2018 Ratti Battaglione Barbera d'Asti

We had this Barbera with pizza one evening last week and it was a delicious, yet inexpensive wine, less than $20.00! This wine is made in a fruit forward, easy drinking style. We liked that it paired well with the pizza and probably will pair well with tomato based foods.
We are growing Barbera so we like to experiment with drinking different kinds of Barbera in our vinous education.

St. Laurent Grape--Chasing Down a Mystery Parentage

Our friends treated us to dinner al fresco and brought with them a Michael Cruse St. Laurent Pétillant Naturel (Pét Nat), a sparkling wine made in the ancestral style.
I had never heard of the St. Laurent grape so I did a little research into what that is and here is what I came up with.
First, I turned to the Internet and learned from Wine.com that featured Michael Cruse's sparkling made from the St. Laurent that the grape is a high quality Austrian grape. The label on the back of the bottle informed me that the grapes were sourced from Ricci Vineyard in Carneros. Ok, that's a start. I wanted more.
When I Googled St. Laurent, and looked at Wikipedia I found that the grape could also be called Sankt Laurent and is generally believed to be a natural crossing between the Pinot Noir grape and some unknown partner.
That's when I turned to my goto book, the grape Bible, Wine Grapes¹ and while looking in the index, could not find St. Laurent. Wikipedia did mention that Sankt Laurent was a synonym and that's what I found in the index. Sankt Laurent whose principal synonyms include Sankt Laurent, Laurenzitraube, Laurenztraube and Saint-Lorentz Traube in Austria, Saint Laurent and Schwarzer in Germany, Saint-Laurent in France, Svatovavřinecké and Vavřinecké in the Czech Republic and Svätovavrinecké in Slovakia. What Jancis Robinson and her co-authors said about the Sankt Laurent is that the DNA profile is genetically distant from Pinot Saint-Laurent. This was not what I read on Wikipedia.
I was interested to know if the Ricci Vineyard Website had any information about the St. Laurent grape that went into Michael Cruse's sparkling Pét Nat: In 2000-2001, Ricci Vineyards imported budwood from the last known St. Laurent vineyard in Germany. They currently have 6 acres planted in this variety. The genetic parentage is not clarified on their website because this is what they say:
"St. Laurent is a mysterious grape in its origins and ancestry, but has found a dedicated foothold in the wine growing regions of the Czech Republic, Austria, and other assorted pockets around the world. Bordering between the fringes of a Burgundy and Rhone varietal, St. Laurent could best be described as Pinot Noir with sultry underpinnings. "
One last try, a suggestion from my husband. If the St. Laurent was brought into the U.S., it would have had to undergo testing at Foundation Plant Services so there should be some information there. Indeed, there is.
This is what is written under the information for St. Laurent: This variety is today commonly planted in Austria and Germany. DNA results have shown a parent-offspring relationship with Pinot noir. Since the initial budwood from Ricci vineyard came from Germany, it does appear that it is related to Pinot noir, but it would be very nice if Ricci Vineyards could do a DNA test to see if indeed their St. Laurent really is related to Pinot noir.
References:
1. J. Robinson, J. Harding and J. Vouillamoz, Wine Grapes - A complete guide to 1,368 vine varieties, including their origins and flavours, ppg 958- 960 and 962-964, Allen Lane 2012 ISBN 978-1-846-14446-2.

Al Fresco Dinner with Our Friends---Part 2

I blogged about Virtual Tasting with Michael Cruse---Part 1, which was part one of the treat from our friends. Part two was the dinner that they prepared to pair with the sparkling wine from Cruse Wine Company, made from the St-Laurent grape.

The label on the back of the bottle says it all. There were only 3800 bottles made in 2019! The grapes are from the Ricci Vineyards in Carneros.
Our friend made the entire dinner. We began the meal with fresh peach soup topped with cucumber, croutons, yellow pepper slices, micro-spinach, with goat cheese. This was followed by an arugula salad with sliced blood oranges and a delicious dressing. The entree was smoked salmon on a toasted English muffin with a spread of cream cheese and capers topped with chives. The dinner was delicious and it was so nice to see our friends! In addition, the sparkling St. Laurent was an interesting pairing.

Virtual Tasting with Michael Cruse---Part 1

Our friends have been trying to set up a get together with us but one reason or another has kept us from our appointed rendezvous. But, the time finally arrived and they gave us only one clue, we were told that we must bring 4 wine glasses. We didn't need to bring anything else. We decided that in keeping with current guidelines, we would meet in the vineyard. My husband procured a white table cloth and arriving before our friends, we turned our humble picnic bench into white tablecloth dining.
Our friends arrived with their surprise, which was a virtual tasting with Michael Cruse of Cruse Wine Company along with the 4 samples that they received by being on the waiting list for Michael Cruse's sought after Ultramarine.
That was quite the surprise!

The sparkling wine samples were poured, labeled A through D, the iPad was turned on to the preloaded Virtual Tasting Event with Michael Cruse and we were sampling Michael Cruse sparkling wines!

We listened to Michael Cruse explain how Champagne is made and how he goes about making his style of American "Champagne". (Champagne can be called "Champagne" only if the grapes are grown and the resulting product comes from the Champagne region in France.) He explained a little about the 4 samples we had before us, saying that even he did not know which was which. One sample was the control, one sample had a dosage of 2 g/liter, one sample had a dosage of 5 g/liter and one sample had a dosage of 10 g/liter.

This was interesting! We were all able to pick out the sample with the 10 g/liter dosage and one of us really liked that style. It was difficult to pick out the identity of the other samples, so there was a lot of tasting going on.
This was not the end of the evening and Part 2 requires its own blogpost, so please stay tuned.