Sunday, November 15, 2009

2008 Lugana "San Benedetto" Zenato Mamma Mia!

Hello again, I'm back with another wine review. This one will be an Italian white that's a blend of Trebbiano and Garganega. I'll be honest, I've never knowingly had Garganega and I didn't even know what this was a blend of before I tasted it. Maybe that'll help take some bias out of the review, as I wasn't specifically searching out some characteristics of the Trebbiano grape. So, near as I can tell, this wine is made by Zenato (it's a Leonardo Locascio selection) and it's from Lugana in the Lombardy region of Italy.

Onwards to the review!
Zenato "Lugana" San Benedetto 2008

I pulled this out of the fridge about 50 minutes before I poured a glass, and it was opened when I removed it. In the glass, it's got a nice straw color, reminiscent of a Sauvignon Blanc more than a Pinot Grigio (I say it looks like Trebbiano!) There were a fair amount of legs but they were rather thin, but this one clocks in at 13% alcohol.

On the nose, I got citrus (think grapefruit mixed with key lime pie), pineapple, a hint of apricot, some lively golden delicious apple..all the smells were bright, vibrant and made me happy. They were pretty well balanced and seemed to flow seamlessly into one another, something I do look for in the wines I drink. After sipping, what struck me was how round the wine felt, with a little bit of a lingering finish. Definitely more citrus/acid than I smelled. There's some fleshy carrythrough with the apricot but the apple notes I smelled seemed to turn into the tart granny smith variety. Definite mineral undertones (yea I read the guys in Oregon who said minerality wasn't really in wines) but it may have been more of a shale type flavor. Yum! I like this stuff! I personally didn't detect any oak, which was cool. Sweet stone fruits hit you right at mid-palate, and once again I felt everything was well integrated, the flavors dovetailed nicely into one another.

My "score" if you can call it that is a B+. This wine cost me 12$ over at San Diego Wine Company, and I'm perfectly happy with it. I'd buy it again to pair with the appropriate dishes, and don't feel like I wasted my money. When drinking it, I felt I got exactly what I paid for, a tasty 12$ dry white wine. There you go, it didn't wow me but it definitely didn't suck either.

There you have it, a tasty, light but fleshy Italian white wine. Next time I'll be doing a red, maybe something turkey themed, maybe not! I have a lot stuff to go through. I got an email asking whether I got any wines as samples and whether I'd disclose that. To date I've received no samples at all, but I do welcome any that any winery would like to send me. I will fully disclose they are in fact samples, as well as give the winery's suggested MSRP. They'll be critiqued just the same way I'd do a wine I paid money for. So if anyone out there's reading this and wants to send some samples my way, by all means do it, I'm open to anything! Thanks and I'll be in touch soon.

Beau Carufel

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