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Wine Details
Price:
$24.99 per bottle
Description:
Classic champagne style sparkling wine made from Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier grapes. A memorable wine for toasting.
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Varietal Definition
Chardonnay:
Chardonnay is by far the most widely planted grape crop in California and dominates California’s cooler, coastal, quality wine regions. The natural varietal ‘taste and smell’ of Chardonnay is surprisingly unfamiliar to many wine drinkers, as its true character is often guised with dominating winemaking signatures. Chardonnay’s rather subdued primary fruit characteristics lean toward the crisp fruitiness of apples, pears and lemon, but the variety’s full body is capable of supporting a host of complementary characteristics, such as oak, butter and vanilla. Regardless of what is the appropriate style for Chardonnay, the varietal continues to dominate vineyard plantings in every corner of the world. Close attention to clonal selection has made this broad geographic and climactic range of Chardonnay viable in thoughtful viticultural hands.
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Pinot Meunier:
Pinot Meunier’s heritage is traced to northern France, where it is particularly important in France’s Champagne region. Here, it is the most planted variety, with acreage roughly equivalent to the acreages of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir combined. It offers youthful fruit character and tart acidity to the traditional blend. However, wines which are predominantly Pinot Meunier tend to be less age worthy. Pinot Meunier is well suited to cool climates, as it buds later than Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. This makes it less susceptible than its more noble partners to frost. It also ripens earlier than Pinot Noir. In North America, Pinot Meunier can be found in New York State’s Finger Lakes region, where it is known as Black Riesling. More notably however, California growers in regions such as Caneros and the Anderson Valley, wishing to produce authentic champagne-style wines, introduced Meunier to the vineyards in the 1980s. Today, most all of the state’s 300 acres of PM reside in the Carneros area. Some work is being
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Pinot Noir:
The name is derived from the French words for ‘pine’ and ‘black’ alluding to the varietals' tightly clustered dark purple pine cone shaped bunches of fruit. Pinot Noir grapes are grown around the world, mostly in the cooler regions, but the grape is chiefly associated with the Burgundy region of France. It is widely considered to produce some of the finest wines in the world, but is a difficult variety to cultivate and transform into wine. By volume most Pinot Noir in America is grown in California with Oregon coming in second. Other regions are Washington State and New York.During 2004 and the beginning of 2005, Pinot Noir became considerably more popular amongst consumers in the United States, possibly because of the movie Sideways. Being lighter in style, it has benefited from a trend toward more restrained, less alcoholic wines. It is the delicate, subtle, complex and elegant nature of this wine that encourages growers and winemakers to cultivate this difficult grape. Robert Parker has described Pinot Noir: "When it's great, Pinot Noir produces the most complex, hedonistic, and remarkably thrilling red wine in the world."
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