Pasqua Hey French! You Could Have Made This But You Didn't (Third Edition)
-
Wine
Enthusiast -
James
Suckling
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
A wine with great potential for aging. A stylistic effort designed to obtain a unique complexity and structure through the skillful combination of the different characteristics represented by various vintages. Garganega gives the wine structure, freshness and fragrance with floral notes and intense minerality, a profound expression of the volcanic-origin soil composition. When tasting, the different vintages are expressed in a long succession of hints and notes ranging from just-blooming flowers to chamomile, hazelnut, citrus and tropical fruit.
Pair with risotto, shellfish, salads and delicate fish.
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Enthusiast
Hey French is one of the most unique Italian wines on the market today. A blend of Garganega, Pinot Bianco and Sauvignon Blanc plus a multi-vintage blend and macerated. Altogether this gives the wine a complexity and depth that make this a singular wine. Aromas of roasted Rennet apple, dried orange and lemon peel, pressed yellow flowers and beeswax. The palate is both rich yet lifted simultaneously with vibrant acidity and a smoky mineral quality that melds with roasted stone fruit, almond and citrus oil on the palate.
-
James Suckling
A tongue-in-cheek label, but there’s plenty here for anyone to enjoy, from the array of well-integrated aromas and flavors, ranging from ripe apple to stone fruit and creme brulee, to the full, compact and persistent palate with a peach-stone grip to the long finish. A blend of 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 vintages. Drink now or hold for a year or two.
Wine Enthusiast Magazine's 2023 Innovator of the Year
Pasqua Vigneti e Cantine was born of the Family’s love for Valpolicella. In its almost centennial existence, the company is now the #1 private producer of wines in Northern Italy. Famiglia Pasqua is locaed in Verona and produces premium and unique Italian wines. In its storied existence, the company has obtained international recognition with its wines, which are synonymous with the great wine-producing tradition of the region. Tradition, innovation, quality and passion are the values handed down from generation to generation by the Pasqua family.
Three generations of people with a Veronese heart and an international soul, sharing the same great passion: viticulture and the production of unique wines from Veneto as well as other great Italian wine regions. Beginning in 1925, the first generation of the Pasqua brothers came to Verona and established a new business devoted to the trade of wines from their homeland, Apulia. Along with wine trade, they decided to start a winery. Within a few years, with the acquisition of new vineyards in the Verona area, the company progressively gained importance and visibility. During the sixties the second generation of the family entered the business, bringing about an opening to export and an orientation toward quality. The addition of an agricultural estate in the eighties and innovative research center for vines, grafting techniques and vineyards. In the mid 2000’s the company made a huge investment with the creation of a new headquarters and manufacturing plant in San Felice, in the heart of the family vineyards.
Now the third generation, composed by Riccardo, Alessandro, Cecilia and Giovanni, started to lead the company, the international market reached new heights, with the foundation of Pasqua USA in New York. The company now sells wine in 40 US States & 60 countries worldwide.
With hundreds of white grape varieties to choose from, winemakers have the freedom to create a virtually endless assortment of blended white wines. In many European regions, strict laws are in place determining the set of varieties that may be used in white wine blends, but in the New World, experimentation is permitted and encouraged. Blending can be utilized to enhance balance or create complexity, lending different layers of flavors and aromas. For example, a variety that creates a soft and full-bodied white wine blend, like Chardonnay, would do well combined with one that is more fragrant and naturally high in acidity. Sometimes small amounts of a particular variety are added to boost color or aromatics. Blending can take place before or after fermentation, with the latter, more popular option giving more control to the winemaker over the final qualities of the wine.
Producing every style of wine and with great success, the Veneto is one of the most multi-faceted wine regions of Italy.
Veneto's appellation called Valpolicella (meaning “valley of cellars” in Italian) is a series of north to south valleys and is the source of the region’s best red wine with the same name. Valpolicella—the wine—is juicy, spicy, tart and packed full of red cherry flavors. Corvina makes up the backbone of the blend with Rondinella, Molinara, Croatina and others playing supporting roles. Amarone, a dry red, and Recioto, a sweet wine, follow the same blending patterns but are made from grapes left to dry for a few months before pressing. The drying process results in intense, full-bodied, heady and often, quite cerebral wines.
Soave, based on the indigenous Garganega grape, is the famous white here—made ultra popular in the 1970s at a time when quantity was more important than quality. Today one can find great values on whites from Soave, making it a perfect choice as an everyday sipper! But the more recent local, increased focus on low yields and high quality winemaking in the original Soave zone, now called Soave Classico, gives the real gems of the area. A fine Soave Classico will exhibit a round palate full of flavors such as ripe pear, yellow peach, melon or orange zest and have smoky and floral aromas and a sapid, fresh, mineral-driven finish.
Much of Italy’s Pinot grigio hails from the Veneto, where the crisp and refreshing style is easy to maintain; the ultra-popular sparkling wine, Prosecco, comes from here as well.