Holding on the Summer
Don’t break out the sweaters just yet! This month’s selections are all about enjoying this beautiful time of year. Stay in the moment, enjoy rosé and warm summer breezes, get in the, keep your toes in the sand and your ear on the sound of the lawn mower. And, by all means, keep on grilling! The wines in this month’s box will take you from your crudo to your grilled chicken by way of a summer tomato salad. Savor every last drop of summer.
Value Wines
2019 Conradie Pinotage will help you keep that grill sparked up with rich, abundant fruit, loads of brambly fruit, a lovely earthy texture and mushroom notes, with just a hint of smoke on the finish. Try it with some grilled thick cut porkchops with salted grilled peaches. It will like the combination of char, salt, and sweet.
2020 Antonio e Raimondo Cortese offers you a nice cocktail white for those last days with your toes in the sand. It is fresh, fruity, light, and has lots of minerality. Come to think of it, it will remind you of the ocean splashes. If you want to pair it with a dish, go for a watermelon salad with ricotta salata and some olives.
2020 Clamen’s Rose is a perennial favorite around here, and there is no surprise why when you taste it. It has all that lovely berry fruit that we love on our rosés, still dry, but lovely fruit, which is followed by candied lemon peel and a little curd like creaminess. Take this one to your next outing with a cheese and charcuterie platter and include an orange marmalade with it.
2015 Winslow Family Chardonnay is an impressive, well-balanced wine with character. I got a super deal on this one, so enjoy it! This complex chardonnay has apple, pineapple, and melon notes with a just a hint of apricot, popcorn, and cream. Yes, it is kissed with oak, but don’t fear that. When done right, a little oak give Chardonnay character, depth, and complexity. You won’t get a butter bomb from me, you know that! It is elegant, full bodied, and delicious. Enjoy this one with some pesto, grilled fish, or your next lobster roll.
2019 Domaine Cotes de la Berne Brouilly is delicate, and could easily be enjoyed with a slight chill on it as a cocktail red. Sometimes you just want a glass of wine while you watch Serena kick butt at the US Open, for example. I visited the Domaine when I traveled this last June to France with the owner, Jean-Jacques Sandrin, walked us through the vineyard to show me the difference in soil and vines when they are grown in Brouilly vs Morgon or Moulin a Vents. These are all appellations within the Cru system of Beaujolais, and while they are the same grape, the variation between the different crus is remarkable. This Gamay is delicate, lovely on its own, but it also would pair beautifully with a tuna tartar.
2019 Bodega Ceron Monastrell , aka Mourvedre from Central Spain, will give you all that bold fruit that you may be looking for now that our evenings are a bit cooler. It is bold with notes of blackberry, cocoa, and tobacco, but it is also well balanced with good acidity and tannins. You will love the texture, and the long finish. If you have started roasting, throw a mix of mushrooms in the oven with loads of garlic or green onions, enjoy them over a simple bowl of herbed rice with a glass of this bold red.
Select Wines
2020 Tellus Vinea is a wine that always exceeds my expectation. It is undoubtably a French Bordeaux. You will recognize the black cherry, brambly fruit, the tobacco and the cedar with the chalky aroma that invokes walking down a country road. What will surprise you is the easy approach this one has. It is unassuming, welcoming and friendly. These are not the words we typically this of when we talk about Bordeaux, and it is a welcomed surprise. Many say that gone are the day of affordable and enjoyable wines from Bordeaux, but this one will change their mind. I like the supple tannins, the rich dark fruit, and the cleansing acidity that balances the wine. Enjoy it with a steak and, if you have a way to do it, some French fries.
2020 Daridan Chevery Blanc is a crowd pleaser. It is a blend of Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc fermented in stainless steel, so it has all the fruit of Chardonnay with the associated richness of flavor, but its body is lightened by the Sauvignon Blanc. Also, all stainless means no malolactic fermentation, so the wine doesn’t have the richness of body or the buttery flavors that oak will lend to a Chardonnay. Flavor, elegance, crisp acidity are the elements and they come together in a great glass of wine that will pair wonderfully with a salad, a grilled fish, some summer squash, maybe make some ratatouille!
2020 Bouqueton Chinon Rosé is 100% Cabernet Franc, which gives the wine a great texture from the skin exposure. Cab Franc has flavors of strawberry and red cherry with a little vegetal notes, and wonderful spice, and the aromatics give you all of that. Then the soft, rich textured tannins compel you to enjoy a bit more. the wine wants food, but keep it simple, try some chunked parmesan and some jambon de Bayonne (that’s French prosciutto!). It is a treat to find these with a year in the bottle, as the wines mature the acidity drops off, allowing the fruit to shine and the smooth texture to become more prominent.
2016 Alpha Zeta Ripasso dell Valpolicella will give you pause for thought. It is dark and on appearance you may imagine that it will just be a big, fruit bomb, but no...It is a wine of depth and character. Ripasso is made with a process that includes passing the fermented juice of Valpolicella over the Amarone pressing. That is a very brief description, but more or less it is a re-passing of wine over the pressed grapes used to make the Amarone, and the result is a rich, complex, textured red that will delight you. I suggest stewed meat for this, so make some short rib and prepare to swoon.
2017 Arboretum is Ginny Povall’s new release of a Bordeaux Blend made in South Africa. I love this wine. I could stop there, but as you know, I won’t. It is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec, Petit Verdot, and Cabernet Franc, grown organically in Stellenbosch. The wine gives you a lot of fresh bell pepper on the nose with brambly fruit, dark chocolate, spice, and cedar. On the palate it expands, offering abundant plum and blue fruits, supple tannins, great structure and a thoughtful finish. I suggest trying this with beautiful wine with some grilled salmon and corn salad.
2021 Assiduous Pinot Gris is relatively new to the shop and to the Rhode Island market, but we are already getting great response from those who have tried it. The wine is farmed and made organically with a natural process of indigenous yeast, like all of the wines I carry, and it was minimally treated, so the wine’s expression is pure and honest. It did undergo a partial malolactic ferment, which gives the wine texture and body with a touch of creaminess that balances with wonderful tension the bright acidity of this varietal. I love the pretty aromatics that are followed by a fiercely intense wine. Try this one with fish chowder, it will complement the flavors and cut through the cream.
Collector Wines
Domaine Comte Abbatucci “Faustine”
I get a very small allocation of these wines each year, for which I wait with excitement and anticipation for the sheer pleasure I experience when enjoy them. These wines are remarkable, full stop, but there is much to say about why.
Jean-Charles Abbatucci works with forgotten grapes, keeping alive the ancient varietals and practices of biodynamic farming and Corsican history and tradition. If you have been to Corsica you know the landscapes complex combination of rustic beauty and sublime spectacles. It is a place that has known challenges of fierce political conflict and the intense force of nature. Waves crash into the stony shorelines that rises dramatically to craggy mountain tops reach only by goat paths called roads. The sun is intensely hot, the climate dry, and yet the ocean breezes sooth, heal, and cool. I am transported when I drink these wines.
The 2021 Faustine Rosé is made with 90% Sciaccarellu and 10% Barbarossa from 20 year old vines in granitic soil in a vineyard that is on the far Western point of the island, as does the red which is 70% Sciaccarellu and 30% Nielucciu. None of the these grapes are easy to say, but they sure are easy to drink. As delicious as they are, these are food driven wines.
The rosé is a flavor pretty salmon colored wine with a smooth texture. It has berry, but more than that, I would say light cherry notes and even some melon flavors with blood orange citrus curd. It would pair well with salads, grilled fish or lighter meats, and would be wonderful with a cheese board.
The red is intense and needs something that will stand up to that intensity. I would still say it is a medium bodied red, but its flavors are complex and its structure is notable. There are both red and black fruits, cedar, pine, earthy notes, and a lovely bright acidity. It would be wonderful with slow cooked meats, brisket or short rib, but would also be great with a mushroom tart or a quiche and salad. It is versatile but wants a partner that will walk the line.
Enjoy the wines! Until next month, eat, drink, think,
Maria
