What Would New Year's Eve Be Without Sparkling Wine
...well, a lot less sparkling for sure
There are so many sparkling wines other than Champagne to choose from, it is always hard to decide on one or a couple for New Year’s Eve.
The bottle of sparkling that I would like to have close at hand tonight to ring in the new year would be the Pallagrello Bianco sparkling made with the Champenoise method from Giovanni Piccirillo at Masseria Piccirillo in Alta Campania.
Giovanni has studied enology in Naples and in France and then gained experience by working at different wineries mainly in France, but also in Australia I believe. He returned to start managing the family vineyards and is making wine with native grapes to the Caserta area right in the garage so to say.
We tasted a 2017 that, if I remember correctly, had just been degorged before we tasted it in September after 5 years on the lees. It had lots of freshness, notes of roasted bread crumbs, yeast, apple, gunpowder, that is a smoky undertone. This would make it a perfect wine for a day like today.
Read more about Pallagrello Bianco here.
However, as I do not have many great sparkling wines at home right now I will either continue with the Cannonau 2021 from Antonella Corda or open a Prosecco DOCG from Santa Margherita later on. Well, yes, I know that it is not the most exciting sparkling wine for an evening such as this…
I will tell you more about Antonella Corda’s wines soon.
I Wish You All A Happy New Year