Worldly Wine:’Bottled Poetry’ in Time for Valentine’s Day

“What I need to live has been given to me by the earth. Why I need to live has been given to me by you.”

~Author Unknown

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, making February one of the most romantic months of the year. A month of sonnets, love songs, roses and chocolates, this is a perfect time to steal in from the snow, in front of a crackling fireplace, perhaps with your favorite afghan or quilt ensconcing you and your beloved with – what else? – a fabulous bottle of wine…or two.

To help create just the right tone for such an experience, this month’s Hinsdale Wine Club provides two wines from nearly opposite sides of the world, revealing some of today’s modern hidden gems. From Hungary and Uruguay, these varietals will most likely be new and delicious sensory experiences – the epitome of Robert Louis Stevenson’s definition of wine: bottled poetry. Through their own uniqueness, these wines convey the precious rarity of your beloved and help say that you would indeed go to the ends of the earth for this love.

To revise a quote from Thomas Jefferson, love is like wine – raw when new, ripened with age, the true old man’s milk and restorative cordial.

2006 Bodega de Lucca Tannat “Reserve,” Canelones, Uruguay

Who knew that Uruguay had been in the wine business for more than 100 years, but indeed Bodega de Lucca, a small winery set in one of the most ancient viticultural regions there grows 50 hectares of vines, including the country’s signature grape, Tannat. A prolonged aging process and new hybrids have tamed the tannins, for which this grape gets its name. Basque immigrants brought it to Uruguay in 1870, and it found a better home in the Uruguayan soil and climate than back in native southwest France. Considered an exotic grape variety, Tannat is increasingly in demand, and Uruguay is nearly the only place to find it. So, this month, it’s a 2006 Tannat treat, from Reinaldo de Lucca, who is probably the most highly trained and internationally experienced viticulturist in Uruguay. Tannat is a concentrated, rustic red wine from a grape that achieves prolonged and perfect ripeness. With tannins all dressed up in velvet, this Tannat provides a bouquet of ripe fruit with plum and cassis dominating, making it a sensual addition to your Valentine’s Day dinner. An 18-month maturation in new and used French and American oak barrels adds the typical smoky spiciness that this grape is known for.

2008 Mátyás Szöke Irsaí Olivér, Mátraalja, Hungary

For anyone without Hungarian roots, this likely may be the first you’ve heard of Irsaí Olivér, a white wine grape related to Muscat and Gewurztraminer that is so hard to pronounce that some joke it’s the reason few outside of Hungary have ever grown it, let alone heard of it! However, look to Facebook, and you will see its more than 1,000 fans, a fifth the number of Facebook Chardonnay fans, but impressive nevertheless. What does it all mean? That you are amongst the lucky ones to taste a wine that rarely leaves Hungary or Europe’s borders. Believe it or not, Hungary is not new to winemaking, having produced great whites, most notably, at the foot of the Mátra Mountains since the 11th century. And Mátyás Szöke Winery is the most important family-owned winery of the Mátraalja winemaking region, focused on winemaking since the ‘70’s. From the very beginning, his wines drew a following, demand for his wine driving exports to other European countries. The white wines are produced in temperature-controlled fermentation tanks so that the terroir of the Mátra hill region and the fragrance and flavor of the grapes remains with its full brilliance and develops in the wine. Its aromatic nose has a heady scent and refreshing apricot and peach flavors on the palate. This particular bottle is 100% Irsaí Olivér and smells and tastes a bit like dry-fermented Muscat, with added minerality and acidity. Distinctive and memorable – like the love of your life – its beautiful bouquet might just be better than a dozen roses from Cupid.