Taste the Rainbow of Vinho Verde: Green Wine Across the Spectrum

Class transcript:

All right, welcome, welcome one and all there, Zoe. It's a pleasure to have you all in our midst. It is another gorgeous day in Washington, D.C. I hope it is equally beautiful wherever you are crouched in front of a screen. And I commend you for taking time away from this beautiful day for a little bit of screen time. We are grateful as ever to have you with us, all the more so to celebrate the first 100 days of the new administration with our friends from the Human Rights Campaign through the aegis of regular Travis Siegel. Thank you, one and all. Big ups to everyone who threw a little gratuity in with their order. Thank you so much for your generosity. We continue to shamelessly hit you up.

Thank you so much for the sake of our favorite causes. And I continue to be impressed with your willingness to give of your time and of your resources for the sake of these various flights of fancy, these various noble causes that are deeply important to us. And today we are celebrating the rainbow. We are tasting the rainbow, as it were, of Vino Verde. The Verde there. Is, you know, describing a lot of different things for the sake of this wine. It's young, it's green. You know, I think it's occasionally a little naive, but the region equally reigns so pertinent. And there's much more than you might imagine. It is, you know, much more dynamic, Vino Verde, than we have been led to believe. We have six, count them, six different iterations.

We have the Vino Verde of popular imagination. We have the lightly effervescent alcoholic. We have the soft drink. It is delightful. You know, we should all make, you know, time in our lives for things that are as uncomplicated and delicious as a good, you know, Verde. But we are going to work our way from the most ubiquitous through to the least expected and in so doing celebrate, you know, the wonderful diversity of this category and honor all the shades of gray that exists for the sake of human sexuality. And the human. The human experience not to extend the Vino Verde analogy too far. There is no wrong answer, for the sake of drinking at home. These are wines to throw back, you know, with kind of like wanton, lusty abandon.

We're going to spend a little time with tasting notes. Zoe, how many of the Vino Verdes do you have in front of you there? I have two. I have the Olde Vines, and then I have the Altruinto and Agoraera. You got bougie. I got bougie. Yeah. Okay. So Zoe will actually have, you know, some thoughtful tasting notes for our sake for these, you know, slightly more sophisticated riffs on, you know, this particular genre. But I'll have some thoughts about, you know, the more gluggable wines in our midst as well. Give folks a few more minutes to come onto the Zoom. But for the time being, we might as well kick it off. I want to welcome you all once again. This is the 49th lesson we've done.

Vino Verdi, the subject we are coming up on our half-century mark and very excited about it in two weeks' time. But without further ado, I wanted to welcome particularly one, Nicole McMillan, who's been an amazing recruiter for us. She literally lives above Tail Up Goat, but she has proselytized for the wine school. We have her mom. Joining us, Giselle, all the way from Vancouver, Victoria, Vancouver Island, British Columbia. And I'm excited for your sake, Giselle, that we're drinking Vino Verdi because it feels like a great one o'clock, you know, in the afternoon kind of kind of wine. Equally thrilled that one intimate wrangle made her way down from New York and is enjoying all the Vino Verdi with her former college classmate, Nicole. Thank you. Thank you all for being a part of this fabulous community.

So don't hate me for the cool bottles this week. I couldn’t see fit to do lights for these wines. It felt a little precious for the sake of Vino Verdi. You know, equally, you know, these are wines that are lightly effervescent and you lose some of that charm, you know, when they go flat. You know, part of, you know, the joy of them is that, you know, sprite, you know, that like, you know, that pinprickle on the palate. And, you know, we wanted to preserve that. And honestly, you know, these are wines you don't want to drink four ounces at a time. These are wines, you know, to throw back, you know, 750 milliliters at a time. So I hope you don’t hate me in the morning.

You know, please forgive me for the sake of going the whole route. Once again, I want to thank Travis Siegel for inspiring us to, you know, feature the Human Rights Campaign for the sake of this lesson. Any tips that you all sent our way for the sake of these wines has gone this week to the HRC's ongoing work, you know, to advocate for the LGBTQ community. And Travis and a bunch of the volunteers at HRC are celebrating 100 days of a new administration, more dedicated, thankfully, to upholding and extending rights for those among us. Now that I didn't... I have to say, I think that's what I'm proud of. I think that's what we have to do. And especially those who are most vulnerable. You know, those of color, HIV-positive, you know, trans members of the community.

You know, we are, you know, mindful of how vulnerable they are. And grateful that there is an organization advocating for them. And equally, inhabitants of the executive branch now that, you know, are more inclined to promote their equal rights. So, Vino Verde, as I mentioned, it means 'young', as opposed to Maduro, which is a little weathered in the Portuguese parlance. I wanted to embrace, you know, the power of, you know, that youth, that new beginning, that spirit of hope for the sake of our verse. So, here you go. I actually read this poem to a colleague, Tim, who after three and a half years is moving on as our sous chef, and I wanted to share it with you all today as well. It's called The Ragged and the Beautiful.

Doubt is a storming bull crashing through the blue-wide windows of myself. Here in the heart of my heart where it never stops raining, I am an outsider looking in. But in the garden of my good days, no body is wrong. Here, every flower grows ragged and sideways and always beautiful. We bloom with the outcasts, are soon to be sunlit. We dreamers, we are strange and unbelonging. Yes, we are just enough of ourselves to catch the wind in our feathers and fly so perfectly away. Sophia Sinclair there, a beautiful little bit of verse. And, you know, a buoyant bunch of wines here for us. The sake of today's lesson, which is, you know, you know, super fun. You know, Vino Verde, I think, is easy to write off.

It's not a serious wine, but it's an important reminder equally that wine doesn't have to be serious. It can be, you know, festive and joyful. You know, that's the first thing it should be. You know, it shouldn't be ponderous. It shouldn't reinforce, you know, divisions, artificial divisions, you know, of, you know, class and wealth. You know, at its core, you know, it belongs as part of the fabric of our lives in a way that that brings joy. You know, it's not a necessary, you know, part of our diet as much as much as, you know, some of us treat it that way. You know, it is, you know, the ultimate, you know, luxury good. But, you know, a luxury in the sense that it adds value to our lives.

And, you know, for those of us that do enjoy it, you know, I hope that, you know, we, you know, appreciate it in that vein. And I think, you know, you know, kind of devoting a lesson to wine like this, you know, kind of pushes us more in that direction and reminds us, you know, wine doesn't have to be so damn serious. At any rate, Vino Verde, pull up in math, is a region. So it has become synonymous, Vino Verde, with its most famous product. And we're going to try kind of like an archetypical example of, you know, the mass marketed Vino Verde. A popular imagination here first. But I want to stress, you know, if you get nothing out of this lesson, you know, you should know that Vino Verde is a designation of origin.

It was first recognized in 1908. It was enshrined as an official DOC in the Portuguese system in 1984. The Portuguese didn't join the European community until the 80s. So, that's not quite as late as it would seem. It is the largest. It is the largest designation of origin in the country. There are fully nine sub-regions of Vino Verde. And we're going to explore several, we're going to explore four of the nine today. Super exciting. The terroir here is crisscrossed by rivers. I think you get a sense of that in this, you know, kind of like, you know, child's drawing book map here from our friends at Wine Folly. But I like all the colors. You know, we're staying on brand for the sake of the whole taste of the rainbow.

But, you know, pretty monolithic for the sake of soil types. A lot of hard, old-ass rock. You know, some of the oldest rocks that make their way to the Earth's surface, particularly as you approach the interior of Portugal. Talking pre-Cambrian here. You know, there's like no life forms or at the very least, you know, the primordial soup. 540 million years ago, you're dealing with granite, which is intrusive, igneous rock schist, which is metamorphic. A lot of hard rock and, you know, these rivers cutting their way through it. And, you know, Portugal, this thin sliver of a country at the edge of the Iberian Peninsula, there's consistently a maritime influence throughout all of these regions. So these are all, you know, wines that, you know, reflect that maritime influence and have that bright, you know, briny, refreshing streak.

That said, you know, from one sub-region to another, there's a slightly different character. And, you know, for instance, in Monsal and Melgaçal, I will taste Albarino from there. You know, wines are a little wavier, more serious. Because, you know, they're a little more protected from that oceanic influence. And then, you know, in a place like Ave, you know, they see a little more of that. And you can certainly taste that in the wine. Historically, this is a land of small tenant farmers. There are 35,000 hectares of vineyards in Vino Verde. There are equally 38,000 individual growers. So not a lot of grand estates. The Romans, when they stumbled upon this corner of Iberia, they called it Lusitania and Galicia. Essentially, and you know, they came upon a culture that was already making wine.

And I think, you know, there's a certain continuity. You know, I imagine small tenant farmers, you know, when the Romans stumbled upon Portugal. And you know, there's still small tenant farmers making wine to this day. You know, the kind of iconic image of viticulture in this country or in this kind of corner of the country centers around these trellised vines. So very interesting. It's a very agricultural-intensive kind of place. Corn arrived there in the 16th century. And they started planting their best land to cereal crops, which pushed the grapevine to the edge of vineyards. Because grapes will grow anywhere. But you've got this iconic training system whereby everything, you know, the vine itself, existed almost in a state of nature. And climbed up trees, climbed up stakes, climbed up telephone poles.

And does to this day. And is harvested on ladders, this very way. But, you know, that allowed these small-time peasants to make the most of, you know, the few acres of land that they had. And they typically would have worked with a bunch of different varietals. There are 52 permitted grapes in the region. We're going to focus on, you know, fully six of them for the sake of this lesson. You know, the mythology of, you know, the grapes that, you know, kind of have emerged into the market. You know, the wine era in, you know, Verde, you know, kind of centers around this notion that they evolved from wild vines. You know, the Portuguese, you know, they are people that celebrate wine in their everyday life.

And they, you know, like to extend that tradition, you know, back as far as possible. You know, it's probably not entirely true that, you know, Alvarino, Vesso, Orinto, Vinal, the grapes that we're going to consider for the sake of this lesson. You know, it's not true that they were descended from wild vines. There's not a lot of scientific evidence to indicate that. But they are sufficiently old that their parents were lost to history. You know, so these are truly unique, identifiable local products. Many of these grapes exist along both sides of the Spanish-Portuguese border. The Spanish-Portuguese border is unique within Europe for having, you know, not really changed that much since the 13th century. And, you know, they are pretty, you know, kind of kindly, beneficent.

You know, you know, neighborly, you know, folks from one corner of the country to another. And, you know, life viticulture in green Spain is very similar to viticulture in vino verde. So there's a lot of continuity there. And for many of these grapes, you know, Alvarño being the most obvious one, you know, you have one version in Spain, Alvarño, and another in Portugal, Alvarño. So there are a lot of synonyms across the border for the sake of viticulture. This class. At the end of the day, though, you know, universally what we're dealing with here are, you know, what the French would call Vendée Plus here. You know, wines that are to be enjoyed first and foremost, that are green in the sense that they are largely meant to be consumed when they're young, but are much more dynamic than just, you know, the alcoholic soft drinks that have emerged onto the modern scene and have, you know, descended upon.

So that's a really important line. So, you know, we're going to keep this up with Centola. So this is, you know, vino verde, as I think most people imagine it. You know, $15 bottle at our store, certainly less expensive at some others in the interest of full disclosure. This is a wine, you know, just in terms of its chemical aspects, I think, you know, kind of fascinating, pretty raging acid, very low pH, you know, probably somewhere in like 3.1, 3.5; 0.2 range, 13 grams per liter of residual sugar. So for those of you playing along at home, you know, typically we start to perceive something as sweet at, you know, four to five grams per liter of residual sugar. I thought it'd be fun to take this a little further down the rabbit hole.

For me, this wine tastes like Sprite. And, you know, I was wondering, you know, what are the, what are the specs on Sprite? So, Sprite, as it were, contains different kinds of acid, mostly phosphoric acid, but 3.3 the pH on Sprite, and a whopping 86 grams per liter of residual sugar on Sprite. So, a little more cloying, more of a dessert wine in, you know, kind of grape speak for the sake of Sprite. But, you know, this one I think is perfectly balanced in it, and it works because of the acidity of the grapes that go into it. So, the major grape here is called Loero. Loero comes from the Portuguese word for laurel, and it has that, you know, laurel blossom, laurel plant-like perfume, also famous for a kind of like peach, stone fruit, assorted citrus, white flowers, you name it, all the, you know, beautiful things, you know, in a verdant environment like this corner of northwestern Portugal.

Equally, I like this quote, Jonathan Nostreder says that Loero is a grape so light and subtle, it makes Audrey Hepburn look like a heavyweight. I don't like that we're fat-shaming Audrey Hepburn, it bothers me that Jonathan Nostreder is fat-shaming Audrey Hepburn for the sake of Loero, but he makes a good point. It's an easy-drinking wine. It can be something more serious, but more often than not, it goes into this, like, larger production commercial project. This is from Cabas Miceias. It was, it is an estate that makes wine throughout, you know, pretty much all the major growing regions in Portugal. It was established in Vallada in the 1920s, and, you know, this doesn't belong to a specific sub-region of Vinho Verde, near as I can tell.

It's just kind of, you know, Vinho Verde, you know, writ, you know, across the region as a refreshing, you know, lightly busy thing, which brings us to the next question. You know, whence the fits in this particular offering? Well, you know, traditionally, this is, you know, a young wine. It's not unlike, you know, the Vin Premier, you know, the Germans have their own version of younger wine, bottled, you know, at like, you know, 4% alcohol and, you know, it's lightly cloudy. You know, for the sake of this one, the tradition would have been to bottle it so early that, you know, it finished, it finished its fermentation, you know, under crown cap, under cork, and had a little pétillon.

In a modern environment, you can cap the tank to mimic that product, that process, and, you know, the better Vinho Verdes, the bougier Vinho Verdes are made by, you know, kind of capping the tank early and then bottling under pressure. Most Vinho Verdes, and I would be shocked if this one isn't made that way, have CO2 injected just like soda. And so, you know, it is what it is. You know, this is, you know, one of those wines you accept at face value. I'm curious, Zoe, do you have any comments? Comments about crab wine from the people? Santola specifically refers to Portuguese spider crab. Portuguese famously seafaring people love their seafood. You know, this region is famous for it in a variety of different forms, but I could totally see kicking this back.

And at a crab feast, I wouldn't want a glass of this. I would definitely want to drink it right from the bottle. You know, treat it like, you know, white wine as Natty Bow. But, you know, I think it'd be delicious. Crab wine at any rate. Do people like this wine? Do they not like this wine? Is it, you know, so trivial, you know, so, you know, cartoonishly, you know, off dry and effervescent that, you know, it, you know, descends into stereotype. Zoe, hit me. Yeah, everyone loves it. Some cute jokes about it being called crab sob. Oh, I like that. Very, like, this is what we call patio wine, you know. I would like, I can even put it in, like my spin bike, like, it was just hydrating. Yeah.

Just hydrating. It does feel like a socially acceptable thing, you know, like if you have a four o'clock meeting at work. You know, maybe you put it in a water glass and no one knows, no one knows any better. Yeah, or, yeah, or like a squeeze bottle. It should be said that, you know, it does, this is at 9% alcohol. You know, classically, people would water down their wine and, you know, drink it throughout the day. You know, it's like the Roman soldier, you know, kind of program. For the sake of hydration. And, you know, this is kind of moving in that direction. You know, 9% alcohol is not insignificant. It should be said that, you know, that is well more alcohol than, like, twice as much as your ubiquitous international lager.

Which you probably could throw back ad nauseum, you know, and unless you are really going after it, you know, kind of maintain a steady buzz. This will get you turnt if you treat it like a natty go straight out of the bottle. But, you know, I think it's just, like, uncomplicated and refreshing. You know, is it the most complicated in the wine in the world? You know, no. Does it taste a little bit like a sweet tart? Yes. But are sweet tarts equally delicious? Abso-fucking-lutely. Yeah. And so, you know, not every wine, you know, needs to be, you know, a Baroque masterpiece. You know, there's time for, you know, a fluid sketch, a one-off, as it were, of the wine world. And, you know, that's something that Vino Verde does exceedingly, exceedingly well.

Any other? There's a really good idea to put it into ice. So, we could have. Oh. I think we need to get Annie in on this. Yeah. Like a pastry chef. I feel like a Frosé application could emerge. I don't know. I don't know if this might be my first choice for Frosé. Just because I feel like you'd want something, like, a little denser. Because you have all that ice in the mix that's going to, like, dilute the flavor of something. But I like where everyone's head is at for the sake of this exercise. I feel like they're appreciating the wine on its own terms. And a really, you know, heartwarming way for the sake of this exercise. Because, you know, you always worry as the, you know, stodgy wine type that, you know, if you go pop, you know, this is it.

Sometimes it feels like, as a psalm, like, you know, the hardcore, you know, punk artists that, you know, suddenly, like, you know, chart to top 40 single. And, you know, will people in the, you know, punk community still take me seriously? You know, but clearly, you know, the, the tail of, tail of go wines. And, you know, the classical community is, is right there with me. And I, I appreciate that from you all. So, continue to enjoy this. You know, continue to come up with all sorts of, you know, debauched work-a-day applications for a crab wine. You know, but, you know, you don't need to, this is not one we need to spend, you know, 15 minutes unraveling for the sake of its mysteries. You know, it, it's, it's, it's there for you.

You know, it's, it's a background vocalist. You know, it'll always be there for you. We're going to move on to something a little more dynamic, a little more profound for the sake of Alvarino. And this one is from a different corner of the region or a specific, it should be said, corner of the region. Equally, kind of like the Grand Cru of Vinho Verde. So, we are in Monsal and Melgaçal. The Portuguese accent. I tend to just want to like shush and show my way through it. And just like add, you know, harder inflections toward the end of words. Because in my experience, that's what Portuguese sounds like. That said, I don't really speak Portuguese. So, I apologize to anyone I'm offending.

The Rio Minho is, you know, the river of choice here for the sake of this portion of the Portuguese-Spanish border. You can see that you're pretty far removed from the mouth of the river. And as such, you know, the hills that lie between Melgaçal, Monsal and the Atlantic have this like protective, you know, quality for the sake of these vines. And these are older vines. These are, you know, 40-plus year old vines. Historically, most of them would have been trained, you know, in that pergola style. This particular one goes under the Feralde-Megaçal label. But it's a product of Quinta de Reguero. Quinta de Reguero. It's a winery done in 1988. You'll see, you know, a lot of the wineries in the region, you know, the thousands of people making wine on a small scale.

That, you know, commercialized production. Got their start relatively recently. And this particular producer, very quality conscious. And this particular region, known for wines that are a little more sturdy. A little more serious than your work-a-day crab wine. And I will say for this one that it spends a bit of time on the lees. So, you know, that lees influence for the sake of these wines, you know, wine rested on the yeast that die away throughout the fermentation process. This wine bottled in March after the vintage. So, you know, several months, you know, four or five months at least on the lees will contribute additional richness to the final product. Albariño famously can have; it's a thicker-skinned varietal. It maintains acid well as it ripens.

It can, you know, move into this like, you know, gummy, you know, petri kind of realm. On the Portuguese side of the border, it is a little more, you know, citric. It is a little leaner, taut, focused. But certainly layered. Certainly much more, you know, dynamic than, you know, the alcoholic soda that we were experiencing before. Zoe, what do you think of this particular wine? I think it's gorgeous. It has this like really nice like tropicalia on the nose and has a little like Riesling petrol-like juiciness to it. But then also has that like shampoo like oil, which I really love. Yeah, but like the nice, this is like the nice shampoo. Not like the, it's not like the co-op shampoo that, you know, smells like patchouli or like peppermint or whatever.

This is like one of those like herbal essences, you know, kind of situations. There is an origin story for the sake of Albariño on the other side of the border, Zoe, that German missionaries brought it with them on the Camino. So there are pilgrimage routes, ancient pilgrimage routes extending throughout Portugal and then throughout Galicia. So, you know, it's a little bit like a So you're not the first to make that. So you're not the first to make that. For me, I like, it has this a little bit like a Gruner-like citrus pith and pepperiness. So it's a little bit like a Gruner-like citrus pith and pepperiness. you know, happening on the back end. And I feel like it's a little more taut in focus.

Sometimes I find, you know, depending where on where you are in Rios Baixas, which itself has many different sub zones, kind of like, you know, Verde, you know, Albariño goes into, you know, a little bit of like, like oily Carmen Miranda kind of place. And, and I find that there's this like, you know, kind of tension for the sake of the good Albarinos on the Portuguese side of the, of the border. And, you know, again, you know, this is all, all granite for the sake of the soils, which granite tends to degrade into hard sand, tends to be very acidic, the soils, you know, which can produce wines that are higher in pH, but that's just not a concern in this corner of the world because it's cool and it's relatively wet.

It would be less wet here though. Then it is further to the south. So by a degree of, you know, 10 inches of regular rainfall, less wet in this corner of, you know, Verde, which, you know, is a home to Albarino. So in other parts of, you know, this larger region, you know, Luero, Orento, other, you know, white varietals would, would be the stars of the show, but in Monção in particular, in Melgação, Albarino is, is the, you know, almost universally, you know, kind of celebrated white varietal. And, you know, we're celebrating. Absolutely. Any comments on this one? Any, you know, Frosé suggestions? Or it wouldn't be Frosé, it would be like Flo Zerino for the sake of this one.

I know just it's very elegant, very refreshing that, you know, the acidity is A, raging, but it's like, it's tearing off any enamel that's on my teeth. Like it is quite stark. But I think that that suppleness of the like, front and the mid palate in particular, like really, really like coats it and like brings that through to the finish. You said that it's like, it's very a focused wine. And I think that like, that's maybe what we're all we're all kind of suggesting. Yeah, I like, for me, it has a bit of like this underripe peach thing. You know, like, not the peach that's like, you know, you want to eat out of hand. So my criteria for peaches is that I want to be able to it's kind of like the Krispy Kreme donut test.

So you know, Krispy Kreme donut, you can just squeeze the whole thing and reduce it to like a bit of food that big. I like the peaches that are at that point in their life where you know, you know, they almost it's like you breathe on them, and they start to, you know, collapse through that, right? You know, this is a very different kind of peach experience. This is more of that, like, you know, slightly crunchy peach, but you know, it's like the peach you want to grill. You know, I love that you're or like, you know, kind of like a harder donut peach at a white peach. And, and I love that. You know, I think that's, you know, as a set of flavors equally fun.

It's not as like texturally in the fruit as fun as that, like Krispy Kreme donut place. But, you know, I think for the sake of the flavors, in a wine, you know, it's like brighter, you know, more bracing, you know, more saline, and genuinely exciting to me. And the first time I had actually, this is this is, you know, making a mockery of the spirit of the vino verde lesson, because I'm about to drop a $600 dollar bet that I had at La Verna Din a million years ago, but they featured a single, single vineyard Albarino as part of that pairing. And it was like, the first time I had, you know, more serious vino verde like that, and it was very eye-opening.

And, you know, these wines are still, you know, widely inexpensive, and I think, you know, great values relative to what they are. And that brings us to Abeso, very different varietal. Abeso, kind of an emerging star. So, you know, Loero, the, the, was it Catherine or Audrey? It was Audrey Hepburn, Fat Shamer, and Alvarino, very much known entities in the region. Aveso, an emerging star, comes from a Portuguese kind of root that, depending on who you talk to, either means upside down or contrary. And, you know, the idea here is that essentially you're dealing with a grape from a region renowned for varietals that are, you know, bright and acid-driven. You know, Luero, Alvarino share that; Orinto, a grape that will get to, you know, forthrightly, has that in spades as well.

But Aveso is a grape that, you know, gets a little more broad-shouldered. It develops, you know, sugar a lot better and produces wines that have more of this kind of like nutty, people say like floral, like white almond character. And you're in a very different, you know, corner of the larger region here. So we are going from, you know, north to south. So Monsal, Migasal, Milgasal is the wine that we're just drinking, hailed from. This is from Bayo. Like, I imagine it as like the, like Scott Baio's, like Homeland, but Bayo. Um, and it's along the Duero River. So the Duero empties out into the Atlantic at Porto. Um, and, uh, it is this, uh, lowest, uh, blue branch here. And, uh, as you continue, um, to the east, you get into port country.

You get into the, the Duero, the region named after the river itself, which is the most historically important growing region in Portugal. Uh, but you're not there yet. Um, you still are, um, in a region that has more of that maritime influence, uh, but it equally has, um, the, uh, granite terraces, um, that make, um, uh, the Duero Valley, uh, you know, and UNESCO World Heritage Site, actually, um, for the sake of the beauty, um, of its vineyards. So a similarly terraced land, but terraced for the sake of this grape, uh, which is a Veso. Um, this is a family affair founded in 1991. Uh, this wine does see a little bit of skin contact. Um, we're talking four hours of maceration. I would never call it orange wine.

It doesn't drink that way. Um, you know, it's a constant, you know, reminder for you all that sometimes, you know, giving a wine a little bit of that time on the skins, uh, is hugely common, um, for a lot of white wines as well. Um, it gives you, um, you know, more dynamic, um, you know, aromatics on the wine. It lends a little weight, um, and it doesn't necessarily register as astringent. Um, uh, you know, a Veso, um, you know, is a grape that, you know, is dynamic and interesting for the sake of what lives in its skins. And I think, you know, they're embracing that for the sake of this wine. Um, and then this one spends nine months, uh, on the lees, uh, thereafter. Um, they're working very sustainably.

Um, they are not, uh, biodynamic as such. Um, uh, that's going to be the watchword for the sake of, uh, the wines that we, uh, you know, consider, um, in, you know, a bit of time here. But, um, I just, I think there's something like really matter-of-factly delicious, um, about this wine. Any comments about the Veso? And I was hugely pleasantly surprised. I, um, I brought this in on a lark, um, because I like, uh, um, uh, uh, Silvio Suarez, who's a gentleman that brings it in. Um, and, uh, you know, I don't always, uh, you know, Silvio, brings in a lot of different wines. I don't uniformly love them all, but I feel like they're all coming from the right place, you know?

So it's like, even if, you know, you're mad at them, you know, you can't get, like, too mad at them. Um, uh, and there's something like, you know, um, you know, ripe and rewarding, um, about this wine. Does anyone have thoughts on, on this one, uh, Zoe? No, but I love your unconditional love for, for that wine portfolio. Um, it's very zesty, very quenchable. Um, I think it's one of those wines that, like, that skin contact plus the acidity just, like, makes my palate, like, salivate real hard. Um, I think that, like, that lime pith that you're talking about and, like, um, bitterness is, is super delicious and is shining through. And, like, I don't know, I think it's fun to, to taste these wines, um, together, um, because the minerality of, like, the pure granite, um, in the floral is, like, so focused and, like, straight-lined.

Whereas, like, this, I get, like, that, like, you know, it's much more, like, crunchy. Like, river rocky. Yeah, that makes sense. And for me, the Abisto is lower acid, so the breadth of it registers, um, you know, it's not quite as enamel-stripping. Um, you know, it gets, you know, comparable quality of orchard fruit for the sake of the Quinta, uh, Santa Têa, um, as its friends call it. But, um, you know, I think it's rewarding in the way that, like, um, you know, Pinot Grigio from the Alto Adige is, in the way that, you know, um, good, uh, good, uh, Chardonnay is, you know, um, you know, so there's, like, wonderful orchard fruit quality to it, but it's just kind of a wine that invites you in.

You know, there are no, um, you know, bells or whistles. It's not, um, you know, particularly nerdy. Um, you know, it's not a wine that has a lot of tattoos. Um, it's just straightforward, um, and delicious, pleasant company, uh, for the, for the sake of, for the sake of an evening. You know, it's like a wine that's, like, a wonderful conversationalist, but, you know, equally, you know, happy to, you know, sit at a bar by itself if you're going to read a book. Absolutely. Um, can you talk about, um, fermenting, uh, with these chestnut flowers? Oh, so we're going to, we're going to get, you don't have to shark on me, so we're going to get there. Sorry, sorry, just going into the oasis. That's empty.

Yeah, so that's a great, that's a great segue, and it brings us to the, you know, Pee Wee Herman moment, um, uh, for the sake of this lesson, which is, um, biodynamics. So, uh, you came here for, um, you know, a, a lesson on this, you know, gluggable, um, you know, fun, fabulous rainbow of Northwestern Portuguese wines. Uh, but you know, you're going to leave with a little more information about, um, this pseudoscientific way of, uh, cultivating, uh, the vine and, and making, uh, wine. Um, and that's because, um, for the sake of, uh, these, uh, next three offerings that we're featuring, um, uh, fully two of them, uh, are made in a biodynamic fashion, and, um, it's very hard to work this way. It's a basis that we just tried, um, is an organic wine.

Um, and because it's so wet in this region, um, there is always a temptation to use herbicides and other chemical, um, interventions. It's a lot easier to make wine that way. Um, you know, but I think because you have this land of tens of thousands of small growers and, you know, familial holdings, people are, uh, intimately, um, tied to their products in a way that, um, you know, invites a more, you know, kind of, um, a stronger sense of responsibility, uh, for the wine. So, um, I think that's, I think that's, I think that's a, I think that's a great way to address that for the sake of stewardship of the land, and, um, you know, biodynamics, um, is, uh, a way, um, to address that for the sake of making wine.

And so, um, we're going to taste, uh, up next, uh, Bojo do Luar. Um, Bojo de, uh, Bojo do Luar, and again, uh, for any of you that speak Portuguese, I apologize. Beautiful, um, that means moonlight, um, in, in Portuguese. Um, uh, fully biodynamic, um, this comes from, uh, SavioSource's, um, uh, portfolio, kind of inspired by this, uh, Portuguese, uh, biodynamic OG Nanda Paiva, but actually made by a bloke named Antonio Sousa. This is a blend of a Beso, which we just considered, and a Rinto. A Rinto is this racy, live, I think arguably the greatest native Portuguese grape. And I think people say that, you know, Luero is the country's Riesling. For me, a Riesling registers more like Riesling than any other varietal that comes out of the country, but that's neither here nor there.

This is a blend of those two. This one spends fully three months on the skins. It has kind of a creepy, you know, kind of, it looks like, I don't know, it almost looks like a Harlequin. The face creeps me out a little bit. Maybe it's like Picasso, Blue Period, kind of. The artwork is a little unnerving. But at any rate, it's a very dynamic, interesting, textural kind of wine. Zoe mentioned chestnut flowers. They are used in powdered form here as an alternative to sulfur. And that's something that Fernando Paiva did pioneering work on and are looking for alternatives to these, you know, what people think of as unnatural interventions but you all know that I'm not afraid of a little sulfur in wine as such.

This particular offering also comes from Scott Bia in southern Portugal. You know, Zoe, for the, you know, sake of her tasting notes, you know, name dropped how savory it was, how dynamic this was. Wine was. I want to offer, you know, briefly a description of the biodynamic regime. This is a description, one of the best descriptions I've ever read, offered by Vasco Croft, who's going to be kind of the star of the second half of this production. But I think it's just like one of the best, you know, succinct encapsulations of, you know, this system of agriculture. And I really started with organics. Rudolf Steiner is an Austro-Hungarian philosopher. He delivered eight lectures to a group of farmers in what is now Poland in 1924, in response to their concerns about their land being devastated through the application and denuded through the application of chemical fertilizers, which were developed just prior to World War I.

And Vasco Croft says that biodynamics is a myth. It's a method of farming based on a holistic way of understanding relationships within nature. The sphere of life on earth in its mineral, plant, and animal diversity is seen as a whole and connected to the larger context of the rhythms and forces present in the cosmos. As a general principle, it is emphasized that each farm should be understood as a self-sustaining system to be created out of its own biodiversity in a harmony between soil, plants, animals, and human activity. And, you know, that is a noble aim. You know, I love that idea that, you know, again, you're starting with something organic. So, you know, organics is all about eschewing artificial, you know, chemical inputs.

But you're taking it a step further and you're thinking about the ecology of the farm, all the inhabitants therein. You're thinking about the diversity of life forms on it, and you're thinking about the way they react one to another. The difficulty of the biodynamic regime is that we descend into pseudoscientific, spiritual, you know, territory. You know, Steiner started Waldorf schools, which are hives of any Baxter activity. You know, nothing against, you know, a Waldorf education. In a lot of ways, it's beautiful. It's this, you know, idea that, you know, children themselves are, you know, the book is what Steiner says. They teach us how to, you know, instruct them. And it's just like experiential kind of, you know, you know, wildly dynamic and interesting, you know, educational motif.

But it certainly has its limitations equally. At any rate, Zoe, I cut you off for the sake of tasting notes on this wine and, you know, went on a biodynamic tangent. What are your tasting notes for the sake of this one? No, you're perfect. There's a really good call that's very yeasty on the nose. I get like that unbaked, like sourdough bread, which is really quite fun because I don't, I don't necessarily put, that was something that has like skin contact and like the grit and the texture that this wine does. I like putting those notes more to like something like a Muscadet. But this is like, I don't know, maybe it does kind of taste a little bit like a skin contact Muscadet. Yeah, I think, yeah, there could be some truth to that.

I've had a few skin contact melons and, you know, they're right up this alley. You know, wine on the skins kind of tends to go to, especially, you know, brighter acid-driven wines like this, go to more of like a Zoolander, you know, La Tigra, Blue Steel kind of savory place. The one of the producers tasting notes for the sake of this wine was artichoke brine, which I thought was kind of awesome, you know, because, you know, I don't, you know, taste a lot of artichokes out of the can, but, you know, the artichoke brine, it tastes very different than like a green olive brine. And I think this has a little bit of that. There's a greenness to it, but it's not unpleasantly green, you know, it's like, you know, benevolently green.

And then texturally, you know, it's oily. It's a bit of a challenging wine. It kind of flies in the face of this notion of vino verde is something that you throw back. I don't know, you know, for me, this is, this is like a wine with food. It's a wine to ruminate over. It's a wine to consider, you know, the merits of biodynamic viticulture with. It's not, you know, viticultural sprite, but it equally has a place in this region, which I think is super cool. And it equally reflects, you know, kind of, you know, what is happening there for the sake of the wines that are emerging from vino verde. So a huge total, you know, kind of yin to the proverbial cerebral yang. This is Espadero.

And this one comes from our fourth region. I think it's the third region that we've tracked our sub regions of vino verde. And it comes from a more time-influenced region. So this is from Ávila. You can't see it here, but there's the kind of original capital of Portugal, you know, circa 12th, 13th century Guimarães, which is a world heritage site, kind of like halfway up the river in Ávila. It's a broader valley. So they see more of a, you know, kind of steady influence from the Atlantic, from the sea unimpeded, you know, by any other, you know, geographical features or mountains, as it were. This is kind of like the pink, you know, kind of version of the Sprite that we had before. This one, for me, definitely goes into that sweet tart, you know, kind of realm.

It comes from a small family owned winery that was established in 1997. They live in the shadow of this cradle city of Portugal, and it's just like, you know, fun and delicious. And I like, I like the idea that I'm supporting, you know, just a humble family of growers that are making something that, you know, just totally out of context. I think this is just like a pink wine that you could, you know, throw at somebody, I don't know, like on a cruise, and they would be like, yeah, fuck yeah, give me another bottle, you know, or, you know, you know, befitting the theme of this lesson, you know, the pool at Vita. I could see this wine slaying at the Vita pool, you know, every like a million, like a rainbow of flavored vodka.

And, you know, Pink Vino Verde would slay at the Vita pool. But, you know, There's so much flavored vodka at that Vita pool. As I love my former gym membership. Yeah, I know. So Meredith had a friend that had a membership at the Vita pool, and they used to go, and she used to say, you know, it was a meat market, but she would also, she would even say that like, they would start to leave when the flavored vodkas came out. But she said it was like the most hilarious. The most hilarious back bar she's ever seen, you know, It's three quarters, I swear, it's three quarters. Yeah, it's amazing. I mean, what's not to love, what's not to love about that?

Anyway, and like, for some reason, like, I feel like, you know, this just belongs on that on that menu in and of its own right. Um, we have a great question here. What's their capacity like each year? How many cases are they producing? Um, these guys? A decent, I think they're producing a decent amount. We're definitely not like hundreds at a time. I'm sure we're at like, you know, at least a few thousand. Yields are not small in vino verde, especially for a wine like this. There's no incentive to diminish yields. Esfidero is a grape that never really gets fully red. You know, you want to ripen it just enough that you get a fullness of fruit flavor.

You know, but you still want it to be fresh enough that, you know, it has that, you know, snap, crackle, pop on the on the back. And so you can make a decent amount of good wine, you know, without, you know, kind of, I don't know, it would just, it would just kind of like, defeat the whole purpose of making this wine, if you were, you know, as concerned about the yields as they are in a lot of other regions that you know, turn out, you know, super boutique wine. It's kind of not that point. You know, you want a good wine, but it doesn't need to be, you know, you know, crazy, you know, extracted or full flavored or whatever. It's just supposed to be refreshing at the end of the day.

But without further ado, I do want to kick it with our next producer. We are more deeply considering the biodynamic program. And I'm just going to show a picture of this gentleman. And I'm going to read a bit of his biography. This is from his own website. He is the man behind Afros. Afros, incidentally, is like a sea god, the sea foam god. We are in the sub-region of Lima, which is known to some extent for its red wines. The Great Pier of Binao is incredibly dark in color, but produces light, racy wines. It's the locals' wine. So old Portuguese dudes, as they gnaw on suckling pigskin, this is what they drink. If you go to a local tavern in this corner of the world, this is probably what people serve you.

And traditionally, they would drink it out of clay mugs. So I love locally, you know, they drink, you know, essentially, you know, the kind of a wine that totally defies expectation. You know, this is a diametric opposite of, you know, our image of Vinho Verde, but it is the most locally popular version of the wine. But Vino, thought to be a tinture, thought to be a red flesh grape. You know, from what I've read, it's actually true that the skins are so heavily pigmented that any time the grapes get lightly crushed, the pigment infuses the flesh, but it's not actually tincturer. So dispelling tincturer myths. That's if Jancis Robinson and her co-writers in wine grapes are to be believed, but I generally trust her. Without further ado, Vasco cross-biography.

Born in Lisbon with an inclination for metaphysics, Vasco thought of being a tinturer. He was born in Lisbon with an inclination for being an astrologer in his teens, then decided to become an architect. In his 20s, he discovered Steiner's philosophy and went on to work studying pedagogy and sculpture in England. On his return to Portugal, he led the Waldorf movement for many years. In his 30s, he had a life-changing encounter with a Buddhist monk where a bottle of wine was shared. This event was taken by Vasco as a personal meeting with none other than the god Dionysus. It led him in 2003 to revive his family's seventeenth century estate in Vino Verde. A confessed convert to VI-AnimX and Dionysium, there are undeserved — exclamation point — suspicions that Vasco is a faun in disguise living a delightful, decadent life in the winery, surrounded by beautiful nymphs while wishing this would be true.

He wrote a biography about trying to cope with the manifold hardships of running a winery. That is a real biography. I feel like I need to rewrite my own and interject Bond's and Nymphs, but this is what we're dealing with. He is all in on the biodynamic program. As you can imagine, he's all in on the metaphysical dimensions of it. I'm going to favor you with another quote. Hopefully, you're not bored to tears. I like the way he encapsulates this in spite of the whole Fawn thing. He says, there's a life that informs all living, breathing bodies, and it's a different realm, which Steiner calls the life system. When Steiner speaks of a farm, he speaks of self-sufficient organisms where soil, plant, animal, human beings are imbalanced.

The mechanism of the farm does not work without, first of all, the sun, the light source. The informative influences of the sun, moon, and other planets. You take certain actions to affect the life system, but using the rhythms and formative influences of what Steiner calls the big machine. That equally, as someone scientifically inclined, horrifies me, but as someone that wants to live in the mystery of this dynamic rabbit hole of wine's and equally understands how the system works, I think that's a great quote. I love the way that he lives in the mystery of the ecology of the vineyard and puts that at the center of his work. His architecture is actually super modern. It's linear and boxy and, I don't know, not my cup of tea.

But he understands how to live in the mystery of the ecology of the vineyard and puts that at the center of his work. He understands those as pure geometric forms that, you know, have, you know, come to us through ages, you know, from, you know, the natural world in as much as, you know, they are, you know, artificially endowed. And I think he sees what he does as an extension of this, you know, what he says, big machine, as an extension of, you know, this larger life system. And he sees wine as, you know, reflecting all the inputs that go into it. And he sees wine as, you know, reflecting all the inputs that go into it. And I think he sees what it is, and he sees it in this wonderfully holistic way, you know, that appeals to me for obvious reasons.

Zoe, you've had this wine before. What do you like about this one? I thought that it was like a perfect wine for someone who's looking for like a Sonoma Pinot Noir, something that's going to be like bright and fruit-driven, have like a little texture, a little tannin to it, a little acidity, but like super soft and supple violets, a little like dark chocolate. I love the afros. Um, so Zoe's tasting notes, um, Zoe, when was the last time you actually tried this one? Uh, a year ago. So Zoe's tasting notes a year on are infinitely better than anything I could come up with. Um, uh, but that dark chocolate, uh, the, you know, that lavender, um, really on point.

Um, this is a wine that when you first open it, um, is kind of like bracingly almost, um, uh, astringently, uh, acid-driven, um, you know, challenging. So, um, and, and a lot of times like the local reds are like that. And, you know, it's a classic case of a local tourist going into a wine bar and wanting to drink like the locals and, you know, just being, you know, uh, you know, punished, uh, by that experience for the sake of these shrill tannic, um, you know, inky, uh, red wines. But, uh, if you give this a little time, um, and, you know, I, I just opened this. An hour ago before our lesson, it does soften.

Um, uh, and it's, you know, wonderfully dynamic, uh, and, you know, reminds me a little bit of Beaujolais, um, but there's something like homespun, um, about it and, and, you know, kind of, um, distinctly oceanic, uh, about it, uh, in a way that, uh, befits a winery named after a, uh, a sea god. Um, at any rate, uh, what do people think of, um, this supposed Vaughn, uh, and his, uh, you know, uh, wine, uh, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, acid-driven, uh, red wine that, um, kind of flies in the face of, uh, what vino verde, uh, is normally marketed as. Well, it seems like you have a few haters right now because the wines are so like quenchable and delicious.

So like accidentally got drunk a little too early on this. Is that haters or does that make the chat more entertaining? I think it's a little bit of a, a little bit of a, um, not too many, um, questions about, um, or comments on the red wine. Um, but a good question. Um, I think it's a little bit of a, a little bit of a, um, about why there's so much variation in bottle shape. I was wondering if you could talk about that. Oh, that's a good question. So yeah, we have, yeah, we do have a lot. So always, always happy to talk bottles. This is a Burgundy bottle and, you know, these bottle shapes are kind of spirit animals for the sake of wine.

So, you know, you kind of, in as much as you slap a label on something and, you know, I do like, so the label here has got this Celtic knot thing going on equally like a maritime knot, which, you know, kind of feels very fitting. There's a really strong Gaelic influence in this corner of Portugal. Actually, a lot of local folk music involves bagpipes in Northwestern Spain and even in Portugal in a way that you wouldn't typically imagine. But, you know, you're saying something about yourself by the spirit animal glassware that you embrace. So, Burgundy bottle, you know, tells you that someone, you know, is making wine that they think, you know, sufficiently elegant and then, you know, a little, you know, cerebral maybe to, you know, qualify, or in terroir driven certainly, you know, to qualify for Burgundian status, Burgundy being the birthplace of, you know, this notion as wine as reflective of a sense of place.

Bordeaux is a merchant's bottle as Bordeaux itself is a merchant's region. This is a Bordeaux bottle, the, the neck here, you know, has higher shoulders because you would, you want to catch a little bit of that sediment, you know, in the neck. And if you're Carson and you're decanting, you know, you know, your Downton Abbey wine, you know, the neck helps you do that. I think equally it's a default shape for commercial bottles because, you know, the, the merchants of Bordeaux, they're the original wine merchants. They're not, maybe not the Dutch, I don't know, but they're, they're, you know, the archetypical wine merchants, you know, and occasionally, that gets really cynical, you know, and, and, you know, there's a cynical side to the Bino Verde business too, but, you know, they're telling you, you know, we're a commercial product and, you know, we're not afraid of that.

We're owning that. And then this is a Hock bottle. And it actually has the most of, most of Valley green glass. So Hock is short for Hockheim, which is a, a, a city on the Rhine river. And this is a traditional bottle shape that evolved in Germany originally. In Austria. And it evolved to kind of be stored in these wine cabinets. So the reserve wines once upon a time in Germany were held in cabinets. And so you wanted like a summer profile, you know, maybe have a longer shelf life to store them as such. And, you know, for me, I think, I think they're telling me that this, you know, I don't know what they're actually telling me, but I think they're telling me like this, this drinks like a, like a Riesling.

It's, it's fun. It's festive. It does a lot of the same things that, you know, off dry Riesling does. And, you know, it seems particularly fitting that the spirit of wines is bottled in green glass. Cause in Germany, traditionally, the only people that get to use green glass are those from the Mosel Valley. So if you see a German Riesling bottle in green glass, that means it's from the Mosel-Saar-Ruver region. Everything else is in brown glass. And, you know, for me, the Mosel makes the most delicate off dry, festive, crushable wine. And, you know, the Riesling is one of those wines in Germany and, you know, Wiener Werde does a lot of the same things. So it feels like this, like a wonderful little bit of branding synergy.

Now, I don't know if the crab wine people thought about it that much, you know, but I think it's one of those things that like unconsciously kind of, kind of happens for the sake of these wines. It's a $5 wine. But what does blue glass mean? Blue? Blue glass. This is, I don't think any of these are blue. None of these are blue. No, no. No. I was just wondering if there's like any- Blue glass. I mean, that's just a shameless marketing vehicle. There's like Gavalas out of Santorini. They famously make this blue glass wine. I, you know, they're trying to evoke the, you know, you know, the, the notion of the GNC and, you know, pulling up, you know, a table, you know, in Santorini and enjoying a wine as such.

So it's, it's strangely psychological. And actually they're, I mean, they're people, I'm sure they're brand consultants that are making a million damn dollars, you know, doing what I'm doing conjecturally here, but, you know, finding, you know, a data set to support their, their work. Should we say this, this is actually like the glass on this one's a little different, the Suarez, because it's like tapered toward the bottom, which is like a little more kind of like rustic, kind of like country, you know, shape of it. It reminds me a little more of like a Jura bottle in terms of the squatness on the base, but, you know, it's actually heavier bottle. So another big issue for the sake of sustainability for wineries is the weight of your glass.

It's actually something that the Austrians certify for, and a lot of sustainable certifications cover your, your bottles as well. So, you know, I can tell you like, this is not a sustainable bottle form. This is ludicrously heavy. And, and that's just, I mean, there's honestly, there's like no reason for that. There's like zero, zero reason for that. There's no reason to have a bottle this heavy. I'm all for bottles. I think they have a time and a place in wine. I think, you know, wine in a bag is getting better and, you know, it deserves more attention than, than it probably, you know, currently gets, you know, within the market. Like, I don't think there's any reason that this can't come out of a spout. That sounds like fun to me, three liters at a time.

But, you know, if you're gonna use, use glass, you should, you know, and it's not just about the glass itself. It should be said, you know, it's about the cost of shipping something as heavy as a bottle. And, you know, ultimately you are, you know, adding environmental value for the sake of shipping something in a, in a lighter, lighter bottle. And it doesn't matter as long as you're like, especially if you're adding sulfur to something like it doesn't matter much how thick your, your bottle is like insulating, you know, wine any more or less than it would be, you know, otherwise. Yeah. I feel like some of the Napa producers, like very textbook, like have like the thickest glass ever. So when you touch it, like weight to it, and it's like always something I put to cult status.

It gets a little bit like, you know, if you ever seen Spaceballs, it's like the Schwartz thing, you know, it's like my bottle is heavier than your bottle. It's just, and actually like there was this, when I worked at a company a million years ago and, and the, the Derek Brown was there some, he brought in this, like now, but Bernardo blend, and it was in hand-blown bottle. And it was, it was ludicrous. Like you couldn't tell the bottle was empty just because it was so heavy, like, you know, the, the glass and the bottom, it's like that thick and it's just, yeah. I mean, you're just serving the winemakers ego. There's no other purpose for it.

Maybe you're lining the last makers pockets, but yeah, I, I think there, is this it does I don't I don't want to say that like the shape does matter and and you know in the context of the history of wine um it says it says something and like you know it's kind of like uh it's kind of like this one of like who do you want to caucus with kind of things like you know do you want to caucus with the burgundy bottle people do you want to caucus with you know the bordeaux merchants do you want to caucus with like the you know the hop green people and and so or do you

want to like you know do this like unicorn thing and make your own crazy original bottle um you know so uh it is it is fascinating and and um you know there are these subtle you know psychological cues for the sake of it that um you know if you're nerdy enough about wine uh you start to you start to read absolutely um what is your go-to summer crushable wine is it vino verde oh that's a great that's a great question um I guess we're in spring I'm talking summer it's still no no I know I know it might be vino verde it might equally be um I mean I think chocolate uh you know for me um is and you know chocolate is a lot like vino verde um chocolate is almost like like like vino verde you know

dialed up you know chocolate is like even more racy and maritime and acid driven um you know the quintessential wine of summer for me is the vino verde um I think it's the wine of summer for me that I is a guilty pleasure is chocolate rosé um Which is totally marketed and made for, uh, gringos on this side of the Atlantic, but you know I still love it, um, and I love what those grapes do so if you'd be like take this and imagine like a slightly drier, more herbal, you know crunchy version thereof, um, and I'm you know uh totally on board for that, these are great wines like um, you know and I say great wine but I'm not totally on board with that, I'm not totally on

board with that, I'm not totally on board with that, you know they're great, you know contextually, you know they're great for that moment, you know and you just don't you don't always want you know Lafite if you're Eating crabs, you know, on a Baltimore rooftop. You don't want Mouton; I mean, it's just...it's just not it's not the case. I don't want to worry about what gets you know, you know, 100 points or I don't want to look up a Parker vintage chart, you know. I want you know, crushable wine and I feel like people get like roped into this notion of, you know, good, better, best for the sake of wine...and um, you know what's more important is, you know, what suits the time and a place what suits a particular company what suits a particular meal.

Um and I, you know, I can say personally, like the most amazing experiences I've had with wine are the ones Where those things collide and you know sometimes that happens around a cheap bottle of wine, and sometimes that happens around you know something rarer and you know more special um but you know I I think as a drinker it's better to think in terms of that convergence than it is to think in terms of you know scores or you know self-importance or any any of that other stuff um uh and and you know I think you know the beauty of these wines is that they they don't force you to you know think too hard that they do go down too easy that's what you want out of your summer especially at the end of a biblical plague like they're like wines.

of the moment in the best possible way 100 the end of a biblical plague yeah yeah um super easy super crushable it's like all about that that vintage of pleasure yeah yeah yeah man but I equally like and honestly like I'm revisiting the the old vines because I I really love this wine and um you know it's also I will say these are fun wines with food um they're wines that like um I can tell you for the sake of like um particularly uh these three they're wines that um you know we've used in wine pairings a lot um you know because they're really dynamic um with food and and you know I think the story they tell is super fun you know they they play against type in this great way and uh at a restaurant you know for the sake of a pairing

you know you have this captive audience and you know I think the story that you know we try to tell is you know to you know add value by you know introducing something that you know in this instance you thought you knew but you know giving it that you know a little little twist and you know opening up these new possibilities for the sake of you know something that you know people otherwise consider you know this like mass marketed you know supermarket wine and then you know making it you know more serious and like the albarino this This wine gets more dynamic, you know, with every second, like it is really good, it's just really good, uh, you know, and it's like this isn't for everybody, but it's like, you know, weird and and like cerebral and fun and, um, you know.

We actually have it on a pairing, uh, we actually have it as a pairing, um, at the moment at a tail of goat, and, um, you know, it goes beautifully with a lot of like spring veg in this unexpected way, so, at the moment, this is pairing for us with this like pea soup, um, like crostini situation we have, and then the B, now, like, for me, it's just this like country, you know, it feels mediterranean almost in terms of its, um, you know. the way it belongs on a table but it's equally um you know portuguese in the sense that you know it's it's brighter um you know it's it's it's even more pushing that whole like saline dimension less to a sungtis mediterranean place and more to a you know um oceanic you know atlantic place

absolutely it's delicious um so i got like deep thoughts and this is where i go to my um you know kind of uh uh jack handy place every every week um for the sake of our toast but um i've been thinking a lot lately about um you know how many of the region how many of the wines that we celebrate in the regions we celebrate you know are you know like beautiful You know, and I think it's it's it's it's it's it's beautiful, and and I've been you know kind of, um, grinding this axe, you know, beating a dead horse, and and wishing for the unbeautiful uh corners of the world, um, that you know they, you know, were producers of beautiful wines, but you know it occurs to me, you know, in the context of you know Vasco da Croft's whole spiel about the totality of the vineyard expressed in the glass, that you know really, when we're dealing with a beautiful place, you know, I think sometimes something about that beauty, um, is distilled in the glass, and you know it feels like there's you know it's not accidental um that uh so many wine regions are also um you know as as beautiful um uh as as they are um and you know equally um you know when we think about uh you know wine um you know from from region to region it's it's never as you know monolithic as we make it you know uh the deeper you dive more you understand there are exceptions to the rule um you know there's more than just black and white there's more than just uh you know white and red um and you know i think without exception there is is strength in that uh diversity um and you know our lives are richer for it um you know both in a workaday sense and and in the glass um so i want to toast to uh you all at home uh tasting the rainbow alone together cheers that's delightful um uh so you have any further questions or further thoughts for your sake not really just we i think it like just makes me want to swim in a pool it like gets off like it's a lot of joy after this like long ass year to absolutely you know celebrate all together we have a lot of vaccinations so let's do it yeah it can work let's do it yeah and we're so we're looking forward uh for the sake of wine school to our uh silver anniversary um which we celebrate in uh two weeks time um with brenda quigley who's a geologist so it's the geology lesson i've been um you know giving poorly um for uh a year um but uh legitimized through the presence of an actual vineyard geologist um and i'm super excited about that um and uh that's gonna be devoted to um uh dry german rieslings uh which obviously um is uh an old crush object and then um we have uh an in-person event uh for the sake of our first in-house uh blind tasting uh the week thereafter and and you know thrilled uh for the sake of um you know this community uh to be doing uh some more stuff in person you know we're going to keep it um you know going uh for the sake of these lessons that are virtual but um you know we're going To move a lot of the stuff inside, particularly at Revelry Shower, uh, which opens uh this coming Wednesday. I have uh one more quote uh to share, uh, this is from a wine writer at uh, this journal called Charroir, named Meg Maker - what a great name, Zoe!

Meg Maker, and uh, she interviewed uh, Vasco Croft, um, and you know, sat with him and got all the, you know, deep thoughts about the the whole biodynamic program, uh, but um, I really like what she has to say, uh, about um, what she looks, uh, in wine and what she looks for because uh, it's kind of funny for the sake of you know the questions, uh, that she was, uh, asking Vasco, he was impressed that you Know there weren't more technical questions about these contact or aging vessels or yields or what have you, you know she was interested more in the totality of wine uh than you know a traditional spec sheet um and she explained her approach as such: I like to write about wine not because I like to write about how much residual sugar is in the glass,

I like to write about wine because I care about people like you who are approaching wine making in a way that transforms how we think about the table, how we think about family, how we think about ourselves and our work, how we think about how we think about a manufactured product and It's relationship to nature, I'm interested in nature and culture and place and people, and the product is an expression of that. But it's this conversation that's really the most important to me, so uh once again cheers to you all keeping this conversation alive! Don't drink too much at home or at the very least eat something and find a pool to dive in so.