Happy New Year Everybody!!!
There could be worse ways to end a certainly rather "intereresting" year full of fresh air, zero travelling, far too much hiking in the wilderness, homecooking and probably far too much wine ... I assume! Hopefully the year ahead will be a bit less "interesting"! I think the fresh air can stay! That is probably quite healthy! Same for the wine ... of course not really healthy! The dizzy hiking and home cooking!? I don't konw: probably dispensable! Perhaps overall a bit more "pedestrian" wouldn't be too bad at all ... Anyway, "interesting" or "pedestrian": there will be one constant value in my palatal universe: Pinot Noir, of course! This time a suprisingly crisp and resolutly lean Pinot Noir Fizz from Alto Alentejo in the backyard of Portugals capital Lisboa! Its colour showed youthful pale reflexes with a hint of shiny straw yellow. The mousse was lively, vibrant and certainly resolute. In a quite convincing manner. The Ninfa Espumante's nose seemed quite reluctant to pamper my olafactory senses at first. It took quite a while to show its whole bounty of relatively restraint fragrances which reminded me of red ripe apples, woodruff, yellow grapefruit, yarrow and pink roses. The palate was much more talkative - as already mentioned - right from the beginning. The apples very juicy and snappy sour, the grapefruit rather citric and the woodruff luckily not all too voluptuous. In the first hours I've certainly missed some Danish influence .... This shortcoming eased after some, or a bit more than just some, hours. Then it's body showed the right portion of fat on it's rips. Some marzipan pastry, brioche ... no, better some Pasteis de Belem ex all too much vanilla ... and a quite convincing mouth-feel provided this astounding Pinot Noir fizz the right kick! Definitely a quite convincing and overall very decent ***** start of 2021! More of this will be most welcome throughout the coming 365 days.
