Wine mixology Number 1: Wine and Bubbly, or just some other bubbles

Monday, February 15, 2010

I know, I know, isn't bubbly already a wine you ask.  And the answer is yes, but there are some things that you can do by adding a non-bubbly (still) wine with a bubbly wine and get some great results.  It's kind of like making a punch with sherbert, fruit juice and soda.  However, only so much sparkling wine is actually made, and of that, it is quite limited in both style – and in this I am talking about sugar level – and also components.  I mean, there are some nontraditional bubblies out there that had flavors of peach, strawberry and raspberry (Renault Winery in New Jersey makes a blueberry champagne), and there are sparkling Pinot Noir and sparkling Shiraz wines as well, but sometimes you want something a little different.  

And albeit it might be a great idea to also produce a great wine in a sparkling version, sometimes there is not enough money in the budget, or that would be garnered in sales to justify it.

So, what can you and I do?

Well, we could easily take out favorite wine, and perhaps merge it with an inexpensive bubbly that either doesn't take from its flavor, or in turn adds something special to it.  I just realized this while enjoying some Quady Winery Elysium, and realizing that this would go well as part of a wine martini, but then today I started thinking about it as a bubbly.  You see, its alcohol content is already fifteen percent, and you're not going to get something so decadently good from a sparkling wine; the most similar is Banfi's Rose Regale and that only comes to seven percent alcohol, and unfortunately, mixing two different wines together with different alcohol percentages does not add them, but at best, averages them out.  

Imagine a wine that reminds you of sweet dark berries, but with a hit of potency that literally laughs a lot of other wines straight out the door.  Now, think about adding some bubbles to that.

Now, with the bubblies, you don't have to go with some fabulous champagne, or other sparkling wine.  You could probably get over with just about any sparkling that is extra-dry (sec), be it Cava, Prosecco, Sekt, Asti, or traditional sparkling [using the traditional method of secondary fermentation in the bottle].  But with the right bottle or two, you could easily stretch that one bottle of heaven into three bottles of gorgeous.  Imagine a great wine, like an ice wine, Sauternes, or perhaps even an Amarone (that would be wonderful experiment) effusing it's benevolent palate sating essence to a glass of bubbly.  Don't even tell me you're still thinking of mimosas and bellinis.

This is even giving me some ideas, and while I am just thinking of the dessert wines by Quady Winery, Chaddsford makes a great Sunset Blush, and I also have had a wonderful Est Est Est Vescovo Amabile by Cantina Di Montefiascone.  Other candidates would be Vin Santo, and high alcohol fruit wines (Alba Winery and Tomasello Winery make some wonderful ones, and New Hope Winery's Blackberry is totally voluptuous in your mouth).  There is one Italian producer Moscato di Trani making a wine – really an ambrosia-- called Estasi which is out of this world.  Just about any other great muscat would also do.

That said, I would love to hear what you try for your combinations, and how it came out.  I am actually about to add a comments sections to the web sites, as well as some questions and answers as well.

Well, this has been Wine Mixology #1, next up will be wine and Japanese spirits!