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| Ŝtoka “Kras” teran pét-nat Slovenia 2024 $23 Bretaudeau “Théia” Muscadet 2023 $37 Marquiliani “Gris de Pauline” Corse 2024 $28 Rocim “Oceânico” Arinto dos Açores 2022 $38 Mixtura Tinto Ribeiro 2018 $47 |
| Well, it’s warm outside, not exactly a shock for this time of year here in Los Angeles, and other than uttering banalities such as this I don’t have much to offer you, heat-befuddled as my brain is, other than a tasting of refreshing and peculiar wines that share one thing in common: they are acid freak wines. Not necessarily of the angular, tongue-shrieking variety, but nevertheless wines undergirded by mouthwatering acidity and that also march to a different drummer. And a well-watered mouth is just what we all need at this moment.
We’re starting with a dry, earthy, and ultra-mineral pét-nat from Slovenia, made from the teran grape. Elsewhere known as refošk (Slovenia) or refosco (Italy), the grape exhibits such a unique profile when grown on these karstic soils that it deserves and requires its own name. The soils in the Karst region are poor, but insanely rich in iron, and it’s hard not to detect a sanguinous quality to the resulting darkly pigmented red wines. Here in pét-nat form (which the Slovenians refer to as “peneče,” which Google Translate tells me can mean either “squeaky,” or “sparkly,” but let’s just call the wine squeaky, as squeak is what you’ll do after you try it), it’s pretty much all you need to transform a backyard BBQ into a party in your mouth, and you’re invited. Next, two French wines. The first is from the transformative Jérôme Bretaudeau, who is quite simply making some of the most exciting white wines in France today. Personally, I adore Muscadet and will drink the cheap stuff if I’m gorging on three dozen raw oysters, knowing what I’m getting into, but of course, being the effete feinschmecker that I am, vastly prefer the not-so-cheap stuff, and am continuously mind blown by what the grape, melon de bourgogne, can do in the right hands. Bretaudeau is definitely the right hands, in an appellation for which most French folks have only two criteria: cheap, and cold. His wines push the edge of the envelope with regards to what to expect from the region, and I urge you to not sleep on them. Following this, a delicate, very pale, bone-dry rosé from a Corsican grower that we wait for, thirsty, each summer—the wines just hit our shelves a couple of weeks ago. The wine is a blend of both red (sciaccarellu) and white (vermentino) grapes, and is delicate, ephemeral, and perfumed. Next, a super-salty Portuguese wine made from the Portuguese national treasure, arinto. Grown on the sea-lashed Açores, the grower ages it for half a year in older barrels to attenuate the acid bit, just a bit, without rendering it full of new barrel vanillin. To finish, a tiny production red wine from the northwest of Spain, hard against the Portuguese border. It’s made from the Galician variety, caiño longo. This is one of several traditional Galician varieties that growers in the region are pushing to a modest renaissance in the wake of Franco’s repression of the traditional grapes in the region and deserves your undivided attention. |