Hungarian white wine from Tempos Vega Sicilia, new red from Cakebread and XO rum from Kirk and Sweeney

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It’s all too easy to get bogged down in a wine rut, blasting corks and capsules of the same styles, regions or grape varieties with too much regularity. Of course, diversifying can be a challenge: there are more great wines from around the world, at affordable prices, than ever before, and it can be overwhelming and confusing. It makes sense that so many people tend to stick to the same things every time a drink is in order.

But doing that means missing out on a literal world of unexpected pleasures in the glass. So my white wine of the week today is a phenomenal argument for a bottle to drink outside of your comfort zone. Tempos Vega Sicilia Oremus Mandolás Furmint 2018 is a white wine that won’t just challenge everything you thought you knew about Hungarian wine (for most of us Hungary is synonymous with wonderfully smooth and aging Tokaji Aszú) , but crop white wine in general.

It’s made from Furmint, the tallest grape that’s best known for being sweet, but in this case it’s dry-fermented. The fruit was grown on the Mandolás vineyard alone, fermented in new barrels, then matured in 136-liter barrels. The result is a transporting wine, deeply mineral on the nose, with lemon pith, almond blossom and subtle spices, as well as a hint of beeswax. The palate is deeply concentrated, with an incredible, bursting cut of beeswax, lemon blossom honey, almond peel and warm slate minerality flavors that resonate through the mouthwatering, saline and impeccably finish. balanced. It will age for the next decade (or two!), But it’s also phenomenal right now.

Pushing the limits of your alcohol consumption doesn’t always mean expanding your geographical limits; on the contrary, it is often deeply rewarding to discover a familiar producer and region through the prism of a grape variety that is less widely associated with one or the other. My red wine of the week, the Cakebread Cellars Cabernet Franc 2018 Napa Valley, is exactly that kind of wine.

Cakebread, after all, is one of the best-known and most respected producers of Cabernet Sauvignon (among other grape varieties) in a region that has no shortage of icons. But this first vintage of their Cabernet Franc shows how deep the work of the great producer can be with this one too.

This remarkable Cab Franc was grown in the rocky Suscol Springs vineyard of Cakebread, whose location further southeast in the Napa Valley allows it to take advantage of generally cooler temperatures that result in an energetic and tangy wine. The juice was fermented in small steel vats, aged for 17 months in French oak barrels (of which 64% new) and bottled in April of last year. The presence of 19% Merlot and 5% Petit Verdot in the blend completes it and gives it depth and richness without masking the character of the Marquis grape itself.

In the glass, its mocha aromas are complicated by toasted and smoky vanilla and joined by nods in the direction of oolong tea, hot rocks, bramble berries, lavender, violet and crust. pie. These all precede flavors of cigar tobacco, blackberries and black plums, plum pits, scorched earth, dried bushy herbs like charred rosemary and thyme, chocolate covered caramel and a touch of grilled meat. It takes a little while, but it’s delicious with a little air, and promises to continue to fit in and evolve at least until the early 2040s.

Finally, I cannot recommend enough the Kirk & Sweeney Dominican Rum XO Edición Limitada No. 2, a spectacular spirit made from black molasses obtained from hand-harvested sugar cane immediately south of the Santiago de los Distillery. Caballeros, Dominican Republic. It has been made from a range of rums up to 26 years old and has been aged in French and American barrels before bottling. The result is a spirit of richness and elegance, with layers of caramel and nougat, brown butter and almond pizzelles. These aromas are subtly layered with caraway seeds and pineapple rum baba, and it all reveals flavors of cinnamon stick, allspice, salted caramel, dried fruit, the crisp top of a perfect vanilla crème brûlée, as well as the suggestion of cooked honey. With a little water, the natural sweetness emerges, and a pure and silky texture reveals orange blossoms, honeysuckle, softer spices and a touch of caramel coated with chocolate. What a remarkable rum. He wears his 131 proofs with real elegance. Only 2,000 bottles have been produced, and it’s worth buying one.

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