Cortese Piemonte Bricco Dei Tati 2007, Shrimp in Garlic and Olive Oil

Cortese Piemonte Bricco Dei Tati 2007, Trader Joes; November, 2008.

Color is a very pale yellow green. My nose showed a light, greenish, but no real character. Initial taste showed a little, weak fruit, and no finish.

Yet, with our salad, the wine sprung up and asserted itself. This was a simple salad of tomatoes and greens. The dressing spiced it up, consisting of sliced garlic, sherry and white wine vinegars, shallots, and olive oil from Andalucía. The sliced garlic added a tanginess that the Cortese stood up to and complimented. This is the point of this blog. A wine is not what you taste by itself. It is what it does for your meal. The tanginess of the garlic brought out the similar tanginess in the wine and they underscored and complimented each other.

Our main course was shrimp quickly cooked in hot olive oil with garlic and paprika. This is a take off of a favorite dish of ours called gambas al aijllo, a tapa I loved in Andalucía. We have this dish often. Brigette likes to vary the ingredients some. The basics always include olive oil, garlic, and a pepper of some spicy sort, which this dish included. Unfortunately, this time she sort of slipped with the paprika package. It was paprika gone wild! A bit much. Even then the wine cut through the excess and gave us a lovely respite from the dark red/olive oil mixture our shrimp were submerged in. I think that the wine would have been very good with this dish even without the overabundance of paprika. The wine was delightful and turned the dinner around, especially now that the paprika bonanza was not such a big deal.

On the other hand, the wine was a little bitter with (French) bread and butter.

The Cortese is a real food wine, and combines well with fish. It would also do well with moderately spicy dishes. It handles strong flavors. It has a distinctive flavor that is not citrus, so it is not high in acid. If you want to sip, this is not the wine. If you want something that goes well with a spicy dish, this is a good choice.