What’s in Wine Girl’s Glass? Quiz #8

A beautiful, vibrant gold color with a tinge of green invites all tasters fed up (drunk up?) with over-oaked, mass-produced California chardonnay. It’s followed by a delicate bouquet of apples, peaches and honeysuckle. Medium-bodied but deep, with a core of fresh, ripe apple and pear flavors — perhaps a little blood orange — perfectly draped over a good acid backbone that keeps the flavors vivid and in focus. But the stand-out element of this unusual white is its minerality, a wet granite-like taste that washes over the sides of the tongue before you swallow. In an Old World version of this grape, you might get a hint of almond and a slightly waxy texture. This white could stand up to canard à l’orange, but really calls out for a hearty winter soup like pumpkin or cauliflower-cheddar.

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First off, we know this “unusual” white wine is not a chardonnay, because it will allegedly appeal to the jaded ABC (Anything But Chardonnay) crowd. We also know it’s a traditional European variety, but produced in the New World. Its rich, stone-fruit flavors rule out lighter, higher-acidity grapes like pinot grigio, sauvignon blanc, chenin blanc, or the truly unusual albariño from Spain. (None of those I’d ever want to eat with duck, anyway.) Reisling? A good German reisling might show that minerality, but it’d probably show more over-the-top florals on the nose and maybe a touch of sweetness. Grüner Veltliner? Not a lot of that grown outside of Austria. What about one of the Rhone white varieties? There are two main ones: marsanne (grown mostly in the north, like Hermitage) and roussanne (grown mostly in the southern part of the Rhone river valley, for example around Chateauneuf du Pape). Marsanne is known to yeild fuller-bodied wines with that characteristic almond note, so let’s guess that, from California, from a recent vintage — and we’d be right. It’s a 2005 Qupé Marsanne (which does have a dollop of roussane in there, too), from Santa Ynez on California’s Central Coast; $16.