Getting Faced with a Nice Vermentino

Argh, Facebook.

Bad enough you’re a haven for secret groups of law enforcement officers indulging their worst impulses, and show little to no interest in fact-checking the articles shared on your system daily.

Your wonderful Memories feature helpfully reminds me that two years ago this week, I was enjoying a glass of champagne at a seaside restaurant in Cassis in the south of France.

*looks around* Which today I am most emphatically not.

But at least French wine tariffs haven't gone into effect, yet, so we can still indulge a little. I dug through my cellar and found this vermentino from Provence.

This was a bit of a weird one to track down. The label says Garagai 2017 Cotes de Provence. But when I search for the barcode it comes back as Château Pourcieux White Provence Wine? And on Vivino, when I take a picture of the label, it tells me it's a rosé. Which, this is not. See the picture? That's a white wine. It's one of the bottles I bought from Princeton restaurant Eno Terra back in May. Very odd, and be warned if you go looking for this one in retail. But yes, this is a white wine.

Anyway! Vermentino! Another white grape you might not have tried yet, but you completely should. While it’s planted more in Italy, it's also common in the south of France. I also have been common in the south of France, but unfortunately not recently.

The color is light gold. Right out of the fridge, the aroma is muted, but on the palate I get sweet lychee and a hint of green tea. Often when I just open a white wine directly from my fridge, it just tastes cold and it doesn’t taste like anything. This made an excellent partner to last night’s dinner, salad with chicken and chickpeas and a bunch of whatever else looked good in the fridge.

All right, Zuckerberg. Still annoyed with you. But after a couple of glasses of this, and a salad, and some more posts of my cousin's baby girl, maybe I’ll chill out a little.