Life in the Funway
Say hello to our picks for Vol. 1 of our collaboration with THE FENWAY!
We have a couple traditional wines to warm you up on these chilly winter nights and two new-school labels that are a fantastic intro to the world of low-intervention winemaking.
Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe, Megaphone
Region: Ventoux AOC - Rhône Valley, France
Grapes: Grenache & Syrah
Yorkshire tea on the nose, a little lavender in the glass. This full-bodied red is rustic, mouthwatering, and slightly picante. So delicious.
Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe is run by the Brunier family who have been making wine for five generations. They are best known for their AOP Châteauneuf-du-Pape wines which are a celebration of earth and minerality. Dominated by Grenache, their wines showcase the very best of their appellations.
This wine is composed of 80% Grenache and 20% Syrah that are grown in the sand and clay soils on the southern slopes of the Dentelles de Montmirail. Grapes are hand harvested, fully destemmed, and lightly pressed. Fermentation typically lasts just less than a month before the juice is moved into large, old oak barrels for one year.
Because the grapes do not become overly ripe, the wine maintains an incredible amount of acidity which lifts the fruit in its profile. It just qualifies as full bodied and is an excellent representative of the Southern Rhône Valley.
Erste+Neue, Pinot Bianco
Region: Alto Adige DOC – Trentino-Alto Adige, Italy
Grape: Pinot Bianco
Delicate and savory. This wine has so much to offer. Glimmering acidity that requires food, and a silky, saline flavor that reminds us of cooking fresh pasta. It’s so good!
Growing grapes in Alto Adige is no joke. Rocky peaks, cliffsides, and incredible slopes make up the terrain in this part of Northern Italy. As one of the smallest wine growing regions in the country, it sure does make an impact. Their south-facing vineyards which spread from the lower slopes of the Mendola range to as far east as the Dolomites allow vines to soak up as much sunshine as possible. Ripening times last much longer because of the climate, but the diurnal shift from day to night and mix of volcanic and limestone soils only contribute to the elegance of the wines from Erste+Neue.
We love this producer not only for their unique wines, but for their commitment to sustainability, which is quite a feat considering the terrain they work on. To them, preservation of the landscape is equally as important to clean winemaking. They are an excellent representation of the region and their wines are some of our favorites.
This Pinot Bianco is sharp and nuanced, a real Alpine wine. Too often Pinot Bianco (Pinot Blanc) is unnecessarily flabby or aggressively average. But this one shines above the rest. It is chic and surprisingly savory. We just love it.
Subject to Change, Lune Juice
Region: Mendocino County, CA
Grape: Zinfandel
Light, dry, and 100% chillable. This has quickly become one of our favorite crunchy reds. Earthy cranberry, Low-intervention winemaking at its finest.
If someone were to offer me a sip of Zinfandel from California, I would have to ask some questions before I acquiesced. However, if I saw this label I would whip out my glass as quickly as I could. Not because it’s colorful, but because I know that Subject to Change is one of the most responsible and sustainable producers of wine in California.
Not only this, but they are committed to fostering new winemakers who are equally interested in producing wine without the use of additives, strictly from grapes that have been farmed organically or biodynamically.
And because we were lucky enough to taste this wine alongside its fabulous producer, Alex Pomerantz, we can tell you that it comes from sixty year old vines that were dry-farmed (farmed without the use of irrigation), and a third of the grapes used went through carbonic maceration. That’s where fermentation takes place inside an unbroken grape, which yields a lighter, fruitier style of wine.
That’s exactly what Lune Juice is. Flashes of cranberries and pomegranates in a juicy yet dry package explains why our customers can’t get enough of it.
Màquina y Tabla, El Oso Y La Alemana Blanco
Region: Toro DO - Castilla y León, Spain
Grapes: Verdejo, Malvasia
Get out of the way. This wine is beautiful. With just a little skin-contact, this lighter white has the right amount of texture and mineral-driven flavor. You'll notice half the bottle is gone before you even know what happened.
Having come from a wine region with a storied past that reaches as far back as the Middle Ages, this wine from Màquina y Tabla is decidedly modern. It’s a blend of Verdejo and Malvasia (no relation to the Malvasia of the Mediterranean).
Oriol Illa, winemaker extraordinaire, takes her biodynamically farmed grapes, presses them, and ages them in neutral French oak for six months as they rest on their lees, with the occasional bâtonnage (aka stirring with a big stick to impart depth of flavor).
Think kumquats and white nectarines with plenty of acidity. It’s totally refreshing and way too good to pass up. It is a juicy mouthful of sunshine. If you haven’t found your way to skin-contact white wine this is a great one to start with.
