Bacchus, Baga and Barbera

I decided to involve my sisters, brother-in-laws, parents and daughter in a wine tasting Saturday evening when we explored 3 different grapes in the next letter of the A-Z project. How appropriate that the first grape on my "B" list was named for the Roman god of wine, Bacchus (BAK-uhs). This white grape variety is native to Germany but is also grown in western Canada and the United Kingdom. The wine that we tasted with this grape was a Peter Brum 2008 Bacchus from the Rheinhessen region of Germany in a beautiful, slender, tall, red bottle. I was fascinated with the wine before I even tasted it~ Did I expect a genie in the bottle or the Roman god of wine? The wine was actually quite tasty with its fruity and floral aspects and I have already decided to add this to my list of summer sipping wines.

The second "B" grape that we tasted was the Portuguese grape, Baga (BAH-guh) in a bottle of Mateus Rosé. Mateus Rosé is an inexpensive, semi-sparkling wine in a green bottle shaped like a flask. "Mateus Rosé was launched in 1942 and introduced to the UK in the early 1950s where, together with Black Tower and Blue Nun, it helped introduce wine as a mass-market drink." (guardian.co.uk) Now I remember this green bottle from my early college days and quite honestly... it hasn't changed. This pink wine still has little aroma and little flavor but great memories of the green bottle.

The 3rd grape in our "B" marathon wine tasting evening was the Italian grape Barbera. We tasted this red grape in a bottle of 2007 Michele Chiarlo Barbera D'Asti from the Italian town of Asti in the Piedmont region of Italy. The consensus of the group was that the wine had a very nice fruity aroma of plums and strawberries. Dad, who is my biggest grape tasting fan, picked up on some "woodsy" notes. We served the wine with parmesan cheese toasts and a platter of pasta and meatballs. Then we indulged in warm Nutella pound cake topped with a scoop of Tin Roof ice cream. I would highly recommend this wine before dinner, with dinner and definitely after dinner with dessert! How I love sharing these "wine moments" with my family!