2008 Era dos Ventos Peverella

O

Oswaldo Costa

Oswaldo Costa
2008 Era dos Ventos Peverella Bento Gonalves (Brazil) 11.0%
Purchased at Aprazvel, the restaurant in Rio where Jonathan Nossiter created the wine list. Nossiter singled out this particular dry white in a recent (Brazilian) magazine piece and, given the paucity of interesting Brazilian wine, I got curiosity. It is made by a maverick producer called Alvaro Escher who previously made an oxidative Peverella (which I tried and didn't like) at a winery called Cave Ouvidor in the state of Santa Catarina.

Medium gold, with an exotic, to say the least, combination of home lubrication oil and graphite. Tastes, well, original, with the aforementioned caressed by some rosewater that wasn't evident on the nose. Acidity is there, but should be greater; a bit of acceptable bitterness takes up the slack. This kind of wine might be an acquired taste because there's nothing structurally wrong with it. It's just organoleptically weird. Maybe Nossiter, whose palate must be more jaded than most (and I say this with intended empathy), admired it for being unusual. Marcia didn't like it at all and, very uncharacteristically, didn't finish even her first pour. I had all my pours, not so much from gluttony but from a desire to vivre la diffrence. There was quite a bit left over, so we should be able to see how this evolves. I'm sure you're all hanging on the edge of your seats. After all, the fate of the world is at stake.
 
When I was a tour guide at Mondavi in the mid-70's, Bill Cadman, a fellow tour-guide, who also owned (and still does) Tulocay Winery in Napa, used to joke about Peverella, as an odd, and essentially best-unknown variety. I always thought he'd just made up the name. Apparently not!
 
originally posted by Steve Edmunds:
When I was a tour guide at Mondavi in the mid-70's, Bill Cadman, a fellow tour-guide, who also owned (and still does) Tulocay Winery in Napa, used to joke about Peverella, as an odd, and essentially best-unknown variety. I always thought he'd just made up the name. Apparently not!
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Interesting! According to Nossiter's Liquid Memories, it's a rare white variety brought to Brazil by immigrants from Alto Adige and the Veneto at the end of the 19th Century. In the 1940s, it was the most planted white variety in Brazil. Known in Italy as Malvasia Vicentina, it has almost disappeared there, making Brazil potentially its last bastion. It is rare even in Brazil today, other white varietals like chardonnay being much more widely planted.
 
Odd sounding, but intriguing too. Any idea of the vineyard practice/winemaking, Oswaldo? One wonders how many sub-varieties there are of malvasia...and if the grape is at all similar to the malvasia Donati uses in Emilia-Romagna.
 
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
Odd sounding, but intriguing too. Any idea of the vineyard practice/winemaking, Oswaldo? One wonders how many sub-varieties there are of malvasia...and if the grape is at all similar to the malvasia Donati uses in Emilia-Romagna.
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No idea, Joel, must visit Alvaro Escher someday to get information like that, poorly disseminated round these here parts.
 
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