Castas de Monção Brut Sparkling Vinho Verde – Yes!

Happy New Year!  And just because the New Year’s Eve party is now over is no reason to not continue drinking bubbly.  Therefore, my first review of 2014 shall be a sparkling wine.

OK, I’ll cut to the chase… I love this wine: Castas de Monção, Mstodo Classico – Bruto Natural.  The idea of this wine is like when someone thought to put peanut butter and jelly or cheeseburgers and bacon together.  It’s two great things combined into one, unified deliciousness.  One of the components here is a Vinho Verde, made primarily from alvarinho (albariño) and the other is a traditional method, brut sparkling wine.  Two things that are great on their own, joined together to create a new greatness.

Yes, a lot of Vinho Verde has a slight frizzante to it, but this one is a full on sparkling wine with lots of bubbles.  I like the frizzante and I like full sparkling even more.

I can’t think of any other sparklers made from albariño  that I’ve tasted before.  But I do hope I come across more in the future.

Another thing I like about this wine is that it’s vintaged.  Most bargain bubbly is non-vintage (i.e. no date is specified on the label) yet I would expect quality/characteristic differences from one year to the next.

And most importantly, I love the taste of this wine.  It has plenty of yeast on the nose, along with lemon and mineral.  The palate brings a fantastically-bubbly mouthfeel and tasty flavors, like lemon, apricot and salt.  Salty mineral flavors and more lemon is the story on the finish too.

In short, this is a bargain-bubbly-vinho-verde that delivers!

Wine: Castas de Monção, Mstodo Classico – Bruto Natural
Variety: 70% alvarinho,  30% trajadura
Vintage: 2009
Alcohol: 12.5%
Rating: 87
Price: $14.99
Disclosure: This wine was received as a media sample.