These days I prefer better alcohols, generally, and better sparkling wines, particularly. The cheap stuff I just loathe. Each New Year's is an exercise in gag control when the bars I'm in hand out their $2 a magnum "free champagne at midnight."
| Banfi Brachetto d'Acqui 1998
by F. Sot Fitzgerald As a graduate student I often drowned my spring days in sparkling wine. A large wine and spirits warehouse conveniently located next to my department at the university was a regularly stop for me on the stroll back to my flat. For $5 I could get a bottle of bubbly that would get me loopy and have me wanting to pull volumes of Romantic poetry from the shelf and sing the glories of spring. |
|
In retrospect,
I shake my head in dismay at the swill I drank. Only because I was
guzzling ghastly whiskey at night was it possible for me to tolerate that
rotgut sparkling wine during those silly afternoons. It was bitter,
terribly bitter wine, and there's not a chance in hell I'll ever buy it
again.
These days I prefer better alcohols, generally, and better sparkling wines, particularly. The cheap stuff I just loathe. Each New Year's is an exercise in gag control when the bars I'm in hand out their $2 a magnum "free champagne at midnight." |
| Any other
day of the year, though, there's better options, like Banfi's Brachetto
d'Acqui. This is an unusual red sparkling wine, made from the peculiar
Brachetto grape, which, I'm told, is grown only in a few places in Italy.
On first nosing it reminded me of a black muscat dessert wine that I once tasted. But it wasn't nearly as viscous and potent. Brachetto 1998, a bottle of which I downed, is raspberry red, medium bodied yet quite bubbly. The nose is modest, and the taste is sweet, berry-like with a hint of what one would guess one would taste were he to chew on a rose petal. Brachetto d'Acqui finishes delightfully dry and crisp. This is a fine sparkling wine and on its own its quite enjoyable. Obviously, and can be enjoyed with fruits, be they raw or in desserts (e.g., strawberry shortcake). Brachetto is particularly excellent with chocolates, though, and when I knocked it back while gobbling chocolates I felt like I was in Heaven. Message to men looking to patch up things after you've botched up- get your act together, dress up sharply, and buy a bottle of this and some chocolates and serve them to your darling. Message to women who are sick
of dealing with dopey men- grab a bottle of this and a box of chocolates
and hop in a hot bath or plop in front of a tv. You'll soon forget
your troubles. (Rating ***3/4)
|
(Click
here to purchase Banfi Brachetto d' Acqui)
