When I host private wine tasting events, I walk all attendees through the steps of wine tasting: look, smell, taste, think. Undoubtedly the most challenging step is “smell”. The most common response is “it smells like wine”. I get it – there was a time that wine only smelled like wine to me. Palate development and refinement doesn’t only apply to the taste, but the whole experience.
If you haven’t yet refined your tasting skills to identify aromas in wines, I highly recommend that you try a Torrontés. Torrontés is known for being highly aromatic and this 2016 Zuccardi Torrontés Serie A was an excellent representation of this trait of the varietal.
Any time I taste a wine and I get to the “smell” step, I typically try to really prepare myself to focus. I take a slow deep smell with my nose far into the glass and push the breath back over my palate in my mouth. That didn’t happen for this wine. Well, because just the slightest sniff introduced me to a whole plethora of aromas. It was shocking and quite incredible! Trolli peach rings, white flowers, a little fresh cut grass. This wine had very remarkable aromas. And even better – a fantastic taste to accompany! In the flavors were predominately peach, lemon, orange blossom and honey suckle. Those all sound like “sweet” flavors, but this Torrontés was completely dry. The tasting of this wine was a great experience and Torrontés now accompanies many new white wines at the top of my favorites list. If you’re a fan of dry Riesling, Viognier, or Gewurztraminer, give Torrontés a try!
I gave this 2016 Zuccardi Torrontés Serie A a 5 out of 5 cork rating. This wine typically retails for $10-18.