Theopetra Estate Edenia Rosé
Do you love sparkling wine? I do. I’m always happy to try any of them (and generally even happier to drink them). Finding new sparkling wine to drink is one of the many fun things about learning about wine regions. On a semi-recent trip to Athens, I discovered a new bottle of bubbles thanks to one of my favorite wine shops (Alpha Sigma in Syntagma): Theopetra Estate Edenia Rosé.
We don’t hear a lot about Limniona but I have really enjoyed the few I’ve had. So when I saw this Limniona sparkling wine, I couldn’t not buy it. The grape comes from Thessaly in north-central Greece. It’s undergoing something of a renaissance with more and more wines coming onto the market in recent years. Limniona produces deeply colored wines (look at the color on this rosé!!!), aromatic wines with high tannins and acidity. According to Wines of Greece, “Limniona is one of these rare red varieties that manage to pack extract, concentration, acidity and flavour, without leaning towards fatness and volume. It is for people looking for the next generation of ambitious, yet graceful reds.”
In 1996 the Tsililis family established Theopetra Estate in order to revive vineyards in Meteora that were lost after phylloxera. While they do have an international grape or two in their catalog, the family mainly works with native varieties. Their vineyards have diverse soils including pockets of slate, marine fossil limestone, and iron-rich sandy-clay.
Theopetra Estate Edenia Rosé, 2015
Produced under the PGI Meteora appellation (in Thessaly) with organic grapes, this 100% Limniona rosé macerated for eight hours before being bled off. The bubbles come courtesy of the Charmat method after which the wine spends 18 month ageing on the lees.
DEEEEEP “pink” in the glass. I mean, this is really a pale red, not a rosé. Aromatic as promised with a nose full of red fruits (predominately raspberry and cherry), dried rose petals, and an exciting streak of botanical aromas. Dry with a mouth-filling creamy mousse and super tasty with all those flavors found in the nose. At only 12% abv, absolutely delicious and crushable.
I will look for this again!