Wednesday 10/86-8 pm no reservations needed$15 + 10% off wines tasted

You do not have to be a dyed-in-the-wool structuralist to accept that binary oppositions are a profound preoccupation of wine discourse. Red vs. white, table wine vs. grand cru, dry vs. sweet, barrel vs. amphora, industry vs. farm, highbrow vs. low. And one of the oldest and most curious binary oppositions is that between fränkisch and heunisch grapes. Although we really do not know the precise origins of this distinction, the common understanding is that it was a way of framing the differences between the ostensibly noble grapes of the Franks, such as pinot noir and blaufränkisch (which actually has the term fränkisch in its name) cultivated in western Europe and allegedly introduced during the reign of Charlemagne, and purportedly trash grapes such as welschriesling, cultivated by supposedly lesser souls from lands once ruled by the Huns. It’s an old opposition, and even Hildegard von Bingen weighed in on it during the twelfth century. It’s an old, creaky, and ignorant opposition, as we now know through DNA profiling that many fränkisch and heunisch grapes have mixed parentage, and even our beloved and noble chardonnay is a cross between the fränkisch pinot noir and heunisch gouais blanc. And it makes me wonder how disconcerted some folks might be if they, like grapes, were subjected to compulsory genetic testing, only to discover that they had a not-small percentage of Persian or African ancestry…but let’s not worry our pretty little heads about this for now.

To complicate matters even further, it’s impossible to underplay the fate of heunisch varieties during the Soviet era, when quantity mattered much more than quality. The productive nature of some heunisch grapes, such as welschriesling, made them obvious candidates for state planning policies that would further this agenda, and the result was vast quantities of dull, flabby wine, of which the most you might say is that they were, well, wine.

This week’s tasting is firmly in camp heunisch, as we present five wines made primarily from heunisch varieties from heunisch countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. We’re thrilled to have our old pal and heunisch wine importer extraordinaire, Stetson Robbins, in the house to present and expound upon these wines for us. Even with just five wines to taste, they have quite a wide expression on display. To follow, a brief synopsis of each wine, which I hope whets your appetite.

Marvia Tindo “Sedimental” Pét-nat NV Slovakia
Pét-nat of welschriesling, in which the must from the 2021 vintage was added to 2020 still wine to produce a lightly fizzy bottle of joy juice. Dry, crisp, aromatic.

Jaroslav Osicka Ryšák 2023 Czech Republic
Ryšák, the Czech word for redhead, is a traditional Czech wine made from both red and white grapes. Osicka’s Ryšák varies with each vintage, typically containing pinot noir and pinot gris, and sometimes blaufränkisch and zweigelt. The grapes are co-fermented, so it’s a bit of a hybrid of a lightly macerated red wine and an orange wine.

Pivnica Čajkov “Tecton” NV Slovakia
This is a blend of red grapes, frankovka (blaufränkisch) and alibernet, and white, devín. The wine was originally a happy side effect of a challenging vintage, when Uhnák had insufficient yield to produce single-varietal wines from his vineyards, so he decided to blend the resulting wines. Despite the deep pigment, the red grapes are handled very gently, and the wine is made in a more infused rather than extracted style. The small bit of devín, a modern Slovak crossing between gewürztraminer and roter veltliner, adds a subtle aromatic component.

Pivnica Čajkov “Rustical” 2022 Slovakia
Three-day macerated pesecká leánka, a variety native to Romania but now grown throughout eastern Europe. Like welschriesling, this variety was harnessed to the yoke of overproduction during the Soviet era, when bulk mattered more than quality. And like welschriesling, it’s a grape with a long patrimony in eastern Europe that, in the right hands, is capable of so much more than was once demanded of it. Marek Uhnák takes particular pride in helping to resuscitate pesecká leánka, and has identified at least four distinct biotypes of it in his family vineyards. Per Uhnák, the vigorous roots of the grape are well-suited to the volcanic soils of his vineyards.

Korab Zweigeltrebe 2021 Czech Republic
Fuller-bodied, meaty, slightly gamy zweigelt.