Flama d’Or Brut 2014
“This wine rains kisses in your mouth.” –Insatiable By Gael Greene
The first Wednesday of every month is Wine Wednesday! Spectacular wines under $10.00. Yep. Under $10.00. Sometimes wine is less expensive where I am, but most of the time it’s more expensive. Hopefully that means that I will pick wines that are well below the $10.00 limit for most of you.
I will post wines that I particularly like. I am no specialist by any means, but I do love wine. I know the basics of the different varietals, what regions generally produce, how wines are made, but this space is all about preference. We all like what we like, and you might like what I like too. I will post food pairings and why those pairings are suitable for the specific wine.
Castell d’Or’s Flama d’Or Brut
Price: $8.49
Variety: Xarel-lo, Macabeu, & Parellada
Previous Awards or Ratings: N/A
This is a sparkling wine! Aka you will feel decadent just popping the cork. It’s a dry wine (that’s what “brut” means), but it also has some citrusy and pear notes. It is served ideally chilled. It’s very easy drinking, and it goes with a lot of foods. The winery’s site actually writes that it’s “an ideal wine to accompany a whole meal.”
Fun fact: sparkling wines are best served in glass flutes. But did you ever wonder why? In order to facilitate the awesome carbonation (or bubbliness), a special glass is needed. There are etchings on the sides of the glasses that encourage the formation of bubbles—called a nucleation point—and this keeps the sparkling wine sparkling! The narrow flute keeps the bubbles floating up and clustered into the middle. Those Marie Antoinette glasses are only good for champagne waterfalls.
Unlike the winery website’s insinuation, I like drinking sparkling wine with minimal food. It just seems like enough of a treat already. I love pairing sparkling wines with small aperitifs like cheese! Here, I have paired Emmentaler Swiss and soft Gouda with the Flama d’Or Brut. The Swiss is sharp and cuts through the dry wine while the Gouda is mild and lets the wine shine. The Swiss and the Gouda accentuate the fruity notes as well with rich undertones. Both of these cheeses have different textures and flavors so they go well together on a cheese plate. Enjoy the coming summer weather with excellent cheeses and sparkling wines!
