It’s a incredible issue to fashion a wine that transports your senses to its homeland. That particular sensation in your palate tells you a story of the place a wine is made and the entire challenges it confronted.
This week we’ll be tasting Greek Assyrtiko, a wine that actually tastes of the world by which it was raised.
What is the Tasting Downside? The issue is a method to reinforce your wine palate each week with 34 wines from 12 worldwide places — The Wine Tasting Downside.
Throughout the sun-drenched coasts of Greece, you desire a wine that’s going to pair effortlessly with seafood of each variety. And Assyrtiko matches that bill. Some would say that it’s born for that place, in precise truth.
Assyrtiko is a grape that originates from the famously beautiful island of Santorini. That’s correct: it’s an island wine. They’re saying that after you look very fastidiously at a bunch of Assyrtiko grapes, you might actually see specific particular person grapes inserting suntan lotion on each other’s backs.
Okay, that’s not true. However it certainly truly is a robust grape that makes for a robust wine.
For our features, we had little choice nonetheless to go together with a bottle straight from the provision: the sandy soil of Santorini itself. We stopped merely wanting taking the bottle to the seaside, nonetheless I promise we thought in regards to the waves a lot whereas we sipped.
2019 Ktima Tselepos Santorini Assyrtiko
Look: Medium straw.
Aromas: Very pungent! Lemon, lime, saline, oyster shell, honeysuckle. A extremely savory top quality.
On The Palate: It has an precise kick of acidity that smoothes all the best way right down to honey and lemon sherbet on its technique to the tip. Extremely regarded with alcohol!
Meals Pairing: I suggest, it’s nearly obvious: shellfish. Shrimp, oysters, scallops: all with pasta and buttery, lemony sauces.
What We Found About Greek Assyrtiko
Throughout the sunken, volcanic island of Santorini, water is a worthwhile commodity. Most of it, in precise truth, is launched in by boat. Even the tap water has a distinctly salty top quality! How on earth is one thing anticipated to develop there?
Successfully, if we’ve realized one thing from this Tasting Downside, it’s that grapes truly thrive when you punish them: whether or not or not that punishment comes from photo voltaic, sickness, or drought. And Assyrtiko is a terrific occasion of this masochistic crop. Nonetheless this grape exceeds all expectations.
Cool climates are inclined to hold out the higher acidity in a grape, nonetheless Assyrtiko is prized for its potential to retain heavy acid, even in such a scorching space. And Santorini’s lack of rainfall has a lot to do with that.
In a space that may get a mere 11 inches of rain in 12 months, these grapes develop up tiny and tart, hanging on to every little little bit of moisture that they will get.
And whereas it might be tempting to counsel that the saline top quality you get from an Assyrtiko comes from the salt water itself, it’s additional in all probability that this has to do with the acidity, which may present a puckering top quality identical to salt.
Whilst you fashion Assyrtiko, the sensible acid makes you contemplate sunshine, salt, and even the mineral top quality of oyster shells and seaside pebbles.
Primarily, it’s all in regards to the acid.
So, just like how your favorite wine that smells like raspberries accommodates no raspberries, Greek winemakers aren’t pouring seawater and sand into their fermentation vats.
Last Impressions
In relation to wine taking you a spot, Santorini’s Assyrtiko is maybe the simplest occasion of all of them. It’s easy to pair a wine like this with shellfish, feta cheese, and lemon-garlic dishes. Nonetheless what’s even less complicated?
Pairing it with sunshine and salt air. On account of pairing wine doesn’t should stop with the meals!
When you occur to’re in the hunt for a greater inspection of Assyrtiko and Greek wine usually, start proper right here.
What Assyrtiko did you attempt? Did it take you to the seaside? Inform us inside the suggestions beneath.