Mid-Spring Wine Offering in Two parts for you!
Good morning! I've split this week's offering in two, as there are quite a few to choose from and I don't know how long I can hold your attention, in this Instagram age...so try not to swipe up, down, left, or right without looking at the images below and CHECKING OUT what is here for you!
Part 1 below
A rosé for you, from my friends at Riberach. This is their No. 19 Cotes Catalanes, Rosé of Syrah, 2019- $21.
Yes it is that time again and goddamned if I couldn't just drink this shit all day... the perfect wine for sunshine, in a price that may cause you to purchase a case or two, and have on hand for your lush(ious) friends, when they pop by, having gotten their vaccine and being starved for comradery of the bodily, physically present kind. I don't know how to put it really. This is not necessarily about the strawberry fruit of the southern rhone, but definitely of the mineral and brightly savory quality, where the fruit is penned up, only to come out on the finish or in the context of some briny, fresh and plump oysters, slipping down the back of your throat. How does one say no to that? Unless you hate oysters . . . well then, Salt roasted Marcona almonds?
Next! Kobal, Bajta Belo, 2018, Stajerska Slovenia- $27
It looks like a rosé and definitely the Pinot Gris in this cuvée lends itself to that lovely, brassy color . . . A wine, again, that goes far beyond the bounds of mere currency, which would belye its true greatness. A sip of it and you know you are in the presence of something special, truly. Coming from the Slovenian side of the Styrian peninsula - Stajerska, a skin macerated blend of Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Chardonnay, and Pinot Gris; each varietal vinified separately in barrel, left on the skins for 46 days and barrel aged for two years before bottling. What you get upon opening and pouring into the glass, is a wealth of organoleptic, apoplectic, narcoleptic, antiseptic peptides, of nose candy, crawling up your nostrils and up inside your brain, setting off an acid trip of color in the window of your mind. WOW! Really, a gorgeous pause for ponder; this multi faceted jewel, refracts all kinds of light in your mind's eye.
Next! Also from the Stajersca: Heaps Good Wine Company, Pinot Noir, 2018-$27
Pinot Noir Translucent, beautiful, and seemingly light, because so transparent- And yes! it is light, but deep with flavor and structure, For something so ephemeral looking, so ruby colored. Ruddy, pretty, with a slight hint of the color of oxidizing blood; it is not as in-substantial as the translucence would suggest. Smokey and herbal, with fresh herb, and wild berries.
Enfin! Manolo Caralis, Limnio, Lemnos Greece 2018- $28
From the island of Lemnos, Greece, one of the oldest recorded varietals in the world; Limnio, is mentioned in the writings of Homer and Aristotle. The varietal was all but erased from the island over the centuries, but is enjoying a bit of a renaissance, with growers such as Caralis, I tasted this in a line with a selection of other wines all hailing from various islands and outcroppings from the beautiful land of Greece, and this stood out, by far! and I almost missed it, as it was toward the end of the tasting. There is a perfume to the wine, dried rose petals, not of your grandmother's potpourri in the underwear drawer, but of the scent one might get from the upper floors of an old house on a warm, breezy summer's day. Yes, and the scent that wafts through the window is laced with wild fennel and mingling with old floorboards and gauzy curtains reaching inward on the gentle breeze. SHUTTHEFUCKUP! you might say . . . Does anyone really get those notes, literally from sniffing a glass of wine? Well, perhaps not, but one of the beauties oF wine, if not the biggest, is how it plays with your sensibilities, with your moods, with your state of consciousness. Music can do the same for me. So, yes, this wine sends me, and when considering its thousands-of-years of sentience on a Greek Isle, I can't help but wonder what other images in a mind's eye it has conjured.
Here you have it! Part 2 follows in another post.
Minimum 4 bottle order gets me to your door!
Click here to order: Cantina Sauvage
Much love,
Marc