Ok. Ok. I know I say I’m excited to try something every week. But damn. There are just too many interesting wines out there and it’s difficult not to get excited about them. But when you get a wine in your box that it’s name means, “Lip Stinger,” the intrigue and excitement rises on it’s own.
The varietal I’m talking about this week is Picpoul de Pinet. Literally translated, “sting the lips.” It is also known as Piquepoul and sometimes referred to as just Picpoul. Most Picpoul grapes are grown in the Languedoc region of France, and indeed that is where this bottle is from. The climate is dry and the grapes have a late harvest while they wait on the humidity near the end of the season to finish their ripening. *
Picpoul is most famously paired with seafood and thanks to a housewarming gift; I knew I had the perfect pairing. One of our friends had gone deep-sea fishing the day before and as a gift at our party she brought us some of the filleted fish she had caught. Picpoul also makes a great aperitif and it’s definitely a conversation starter, so bringing it along to a party is a great idea.
This wine was from Languedoc, France and sampled on April 10, 2019. The color was somewhere between straw and clear. The scents of fresh white lilies and apple juice reminded me of walking through my yard as a kid with a juice box in hand. I was listening to “Stand by My Girl” by Dan Auerbach. This wine had an interesting minerality to it. It made it taste sharp; living up to it’s lip-stinging reputation. Honeydew melon and Meyer lemon follow along. The acidity cut the buttery fish just right. The acidity is high enough that your mouth puckers, but I think it could go even higher and still be really great.
I gave this wine a rating of 3.5. It was a very good wine, but I was still expecting a little more from it in the stinging department. However, I think it still stands as a fine example of the varietal.
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