Verdicchio - worth a try this summer if you can find it!

Unfortunately for us, Verdicchio wines from Italy's Marche region, just to the east of Tuscany on the Adriatic coast, aren't exactly the most common wines around but luckily, there are a couple floating around the market here in BC as well as Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, and all the other Canadian provinces. All I have to say about wines made from the Verdichio grape is this: if you come across them in your neighbourhood liquor store, they are definitely worth a try on a warm summer day when eating seafood, or just about any traditional light summer fare.
Verdicchio Dei Castelli Di Jesi is an appelation in Italy for crisp, refreshing unoaked white wines with surprising body and richness.

The wines I tried today were from one producer, Marotti Campi and his verdicchio wines are known under the name of Luzano Verdicchio Dei Castelli de Jesi. He ferments his wine on the lees (dead yeast cells) and allows them to stay there in steel vats for quite a long time. This adds a nice complexity and toasty/bready flavour to the wine. The tasting I went to today had the purpose of showing the ageability of these spectacular italian whites. While I thoroughly enjoyed the new 2008 vintage which was crisp with good minerality and some citrus notes along with a savory edge, it lost alot of it's glamor after I tried the older wines. Although it's still worth getting the 2008's and the 2007's that are on the market as they are thoroughly enjoyable now. Also, another thing to note about this area is that production varies immensely between producers so while some may make wines that are aged on the lees for complexity and to offer the possibility of longevity, others may opt for a more refreshingly crisp and simple route. I can't guarantee what you're getting from the store near you but either way, it's a wine for the summer months ahead; especially since most of the wines from this region seem to be under the $20 mark.

Here's a little look at how these wines developped with age. This was my first vertical tasting of this style and I hope you'll find my notes as educational as I found the tasting itself!
While the 2007 was still acidic and refreshing, it showed it's time on the lees significantly more than the 2008. It was again very mineraly with crisp citrus and savory notes but it was rounder and softer on the palate with a bit more zing. I also felt that there was a bit more ripe orchard fruit and maybe some grapefruit...but that's getting into the useless technicalities from hanging out with a bunch of wine geeks like myself all day!

The 2004 really took me by surprise. I thought that this wine would start to fall flat by this point but was pleasantly surprised to find that it was starting to develop some beautiful secondary notes distinctive of age. Again, it was charastically minerally but it started to show some honey and dried apricot notes. It went REALLY well with this albacore tuna that was served. To be fair to the other wines though, they pretty much all went well with Tuna - it was the sauces that made the difference.

On the 2002 I saw a lot of the same stuff as the 2004 but more so with a bit more honey and a bit of orange rind as well as a few toasty notes from the lees which were showing up well again (better than the '04 anyway). The acidity in this wine was still holding up fantastically and the complexities given to it by age made it phenomenal for food pairings.

Now onto the 2000 - by far my favorite of the flight. it was all honey, dried fruits, herbal/savory notes with some floral scents that made their way throughout each vintage. On the palate, this wine retained it's acidity so well I had to keep reminding myself that this wine was 10 years old. It was rich, crisp with similar notes to the nose. Slightly less herbal than the others which might be one of the benefits of age. Absolutely fantastic overall and sadly probably more than $20 - but hey, if you buy a case of good '07, it'll be like this in a few years!! This one went fantastically with Ahi Tuna - unfortunately I forget what kind of marinade it was in.

We then tried this winemakers first vintage - the 1999. This was the only one with oak on it. When i first tried it I thought it was severely lacking in something... maybe depth, body, acidity. Anyway, I thought this wine was dead. There was vertually no fruit left and nothing up front. Everything was in the back of the mouth. This wine however, surprised me when it came time for the food. We had very simply done, marinated BC scallops and when paired together, this 1999 just sparkled. Suddenly it felt like an explosion of flavours and texture. I couldn't beleive the transformation in this wine and I'd certainly never experienced anything like it before. It was simply spectacular.

So the moral of this tasting is; Turns out unoaked white wines can be aged if they are the right white wines. A good area to check out for ageable white wines is Marche in Italy. At least a few Verdicchio from classico areas in Marche can be found in all markets across Canada. Look for one that has had some time on the lees. The older it gets, the better it goes with simple seafood like scallops, tuna, halibut (classic pairing of the region).
Worth a try for all those wine adventurers out there!

As a side note, I poured the 2007 of this vintage recently at a BC Liquor Store and it had overall some really nice reviews. One person even commented that it would go well with Avocado and I would probably have to agree with that due to the creaminess found both in the wine and the avocado (guacamole and white wine anyone!!). I believe the '07 vintage is still available at quite a few BC Liquor stores in the lower mainland so check it out!

Estampa Malbec/Petit Sirah 2008

At $17 my first impression was that I had spent a little too much on this bottle of wine. I found the acidity in this wine to be a little off balance with very little other characteristics to counter the acid and make this wine palatable. Over the next 30 minutes or so of exposure to air I noticed a marked change in this wine. The acid became more integrated and the previously harsh powdery tannins smoothed right out. On the nose, the black fruit still held strong with some nice savoury spices and herbaceousness coming through. On the palate, after the overpowering acidity faded away, I found that black fruit and spice made this wine fairly enjoyable. Others said they liked this wine because of it's full body and spiciness.
Overall, not a bad wine and definitely a good choice to bring along to a dinner party. I think this wine shows itself best when paired with food, especially meats. It would also probably show really well at a BBQ.

This wine is pretty interesting in that Malbec is so rarely seen in Chilean wines but the grape does well in the Colchagua Valley of Chile and this area is gaining reputation as a producer of top world class wines. I expect we'll be seeing a lot more wines like this in the future here in the northern hemisphere.

This wine is available for $17.00 at Marquis Wine Cellars on Davie St. in Vancouver.