As a food and wine writer, I get to try numerous wines and spirits each month from different parts of the world. Their prices might range from $5 per bottle retail to $600 and more.
A number of years back, while attending a Burgundy wine auction, I even got to taste an 85-year old $4,700 magnum from a famous French chateau purchased by a friend!
The results of tastings are always interesting. I finally realized, for example, that the wine’s price doesn’t seem to have any relationship to the quality. I recently had a red wine that costs hundreds of dollars per bottle, and it was awful. In the same tasting, I had a $10 retail bottle of white wine that was scrumptious and refreshing! So, you can’t really tell how good a wine is going to be based solely on its price.
The latest batch of wines I tasted include red and white wines from Italy, Portugal, Spanish Catalonia, and Greece, as well as a Champagne and a couple of Proseccos.
I’ll start with the Italian wines:
The first was a Valpolicella Superiore imported by Pasqua USA. It was from the 2015 vintage and is called Mai Dire Mai from Vigneti e Cantine a Verona, Pasqua.
The wine is opulent. It has great concentration and structure with power and finesse. It’s loaded with layers of fruit, especially dried cherries, sundried figs and plums, and hints of cedar, cocoa, cloves, and leather. The tannins are firm and silky, and it’s very well-balanced with a long, lingering finish. It was excellent paired with an oven-roasted, garlicky piglet shoulder. In my estimation, it’s a very good wine.
Also from Italy – a Sicilian white. I received a bottle of Lavico 2023 from the vineyards of Duca di Salaparuta, which are located on the Etna slopes. The volcanic soil gave us a bright straw-yellow wine from Carricante grapes with good minerality.
The wine is elegant with an intense nose. Peach, melon, citrus, exotic fruits, and hints of white flowers dominate the palate. That bottle also had very good acidity, which made it very food-friendly. A well-priced, exceptional wine, it could be an excellent foil to fish and seafood dishes, especially charcoal-grilled octopus, squid, or cuttlefish.
The final Italian bottle was a Lambrusco from the well-known Riunite group of grape-growers that first brought international attention to this humble but refreshing wine. This is a lively, unpretentious red semi-sparkler that has been produced in Emilia-Romagna by the group since the early 1950s.
It’s low alcohol – usually under 11% ABV – but my sample was an even lower 8% ABV. It’s a rather inexpensive but tasty and fruity libation – sweet and easy on the palate and very aromatic. It’s a “frizzante” wine, not as bubbly as a Prosecco or Champagne.
I always pair it with a light dessert, such as strawberry shortcake with ladyfingers or a lemon meringue. I had my recent bottle with a dinner of tuna fish and bowtie pasta (farfalle) casserole in a creamy mushroom sauce. Even though a Lambrusco is usually considered a mediocre wine not to be drunk with “serious” cuisine, paired with the tuna dish, it was quite exceptional!
From Portugal’s Alentejo D.O., I sampled a 2020 bottle of white wine from Joao Portugal Ramos Vinhos called Marquês de Borba Colheita. During a press trip a number of years ago, I visited the winery and was very impressed by the high quality of the wines they produce.
This very tasty bottle retails near me for surprisingly under $10. A few of their top red wines that are of very limited production and are sold only in Europe are selling for over €85 per bottle.
The wine I tasted is made as a blend of native Portuguese grapes – Arinto, Antão Vaz, and Viognier, an international grape. It’s a bright and crispy white with fruity flavors dominated by apple, lemon, and a hint of peach.
The grapes are harvested early in the morning to preserve freshness and then cooled before pressing. Fermentation takes place in stainless steel to retain the freshness. The wine has well-balanced acidity with a long finish. It can be drunk as an aperitif or to accompany fish dishes and salads. I thought of this bottle as a perfect pairing for the charcoal-grilled branzino it accompanied.
Another white from Alentejo was a blend of two grapes – the indigenous Arinto and Alvarinho (Albariño), a grape that grows throughout the Iberian Peninsula. It’s named Herdade da Torre de Palma 2021.
It had good acidity with lots of citric aromas of bitter orange and grapefruit, along with some jasmine, which is surprisingly present on the nose. It was ready to drink immediately, and the acidity was enough to make it good with the fatty roasted pork shoulder it was paired with.
Also from Portugal’s Alentejo, I tasted a ruby-red from Esporão called Monte Velho Tinto 2022 Reserva. It showed red fruits, red berries, and black plums with hints of spice, complemented by delicate notes of oak aging. Though it’s quite inexpensive, the wine pairs well with hearty dishes such as grilled meats or roasted lamb. It would also be a good libation to accompany a barbecued rib steak.
Dido is a nice rosé from Catalonia, one of the largest and more diverse viticultural areas of Spain. Through the years, I have been lucky enough to visit the region many times and taste some of their best wines.
Dido is a blend of red and white must from Garnatxa (negra, blanca, and gris) that has volume and density, Macabeo and Cariñena provide acidity, and Ull de Llebre (Tempranillo) balances the alcohol. The actual composition is: Garnatxa negra 50%, Macabeo 20%, Ull de Llebre 15%, Cariñena 10%, Garnatxa blanca 2,5%, and Garnatxa gris 2,5%.
Dido is a delicate and subtle wine with an appealing pastel hue. On the nose, it has fresh aromas of strawberries and peaches accompanied by citrus. On the palate, it has a well-defined structure and freshness with a balanced acidity that makes it very pleasant to drink.
It pairs beautifully with grilled fish and seafood, sushi, and other briny fare. But it can also stand on its own as an aperitif. This rosé is perfect for those seeking a wine with freshness and character.
A friend brought a bottle of Boutari Legacy from Greece for tasting. Boutari is an iconic producer with vineyards and wineries in six Greek viticultural regions on both the mainland and the islands. They make great reds and whites, and their Assyrtiko from Santorini is the wine I mostly drink when I’m in Greece.
However, my friend brought me a bottle of red wine from the vineyard at Trilofos (three hills), Naoussa. That was the first vineyard that John Boutari cultivated in 1879, and the bottle is named in his honor – Legacy 1879.
The Legacy 1879 was from the 2017 vintage. It’s full-bodied with pleasant acidity, soft tannins, soft mouthfeel, and a long finish. It’s made from 100% Xinomavro grapes, a Greek indigenous varietal, and it’s a very complex wine with aromas of plums, red berries, dried figs, vanilla, roasted nuts, and hints of leather and cigar box in a long lingering finish.
If I still lived in Greece, I would have this wine with a spit-roasted young lamb. Here, I enjoyed it with an oven-roasted leg of lamb and garlicky lemon potatoes.
And now for the brickbats!
Piper Heidsieck Rare 2013.
I received a pair, white and red, “Rare millésime 2013” bottles of Champagne from a very famous house. I couldn’t wait to taste them!
The bottles have a bottom metal foil decoration and gold-colored type declaring “Rare” and “Millésime 2013” in a very attractive design. The white bottle is priced at about $200, and the red at about $400. These bottles are promoted as “Champagne for Connoisseurs.”
I first opened the white – a bright, golden-hued blend of 70% Chardonnay and 30% Pinot Noir. Unfortunately, I didn’t personally find it attractive, but that’s perhaps my taste. Try it, as you might like it.
The nose has very subtle notes of white fruit and tropical aromas, citrus blossoms, green tea, kiwi, kumquat, sweet spices, vanilla, and almonds to round off the wine’s bouquet. It’s medium to full-bodied with eight full years on the lees before disgorgement – and then additional aging in bottle before release. Perhaps a couple more years in cellar would have improved it?
I’m still holding on to the red bottle. I want to give it a little more cellar time to, hopefully, let it develop more.
One of the prosecco bottles was, unfortunately, bad. Normally, I find proseccos to be delightful, but this particular bottle was almost flat with a sourish and slightly bitter after-taste.
I won’t mention the brand. I have a feeling that this non-vintage bottle was lying around in a warehouse for years and had turned before someone mistakenly packed it to send to me. The other one, I haven’t tasted yet. More on these later!
Meanwhile, to your health!
Manos Angelakis is one of the founders, the former Managing Editor for 25 years, the current Managing Editor Emeritus, and Senior Food & Wine Writer of LuxuryWeb Magazine. He is an accomplished travel writer, photographer, and food and wine critic based in Hackensack, New Jersey. As a travel writer, he has written extensively about numerous cities and countries. Manos has also been certified as a Tuscan Wine Master and has traveled to wine-producing areas in order to evaluate firsthand the product of top-rated vineyards. In the past year, he has visited and written multiple articles about Morocco, Turkey, Quebec City, Switzerland, Antarctica, and most recently the South of France. Articles in other publications include Vision Times and Epoch Times.
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