I first tasted this ‘base’ Zarate Albarino bottling about six months ago at the Ceviche restaurant in St Petersburg, FL. That bottle, from the 2020 vintage, was energetic, citrusly delightful, and danced impressively with a delicious ceviche and a variety of Tapas partners. The wine pleased us a lot, and I made a mental note about getting more bottles (mental notes for me are increasingly precarious).
I managed to recall this mental note just in time for our Boston area summer enjoyment. So I grabbed a 2021 bottle for a test drive. I opened it this evening as we were dining out in the backyard. At first sip, the wine seemed a bit subdued, but with prominent and piercing lime fruit in a light bodied frame. However, as it warmed in the glass, the fruit opened nicely and the wine became more appealing to me in every facet, except temperature. (A cold wine just feels good sometimes!) Fruit and flowers: lime over lemon; hummingbird flowers - scent and flower ‘nectar’. A solid wine! A winner of an ‘every day / any day’ wine. As a bonus, subsequent glasses straight from the fridge showed a notable opening up compared to the ‘first sip’ impression, so I was able to enjoy the more complex and appealing ‘open’ taste palette at fridge-cold temperatures. Ain’t life generous sometimes!
Recommended.
