As spring arrives, there comes a change in our eating and drinking habits.
Spring ushers in the time when meals get lighter, accenting lighter meats, salads and of course, seafood. With these foods, there also comes the time for more spring food-friendly wines. To this end, the Tower 15 Winery has released a series of interesting wines to accompany the warm weather fare.
Tower 15 2012 Sunset Paso Robles Rose ($18.50)If you hate cliches, sorry, but we have to use one here: what goes around comes around.
In this case, it is rose, or blush, wines. Because of the almost universal association with the sweet blush zinfandel wine in this country, other rose wines were almost totally forgotten.
The Tower 15 2012 Sunset Paso Robles Rose is a valiant, and we hope successful, attempt to restore the less sweet (but not completely dry) rose wines to their former position as the happy midpoint between dry red and white wines.
This wine is a blend of 60 percent grenache and 40 percent mourvedre, both red varieties.
The grape skins, which are the source of a wine's color, were removed prior to fermentation. What results is a wine with a bouquet showcasing a host of flower aromas and a fruit basket of flavors. The wine opens with the aromas of raspberries, strawberries, orange peel and rose petals. These aromas invite the first sip, which is bright with the flavors of cherry, apple and summer berries. It ends in a mineral-laced, fruit-filled finish.
We believe this wine will be a sure hit.
Tower 15 2012 Paso Robles Sauvignon Blanc ($18.50)What is the perfect wine to accompany shell fish or salads, seafood or lighter meats? Sauvignon blanc - and this offering from Tower 15 is a knockout.
The aroma is a melange of apples, pears and peaches with nuances of spice and lime zest in the background. The flavor stresses grapefruit, coupled with honeydew surrounded by a mineral robe.
Tower 15 Grenache Blanc ($18.50)This wine has been made from the rare grenache blanc, a white incarnation of the normally red grenache grape.
The aroma boldly announces there is something different afoot here as it features white peaches and carambola enhanced by a background of cherry and lime. The flavor heads in an entirely different direction, offering generous amounts of tangerine, grapefruit and bread dough all wrapped in a mineral, chalk-like robe.
If you are like us and are always looking in directions other than the normal, this is the wine to try, as it strays away from the usual and enters the realm of the spectacular.
Nixa resident Bennet Bodenstein is a wine columnist and helps manage ArticlesOnWine.com with his wife, Sheila. He can be reached at frojhe@suddenlink.net.[[In-content Ad]]
