A light golden-hued, ever so slightly green liquid is in my glass. If a color could be lively, this one would be — the wine looks like it’s about to rush forward with energy and flavor. Green apples and honeysuckle on the nose, but the real attraction of this wine is the way it tastes and feels in your mouth. It’s got everything a girl could ask for: a certain richness and even a tiny bit of creaminess balanced out by cleansing, fresh acidity. Both flesh and backbone in perfect proportion. Apple, pear, and some interesting, pleasing burnt-earthiness on the midpalate, and then orange peel and citrusy stuff on a long, clean, finish. Definitely a food wine. White fish, prawns, crayfish, and scallops would all go great with this, made (by the way) from a grape native to a region shared by two major winemaking countries, bordering the bounty of an ancient sea.
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We can tell from the color (gold, touch of green) that this is a white wine, plus the fact that it longs to be paired with a good seafood dish should point us in the direction of a white wine that’s built for food. The presence of earthy notes and its origins by an “ancient sea” are a hint, too, that we’re dealing with an Old World Wine. Although it’s got the fruit flavor profile (apple, pear) of a chardonnay, we’ll rule that out since chardonnay (unless it comes from Chablis) isn’t known for its good acidity. The world’s next favorite white grapes, sauvignon blanc and pinot grigio, do yeild zingier wines, but not usually with this much weight and character. Let’s guess a grape that’s native to the Mediterranean area of France or Italy, because that would fit with this wine’s origins, plus its food-friendliness and liveliness. And let’s guess that it’s a recent vintage — how about 2005, the European vintage most represented on U.S. shelves now? — since this wine sounds sassy and young.
Fans of Provençal and Italian wines will have zeroed in on vermentino, a grape native to both regions (and called “rolle” in French). It’s sometimes known as the chardonnay of Italy since it shares a flavor profile with chard and yeilds wine with a pleasing richness. Vermentino is also known for its orange peel notes. Creative detectives might then have picked a birthplace for this wine that famously mixes both French and Italian cultural influences, and that lies smack in the middle of the ancient sea of the Mediterranean: Corsica. They’d be right. It’s a Corse Calvi Blanc 2005, made by Domaine Maestracci; this cuvée, which is 100 percent vermentino, is called “E Prove,” and costs $15.
