The swirling continues with some recent sips from Italy and Spain. Like my previous reviews from France, most of these wines are classically Old World in style with subtle fruit, earthy notes and dry on the palate. Most of these wines were sent to Swirl Girls for review.

2010 Lungarotti Torre di Giano – Torgiano, Umbria, Italy ($16 online)
This is a simple but delicious wine that wins my vote for quality and value. The wine is made from a blend of trebbiano and grechetto grapes, both white varietals grown in Umbria’s Torgiano region. Torgiano was the first winemaking region in Umbria to obtain DOC status in 1968.

This wine has aromas and flavors of fresh apple and citrus with some floral notes. On the palate it’s fresh, light and dry with a nice acidity and a clean finish. We enjoyed this wine with a meal of fresh pasta lightly tossed with a san marzano tomato sauce and finished with a bit of brie, fresh mozzarella and basil. Deliziosa!

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You’re planning your wedding, and all of the little details are just driving you crazy.

The dress, the venue, the invitations, will the groom wear a tux or a suit? We totally understand, so we tried to think of something to help out. Something to take the stress out of at least one part of the planning.

If you’ve got a bridesmaids’ brunch, or a girls’ night out, or need something beautiful and yummy and different when it comes to serving drinks or sparkling wines/champagne, we’ve done that work for you.

The Swirl Girls’ Guide to Sassy Sparkling Drinks is at your fingertips. You can try them all out – it’s a great excuse for a girls’ night out with your favorite women – or just pick one and run with it. They all look fabulous, and they all taste terrific. The other must-do is to attend The Palm Beach Post’s awesome Bridal Show on Sept. 25 in the Palm Beach County Convention Center.

Our rules were simple: Start with champagne or a sparkling wine, add something different to the glass and make sure it looks as good as it tastes. Here are results from Bold, Earthy and Sweet (Dry was somewhere in France tasting fine wines).

From (Bold):I chose Chateau St. Michelle Brut, one of my favorite sparkling wines (it’s inexpensive and beat out Dom Perignon across the country in taste tests!) to pair with colorful, tasty liquids.
It’s a fairly dry sparkling wine, so I wanted to pair some sweet things with it. I tried Ty-Ku, a sake-based light green liqueur (pretty light green, but the taste was more like mouthwash), then Midori melon (beautiful neon green, like a Christmas ornament – taste was better, but not great), then limoncello (taste was great, color was horrible), then brandy (not a good idea all the way around). Read the full story

My swirling is winding down with my third and final end of the summer round-up. This one includes some wines from around the New World that I’ve tried recently. Many of these wines were sent to Swirl Girls for review.

2009 King Estate Pinot Noir, Oregon ($24 at Total Wine, $27 at ABC)
Let me start by saying that I’ve liked every wine I’ve ever tried from King Estate. The organic and sustainably farmed winery includes almost 500 acres of organic vineyards, plus 30 acres of fruits, veggies and flowers. Whether I’m sipping on one of their rieslings, pinot gris, vin glace or pinot noir, I’m a happy lady.

The 2009 King Estate Pinot Noir is made with grapes sourced from King Estate and other sustainably farmed vineyards across Oregon. It’s a bright garnet color in the glass with tangy cherry, currant, earth and dried herb aromas. It’s got a lovely silky feel in the mouth with a nice acidic structure. The fruity is a bit tart but sweetens and lingers on the finish. It’s a lovely little wine that lives up to King Estate’s reputation. Read the full story

This vintage Blanc de Blancs (white from white) is made with 100 percent chardonnay. This was the first wine Schramsberg produced in 1965 and the wine became famous worldwide in 1972 when President Nixon served it at the “Toast to Peace” in Beijing.

The wine is barrel-fermented in small lots and aged on the lees in the bottle for two years before disgorgement. The 2007 vintage is full of fresh lemon and apple aromas with some white peach, white flowers and hints of yeast and crème brulee. It’s very smooth and creamy on the palate with a soft tickling of bubbles. The wine finishes dry.

Note: The 2007 Schramsberg Blanc de Blancs Brut was sent to the Swirl Girls for review. It sells locally at Crown Wine & Spirits and at Total Wine for $28, and for $34 at ABC)

I opened this bottle at a recent dinner party and served with some light tapas. It paired fantastically with a smoked salmon crisp recipe modified from chef Thomas Keller’s salmon cornets: Read the full story

It’s not your everyday Moet. Not that you have Moet every day, mind you. But here’s a bright, white-foil-wrapped, gold-lettered bottle of Moet & Chandon Ice Imperial Champagne. The bottle looks cool to the touch. Then, all around the bottle are words you don’t usually see on Champagnes: Drink on ice.

Really?

Yes, this is the sunnier, lighter, fizzy side of Moet. At about $60 a bottle.

It’s a new product from the famous French company, meant to be served over ice. Because Champagne flutes aren’t meant to have any ice in them at all, I served this Moet in smaller wine glasses, with a couple of ice cubes per glass.

Joining me in the holiday weekend tasting (if it’s a holiday, it means Moet!) were my husband, my brother (a restaurateur) and my sister-in-law. This sparkler is a pretty, pale peach and light orangeade-colored blend of pinot noir (40-50 percent), pinot meunier (30-40 percent) and chardonnay (10 to 20 percent), which makes it a bit off-dry.

On the nose, it’s light and smells faintly of peaches, too. It’s got a slight tropical hint to it, and reminded us of a Champagne spritzer with a little oomph to it.
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The Mumm Napa Brut Rosé sparkling wine was exquisite right out of the bottle.

With its pale salmon color and feisty bubbles, the wine held us spellbound for a few moments as we watched it dance in the champagne flutes. And it was even more special sharing it on a Sunday afternoon with my sister and brother-in-law, who were visiting from out of town, and our mother.

It had a light strawberry aroma with a touch of yeast that kept it from smelling too fruity. The palate held strawberries and cherries, and although it was quite dry it wasn’t overly acidic, making it a lovely brunch accompaniment.

Mom found it “very drinkable, not overwhelming,” while brother-in-law Jeff noticed how it lingered on the back of his palate. And ever the observant one, he also noticed that 10 minutes after we had poured the wine, the effervescence was still lively.

We all agreed this sparkling wine had a softer side than many, yet remained sophisticated. It was Audrey Hepburn… classy and elegant, laced with sassiness.

Still looking for that perfect bottle to share with your sweetie on Valentine’s Day? Look no further.

($22 suggested retail; available for sale price of $16.99 until Feb. 28. on ABC web site.)

Sonoma is an onomatopoeia. It sounds like what it means: A beautiful terroir with rolling hills and a high percentage of restful experiences, such as wine tastings.

Yes, wine tastings can be restful – it’s a time to slow down and concentrate on one thing, the wine in your glass. Swirl Girl Sweet (Libby Volgyes) and I combined both recently at the “Sensational Sonoma Selections” tasting at Total Wine.

As with all the wine tastings there, we learned a lot about the entire Sonoma County and Sonoma Coast regions (this is just to the west of the famed Napa Valley), from the area’s history to what makes those wines unique. We traveled from a sparkling to a cabernet, with superb appetizer pairings from caterer Epicurean Bliss. Here are our notes – swirl, taste and enjoy!

River Road Sonoma Coast Brut ($19.99): A pale sparkling wine with a nose of apple and strawberries, this is a dry, light-bodied wine. It has a nice balance, and we thought it was good, but didn’t knock our socks off.

Kinneybrook Sauvignon Blanc 2009 ($14.99): From the Kunde folks, this had tons of wonderful smells, flowers, melon and lemon, grapefruit. And gooseberries, according to Sweet. It’s a really nice wine for the price, and reminded us of a New Zealand sauv blanc, which is high praise. Says Sweet: “This crisp, clean and extremely well-balanced wine reminded me of sunshine and spring. I would immediately reach for this wine for friends, family or a fancy dinner party.” From my friend, Noelle, who is not a white wine drinker: “This is the white for those who don’t drink white.”
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It’s a lovely sort of problem to have: just what does one do with leftover bottles of Champagne? You can’t cork them and save them – they’ll be flat within hours. And you can’t chug them – that’s a sure sign of a headache! (Among other things.) And if you’re not drinking them in the morning, then mimosas are useless too!

I recently had this conundrum after the Swirl Girls came over and we tasted seven (seven!) bottles of Champagne and sparkling wines. Even after everyone had their fill, there was a ridiculous amount left. Being an ice cream-minded person, I decided to use what I had around the house and make a Champagne granita.

These were my rules: It had to be easy. It had to be fast. And it had to be improvised by the random collection that is my pantry.

First I made a simple syrup: one part sugar to one part water, simmer for a few minutes until the sugar is dissolved, then cool. That way, after the tasting was done, I could bring in my favorite sparklers and start mixing right away.

I started with the prosecco – wonderfully crisp and lively as it was – and mixed it with the simple syrup and pear juice. This was by far my favorite!

The sweeter Sofia Blanc de Blancs sparkler got to stand on its own, sans juice, just simmered with sugar and water over low heat for five minutes.

I also mixed one of the drier sparkling wines with guava juice and a simple syrup but I can’t for the life of me remember which one it was…It’s probably a good idea to label your Tupperware.

The next few days, I brought out my Tupperware every time someone entered my house and offered them my champagne granita. Survey (overwhelmingly) said YES!

Recipe: (Give or take)

Make a simple syrup with 3/4 cup sugar and 3/4 water. Simmer over low heat five minutes and cool. Use half the mixture and mix with about a cup of sparkling wine and about 3/4 juice. If you have a fruit that compliments it, feel free to chop it up and add to the mixture. Pour into Tupperware and freeze or freeze in an ice cream maker. It may not freeze completely, but this is okay because it is now a delicious drink for when you finish mowing the grass.

Stumped on what to get your hairdresser, boss or mail deliverer? Never fear, acclaimed wine writer and sommelier Natalie MacLean has just the thing… wine! This fun and feisty lady is taking the wine world by storm. MacLean is the author of Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass (Bloomsbury USA, $10.10 on Amazon.com). Her lighthearted, relaxed approach to wine is definitely Swirl Girl-approved.

Check out her website, nataliemaclean.com and her NatDecants wine pairing app on iPhone.

Natalie put her fun personality together with winos you know and delivered this list on her blog. She graciously agreed to let us share it with you:

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You meet the one. He gives you butterflies. He makes you laugh. He makes you feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. One special day, he asks you to be his wife.

And then the planning begins. It’s supposed to be the most romantic, the most magical, the most perfect day of your life. Maybe it’s a day you’ve planned since you were a little girl.

But sometimes the dreams of childhood don’t match up with the finances of adulthood. Between booking the venue, the entertainment, the catering, buying the dress, ordering the invitations and flowers, wedding expenses can add up fast.

Luckily not everything has to cost a small fortune. Sure, we all want to toast to our new lives together with The Dom, but who can really afford Pérignon these days?

The SGs recently got together to sample a few inexpensive bottles of bubbly. Here are our picks to help keep your wedding budget on track. — (Dry) Gwen Read the full story