Author Archives: waywardwine

About waywardwine

Follow Wayward Wine (WSET3) to tour the world's exciting vineyards, breweries, and distilleries, while discovering new drinks.

Thirsty Thursday: Nero d’Avola, COS, Nero di Lupo, Sicilia IGT 2011

Posted on April 3, 2014 by waywardwine

For Christmas we suggested a wild Sicilian red aged in pithoi (read here). This Thirsty Thursday, we revisit Azienda Agricola COS in Southeastern Sicily (because we can’t help ourselves).

Again, the grape is Nero d’Avola. Again, wild yeasts did the work, biodynamic principles reigned supreme, and nothing beyond a dash of sulfur was added to the wine.

Yet this time, instead of those gloriously anochronistic pithoi (ceramic jugs), modernism creeps in with two years of cellaring in cement tanks under temp control.

The result? Continue reading →

Posted in Nero D'Avola, Red | Tagged Azienda Agricola COS, COS, Italian wine, italy, Nero D'Avola, Nero di Lupo, Sicily, wine | 7 Comments

Climbing the Pyrenees to Andorra: Capdevila Pujol, Brut, Cava, Spain NV

Posted on March 31, 2014 by waywardwine

After a month of drinking our way through western France, we shift our EU Austerity Drinking Adventure south. But before bathing in Spain’s wine culture, we tack on three days in Andorra. We have no idea what Andorra will be. … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Andorra, Capdevil Pujol, cava, France, Perelada, Pyrenees, Spain | 2 Comments

Calling Summer: Picpoul de Pinet, Gérard Bertrand, France 2011

Posted on March 27, 2014 by waywardwine

Drink Picpoul, any Picpoul, and summer will come early. The shear pulling of your cork will turn the Earth a little closer to the sun. Snows will melt. Frosts dissipate. For you will be drinking sunshine.

While Monday’s EU Austerity Drinking Tour dipped its toe in Toulouse. A bit further to France’s coast sits an appellation called Picpoul de Pinet.

Hot-hardy red grapes dominate the land. But the village of Pinet has held resolutely to the green grape Picpoul.

Named for stinging (Pic) lips (Poul), the grape exudes saline, mouthwatering, citric acidity: perfect with seafood. It helps that below its vines spreads France’s second largest lake: the Étang de Thau: the only place outside of Normandy that France certifies oyster production. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged France, Gerard Bertrand, oyster pairing, Oysters, Picpoul, Picpoul de pinet, summer, White wine | 5 Comments

Fronton, Gaillac, Madiran: Red Wines of Toulouse, France: Day 98 EU Austerity Drinking Tour

Posted on March 24, 2014 by waywardwine

This Monday’s EU Austerity Drinking Tour finds us 98 days into our alcohol-on-a-dime traipse through Europe’s famed regions. We leave glitzy but wet Bordeaux for southern France. Our hub will be Toulouse: a city surrounded by ignored but extreme value wine regions.

We leave Bordeaux still drenching in Atlantic rain.

But as the TGV speeds East, the sun emerges, mossy trees trade fade to gnarly shrubs, and the world becomes dry, calm, and continental in climate. Here the mellow Mediterranean holds more sway than the wet churn of the Atlantic. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Chateau Bellevue la Forêt, DURAS, Fer, France, Fronton, Gaillac, Jacobin Church, Madiran, St Thomas Aquinas, Syrah, Tannat, Toulouse | 3 Comments

Suburban Vineyard: Finding Haut-Brion in Bordeaux’s Pessac-Léognan

Posted on March 17, 2014 by waywardwine

It is our last day in Bordeaux. We had visited Graves and St-Émilion. But we have yet to see Pessac-Léognan.

medoc-map-2010In 1855 Bordeaux merchants ranked the top houses. Of the Premier Grand Cru (best of the best), all were in the Médoc save one in Pessac-Léognan. Now we could debate the validity of an 164 year-old classification, but Pessac was just a bus ride from our apartment.

Famed wine-focused (and graffito-tagged) Bordeaux University passes us by.

We get off the bus and hike, expecting suburbia to turn into farmland. It doesn’t. Just past a gas station and apartment we find this: Continue reading →