The clever folks at Good Cheap Vino clued me into the fact that Cost Plus World Market is having a white wine sale all month long. As Jeff Lefevere at Good Grape writes in his post about World Market, it’s a good place to find decent, reasonably priced wine that is terribly likely to have a little class. I don’t think they have the best deals in Austin, for the record, but this particular sale brought them down about a dollar a bottle lower than comparable stores… on most things.
Plus, I could bribe the toddler to stay in the cart while I stocked up with a small blue froggie. (I’m virtually certain Specs does not stock bath toys. Hint, hint, y’all.) And yes, I take my preschooler wine shopping. How else is she going to learn?
So Good Cheap Vino was interested in the Bogle Chardonnay ($8.99), Pacific Rim Riesling ($9.99) and Hess Sauvignon Blanc ($11.99), among others – which definitely piqued my interest. However, once I made one round (and with the family budget in mind), I set myself the challenge to “get down, girl, go ahead, get down.” And whaddyaknow if I didn’t walk out of that store with 8 bottles of white for $60 (plus $3 for the above-pictured blue froggie. He goes “puff-puff-puff.” It’s pretty awesome.)
But the most exciting thing… do you want to know the MOST EXCITING THING? The thing that will probably get me BACK to Cost Plus World Market, heaven help me?
Dude. Dude. This $3.99 Rene Barbier Mediterranean White. It’s sick. I want to bathe in it.
And it’s only $3.99, SO I CAN AFFORD TO.
Lemon yellow in the glass. Lemon/granny smith nose, floral notes and a whiff of the seaside. Bright and lively on the palate with just a feint of sweetness before the refreshing lemon/lime flavors and the edge of the edge of petillance chase that off. Nice medium weight, and a respectably long finish of mineral and (hey, what a coincidence!) lemon peel. Really delicious. Yum.
Rene Barbier is a pretty respected winery in Spain (owned by the Ferrer family – they of Freixenet – since 1984), and from what I can tell their Mediterranean White (also comes in Rose and Red, btw) is Made For the USA. Which, um, yeah – cool with me. I’m going to drink the crap out of this wine over the summer.
The region spouting this tasty jooce is Catalunya, which is the most northeastern area of Spain, on the Mediterranean. The grapes in the wine are a blend of Xarel-lo, Macabeo, and Parellada – all grapes used in Spain’s signature sparkling wine, Cava.
The alcohol level is higher than my other go-to summer wine, Vinho Verde, at around 11.5%. Which is fine, since this is a lovely food wine – anything you can imagine squeezing lemon on will pair well with this. And the food will soak up some of the alcohol you’ll have ingested when you realize that somehow you’ve drunk half a bottle all by yourself.
When you go get some – and I encourage you to do so in the next couple of weeks, before the price goes back up to $5.99 – please don’t buy it all. I’m almost done with this bottle already.