Tasting - Opera Prima Pink Moscato

The final wine I sampled Thursday at the Vintage Cellar was Opera Prima Pink Moscato. This wine is from the Castilla La Mancha region of Spain. For the year, it is listed as "NV." I have no idea what that abbreviation means, but I'm sure I will learn soon enough. The grape variety for this wine is Muscat Rose a Petits Grains. The Vintage Cellar has this sparkling wine bottle priced at $5.95.

For the Vintage Cellar's review of this wine, they stated, "This fine sparkling presents an intense aroma of fresh berries and tropical fruits with hints of wine flavor petals. Delicate bubbles caress the palate offering a silky and pleasant sweetness well-balanced by a crisp, refreshing finish. Ideal on its own, as an aperitif or with all types of sweets and desserts."

As for my own review of this wine, the first description that comes to mind is "WOW!" This is by far the best wine I've tried out of the 2 wine tastings I've been to thus far. Probably one of the best wines I've had period. I've always been somewhat of a fan of sparkling wines, but that's not what impressed me about this wine. The smell was a little underwhelming to me at first. It was grapefruity and sweet to the nose. Another first for me was specifically getting the aroma of flowers from this wine. "Flowery" is another description of wines that I've heard a lot, but have never really experienced for myself until now. The taste of the wine is what really did it for me. It had a sweetness that was definitely present, but not harsh in any way that made it taste more like a soda. Aside from a little citrus flavor, what I mostly tasted was flowers. I thought hard to try to specify what flower I thought I tasted and I boiled it down to roses and hibiscus, maybe with a little bit of carnation. I was surprised at how much I appreciated the flowery taste, because before I would have thought it would detract from a wine's flavor instead of enhancing it. But now I can happily say I was wrong. It added a smoothness to it that just made me happy to drink it. I actually liked this sparkling wine so much that I bought it right after the tasting that day.

I actually did try this wine with my dinner on that same Thursday night. I had it with eggplant stuffed with ricotta and herbs with a red sauce over it. I will go more into detail about it in my food-wine pairing blog, but I really enjoyed the combination, even though it wasn't a suggested pairing on the Vintage Cellar's review.