Last night we went to Aria (http://www.ariarestaurant.com/default.asp?action=article&ID=21609) one of Sydney’s highest rated eateries, holder of 2 chefs hats and multiple award winner for best wine list and in 2008 they were inducted into the hall of fame as part of the Australian wine list of the year awards.
So I was certainly looking forward to the experience and once at the restaurant I could easily have spent all night just reading the list and revelling in its variety and quality. And I nearly did, the wine service was so pitifully slow I ended up nursing the wine list while eating entrees waiting for the sommelier to take my order for the wine I would have enjoyed with entree, instead we skipped that and moved on to something more substantial for mains.
But more on that later. I thought I’d record my notes from the 3 wines we did successfully managed to order over the three hour dinner. (You know when you get really small meal servings you stop at McDonalds on the way home to top up, well this was the same with wine, I couldn’t wait to get home to grab another drink from my cellar.) So if Matt or Pete are reading this … put on another sommelier please.
The wine list is indeed a work of art and can be found here (http://www.ariarestaurant.com/media/library/PDF/Menus/CURRENT%20LIST.pdf). It makes great reading. Sure it’s not cheap but the quality of what we drank was wonderful and in preparation for the night I considered what I might like to try and just about everything I considered could have been found.
So this blog entree is about the Prosecco I chose while we considered the food list (but the wine order didn’t end up getting taken until well after the food selection was done and had to last us through our entree. Sorry, that’s all I’ll say about that.)
I wanted a Prosecco and given my family is from the North of Italy in Lombardia, the 2006 Franciacorta Brut Satèn Millesimato Le Marchesine DOCG was almost from our neighbourhood. That’s not a terribly scientific way to choose a wine, but I trusted in the selection of the wine list and I wasn’t dissappointed.
Wikipedia says “Franciacorta is a sparkling wine from Lombardy with DOCG status produced from grapes grown within the boundaries of the territory of Franciacorta, on the hills of a series of townships to the south of Lake Iseo in the Province of Brescia. It was awarded DOC status in 1967 and since 1995 the DOCG classification has applied exclusively to the sparkling wines of the area.”
The Le Marchesine is from a tiny village called Passirano and it’s now on my must visit list because the wine itself was superb. It had an incredibly fine bead, was wonderfully dry with sophistication and elegance in equal quantities. For a hot humid afternoon this did the trick very nicely indeed.