Deviant Sparkling – Jacques Pelvas
You may recall, a few weeks back, my mentioning an interesting sparkling wine I came across at a tasting on Friday the 13th not too long ago. I found out where I could pick up this beauty of a bottle and finally dove in head first. As part of a Marble Porch day I held in celebration of my birthday (9 days down, 25 more to celebrate), this was one of two bottles of bubbly I opened, and it performed very much as it had the first time I enjoyed it. Here’s a few bits for you to quaff…
Jacques Pelvas Brut Rose NV, Provence, France
The short:
- If you didn’t know what this varietal was off the bat, and had even a little experience tasting bubbly, you’d notice that the smell and taste were different than your standard brut. Lovely, light, but a fruit aroma you’re (pleasantly) not used to smelling or tasting from traditional sparkling wines. What’s in it? GRENACHE! Surprise!! I’ve yet to hear of a Grenache sparkling rose, but I really liked this one.
- The label is pretty basic…nothing that would make it stand out among the rest on the shelf
- So far, I can’t tell that these folks have any kind of actual physical presence…so unless I hear otherwise, I’ll just have to be happy with finding these bottles
- The varietal isn’t as popular as others, but it’s even less common in the sparkling category, which automatically makes this a pretty deviant wine!
The judgement: 4 out of 5. I really enjoyed this wine. Good balance, easy sipper, and nice aroma to it. And the PRICE can’t be beat – $11 or $12. But be prepared to hunt for it. I picked up my bottle(s) at The Gourmet Corner in San Mateo, and it was worth the trip. I walked out with 2 bottles of this and 3 others to try out, and spent just barely over $70. Score! Make sure you pick up a couple of bottles, as I think you’ll find, much like me, that it’s easy to go through these. No joke, I’m probably going to pick up a minimum 6 bottles, possibly a case. Sante!
The nerdy notes:
- nose: light, hint of strawberry
- taste: more of that strawberry, slight note of barely ripe cherry, and some kind of floral that I couldn’t put my finger on at the time of tasting. Nice mouthfeel and much more up my alley when it comes to sparkling. Good amount of bubble stream, too!