What a whirlwind couple of months!!! I have been here, there and everywhere recently, and ever so busy. The principle reason being my WEDDING! (Which now, being six months ago, shows how crazy this year has been!)
What an amazing day it was, even with a little calamity, it was just perfect. Stayed dry and sunny just long enough to make it to the church, and from the church to our lovely hall for the reception, which was excellent fun. We ate great food, drank really great wine, and bore witness to an absolutely incredible dance routine by my parents and new in-laws. Quite amazing.
So, a couple of tasting notes from around that period of frantic organisation that I'm only just getting round to now.
From high up in the Santa Cruz Mountains, Central Coast California, some of the highest elevations in the whole of the Golden State. So high in fact, that a couple of times a year, a little snow is known to fall on the peaks!
This wine started out quite tightly wound, displaying some vanilla, menthol and lemon. The palate didn't seem to have a great deal going on either. Pretty high acid and not a great deal more.
Fast forward 30 minutes and the glass had come alive!! It was exploding with aromas of vanilla, baking spices, smoke, candied lemon, bruised apples, pineapple chunks and crystallised ginger. A really inviting nose. The palate was packed with more of that tropical fruit, dried pineapple, apples, a little lemon and a kind creamy vanilla sponge cake quality. The acidity had subdued too, there was just a hint of sweetness, from really delicious ripe fruit, and a refreshing lift from the remaining acidity to help keep the structure. A really good wine, still together after all these years!
ATTENTION GEEK MOMENT......
The grapes that go into making sparkling wine generally speaking, need to hold higher levels of acidity than those that go into still wine, meaning they need to be less ripe, with lower levels of sugar. This means that once vinified into the initial still wine, they still possess enough acidity, and a low enough alcohol level to survive a second fermentation. This higher acidity is achieved either by harvesting early, or growing the grapes in a much cooler climate (and possibly still harvesting earlier). This is why regions such as Champagne and Southern England do so well in sparkling production.
California, although generally a very warm part of the world can still produce some of these cooler destinations, thanks to the cold winds and fog coming in from the Pacific, being funneled through the Golden Gate Bridge and San Fran Bay, they act like a giant air conditioning unit. The first wine region to be exposed to these cool breezes as they wash across the land is Carneros, a subregion of Napa Valley.....
Domaine Carneros is the Californian project of renowned Champagne producer Taittinger. They have found that with the temperatures being very slightly warmer than the average of Champagne, the ripening period is much more reliable, and the vines produce the sort of crop that the winemakers would expect in a 'Vintage Year' in Champagne.
This wine is a blend of Chardonnay (51%) and Pinot Noir (49%), and spent 3 years in the cellar before disgorgement, and then an addition of very little sugar in the dosage.
All this, plus some bottle age, means that the wine is pretty bracing in its crispness, with a 'well fired' yeasty bread aroma, apples and lemons too. The palate displays that lack of dosage. There is such a lemon acidity to this wine, mixed with the weighty qualities that a little oxidative age and toasty, nutty character, you get a really well balanced wine. Really delicious.
