit, Silver Spur, Blood Root and the inestimable Glup Glup are all currently in stock and they are all good wines.  With names like those, they've got to be good!  Oh, and we have the seductive colors and designs the chain store have too!  

So, who are we to be critical.

Barbaresco

Barbaresco, Barolo, Brunello, Barbera.  What's with all the B wines in Italy?  It gets confusing.  For me it seems like one out of these four always gets lost in the shuffle.  I figure, if I can remember three out four that ain't bad, is it?  Unfortunately the one that tends to get overlooked in my mind's eye is Barbaresco.  Barolo is always memorable.  It's the greatest wine in all of Italy.  Barbera is a memorable best buy in everyday wine.  Brunello is the great wine of Tuscany.  So where does that leave Barbaresco?

Barbaresco does, in fact, have an identity problem that may stem from its pedigree.  Both Barolo and Barbaresco are from Piedmont in the northwest corner of Italy, where the best Italian wines come from.  Barolos are huge red wines often requiring ten to twenty years to develop.  If tasted too young, their tannins will absolutely take the enamel off your teeth.  Barbarescos are sourced from ten miles to the northeast of Barolo in a region a third of the size of Barolo.  So you get the picture - The great wine next door in the larger domaine dwarfs what you do in your smaller venue.

One of the great grapes of the world is Nebbiolo and that single varietal is all that is allowed in both wines but the difference in growing conditions couldn't be more pronounced.  Both appellations are located in the foothills of the Alps but because of the lay of the land, Barbaresco gets a more maritime climate.  It's warmer and drier so the grapes ripen earlier meaning fewer tannins yet the wine remains age worthy.  It is an aromatic, rich and spicy red with flavors of cherry, truffles and anise; yet softer, rounder and more elegant than Barolo.

If that description of Barbaresco sounds pretty good that's because you are in step with what the modern wine loving public loves - rich red wines with soft tannins.  So here's the irony - All this time that Barbaresco has gotten short shrift next to Barolo, it turns out it has the winning formula.  Using modern winemaking technology, Barolos are now being made into that more approachable style.

Las Cartas

In 2004 wine importer Vino Del Sol collaborated with the great Chilean winery, Ventisquero, to form Las Cartas, a maker of two wines, a Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc.  We suspect the importer's contribution was monetary since the wine is made at the Ventisquero's Maipo winery and we wouldn't want that arrangement any other way.  Ventisquero is one of the best winemaking operations in that part of the world.  

Vino Del Sol is also a marketer of note.  All of the text in this post is drawn from their website which is refreshingly informative and not full of the self-apparent misdirection at the mass marketer sites.  All nineteen wineries represented by Vino Del Sol are family-owned, featuring sustainably grown estate fruit that make wines that over-deliver value in a terroir-driven format.  They want everyone to know that, as opposed to the mass marketers who usually concoct an enticing backstory to seduce the reader into purchasing the product.  

Las Cartas' Cabernet is sourced from twenty year old vines at Ventisquero's Trinidad Vineyard in the Maipo Valley.  After a low temperature maceration and fermentation in stainless steel, the wine is aged in French oak for six months and then in the bottle for three months before release.  It is a readily approachable, berry fruit-driven quaff that sells very well off the shelf.

Now here's what's interesting - Usually when a red and white are described the red gets more promotion and the white gets short shrift.  At the Vino Del Sole website the Sauvignon Blanc text is more expansive and detailed than the Cabernet, like they are prouder of that one.  The wine is 100% Casablanca Sauvignon Blanc cold macerated for 12-14 hours for skin contact before a slow cold fermentation.  Four months of a slow battonage (stirring in the barrel) follows that.  No oak is used at any point.  The result is a complex blend of citrus and tropical fruits with minerality at the finish.

Like most Chileans, these wines are moderately priced.

Maremma

Maremma is an Italian wine appellation on the Mediterranean coast of southwestern Tuscany.  It is a hundred miles north of Rome saddled between the provinces of Livorno and Grosseto.  The meaning of the name Maremma is disputed.  It either means maritime or it's the Italian version of the Spanish word marismas meaning marshland, which the area was until Mussolini drained it in the 1930s.  Before making it big in the wine business the region was known for its ranches, cowboys and a wild west anything goes mentality.

We discovered Maremma twenty years or so ago when we discovered salinity in wine.  There really is no explanation for salinity in wine except that coastal vineyards have salinity in the air and Maremma has it in spades.  Not surprisingly Maremma has a Mediterranean climate of hot summers and warm winters.  The soils are a mixture of loam and clay and limestone and sand.    

Maremma is a fifteen percent carve out from the entire Tuscan wine appellation.  It includes the Bolgheri wine appellation we posted about a couple months ago.  Here's where things get interesting: This region with its cowboys and ranches felt free enough in the 1940s to break the existing wine laws by bringing in the Bordeaux grape varieties of France, a slap in the face of the domestic wine industry.  The Maremma growers were intent upon competing with Bordeaux and they prevailed with their own Italian version of Bordeaux.  The rest is history.

What were to become known internationally as Super Tuscans, were enjoyed locally for about twenty years before a ground swell of demand expanded their distribution.  In the 1960's they went international, finally hitting our shores around 1980.  It took ten years for the Italian regulators to amend the winemaking laws to allow for this new category and then ten more years before Maremma received its legal appellation DOC (Denominazione di Origine Controllata).

Maremma is home to Ornellia, Masseto, Sassicaia and many others that command prices comparable to most classified Bordeaux.  They are among the finest wines of Italy.  But if you need something to go with your pizza or pasta this weekend modestly priced Super Tuscans can be had here for under twenty dollars.

Nuts

We have the best mixed nuts in town and I'm not talking about the denizens of this store or even yours truly.  The mix I'm talking about is new here and it is sublime.  We've had chocolate covered nuts, Marcona Almonds, and little cutesy packs of nuts for gift baskets for years but nothing like this.  This mix puts Planters to shame.  

So what's the key selling point for our nuts?  They contain the amino acid, tryptophan, that produces seratonin, the neurotransmitter that modulates moods.  They make you feel good.  Moreover, nuts are anti-carcinogenic by modulating the gut microbiome and reducing pathogenic bacteria.  They are heart healthy.  They lower blood pressure and since cardiovascular health includes respiration, breathing issues are addressed.  Remember the mood altering seratotin?  In a UCLA study dieters who ate nuts were more satisfied with their diets and still lost weight!  

If you are of a certain age you remember buying a can of mixed nuts only to find that you got mostly peanuts.  We have nothing against peanuts.  We like peanuts.  But it was ridiculous.  Now, thanks to the FDA, if a mix has more than 50% of one variety (peanuts) it has to say so on the can.   Our mix has zero peanuts.

So what kind of wine goes with nuts?  In our research we found recommendations of roses, champagnes and light dry unoaked whites.  But those recommendations came from the nut companies.  What do they know.  Drink anything you would like.