I chose to review a Marsala wine this week because I was trying my hand at a Chicken Marsala recipe. I really wanted to impress my company with my culinary expertise, so I went to Vintage Cellar to pick up a really good bottle of Marsala to cook with. I chose a dry Marsala instead of a sweet one because I was not sure how sweet fortified wine would be already. The bottle came out to about $18 and had an alcohol content of 17% ABV. It comes from Sicily in Italy and is made of Marsala grapes.
From community reviews on the website Vivino, this dry fortified wine has woody notes. It is also alcohol forward, with grapey, salty notes. It is not too sweet, which is good for cooking purposes.
The wine in the glass was a mild shade of brown; what I would call caramel colored. The aroma of it had notes of caramel, butterscotch, dried fruit or fruitcake, and a strong nuttiness. I was expecting a thick wine from the appearance, but it was rather medium bodied. The alcohol was definitely not too strong. I drank this at room temperature and noticed it was very smooth and sugary. It rested on my tongue with a flavor of nuttiness and dried fruit like dates. It was a bit acidic on the swallow. I also tried this wine chilled and it was much more acidic.
According to page 127 of Wine Folly, Marsala is usually very high in sweetness and body as well as alcohol. I found it to be very balanced: it was definitely not too sweet, and I could not taste the alcohol much. The body was a little thinner than I expected, which was fine. Notes of this wine include stewed apricot, vanilla, tamarind, brown sugar, and tobacco. On this variety, I can understand the apricot and brown sugar.
The Chicken Marsala I made with it was divine. It had a wonderful sweet, nuttiness when reduced with cream and chicken broth as well as the mushrooms, onions, and garlic I sautéed. I will absolutely be cooking with this wine again.
No comments:
Post a Comment