The joy of white

While everyone else is out there swooning over monster reds, I find myself searching out obscure whites. Waaay beyond chardonnay and pinot griggio. Pan-Mediterranean varieites like vermentino and vernaccia, catarratto from Sicily, picpoul from southern France, txacoli from northern Spain. I’m like a sailor on shore leave: a new mistress every night.

A couple of examples from a wine dinner this weekend. Intense floral nose on a Jurançon from Domaine Cauhapé on the north-facing slopes of the Pyrenees in southern France. Grape varieites: gros manseng and petit manseng. Or a delightful, slightly sweet Torrontes, Argentina’s signature white grape, from José Luis Mounier; it smelled and tasted like a cross between chenin blanc and gewurztraminer. Delightful with the foie gras that opened the annual Bring Your Own Wine night at downtown Seattle’s venerable Rainier Club. (Parenthetically, haven’t been a member for several years now; was most pleased to note that executive chef Bill Morris’s sure hand is still guiding the kitchen.)

It’s really a state of mind, whether you settle for the predictable, bland and unremarkable or prefer the the adventure of uncertainty. Would guess that the choice (pro-choice? pro-red?) falls along party lines, but then, this isn’t a blog about politics.

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