Adroît “Volage”
Pétillant-Naturel Rosé 2017
“This wine is pure and friendly.”
This wine made a lightbulb go off over my head when I tasted it for the first time. Chris Miller is a fellow Master Sommelier and worked at Canlis before I did. Now he’s an über-talented winemaker based in Monterey, making all sorts of cool things under his Seabold Cellars and Adroît labels. This wine is made in a Pétillant-Naturel style, which means the bottle was capped before fermentation finished, creating natural effervescence from excess CO2. What I love about this wine is how pure and friendly it is. It’s brisk and tart, with refreshingly low alcohol, and is a lovely pairing for anything spicy, soupy or crunchy.
This wine is disarming. When I tasted it for the first time I was walking around at a big festival from table to table. Something about the color caught my eye and I had a splash of it. And then the wine disappeared. Nothing held me back from taking a big gulp of it and enjoying the heck out of it. I hope it does that same thing for you. I knew that I had to put this wine in the first release of Crunchy Red Fruit for this exact reason. Here’s to popping bubbles that disappear quickly. Cheers!
suggested pairings.
Texas Brisket Chili
This pairing works for a number of reasons. This is a light wine with lower alcohol. Spice tends to accentuate alcohol in food, so by sticking with a lighter wine we’re letting the chili shine. The wine functions as a refreshing palate cleanser in between bites of spicy, rich chili. Here’s a link to a nice brisket chili recipe from Bon Appetit.
Sriracha-lime popcorn
Sparkling wine and popcorn is a match made in heaven. It’s one of the few pairings that resonates loudly on a textural level. Crunchy popcorn + bubbly wine means it tastes like you’re eating fluffy clouds. The Road to Honey, an excellent photography and food blog, has a bomb recipe for Sriracha Lime popcorn which you should check out, and pop this Volage Pétillant-Naturel Rosé with it!
Korean Soondubu-jjigae
Soup and sparkling wine is a forgotten pairing that not many people know about. This is a more recent discovery for me. It’s really not that hard to make Soondubu at home, and it’s such a pleasantly warming, rich dish that’s perfect for cold weather. Check out this fantastic article and recipe from Bryan Washington in the New Yorker.
Learn with the Circle
Join us on Youtube as we discuss the nuances of this wine and all the fun things that make it unique.
- Jackson