La Fantasia by Castello di Amarosa

Take a seat and buckle up because we're about to go on a wild ride into learning some thangs. Welcome to our HOLY GRAIL wine. This is the favorite, the yummiest, the will-drink-with-everything wine. We discovered this one on our trip to Napa when we visited a freakin castle winery, complete with dungeons and a torture chamber and underground cellars (more on the winery below). Our tour guide was a real life Tony Stark, and I like to imagine he flew off in his Iron Man suit to go save the grapes after the tour was over. His name was actually Jamie, so if you ever get to go, ask for this sarcastic gentleman and you won't be disappointed. We regretted not signing up for their wine club as soon as we got home, so that was the first thing I did when we got back. This wine is so good they have a specific wine club dedicated to La Fantasia with no variation with any other of their sweet wines, where all you get is bottles on bottles of this Jesus juice sent to you every couple months. We also give them as gifts to everyone we know, because I'm basically doing God's work sharing this with people. JK, but it's that good.

Anyways, tasting this is basically just an excuse for me to open one of our precious bottles, since you can't get it in store and we have to wait for shipment every 3 months (you can order it anytime, fyi). And I didn't do the whole sweet, spicy, salty, cheese thing. We made tacos, so that is what I'm gonna drink it with, since it literally goes well with anything. Especially homemade pico.

Name: La Fantasia by Castello di Amorosa

Price: $30 from the winery directly here. I know, it an expensive bottle. All of their stuff is pricey, but it is so worth it.

Alcohol Content: 7.5%

Residual Sugar: 99.9 g/L

Vintage: 2017

TLDR: YASSSSS

Winery: Castello di Amorosa

About Winery: This has got to be our favorite winery of all time. It was built by the same man who owns V. Sattui winery down the road in St. Helena. Dario Sattui did all this research on medieval castle building and had the castle built as accurately as possible to a 13th century Tuscan masterpiece. Basically, it was like walking into Skyrim, and I was expecting a dragon to attack at any minute and I was wishing I would've worn my Daedric Armor (excuse my nerd joke). It took 15 years to build this fortress, and they host badass events throughout the year. One is a Pagan Ball for Halloween that involves scurrying drunkenly through the underground tunnels and torture chambers that I can only imagine is as much fun as it is dangerous, and I WANT TO GO. Anyways, they make a huge selection of wines, do everything with extreme care for detail, and most of their wines are award winning in some way. Their moscato is a good choice too, but I have found other moscatos I like for a cheaper price. Either way, expensive or not, its such a cool place and worth a visit even if you hated wine.

Varietal: The varietals are not given on the website. But, I did find some info on another website that sounds accurate about which grapes were used in this. It is suggested that La Fantasia contains a Syrah, Grenache, and Mourvedre grape blend, although their website lists just a "proprietary blend." Technically, this is a frizzante (sparkling) rose, which can be a blend of several reds. Just a bit of education - rose is NOT a mix of red and white, but instead they lighten the color by removing contact with the skins earlier in the process. It is suggested that La Fantasia contains a Syrah, Grenache, and Mourvedre grape blend, although their website lists just a "proprietary blend."

About the Grape: Let's start with Syrah. It is also called Shiraz, but it just depends on where you get it from. Syrah is known to be a dark red with high tannin and full body. It has a peppery, tobacco, and berry taste, and it was made famous in the Rhone Valley of France, although lots of places make great Syrah. Grenache is known for it's fruit roll-up and cinnamon taste with high levels of strawberry and berry flavors. It's fruity and usually blended with Syrah in the US. Mouvedre is tends to have a plum and berry flavor and is meaty in style with a full body.

Bottle Description: "La Fantasia is an escape from reality to a fantasy world. Lighthearted, playful and avant-garde. La Fantasia is a freshly pressed partially fermented grape juice; fruit and sweet. La Fantasia is perfect for sipping in the late afternoon and evening, excellent with antipasti, with fruit, cheese and nuts or with your favorite dessert. A special occasion is not necessary to imbibe this wine. Enjoy anytime, anywhere for any reason at all. La Fantasia is sure to help you create and live new fantasies."

Color: The prettiest ruby ever

Nose: To us, we got strawberry and black cherry on the nose. My favorite sno-cone when I was little was cherry, and this smells like straight cherry sno-cone flavor. It smells sweet and juicy.

Taste: Summed up, it tastes amazing. You get cherry, dried fruit, and grape. Bodie got some pear on his palate, but I got more of a red fruit taste from it with hints of pomegranate. It has good acid and definitely makes your mouth water. It is lightly carbonated, and has a low tannin that is just slightly noticeable. It is medium bodied and extravagant and all around wonderful.

Finish: The finish is minimal. I continue to get pomegranate on the finish, but Bodie said he tasted pineapple. He was all over the fruit spectrum tonight.

Cheese: I did try it with cheese while I was making tacos, because I was starving and needed a snack. I'm not upset about it. The cheddar we have is very sharp and I feel like it is hard to find wines that go really well with it. But La Fantasia did not disappoint. I dulls down the sparkle and brings out the cherry and strawberry flavors.

Tacos: The tacos were great. The pico turned out awesome. Excuse my humble-brag, but we've got a flourishing cilantro plant in our backyard and it really made everything pop. The tacos were spicy, which I love, so I guess this could count for our spicy pairing. But it really brought out the pomegranate in the wine. Bodie forewent wine with dinner and ended up burning his nostrils on his whiskey, so he didn't taste the tacos and the wine together. I don't think he tasted much of anything for quite a while after that whiskey burn actually. Essentially La Fantasia was excellent with everything and continued to live up to our expectations.

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