Montresor Castrum Suavense Soave

There’s a lot of Italian words in today’s blog.  I like Italian whites.  They don’t get the press a good chianti will get, and it seems Spain and Portugal have more high profile whites.  But Italy has some fantastic whites, too. 

European wines are very tied to their location.  Soave is a village near Verona.  That’s how the wine is named.

The grapes are mostly Garganega. 

This wine has a nice nose filled with pears, melon, a touch of nutty overtones, and absolutely no minerals or acids.  It’s refreshing and aromatic – like previous European wines I’ve blogged about, you can smell the age.

“Smelling age” sound like a strange concept.  If you’re new to tasting, you’ll get used to it.  European wines just smell.  Not a bad smell, not an over powering, my kid hasn’t washed his gym sock in six months kind of smell.  But the smell of a place.

When I was in college, I lived in an apartment that was at the back of a property.  Outside my bedroom window was a fence and beyond the fence was a wooded area.  It had become overgrown with honeysuckle.  So now, the smell of honeysuckle reminds me of Georgia in the summer.  That’s when something smells like a place.

The flavors off the wine are equally nice.  A tiny bit of sweetness, but medium bodied.  It’s not going to weigh you down like a Chardonnay.  It almost like a peachy Sauvignon Blanc.  There’s absolutely no bitter aftertaste.

I love it.   It was $9.99 at one of the large Wine Shop chains, certainly a wine you’ll have to search for, but it’s worth the effort.

Oh, it goes great with Havarti cheese.  The light buttery flavor of the Havarti offsets the slight sweetness of the wine.  I highly recommend the pairing.