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| Minière “Bulles de Minière” rouge Loire sparkling wine NV Apástági Pince Furmint Somlói 2021 Ronco Severo Pinot Grigio Friuli Colli Orientale 2019 Gutiérrez “El Outsider” Rioja 2023 Magnon “Campagnès” Corbières 2022 |
| “What is your favorite wine in the shop?” It’s a frequent, but impossible to answer question, a query akin to asking someone to choose their favorite child, but also one that, for me, at least, is a function of the day’s weather and the related question of what I’m planning to eat. Is it sunny and warm out? I lean towards lean, mineral whites and light-bodied reds that I can drink chilled. Is it cold and rainy? Perhaps not the best day for a mineral white (unless I’m eating raw oysters, in which case, bring the minerality on) or chilled red wine, but a good day for the restorative powers of a good minestrone and a fuller-bodied white or red wine.
This week, we’re taking advantage of a slew of rare (for Los Angeles), cool, rainy days to host a tasting of cool, rainy-day wines. We considered pausing our tastings this evening due to the intensity of the rain, with some parts of Los Feliz feeling more aquatic than asphalt, but there’s no rain forecast for this evening (though plenty later in the week), so get out of your house, bring your dog(s), and stop by to taste wines that are fit for cool, rainy days. We’re starting with Bulles de Minière, a dry, earthy, sparkling cabernet franc from the Loire Valley, with zero sugar and a dab of petrichor to set your mouth a tingle. We stock this wine whenever we can, and are happy to have the new vintage back on our shelves. Then, a furmint from Tokaji, the volcanic region located in the east of Hungary. Furmint is a terribly exciting grape, <geezer_voice>it slaps, I’m tellin’ ya, it just slaps!</geezer_voice>, and is capable of a startling range of expressions, from dry and mineral to sweet and luscious, but always marked by mouthwatering, fresh acidity, which you will see on display tonight. Following this, a textured, non-douchey orange wine from the border of Italy and Slovenia, with 30 days of maceration. When I visited Stefano Novello years ago in his village of Prepotto, I foolishly asked how far it was to Slovenia. Stefano laughed and pointed to the hill just east of town: “There.” To finish, two red wines, one from the eastern part of Rioja, where growers favor garnacha over the more commonly planted tempranillo that dominates in the denomination—this is no Ruth’s Chris cowboy ribeye sort of wine best accompanied with a side order of Plavix—yeah, it’s a red wine that is unabashedly fuller bodied, but also made without excess extraction or mind-numbing, predictable froot; our final wine is from Corbières in the south of France, from a grower who is making beautifully balanced wines from a region not generally known for doing so. |