Every Monday, discover new wines, regions, and ways to understand this fermenting sea.
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Munching Vidal Blanc on Keuka Lake, New York
Author Archives: waywardwine
Thirsty Thursday: Nino Franco, Faìve, Spumante Brut Rosé, Valdobbiadene, Italy 2011
This Thirsty Thursday takes us to Italy. Just above Venice is Valdobbiadene: cradle of Prosecco.
But today’s wine is weird. It looks neither pale green, sweet, nor made from Glera (Prosecco’s only grape). It is pink:
But not just any pink. This glinting, copper flame lives up to its name: Faìve (FieEEve): poetically Italian for those sparks and tongues whipping about at the top of a fire.
So what goes in it?
Around 2000, Primo Franco got bored with perfecting fantastic, dry, single-vineyard Prosecco that was changing the world. So he went to buddy Brandino Brandolini, who grows red grapes. But they broke with Champagne’s (and the world’s) Pinot-hegemony. Heck, they also left red Italian varietals behind. Instead, they used Merlot and Cabernet: grapes that rarely see the light of bubbly. But this ain’t a red Bordeaux. Continue reading
Posted in Sparkling
Tagged Brut, Brut Rosé, Faìve, italy, Nino Franco, Primo Franco, Prosecco, Rosé, Spumante, Valdobbiadene
2 Comments
Négociant Cellars in Chartrons: the Merchant Heart of Bordeaux
We are 94 days deep into our EU Austerity Drinking Tour. My birthday has arrived and we are in Bordeaux: capital city of wine. I dreamt of tasting at the finest châteaux and wine bars, purchasing rare and astronomically priced bottles from posh shops. But my wife and I feel horrendously sick. Yesterday’s free tour of Graves sapped our energy, palates, livers, and relationship.
So today we explore the city sober. We start at Bordeaux’s Musée des Beaux-Arts. It is free thanks to construction (the austerity gods smile upon us). After a light breakfast of art, we stop outside St André Cathedral. My wife furiously knits my Irish wool birthday scarf, while I sketch the Cathedral: Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Bordeaux, Bordeaux Musée des Beaux-Arts, chai, Chartrons, Garonne, La Maison Des Chartrons, Negociant
3 Comments
Blow Minds Valentine’s Day with Bollinger, La Grande Année, 2004, Brut, Champagne, France
Valentine’s Day is Friday. You’re screwed. Posh restaurants filled up months ago. Not a single gift works. All that survives are roses from Columbia and chocolate that tastes worse than the heart box it spawned from.
You want to wow that significant other? Well procrastinator, Wayward Wine will help you blow their mind.
Buy Champagne. Not Prosecco. Not Moscatto. Not beer. Not “Sparkling Wine” in a box. Just buy Champagne, from France.
But to truly stop their heart, splurge on vintage Champagne. You can tell them that most Champagne is a (cheaper) non-vintage blend upwards of thirty harvests. Vintage Champagne is only made in those rare years, when conditions (meteorological and economical) are ideal. Each release tastes different because each year was different. Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged 2004, Bollinger, Brut, Champagne, France, La Grande Année, Valentine, Valentine's Day
6 Comments
Graves Open Doors 4: The Final Frontier: Château de Roquetaillade la Grange
This installment of Monday’s EU Austerity Drinking Tour finds us sick, drunk, and headed to the fourth and last winery in Graves in southeast Bordeaux.
To recap: a free van picked us up for “Portes Ouvertes dans les Graves” (Open Doors in Graves) in the sleepy town of Langon (below):
We tried Bordeaux’s just-fermented varietals at Château Pont de Brion (here), ate rotten grapes at Château La Croix (here), and met a red-only, family run, micro-winery at Château Caillivet (here).
Well-smashed, our white tin chariot takes us to Bordeaux’s Southern-most winery: Château de Roquetaillade la Grange:
GravesMapTight
Luckily, we didn’t walk.
Soft hills roll with vine rows. This is the highest vineyard in Graves: roughly 100 meters above sea-level. Not a mountain, but unlike la Croix’s river-side, rotting grapes (tricky, but perfect for dessert wine), dry breezes and more drainage keep Roquetaillade’s vines happy. With all this rain, that matters.
Also unlike the rest of Langon, this “Château” has a château: Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Bordeaux, Château de Roquetaillade la Grange, Destemmer, France, Graves, merlot, Portes Ouvertes, Roquetaillade, Sauternes, Semillon, Starship Enterprise
2 Comments
Japanese Beer: Baird Beer, Dark Sky Imperial Stout, Numazu, Japan
Today we visit Japan.
Beer may be your last thought, but the Japanese love it. Most drink mass-produced lager like the rest of us. Yet, by the mid-90s, regulations loosened and allowed for a craft beer boom. A license went from 2000 kl per year to 60 kl. In steps Baird Beer: not very Japanese-sounding. Heck, their website looks like any other American micro-brewery’s: nary a whiff of the land of the rising sun.
That’s because Bryan, a former Johns Hopkins grad, and Sayuri, a native of Okinawa, founded it. International studies sent Bryan to Japan. But he preferred beer. Then he met Sayuri. They moved to the US. Then he crammed in the American Brewers Guild 3-month intensive and apprenticed at Redhook Brewery in Seattle. They quit their jobs and home-brewed countless small batches. Continue reading
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