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.
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