A bit of Sauvignon…

Since alcoholic weekend is here (aren’t they all alcoholic?) we prepared another good wine to try out. We first tasted this wine a couple of summers ago and both of us were pleasantly surprised by it. I personally prefer Chardonnay anytime to a Sauvignon Blanc as in my opinion the latter is less crisp (yup, the crispiness again). This one however is really really good.

Unlike the usual Sauvignon Blanc, and I’m not talking about cheap supermarket wines, this one from Liliac has a fresh-fruity smell that almost prepares you for its crisp character. If you have a really sensitive nose you can almost feel hints on elderflower in it. Once you taste it, the first surprising thing about it is the acidity of the wine, which is really strong for this type of wine, in which case, if you don’t really like frizzy wines you should skip this one. Since we tried it on a hot summer wine, this aspect was a very nice surprise. Taste-wise it’s definitely not as crisp as a good Chardonnay, but that being my choice of wine one (D) could argue that I’m biased, but this is definitely and without any doubt better than any other Sauvignon Blanc I’ve ever tried. I’d say the taste at first is tropical, but it does leave a long citric aftertaste which I think is the reason why I like it so much. It clearly has a very interesting bouquet. It reminds me of a Tuscan wine I tried 10 years ago (yes, before the D-era).

Again, this is a wine from Transylvania, northern Transylvania actually, this being an area that has a long-long history of winemaking. This winery has such good wines partly thanks to their winemaker, an Austrian, Rudolf Kirzan.

It is recommended that you chill this wine at 10 degrees C, just like any other good white, and according to their suggestion, you should enjoy it alongside Mediterranean (hence my Tuscan reminder) and Asian food. As you can see, I don’t really value their opinion, and we had it with a cheese plate, partially because I was in charge of dinner, and when I’m in charge, we eat cheese. 

In my personal opinion the 2013 version was a bit better (it’s the one we originally tried), but apparently 2013 was ‘wine year’ (if wine lovers would have a horoscope of their own). Unfortunately, you can’t find the 2014 online either, but you can find it, like we did, in specialised wine stores. It always seems like Liliac wines run off the shelves.

Browsing through their site I noticed that they’ve released the Summer versions, Young Fresh, Young Fruity and the new Young Rose (they didn’t have a rose version last year) so I immediately called D to order them, as last year’s Young versions were really really good and they were out of stock within a month, so I suggest you start ordering as even though this is a light wine for summer, you won’t find it in store by summer. This just goes to prove the mastery of their wine maker, he can come up with a very good and very affordable (silly affordable for the quality you get, but I guess that’s how they keep us hooked on their wines) wine each year.

Again, I’d like to insist on the fact that we are not alcoholics and that we do enjoy a good glass of wine (or two) each evening!

L.