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| Barbara Öhlzelt “Grüner Leader” Kamptal/Austria 2022 Sfera “Macerato” Puglia/Italy 2022 Rocim “Fresh from Amphora” Alentejo/Portugal 2021 Ampeleia “Unlitro” Toscana/Italy 2023 Poivre d Âne “Le Litron” Vin de France (Languedoc) 2021 |
| Our focus for tonight’s tasting is on wine packaged in liter-sized bottles. Most of the wine we stock on our shelves is packaged in standard, 750 ml bottles, with a few in the odd-ball 620 ml bottles traditional for vin jaune from the Jura region of France (the explanation here is that after years of barrel aging, a certain volume is lost due to evaporation, “the angel’s share;” the smaller bottle size is meant to indicate what remains, in comparison to a standard 750 ml bottle), and a few 500, 375 ml, and 1500 ml (magnums) bottles. We also stock boxed wine, excellent stuff, organically farmed non-bullshit wines from a different universe than the chemical-driven enology that gives us Franzia vomit-in-a-box. The origins of the 750 ml bottle are obscure (one hypothesis is that it reflects the average lung capacity of glass blowers before the age of mechanical reproduction—yet any number of larger, hand-blown glass bottle sizes were contemporaneously available—color me skeptical), so why not liters?
The value proposition of the liter is that you’re getting 33% more wine at a price equivalent to, and often even less than, wines packaged in a 750 ml bottle. Smart growers know that thirsty folks clamor for everyday, crushable wines at an attractive price—weekday wines you won’t hesitate to open. And the liter bottle is here for us. The liter is also a way for growers to use the fruit from young vines that may not be quite ready for primetime, but still capable of making delicious juice that, if not something you will want to squirrel away in your wine dungeon for years to come, is perfect for immediate gratification. Sometimes, the intention is quite the opposite of this: the Friulian winemaker Stanko Radikon argued that bottle volume should reflect the proper portion size of what you might drink in one session, and that per Radikon, that portion is 500 ml per person. Radikon felt we should drink not alone but with another person, so he favored 1000 ml bottles, the right amount for a couple to enjoy together. We’re starting with a crisp grüner veltliner from the Kamptal, a winegrowing region to the west of Vienna. We regularly stock grüner liters from different growers, but Barbara Öhlzelt’s remains my favorite, as it’s a bit more textured and nuanced. Speaking of textured, we’re next tasting a macerated wine from Puglia, made from the local verdeca grape, just the sort of thing with which to enjoy a fish taco, followed by Rocim’s amphora-aged, lean and earthy chillable red from the Alentejo, and the Ampeleia “Unlitro,” our stalwart liter, which we stock whenever we are able. Our final liter is a juicy glou glou syrah from the Languedoc, which we will serve chilled. |