Calcarius Biancopuglia; hmmm, what do I know about this wine? It's made by Valentina Passalaqua and Danilo Marcucci down in Puglia, but at the northern edge of the region. This is from land on Valentina's family estate that has an extremely high proportion of Calcerous rock in the soil. Valentina makes natural wine and got to know Danilo (of Umbria) through crossing paths in the wine world. At some point Danilo visited her winery and was intrigued by this piece of land. They started talking, bouncing ideas around....and now they make wine together. The grape is Bombino Bianco, which I'm... Continue reading

Cantina Marilina Sikele Bianco Grecanico: I've been trying to get this wine for at least half a year but none was available. Finally! So anyway this is an approximately 150 acre estate in south east Sicily, sort of inland from Siracuse. It was bought by Angelo Paterno, a professional wine maker who decided to settle down with his own estate. He has since handed off to his daughters: Marilina and Fedelie. The soil is dry and limestone rich. The family farms organically and ferments with natural yeast. No fining or filtration happens here. Yes, this is a "natural" wine. This... Continue reading

Vintage: 2018 I forget....I think this is the 4th vintage Brian at Oyster River has made of the Morphos? Anyway, point is that he hasn't really been making it for too long so it shouldn't be a surprise that he's learned a lot with each vintage. For 2018 Brian changed the grower of the fruit he's purchasing. He switched to a smaller independent grower who was willing to give him more control over both the growing and the harvest. So the fruit was harvested without any sulfur added and sat over night which gave it some skin contact before pressing... Continue reading

I got the opportunity to spend some time with Roberto Henriquez over the past couple days. He has a reputation for really special important natural Chilean winesI'd heard a few rumors about him and once tasted a wine of his (which was very exciting) but I wasn't sure what to expect. Compared to Europe Chile is much more mysterious for me. So I was really interested to see what I could learn. Turns out I had lots to learn! Here's everything: Roberto lives near the Bio Bio valley. That's just north of Concepcion and right on the coast. He also... Continue reading

Vintage: 2014 Flonflons is a Cotes du Rhone made by Antoine and Pierre Joly. Pierre took over managing this estate in the 70s and then Antoine followed him in 1999. They've been organic since very early (early 80s? late 70s?) but only started making all their own wines in 2003. Roche Buissiere is located to the northeast of Vaison-La-Romaine. I have long loved their wine called Petit Jo and now I'm quite happy to have the Flonflons too. The two wines are sort of mirror images of each other: both are fun, juicy, and joyful. They're surprisingly more fresh and... Continue reading

Anne Pichon is an old estate in Ventoux acquired by Marc Pichon and named for his wife. Located near the base of Mount Ventoux the domaine has various plots of Syrah, Grenache, Viognier, Vermentino, Bourbolenc, Clairette, and Rousanne on limestone soils with sand and gravel mixed in. The domaine works organically and although Marc sadly passed away from a car accident the winery is an ongoing project. I borrowed the picture above from T Edward Wines, his importer. You can read more about Pichon here on their website: Anne Pichon Back Ground Marc started making a red and a white... Continue reading

Tasting day I got in an early morning run up to the Castello and to the piccolo town of Monte Melino. This is the Sanctuario Madonna de Lourdes Looking up at the Castello I ran up a hill past an old cemetery and got a great shot of the broken up sedimentary rock that is common here. It's decaying and you can see it would be easy for a vine to get its roots down into it. I grabbed an espresso and then Danilo and I blasted over to his tiny little experimental vineyard: Ceppaiolo. We labeled a bunch of... Continue reading

Is it weird this wine has gotten the Outkast song So Fresh and So Clean stuck in my head? Arcan's Albarino just smells and tastes so clean and fresh and alive and like the Atlantic that I can't help it. Arcan is made by Adega Pombal a Lanzada: a small family winery with about 5 acres in Rias Baixas, Galicia Spain. Galicia is the rocky hilly little corner of Spain up above Portugal that sticks out into the Atlantic. The climate is cool, rainy, and rather stormy; entirely unlike the rest of Spain. Rias Baixas is an appellation right on... Continue reading

Vintage: 2016 Grape: Gamay Noella Morantin is from Brittany originally but decided she wanted to make wine. She pursued a degree in wine making in the Loire and for three years in the early oughts she worked with Agnes and Rene Mosse. Next she spent a year working in Muscadet, and then met Junko Arai, who lived in Japan, but owned some of the former Clos Roche Blanches vineyards. Noella began working the vineyards and making the wines for Arai. Eventually the time came that Noella felt that she was ready to begin really on her own and so she... Continue reading

After tasting with Tenuta di Trinoro I hopped back in the Abarth and blasted over into Umbria. Halfway through the drive I was actually on roads that I recognized from running around Lake Trasimeno and to Tiberi last year! It was a funny feeling to be driving through Italy and realize I actually knew the towns and roads and didn't need GPS to get around. In an excellent moment of serendipity I pulled up to Della Staffa just as the Danilo and the whole SelectioNaturel crew rolled in after having lunch at Collecapretta! Sleeping situations all got sorted out and... Continue reading

I took 20 minutes or so to put myself back together after my 4 and a half hour run, but then I ran the buzzer, opened the gate and drove up to Tenuta di Trinoro. I met Enna, the office and web manager, and he filled me in on more of the background of the winery. Andrea Franchetti had been living in southern France and knew the Bordeaux area very well but as he was traveling through southern Tuscany in the mid 1980's the climate of the the Val d'Orcia reminded him a lot of those places. It's a little... Continue reading

I got up Tuesday morning not quite super early and a bit jetlagged but excited and ready to push on through and have adventures! It was bright and sunny and amazing to see old Montepulciano in the light! I collected my things, successfully found where I had left my car the night before, and ate the cold and congealed asparagus and Peccorino appetizer from the night before. I figured that Montepulciano(being an old hill town) would probably be the highest elevation point of the run so I I decided I would drive down south first and then run out and... Continue reading

I got into Rome at about 5 in the evening. Luckily I already cleared customs in Amsterdam and could head straight out of the airport and start the process of picking up my Abarth Cinquecento. When I finally hit the road it was grey and raining and it looked like I wouldn't make it to Montepulciano until 8: not so great. It got progressively darker and wetter as I got closer and then I discovered that the road Google Maps wanted me to take into Montepulciano had been washed out at and was closed. Rural Tuscany isn't so built up... Continue reading

Vintage: 2016 Grapes: 60% Sangiovese, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 20% Merlot. This is great. I really like these wines and the Petroro 4 has been out of stock for a bit with the vintage changing over. The 2016 is exactly what i'd hoped it would be. '16 was a great year in central Italy. The weather was just right and many people made excellent well balanced and integrated wines. This is a great vintage to both find value wines and to find wines that are capable of long aging. I visited Peppucci in Autumn of '17 and had a great... Continue reading

It's officially Spring! Now we get as much sun as we do in late September...just not as much heat. But the days are longer and before long the weather may even be pleasant outside! That's worth celebrating. I love celebrating with food and wine and Easter's coming so I put together a list of the wines I'm excited about! Frank Cornelissen Contadino 2016 The 2016 Contadino is here and it's excellent. It's fruit driven, ripe jammy black cherry and raspberry, but smoky and charry like a smoldering campfire. It pulls off being fun and vivacious and friendly but also brooding... Continue reading

Conca de Barbera is a lesser known DO down in southern Catalonia. Or at least it's lesser known here in the States because most wine people think Americans just want Spanish wines that are big high alcohol rootin tootin red blooded wines you can chase your Wild Turkey with. Conca de Barbera is not that. Trepat is a lighter red grape sort of akin to Gamay, but I would say lighter, at least in Fredi Torres' hands. Some people actually call this wine a rose. I don't think it is. But I would recommend drinking it with a chill. It... Continue reading

Gadzooks! This Priorat is.....pretty! But, but, but Priorat isn't supposed to be pretty!? All the classic book studying I've done on Priorat has taught me that Priorat wine is must be deep, inky, stewed, and alcoholic to be worth a second sniff! What is this!?! Well, it's not your father's Priorat. This is Fredi Torres' 2016 Grenache, Carignan, Syrah, and Macbeu. Fredi works hard to make wines that are fresher and more drinkable; this Priorat is outstanding proof positive that such wines are possible, even in Priorat. Fredi originally came from Galicia but has worked all over Spain. He kind... Continue reading

2016 Contadino! Hooray! This is from Frank Cornelissen up on top of mount Etna in Sicily. Frank is an amazing guy who I met many years ago in a little BYOB German restaurant. He was totally exhausted and very calmly told me all about how Etna is one of the greatest wine terroirs on earth and he will make wine that tastes like liquid volcanic rock and he will do it with no additives or chemical manipulation of the wine. Then a couple winters later I flew to Sicily and ran across the east side of the Island, ran over... Continue reading

Here it is! 2017 Grand Rouviere Rose! Grand Rouviere is made by the Leydier family on their large old estate in southern Provence. Their vineyards actually border the Bandol appellation, so this really is the epicenter of dry french rose. This is about 70% Cinsault and 30% Grenache. The Leydiers farm sustainably and actually harvest over night in order to get the grapes into the winery as cool as possible which helps maintain the aromatics. This is a perennial favorite rose of mine! Aroma: The Rouviere has a lovely powerful aroma of watermelon, peach, nectarine, raspberry. This is a really... Continue reading

Hand Work is a project by T Edward wines in NY and Bodegas Ponce in Manchuela Spain. Ponce is a fantastic winery making kick ass engaging compelling wines from the Bobal grape. They work naturally and are masters at working with nature instead of trying to master it through chemicals. So as i understand T Edward wanted to find a natural Tempranillo somewhere that would be day to day affordable and deliciously easy to drink. They were having a hard time finding anything like that, but at some point in talking to Ponce they realized the winery had spare capacity... Continue reading

Vintage: 2015 I haven't found much info on the Oscar Olmos Monastrell, but I can connect a few dots just from tasting it. Jumilla is an interesting place down to the south of Catalonia close to the Mediterranean coast of Spain. The elevation is pretty high though, ranging from about 400m above sea level up to around 800m. Oscar Olmos is up around 800m. For some reason Jumilla escaped the Phyloxera scourge back in the 1800s and was only affected by the bug in 1989, so many vines are still ungrafted, including the vines of Oscar Olmos. So this is... Continue reading

Daniel Ramos was born in Australia of Spanish parents and, as he describes it, grew up between the two countries. As he grew up Daniel became interested in wine and worked at wineries in both countries: seeing very different approaches to wine making traditions and technology. Ramos ended up back in Spain and worked various jobs across the country, until he discovered the Sierra de Gredos up on the plateau about 90 minutes outside of Madrid. In the Sierra de Gredos Daniel found extremely old native versions of Grenache and Albillo on granite and schist soils. The wine was virtually... Continue reading

This is a weird one. Not in how the wine drinks, it's delicious! But in it's provenance is a story. The wine comes from Etna. It's made from Nerello Mascalese, the legendary predominant red grape of Etna.....However; the wine is actually made not on Etna but on the isle of Lipari. Lipari is a tiny volcanic island off of the north east coast of Sicily in the Aeolian island chain. Castellaro is in fact the only winery on Lipari and as far as I can gather from their odd website they are, in addition to being a winery, some kind... Continue reading

Elisabetta Foradori. I don't know how to sum her up in a short little piece here. Elisabetta took over her family's wine estate suddenly when her father died unexpectadly. She grew up into it and has gone through a series of evolutions in her awareness and thinking about wine making. She's had the guts and curiosity to experiment and improvise her own wine making techniques. She's blazed her own trail as a woman working independently making styles of wine that didn't exist before in her local region. She's gotten push back over the years and just kept on going following... Continue reading

Marco Sara of Colli Orientali Friuli visited Portland ME for a couple days this winter and over the days hanging out with him I picked up some interesting tid bits about how he makes his wines and why. The soils are cold and hard in Colli Oreintali Friuli so the area makes a lot of white wine. Marco makes about 70% white wine and 30% red wine. He tries to work as naturally as possible so that his wine's really express the flavor and character of his place. Here's Marco talking about Verduzzo and why he doesn't give it any... Continue reading