Welcome to our Featured Wine series! Each month Damian will profile a Doffo wine, giving you a little bit of back story about the winemaking process, what to expect when you taste it, and what kinds of foods to pair it with. We hope you enjoy and visit us in Temecula soon to learn more about our handcrafted wines! Our Featured Wine of the Month for July is our Fiori.
We named this white wine after my sister Brigitte’s daughter, Fiorella. She is the firstborn granddaughter in the family with a bright and happy personality, and that’s why it seemed like the perfect name for this late harvest Semillon.
Fiorella takes the mic at the launch of our Fiori wine, during our Viva Argentina Party last Spring. It was also Fiori’s 9th birthday.
Here’s how we made this wine. The grapes were left until late in the harvest season until the grapes begin to raisin. The resulting wine has a very intense aromatic profile, and a sweet taste due to the residual sugar that was not consumed during the fermentation process.
The wine was then aged in stainless steel for 2 years, and then transferred to three year-old seasoned American oak barrels for eight months. We decided to do this to add yet another layer of complexity to this very special wine.
Sun-ripened apricot and peach nose make this wine perfect for warm summer days. The initial taste on the palate is orange blossom honey, followed by just enough acidity to bring the wine back into balance. The balance of acidity and sweetness makes the finish very light and enticing for the next sip.
Pairing Notes
Freshly seared foie gras is an ideal pairing but if you aren’t fans of duck and goose liver, I recommend strong cheeses, like Roquefort or pecorino. Desserts with fresh or dried figs or almond paste are also particularly lovely or perhaps French style peach or nectarine tart. If you choose to go the opposite direction, lemon tart is a fantastic option.
Serving Suggestion
Serve chilled, at refrigerator temperature or slightly colder. The wine is set up to enjoy now but can handle several years in the cellar. The wine will begin to oxidize slightly but the flavors will become more complex.
Handcrafted
Fiori has a unique bottle shape – the design is out of Italy and we are the only winery in the United States that uses this glass. We chose this shape bottle for both our Syrah Reserve and Fiori because it truly demonstrates that we are a craft and artisan winery. There is no lying when we say hand crafted because the bottle shape does not allow you to run it through a bottling line nor an automatic labeling machine like a standard production wine. Each bottle is hand filled, corked and labeled one at a time.
