The Desert Wine Guy - 2014 Cascina La Doria Gavi

   Welcome back to my wine blog guys. Today I will be reviewing the 2014 Cascina La Doria Gavi which is a white wine made from 100% Cortese grapes. I have never heard of the varietal prior to this review but I did discover that the Cortese varietal is one which is predominantly grown in the town of Gavi which is located in the southeastern region of Piedmont Italy. Breaking it down a little further I want to tell you that the grapes for this wine are grown in the commune of San Cristoforo. This varietal is also Italy's first white wine to gain international notoriety and is considered one of the top-ranking Italian whites today. With this review I am also checking out and reviewing the last in a series of wines that I bought on clearance for $4.99 at a large retail liquor superstore. While I paid $4.99 on clearance for the wine it normally sells for $18.99 at this particular store. This wine comes in at 12.5% Alcohol and sat for 6 months in steel barrels. This wine is produced by Villa Lanata (http://www.villalanata.it/en/) although they do not appear to claim the label on their website as there is no mention of the label there. There is however mention of the label on this (http://www.cascinaladoria.it/en/products-category/la-doria-gavi-docg/) site. A closer look at both sites will show that they are indeed one and the same. One other interesting thing about this wine is that it is a single estate wine which means that the grapes for this wine come from only one single Vineyard. The winery and vineyards don't have to be contiguous, but they have to be located in the same appellation. Let's go ahead and check out the Nose of this wine now.

Cortese vines

   On the nose the wine presents notes of very light Pear as well as a super light Peach. There is a slightly more moderate note of Honey that overall dominates the nose but overall the Bouquet I would have to say is certainly on the lighter side with a very light tropical Bouquet. Please keep in mind that a light Bouquet doesn't necessarily mean anything is wrong with a wine or that the wine is not a quality made wine.
   So here we are, talking about basically a $20 wine from a single estate in Italy, sounds good huh? I will remind you that the whole idea that I had in creating the profile of The Desert Wine Guy is to review wines for the average person. Now, is $20 a reasonable price for the average person to spend on a wine. In my opinion while it may be at the top of what is permissible, it is appropriate. The question I ask myself as always and that I try to answer for you as well is is this wine worth the $20 price tag it normally has? Stick around and we will find out together right now.
   So we are now moving to the Palette and how the wine tastes or comes across here. Well to begin with understand that the wine is tropical and semi light in the notes that it does present. A note of Pear is pretty nice as well as the note of Peach. There is a somewhat drier note of Nectarine that follows these other notes and the wine just seems to be ......pleasant.  I need to tell you guys that at first this wine prior to be allowed to develop a bit was exhibiting a super serious note of fruity Acidity that really almost completely turned me off to it. Once given about a half hour to open or develop however, this wine really softened quite a bit and transformed into a white that displayed a wonderful Honeysuckle note yet still thankfully did manage to retain a bit of that fruity Acidity where it actually worked in favor of the overall wines presentation rather then against it.

There is a sort of dull lemony type note that comes out and thankfully it is without any harsh tartness displayed. This lemony note in reality goes very well with the fruity Acidity I spoke of and I believe also keeps what I think could have easily been overdone Acidity rather successfully in check. As this wine opens (and it does) it displays more tropical fruit and becomes brighter on the Palette. The notes of that Honeysuckle as well as white flowers really comes to life and really present themselves pretty nicely. Speaking once again of the rather moderate Acidity I have to tell you that while it is toned down it does not disappear at any point on the Palate and continues to impress up to the finish, I for sure did thoroughly enjoy it. Speaking of the finish I have to say that there is still an ever so slight amount of harshness that exhibits itself on the finish. While it is not terrible and it does not distract from the overall enjoyment of the wine, it is noticeable. It is now time folks, time to close out this review. Let's move now to the closing paragraph and put this all together for you.

   So, here we are at the end of this review. There are some things that I really need to talk to you about concerning this wine. Really quickly I want to say that you already know that I gave this wine a total of about a half hour to open up and develop but prior to that time I handed a glass of this wine to a friend who agreed that the wine was a little more then slightly over the top in Acidity, they also said that the finish was flat and watery although I myself didn't think that. They also understandably said that the wine was not good. At the time I said to myself that I was going to have to really bomb this wine. But wait, there's more. After tasting this wine after it opened up we both feel completely different about it as we both agreed that we were glad we waited the half hour. Overall I will tell you that I really liked this wine. Light Tropical notes and some Acidity to add a hair of complexity to it, nice wine. On The Desert Wine Guy rating scale I give this wine 91 points.
                                                                                                                  The Desert Wine Guy

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