Dining with Zornitza Family Estate
This May (Wow, it has been almost 3 months already!), during my stay in Sofia, juding at Balkans International Wine Competition, I was fortunate to attend a dinner with Zornitza Wine Estate at Cinecitta Osteria Italiana.
Zornitza is quite a young, up and coming winery aiming for the sky, as are they with their Zornitza Family Estate, which since early 2018 is part of the prestigeous Relais & Châteaux.
Located in Melnik region, Zornitza cultivates more than 15 varieties on some 200 ha, and already on their 3rd vintage, the quality is very high. The present of Alex Skorchev most certainly only adds to the project!
Cinecitta is located on the way to the hills from downtown Sofia and is on its own well worth a de-tour.
I was fortunate to have the company of Alex for wast parts of the dinner and was only happy to learn, what he had to tell!
For starters a lovely honey miso salmon paired with a 2016 Sauvignon Blanc from Zornitza's Black Sea resort. A very limited edition and very well made indeed. Even if ripe, you sense the elevation of the vineyards in the wine.
And the company was indeed great as well.
The next wine was perhaps my favourite and damn me for not getting a suitable picture of it! We had a 2017 Melnik/Marselan to go with a Filetto Calabro with parmesan panne cotta and fermented veggies.
A lovely, medium bodied wine with such elegance. Super Summer friendly. Tasting it blind, you might even go Pinot Noir... Be careful, not to serve this charmeur to warm.
Next up was a very well made Mushroom linguine with veal ragout, which was beautifully matched with a 2017 Syrah. Very ripe fruit with sweet spices, yet unmistakingly Syrah character. Soft, caressing finish. And one thing, that struck me with the wast majority of the wines. They had a lovely freshness to them.
In general, the wines of Zornitza need more time to truly express their ageing potential. Like their 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon/Petit Verdot, a big, bold wine. Black and red fruits, smoke and vanilla - sure sign of having spend some time in oak. Powerful and intense with Petit Verdot, a grape attracting more and more attention recently, making its presence felt.
A great pairing with the Charolais Ribeye with mushrooms gratin, caramelized onions and demi-glace.
Syrah 50/50 is a beautiful wine. From the third and fourth out of four harvests of Syrah grapes. Some 4-5 months in 2. use French oak does not at all mask the fruit. Very elegant and still very young. Intense and loaded with fruit.
Pairing Syrah with a mousse on absolute top notch chocolate was brave, but the fruityness of the wine compared with adding cherries to the dessert, helped pulling it off.