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Dear Doon Diary, How could you do this to me? You created a sparkling wine which left me crying in my beer because I had ordered only a single bottle! Your Il Circo 2004 "Il Giocoliere" Moscato d'Asti has spoiled me for all other sparkling wines! It might be unsophisticated for me to admit this, but I am not a fan of the dry sparkling wine or Champagne. I tend to like it sweeter and, if it's pink, I can pretend I'm on a cruise in An Affair to Remember. Hey, if it was good enough for Deborah Kerr to sip, dab behind her ears, and flick at nosy fellow passengers, then it's more than good enough for me. I feel about dry Champagne the way I feel about caviar -- I like the idea of it and feel that I should go into paroxysms of delight over how like a bone it is. But I just can't. No more can I sour cream away the deep fishiness of "fishberry jam," I can't deny that the drier the bubbles, the sorer my throat the next day. How brutish! Heh. "Il Giocoliere" is something to celebrate with. Hell, it's something to celebrate. Just the fact that it existed on my tongue for an all-too-brief moment is reason to throw party to end all parties. To accompany this perfect bottle filled with even more perfect bubbles, I made a light summer supper of heirloom tomatoes drizzled with young olive oil and accented with a bit of crumbled Niloufer's sweet and creamy Panir, and a simple green salad with a sherry vinaigrette.
Were it non-bubblicious, I might find this particular wine to be cloying in its sweetness. Moscato is a dessert wine after all, and I'm not overly fond of those types of wine. I'd much rather be given a nice, rounded glass of garnety port to finish a meal, but add bubbles and suddenly I am flipping out. It was honeyed perfume. Right before the swallow I got a sort of floral explosion on my tongue and in my nostrils. It was like walking into a bower of sun-warmed, heavy-hanging wisteria, but without all the allergy attacks. For all I knew, I could have been drinking the finest Parisan eau de cologne. Wait, that sounds more repugnant than I meant. Think if it as what wisteria smells like in your mouth. Or tastes in your nose. "Il Giocoliere" is haunting and sweet and exactly like being cushioned by a bed of lilacs while staring up at a honeysuckle bush on a hot Minnesota summer day. If you doubt that I've ever had that exact experience, I will tell you that my friend Maria and I often made lilac beds for our Glamour Gals who happened to be paying rent in the branches of a honeysuckle bush. I was less enthused by Bonny Doon's Erbaluce di Caluso Spumante. It was dry and overly mineralized for my taste. However, we still have another bottle of it, and I might test it out on Thanksgiving turkey, stuffing, roasted Brussels sprouts, fresh cranberry relish, fingerling potatoes, and pumpkin cheesecake before I give you my final analysis.
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