Tag: merlot

Toasting August with the Flame and Spark of Nino Franco Faìve Brut Rose!
In this year of favorite wines and friendship, we will be toasting with a bottle of Nino Franco Faìve Brut Rosé. A wine has to have special meaning for us to take it with us to Provincetown. This year a bottle joined us there in spring and another will join us with friends to toast August.

We must explained the name of this lovely Rosé. "Faìve, from the Venetian dialect, are the small gilded red tongues of flame and sparks rising towards the sky from a great fire, lightly and freely carried by the wind." Sylvia Franco told us the pronunciation is Fie-EE-vay!

Our stash of Faìve was hiding in plain sight on the top of a bookcase. We've been rationing this harder-to-find wine. But the time has come to enjoy this special bottle and share the experience with friends. Then we'll go hunting for a new supply!

Here is what Nino Franco says about this special Rosé from their collection:
- "Variety and Grapes: 80% Merlot 20% Cabernet Franc.
- Vinification Technique: Short skin and must contact at a low temperature to obtain the right colour. The first fermentation in steel tanks and the second one in “cuve close”.
- Type: Rosé Brut.
- Colour: Rose petal -like pink.
- Flavour: Perfume of small red fruits. Mineral and floral notes.
- Taste: In the mouth, pleasurably fresh. Dry with soft tannins and persistent bubbles.
- Matching: Well paired with mortadella, meat and mushroom dishes, fish or vegetable soups. Excellent with “Lasagna”, “Parmigiano" or the typical Italian dish “vitello tonnato” .
- Serving Temperature: 6° – 8° degrees" (~ 43°F – 46°F)
While we are enjoying this old friend from our wine rack, we hope you'll pull a bottle you have been saving and join our sparkling resolution as we toast the new month of August 2018. Trying wines from different places, made with different grapes, and produced by different methods adds spice to our monthly ritual. Since 2007 we have raised a glass of sparkling wine to greet each new month!

Here is an earlier post about this wine from 2015!

We Toast the Month of May with Nino Franco Faive Rosé Brut

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Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photos: ©2018 Penny & Ed Cherubino
August 1, 2018
We Toast the Month of May with Nino Franco Faive Rosé Brut

This month, we’ll toast the start of another calendar page and say “Happy New Month” with a Faive Rosé Brut from the wonderful family at Nino Franco.

In reading some of the great reviews of this wine, we found someone who agrees with our sparkling wine philosophy.

Charles Scicolone, a wine consultant that the New York Times called “The Maestro of Italian Wines,” includes Nino Franco Faive Rosé in a list of some of his favorite sparklers,

“Most of us think of sparkling wine as something that should only be drunk on special occasions or at Christmas and New Years, but I don’t agree. Sparkling wine can be enjoyed all year round and I especially like it in the summer and always with food.”

Last October, we first tasted this sparkling wine along with others from the Nino Franco line at Brix Wine Shop. At the tasting, we added a couple of bottles to our order because we have friends who we suspect will love this wine and we wanted to have some on hand when they visit.

Then, we opened a bottle at home and had it with food and without sharing our attention with some of our all time favorite Proseccos. We discovered that we love this Nino Franco wine for a whole set of different reasons. We added a few bottles to our next order from Brix to be sure to have some for our pals despite dipping into the supply from time to time.

Rosé as a Rite of Spring

We browsed our wine rack to pick a sparkler for May and remembered the strawberry notes and clean dry finish of the Faive. It seemed a perfect choice. Others agree.

Wine & Spirits 2013: “More red than rosé, this has the dark flavor of pomegranate …. There’s something oddly refreshing in it, a quirky rosé to chill for the beach, to serve with grilled shellfish.”

Independent Wine Review: “This “Faive” Rosé bubbles on across an impressive length. Drier than most rosé sparkling wines made in the Prosecco zone of production and purer in flavour.”

Sommelier’s Choice: “In many ways a wine that defies classification (not legally permitted to be labelled Prosecco, drier than most rosé sparkling wines made in the Prosecco zone of production and purer in flavour and made differently to rosé Champagne) this “Faive” Rosé Spumante is defined by flavours of strawberries, wild raspberries and freshly picked nectarines. Almost completely dry and underpinned by an ever-present but subtle and nicely integrated mousse, this “Faive” Rosé bubbles on across an impressive length.”

Charles Scicolone: “The wine is light salmon in color, with good bubbles, nice red fruit and a hint of pear.”

Tidbits About Faive Rosé Brut

Pronunciation: Fie-EE-vay

Blend: 80% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Franc

ABV: 12%

Importer’s serving suggestions: Faive should be enjoyed from the first spring days, over the summer until late autumn. Serve with small appetizing bites ranging from cheese, to lightly steamed shrimp and cheese straws.

What Does the Name Mean?

Faive: from the Venetian dialect, are the small gilded red tongues of flame and sparks rising towards the sky from a great fire, lightly and freely carried by the wind.

It certainly sparked some smiles around here. Happy new month!

Related Posts:

Our Sparkling Resolution is covered in this post : Join Us as We Toast …

A Few of Our Favorite Gifts for Wine Lovers

Here are all the wines we’ve covered. Since this is a category, this post may appear at the top. Just scroll down for more.

Want to learn more about wine? Remember to click over to Amazon from here to support this site! Here are three of our favorite wine books.

The Food Lover’s Guide to Wine

The New Wine Lover’s Companion

The Wine Bible

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: © 2014-2015 Penny & Ed Cherubino with the bottle alone courtesy of Nino Franco.

May 1, 2015
We Toast the Month of May with Nino Franco Faive Rosé Brut

This month, we’ll toast the start of another calendar page and say “Happy New Month” with a Faive Rosé Brut from the wonderful family at Nino Franco.

In reading some of the great reviews of this wine, we found someone who agrees with our sparkling wine philosophy.

Charles Scicolone, a wine consultant that the New York Times called “The Maestro of Italian Wines,” includes Nino Franco Faive Rosé in a list of some of his favorite sparklers,

“Most of us think of sparkling wine as something that should only be drunk on special occasions or at Christmas and New Years, but I don’t agree. Sparkling wine can be enjoyed all year round and I especially like it in the summer and always with food.”

Last October, we first tasted this sparkling wine along with others from the Nino Franco line at Brix Wine Shop. At the tasting, we added a couple of bottles to our order because we have friends who we suspect will love this wine and we wanted to have some on hand when they visit.

Then, we opened a bottle at home and had it with food and without sharing our attention with some of our all time favorite Proseccos. We discovered that we love this Nino Franco wine for a whole set of different reasons. We added a few bottles to our next order from Brix to be sure to have some for our pals despite dipping into the supply from time to time.

Rosé as a Rite of Spring

We browsed our wine rack to pick a sparkler for May and remembered the strawberry notes and clean dry finish of the Faive. It seemed a perfect choice. Others agree.

Wine & Spirits 2013: “More red than rosé, this has the dark flavor of pomegranate …. There’s something oddly refreshing in it, a quirky rosé to chill for the beach, to serve with grilled shellfish.”

Independent Wine Review: “This “Faive” Rosé bubbles on across an impressive length. Drier than most rosé sparkling wines made in the Prosecco zone of production and purer in flavour.”

Sommelier’s Choice: “In many ways a wine that defies classification (not legally permitted to be labelled Prosecco, drier than most rosé sparkling wines made in the Prosecco zone of production and purer in flavour and made differently to rosé Champagne) this “Faive” Rosé Spumante is defined by flavours of strawberries, wild raspberries and freshly picked nectarines. Almost completely dry and underpinned by an ever-present but subtle and nicely integrated mousse, this “Faive” Rosé bubbles on across an impressive length.”

Charles Scicolone: “The wine is light salmon in color, with good bubbles, nice red fruit and a hint of pear.”

Tidbits About Faive Rosé Brut

Pronunciation: Fie-EE-vay

Blend: 80% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Franc

ABV: 12%

Importer’s serving suggestions: Faive should be enjoyed from the first spring days, over the summer until late autumn. Serve with small appetizing bites ranging from cheese, to lightly steamed shrimp and cheese straws.

What Does the Name Mean?

Faive: from the Venetian dialect, are the small gilded red tongues of flame and sparks rising towards the sky from a great fire, lightly and freely carried by the wind.

It certainly sparked some smiles around here. Happy new month!

Related Posts:

Our Sparkling Resolution is covered in this post : Join Us as We Toast …

A Few of Our Favorite Gifts for Wine Lovers

Here are all the wines we’ve covered. Since this is a category, this post may appear at the top. Just scroll down for more.

Want to learn more about wine? Remember to click over to Amazon from here to support this site! Here are three of our favorite wine books.

The Food Lover’s Guide to Wine

The New Wine Lover’s Companion

The Wine Bible

Details:

Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: © 2014-2015 Penny & Ed Cherubino with the bottle alone courtesy of Nino Franco.

May 1, 2015
Plan Pégau 2009 “Baby Chateauneuf du Pape”

A couple of bottles of Plan Pégau 2009 were sitting in our wine rack. This wine had been introduced to us as a "baby Chateauneuf du Pape" by Howie Rubin at Bauer Wines.

A few nights later, Gretchen Jones (@moralbeast) mentioned a great Cote du Rhone that she was enjoying. That sent me to the rack to pull the Plan Pégau and plan a meal around it.

As students of wine, we learn by researching the wines that come our way. We had already been told that this was from one of the great Chateauneuf du Pape winemakers, Laurence Féraud from Domaine du Pégau. Her wines can run four to five times the $14.99 price tag on this one.

The importer, Hand Picked Selections (HPS) says the 2009 Plan Pégau, "offers a true and loud echo of the flavor and style of Domaine du Pegau Châteauneuf-du-Pape. A perfect illustration of the HPS mantra of quality, character and value, it always seems to have a bit of that magic Châteauneuf funk!"

We paired it with a rib eye after reading a comment from Wine & Spirits Magazine that this wine was, "…a red to sink your teeth into…mouthfilling and delicious, the vinous equivalent of a good aged steak."

From the moment we opened the screwtop, Plan Pégau made an impression. Photographing it was torture. It has a big presence and was sending out enticing aromas that made us want to get straight to tasting.

From this one we learned about rapé.

Blogger Edmonton Wine Host ran a post on Plan Pégau and reported that it might contain some rapé from Pégau. He explained, "Rape means left over juice, skins or crush from a previous harvest. Also can be a winery way of 'disposing' of extra juice from an excellent harvest."

We knew about second labels, like Oregon superstar producer Owen Roe Winery's O'Reilly's line. Now we know about another way to hunt for unexpected quality at a great price. Find out if it is the baby sister in a great family.

We plan to buy more!

If you see this wine at a good price, grab it. We loved it and expect it will be just as good over the next couple of years.

What's on your wine shopping list? Remember to click over to Amazon from here to support this site!

Details:
Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: © 2012 Penny & Ed Cherubino

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March 6, 2012