Issue III: Concannon Crimson & Clover Edition

Concannon Crimson & Clover  [Blend]

I wanted to get this one out there early, as an example of a SPA-Only wine. I picked this one up on a whim and it’s the kind of wine that I liked so much, I wanted to try others from this particular manufacturer (which I will frequently do). The other wines will not be joining this one on the list, however.

What we have here is a wine that keeps a bit of the bite, not enough to make it edgy, but enough to cut into both the smoothness and the sort of roundness (in that it has some fruitiness but is not aggressively fruit-forward, meaning it has a nice heaviness and maturity to it, rather than tasting predominantly of lighter fruit) it has. It saves it from becoming overly sweet, though it is somewhat rich. This wine epitomizes what to me can be a lot of aspects that represent the best of what blends can have to offer. This one offers a fair degree of complexity, yet is also drinkable right from the bottle, though I’d say 15 – 20 minutes of sitting at a bare minimum before I like to dig into it or the bite becomes crisper than I generally like.

For $14 or less a bottle, this is one I generally won’t get unless it’s on SPA. While still very enjoyable, there are better values to be had for less. It’s nice to have this one around for a “break-up” wine, where it will be there to cut through some of the regulars that can perhaps become a bit of a grind, excellent though they may be and that’s where I like this one best.

Issue II: Navarro Correas Colección Privada Edition

Navarro Correas Colección Privada [Malbec]

In many ways, it’s fairly easy for a wine to get on my list. As long as the bottle cost me less than $20 and I find the taste enjoyable, there’s a good chance that it will make the list the next day, even if as SPA-Only. One of the characteristics for the higher level of Standard is that it be consistent, of a greater value and the taste be considerably better than others on the list. Enter this gem.

A quick look around the web will yield a number of glowing accolades for this wine and there’s little reason to wonder why. Hailing from the region of Argentina, which is making a stronger case for itself lately as a wine-producing region soon to catch up to the major hitters, it is nonetheless the only wine from that entire country (I’ve tested plenty) to actually make my list. Actually, if memory serves, this was one of the very first to make that list.

This is a very smooth-drinking wine, as the Malbec, both in color and heaviness, falls somewhere between the lightness of say a Merlot one end of the scale and the much denser Cabs at the other. There’s a slight fruitiness to it, reminiscent of berries (currants, blackberries, etc.) but not a great deal of bite, other than initially out of the bottle. This, like nearly all reds in this series, is not a pour-and-drink. It needs a good 15 minutes exposure for it to lose most of the harshness, but the sweet spot is more between 20 – 30 minutes.

For $12 or less a bottle (often you can find this for below $10), this makes it easy enough to pick up, even when not on SPA, but when I do find it on SPA, I generally get a few bottles. I’m still trying to determine exactly which of the standard wines I’ve gotten the most, but if this one isn’t at the top, it’s definitely in the running.

This is another easy pick for a Standard, as it’s priced right, readily available and the flavor is always consistently there. This is always consistently excellent, which makes it a fine “saver” for the wine weekend, even if we wind up with a dog the night before.

Issue I: Martini & Rossi Asti Edition

Martini & Rossi Asti [Sparkling]

Perhaps no other product best exemplifies the spirit and intent of this column than this venerable, yet much-misaligned sparkling wine from the north of Italy. You may recall (if you happen to be as well-aged as the author) some of the old commercials (if not, look up “Asti Spumante” on YouTube), which were simplistic and relatively silly, though in somewhat of a charming way, like most commercials of that time and utterly catchy. It was the phonetic devise of rhyming “Martini and Rossi” and “Asti (pronounced ‘Ahhst-y’) Spumante” (spumante translating roughly to the English equivalent “bubbly”) that really sorted of locked into my young and impressionable mind. Some time later, as my wife and I were doing some re-visitation of things from our younger years to see how they hold up in our older, I picked up a bottle some time back to see what hand time had dealt it.

Back when they were doing those gloriously goofy commercials, Asti Spumante was thought of poorly by the wine snob jet setter brigade, with one critic even citing it as “a noxiously sweet poor man's Champagne”. This harsh and somewhat unfair characterization, particularly in regards to the negative connotation of that charge, persisted all the way until the European Union shake-up in the early 1990s. Once this wine was branded DOCG (meaning basically that a food product be produced within the specified region using defined methods and that it satisfy a defined quality standard; this particular standard is the highest possible in Italy), Martini & Rossi (not to be confused with the rotgut Carlo Rossi, itself a division of Ernest & Julio Gallo Winery in CA) elected to drop the “Spumante” part of the wine name and go with the “Asti” only. Asti refers to a town/province in the Piedmont region where production of this wine (along with the town of Alba) is particularly focused.

History lesson aside, given that this is based on the Moscato (this varietal is typically used for dessert wines) grape, specifically typically the Moscato Bianco, you should know going in that this is going to be on the sweeter side. That part of the quoted criticism is true, but it’s hardly sweet enough to be cloying. If you tend not to like the drier sparkling wines (I don’t particularly), this will hit about the right balance of sweetness on your palate, which is just enough, combined with the lightness of the drink, to be utterly refreshing. In addition to the Moscato grape taste, I hit traces of apple and peach, with maybe just a touch of melon here and there. The Moscato grape is by far the dominant taste here, though.

This is a very smooth and drinkable sparkling wine and its alcohol content is low enough to keep the night going without getting blotto too quickly. Both of those aspects also make it somewhat satisfactory for slugging back, if your inclination goes that way. Certain wines will tack on a highly bitter note if you try to knock them back, but not this one. In a way, this could make it very dangerous, but it not only tends to be easy on you the next day, but at $12 or less a bottle (750ml), it’s also pretty easy on the pocketbook.

This is an easy pick for a Standard, as it’s an excellent benchmark and fallback for a sparkling wine. It’s priced right, readily available, the drinkability and flavor is always consistently there and it saves the trouble of hunting around to find a “good” sparkling wine.