Alcesti wines from Sicily - tasty affordable wines

We usually only discuss really rare and expensive wines here, but I had some tasty wines last week at our Country Club’s wine club event that were pretty cheap. The wines were from Alcesti wines in Sicily Alcesti — Siema Brands and were brought into the US by Siema Wines. No, these are not great or complex wines. But, they are fresh with nice fruit, good acidity and little or no new oak. We had a bunch of wines, both white and read, but some of my favorite QPR wines were the 2017 Terr Siciliane L’Isola dei Profumi Rosso (Nero d’Avola and Perricone), which was $7 a bottle; the 2017 Terrie Siciliane Frappato ($10 a bottle); and their super duper high priced wine, a Terre Siciliane Narke dei Peoti (Nero d’Avola and Cabernet Sauvignon), which I think had some new oak but was still quite good, and was a whopping $20 per bottle. We also had a Merlot, a Nero d’Avola, a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Syrah (each of which costs $10) that were good, although my favorites were the ones listed above, and a bunch of whites.

I thought the whites on the whole were not as good as the reds, but tasting the $10 regular Chardonnay (2018) with no new oak vs. a $18 Chardonnay with some new oak was instructive. The $10 was fresh and reminded me a bit of a Chablis because of the light body and good acidity, but without the minerality and finish of a good Chablis. However, the more expensive and theoretically better Chardonnay seemed a bit like a mess to me (and was the only wine of the evening I did not really like).