Sparkling Wines in Shanghai

Meal:

Smoked Salmon on Orange slices (Phillip), 

Vietnamese Spring Rolls (Nar), 

Home made Fusilli and Cheddar (Dory), 

Green Salad (Dory),

Tiramisu (Takeout)

Wines Tasted:

1. Lindeman's Bin 25 Brut Cuvee, 12%, ¥165, 
2. Seaview Brut,11%, ¥138
3. Jacob's Creek Chardonnay Pinot Noir, 11.5%, ¥150
4. Perelada Brut Reserva Cava, 11.5%, ¥148
5. Cava Parxet Cuvee 21 Brut, 11.5%, ¥130

Overall Impressions:

These wines were all in the range of $21-$26 USD, but as with everything in China, you don't always get what you pay for. Our guests were fairly consistent in uniform liking the Lindemans - it had a noticeably more complex flavor profile, the flavor changed in the mouth (in a good way), and there was a pleasant aftertaste. One of our guests was from Melbourne, and he said that Lindemans at home was a a $5 bottle of wine! I think that's the price of being a wine-imbibing expat in China.

The Seaview and the Jacobs Creek wines were OK, and they would be fine at a party where they would not impress or offend.We were reminded of "house sparkling wines" while drinking these two.

One guest remarked that the Perelada had an "aspirin" flavor; another noted a metallic aftertaste. These are not desirable qualities in wine.

The Parxet Cava scored the lowest, although not by much, and we all thought that "there's nothing there", no flavor, no aroma, really, not much going on at all.

The most interesting thing about the evening was the pairing of food with sparkling wine. In our house we usually think of sparkling wine as an aperitif, something to start the evening.  In fact, when we host these wine tastings for other wines we always start with a glass of some sort of sparkling wine to get the taste buds "in the mood", so to speak.

The winners in the food pairing department were the smoked salmon on orange slices as an appetizer and the Mac and Cheese. Several people noted that after the salmon and oranges the wines "woke up" and the flavors were both better and more plentiful.

Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile

Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon wines

Finding a reliable table wine in Shanghai is still a problem but our recent tasting of Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile was a delightful surprise. As usual, we chose a grape (Cabernet Sauvignon) from a particular region (Chile). Each guest brought a bottle of wine that met that standard and sold for no more than ¥160 (about $26). Each bottle was wrapped and served blind, and we tasted each of them in turn.

Last Spring we tasted Shiraz from Australia and were largely disappointed. None of them were really very good. By contrast, these Chilean Cabs were all pretty good (with the exception of the corked wine, of course). We had a duplicate pair of wines, and one of them was corked. Other than that, everyone agreed that all wines were certainly drinkable and even enjoyable. With the exception of the winning wine (and of course the corked wine) all wines were good, solid, enjoyable Cabernet Sauvignon wines.  Any of them would be fine with an inexpensive dinner, at a party, or as a 'second' bottle of wine.

The winning bottle, by score and by unanimous acclaim, was Carta Vieja Prestige.  It was a much more lively wine, with flavors that evolved over time, from the first whiff of the aroma to a lingering aftertaste, minutes after the wine had been swallowed.  This was a wine that wants you to pay attention to it, to savor each sip and to pause before once again bringing the glass to the lips.  It was a pretty well balanced wine, and curiously, does not have any big flavors that predominate.  It had berry, wood, a bit of leather, and cherry, but nothing overpowering, and no stand out flavors.

Here are the wines we tasted, in the order we ranked them:

1. Carta Vieja Prestige
2. Santa Rita Reserva
3. Concha Y Toro Frontera
4. Cousino Macul Antigua Reservas

Not ranked

• Miguel Torres Emblema
• Miguel Torres Santa Digna Reserve

Dory cooked an excellent meal of Fusilli with mushroom cream sauce,  green salad, bread, and chocolate mousse for dessert.