Quench Magazine Fall/Winter 2023-2024 issue no 373

A HALF CENTURY OF

MAVERICKS 1973 – 2023

FALL/WINTER 2023-2024 • ISSUE #373

Wine critics call it one of the world’s most astonishing wine regions...

We call it home.

Please enjoy responsibly.

The leading edge of the world’s cool climate wine scene is right here, in our own backyard.

For almost 50 years, we’ve been learning and growing with our land, unlocking its secrets to craft world class wines.

And the world is taking notice. Ontario VQA wines are winning prestigious awards and earning international acclaim.

It all starts right here, using only 100% Ontario-grown grapes to make wines that are unforgettable. Unmistakable.

So raise a glass to discover for yourself what makes Ontario’s VQA wines so special.

winecountryontario.ca

ENTRÉES

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Sarah Heller MW: Building Bridges between Life, Art & Wine Åsa Johansson

Sarah Heller is a Master of Wine born in Hong Kong. She went from art studies at Yale to an internship as a chef in Italy before moving into the wine world.

Today she is impacting the industry through her poetic visual artwork.

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Standing on Stories: Chef Kwame Onwuachi has Finally Arrived Aman Dosanj

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Touching on the intersectionality of his identity shaped by his upbringing in NYC, Nigeria, and Louisiana, Onwuachi intimately lays out every bump of a life guided by food.

PROFILE: Sana Javeri Kadri Amrita Amesur

At just 29, Javeri Kadri has built Diaspora Co., selling high quality, single origin spices from regenerative farms in South Asia and famously paying its farm partners three to five times the commodity price.

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50 Years of Women in Wine Jacky Blisson MW

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The inspiring stories of three women building successful wine careers, without financial backing or family legacies.

PROFILE: Randall Grahm Elizabeth Gabay MW

Is one of California’s Original Mavericks still a Maverick?

AMUSE-BOUCHES 8 | THE BOOZY BACKSTORY Christine Sismondo

Will the real tequila please stand up? .

36 | SUSTAINABILITY…IT’S COMPLICATED Michelle Bouffard 64 | BAROLO: VINTAGE REPORT 2019 Michaela Morris

79 | BREWED AWAKENINGS Robin LeBlanc

Life is too short for a bad beer.

80 | THE QUENCH CROSSWORD PUZZLE

Test your wine knowledge.

68 | BARBARESCO: VINTAGE REPORT 2020 Michaela Morris 70 | THE BUYING GUIDE

The best wine, beer and spirits from around the world recommended by our experienced panel of tasters.

DIGESTIF 82 | AFTER TASTE Tony Aspler

A 20-year vertical of Niagara’s Flat Rock Cellars Nadja’s Vineyard Riesling.

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California’s Old Vines & Those that are Saving Them W. Blake Gray

In California, you’ll find most old vineyards in well-regarded regions that have never been the pinnacle of popularity. You’ll also always find a farming family that believes keeping old vines is more important than turning the greatest profit.

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Verdejo D.O. Rueda: The Little Grape & Region that Could Christine Sismondo

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Once close to extinction, Verdejo from D.O. Rueda is having a serious moment, both in terms of growth and acclaim.

Short Eats – Long Nights: The Love for Sri Lankan Drinking Bites Meher Varma

‘bites in Sri Lanka are everywhere – on roadsides, at train stations, on pushcarts, and of course– at local watering holes.

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An Irish Whiskey Revival Jessica Dupuy

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Despite enduring political and agricultural challenges, Irish whiskey remains deeply connected to the land and its tale of survival and revival.

The Making of Lou Reed’s Berlin Annie Zaleski

Lou Reed was never one to be conventional. Although originally panned by critics, Berlin is now often considered one of the best album’s of all time.

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The Waning Legacy of Hyderabadi Irani Chai

Amrita Amesur

Chai may be an emotion in India but in Hyderabad, it is also akin to community and kinship.

SHAREABLES 19 | PROFILE: RAJAT PARR Michelle Bouffard

It is as if he possesses the wisdom we all strive for.

22 | PURE PUNJAB Aman Dosanj

Meet, Sherry Mehta, the pioneering chef reviving the ancient cuisine of Multan, United Punjab.

40 | GRAPE PROFILE: RIESLING Barbara Philip MW

More than any other grape variety, Riesling is misunderstood, undervalued and stylistically undefinable.

51 | ULYSSES LISBON Christine Sismondo

The greatest cocktail experience per square metre.

24 | ‘FROM HERE’ Aman Dosanj

Chef Debora Fadul is the ultimate champion of Guatemalan Gastronomy. Now she’s putting the country on the culinary map.

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Letter from the Editor SOMETIMES, TO MOVE FORWARD, YOU NEED TO TAKE A STEP BACK. OR SEEMINGLY SO. This 373rd issue of Quench Magazine, in its 50th year of existence, will be the last regular print issue of the publication. But that doesn’t mean that we’ve closed the door on print. And it certainly doesn’t mean that we are winding things down. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

Without question, the print environment has been difficult and continues to pose challenges. But the intent has always been to take a broad approach to media and the experiences that we can and want to provide to our readers and community. We are, after all, part of the Quench Media & Experience Corporation.

By stepping back from the rigours, obligations and financial commitments of a regular print cycle, we will be able to free up time and resources to expand the experiences for our writers and readers beyond the systemic confines of print.

We will still be the most inclusive wine, food and culture publication on the planet. We will still strive to expand the voices and audience for wine and food. Our editorial will still be global in scope, and we will continue to have as our mission to be a true representation of the world in which we live. And we will always ensure that we are telling the stories that need to be told, the way they should be told, by the people who should be telling them. We are simply expanding the way in which we share those stories…through increased digital content, video, audio and events. In fact, our first event in New York City this past September was so well received that we are planning additional events in both Canada and the USA in 2024.

While print subscriptions will cease to exist (all subscriptions will be up to date with the mailing of this issue), we are expanding our QuenchPrime member partners and benefits. QuenchPrime subscribers are entitled to significant discounts (currently ranging from 10-20%) on wines and spirits from Quench’s QuenchPrime retail partners. The list of retail partners is continually growing. Not only do we have QuenchPrime retail partners across Canada we have recently launched in the USA with Verve, one of the US’s top wine shops, owned by Dustin Wilson MS – of SOMM movie fame. Verve currently has locations in NYC, Chicago and San Francisco.

We will continue to expand our QuenchPrime partners and the benefits for our QuenchPrime members. Please navigate to the subscription page on our website to purchase your QuenchPrime membership.

Ironically, stepping away from a regular print cycle will likely allow for the occasional special print issue.

Will I miss print? You bet I will, as I know many of you will too. But what won’t change is our commitment to independent and inclusive storytelling which we will continue to deliver with the same spirit, integrity and soul as we have for the past 50 years.

Gurvinder Bhatia editor-in-chief

Scan the QR code for the quench.me website

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CONTRIBUTORS

Aman Dosanj

Aman Dosanj is a food and marketing geek, former England and Arsenal footballer, feminist, middle child, not your conventional brown person, adventurer, From the Wild alum, imperfect environmentalist, storyteller, and just weird enough to be interesting. She is known for her ability to educate, connect and tell stories through food, working with local farmers and producers to create edible adventures in unexpected places with The Paisley Notebook.

The best concert she ever attended was Florence and the Machine in Hyde Park, London. Åsa Johansson Åsa came to Italy from Sweden in 2001 because she loved Italian films from the ‘50s and ‘60s and wanted to learn Italian. It was love at first sight. Following a degree in political science and journalism at the University of Florence, she now writes about wine, food, and travel for Swedish, Norwegian, Italian and Canadian publications. Åsa travels back to Sweden on a regular basis to hold courses and seminars on Italian wines. Since 2019 she produces her own extra virgin olive oil, La Collina Blu, from the olive trees on the Tuscan hills where she lives with her husband Stefano and two children. Her latest project is Sweden’s first podcast about Italian wine.

Elizabeth Gabay MW Elizabeth grew up a Londoner but always travelled around Europe with her family. After back-packing around the world, Elizabeth returned to London where, by accident she fell into the wine trade when her parents bought a holiday cottage in Provence. Elizabeth passed the Master of Wine exam in 1998, and, in 2002, moved to a village an hour north of Nice. Her thirty years of working in Provence led in 2018 to her first book Rosé, Understanding the Pink Wine Revolution. With her son Ben Bernheim, they have put together an on-line Buyers Guide to the Rosés of Southern France, published in 2021. Elizabeth recently released a natural rosé called Sen (Dream) made with Slovakian producer Vladimir Magula.

Jacky Blisson MW Jacky is an independent wine educator, writer, and consultant with over two decades experience in all facets of the global wine trade. She is the first Master of Wine in Québec and one of only ten across Canada. After studying wine science and commerce in Beaune France, Jacky managed exports for Burgundian and Rhône Valley firms.

She also worked harvest seasons in Beaune and Walker Bay, South Africa. Jacky produces a self-titled wine website and YouTube channel. Her go-to restaurant that never disappoints is L’Express in Montréal and the best concert she ever attended was The Tragically Hip on New Year’s Eve 2000.

Meher Varma Meher Varma is a New Delhi based anthropologist, writer and brand strategist. She regularly writes for Indian and international food and lifestyle publications and hosts a podcast called BadTableManners for WhetstoneRadio. Since completing her PhD from UCLA in 2015, Meher has been working as a creative storyteller with an ethnographic approach. Her go-to restaurant that never disappoints is Carnatic Café in New Delhi for a casual meal and Tres for something fancy.

No. 373 A Half Century of Mavericks Editor-in-chief Gurvinder Bhatia editor@quench.me Contributing Editors Michaela Morris Tod Stewart Columnists Tony Aspler Robin LeBlanc Christine Sismondo

Contributors Aman Dosanj Amrita Amesur Annie Zaleski Åsa Johansson

Barbara Philip MW Elizabeth Gabay MW Jacky Blisson MW Jessica Dupuy Meher Varma Michelle Bouffard W. Blake Gray

Editor & Publisher Gurvinder Bhatia editor@quench.me Accounts accounts@quench.me

Tasters

Tony Aspler Gurvinder Bhatia Michaela Morris Michelle Bouffard Tim Pawsey Christopher Sealy Brie Dema Donatella Dicca Barbara Philip MW Christine Sismondo Jaimy Warner Creative Director Alex Chan Creative by Studio Reface Quench, Food and Drink Magazine (founded in 1972), is a registered trademark of Vinomania Consulting Inc. Quench Magazine and Quench Digital are published by Quench Media and Experience Corp.

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Opinions expressed in this magazine are not Circulation necessarily those of circ@quench.me the publisher.

Advertising ©2022 Vinomania sales@quench.me Consulting Inc. Social Media & Digital Manager Chelsey Belec chelsey@quench.me

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THE BOOZY BACKSTORY

Will the real tequila please stand up?

For a lot of folks, their first sip of tequila was either “gold” or “silver.” For some time this style, officially known as “mixto” (a blend of sugar and agave distillates) was the only option in many markets. Most people who were serious about spirits and cocktails generally traded up from this style and moved on to 100 percent Blue Weber agave tequila as soon as they learned about this option, which first became popular roughly 25 years ago.

Compared with mixto, these new premium tequilas had much more challenging flavour profiles that were expressive of terroir and featured vegetal, herbal, pepper and citrus notes, all of which were especially pronounced in unoaked blanco expressions. Aged expressions, of course, had a little hint of vanilla and caramel, picked up from the oak which was almost universally ex-bourbon casks.

About a decade ago, though, as new brands angling to get a piece of the booming premium tequila market emerged, something curious happened. Even unaged expressions started to pick up this little vanilla note. Many of these new expressions were sweeter, softer and tasted like toffee and Duncan Hines cake batter— notes that I don’t usually associate with the terroir of the arid red soils of Jalisco.

What happened? Well, nobody has the photographic evidence to prove this, but it’s widely believed that a wave of new producers started using shortcuts, such as harvesting immature plants and using fast diffuser ovens (instead of the traditional horno that cooks the agave slowly) and covered up the shortcomings with additives.

Careful readers will wonder how this can happen in a spirit with “100 percent” in its name. The answer is that, according to Mexico’s regulatory council, 99 percent is close enough. As long as producers keep it to less than one percent of the total volume, it’s perfectly legal to add glycerin, oak extract, caramel colour and/or syrup. That last one is how they sneak in the cake batter, since syrup can contain flavour.

Some producers, though, such as the Partida family, have never strayed—and that’s starting to pay off, because the public is becoming increasingly aware of the additive problem.

“It’s always been important for my distillery to produce the best quality tequila for our family brand and partners,” says distiller Iliana

Christine Sismondo

Partida. “And, with additive-free tequila becoming a significant trend in the market over the past few years, it only made sense for my family business to work closely with brands, like Elevación1250, to develop the highest quality, additive-free profile that consumers are asking for.”

Elevación1250 is a new brand partnership between Ontario entrepreneurs and Partida, whose family has been growing agave and making highly-regarded tequila for four generations. Although Elevación1250 (a reference to the altitude of the agave field) doesn’t have its certification at the time of this writing, the wheels are turning on the process, which is administered by Taste Tequila (tastetequila.com), an organization run by Scarlet and Grover Sanschagrin that’s largely responsible for raising awareness over additives. It offers consumers a list of the 90 or so brands that have signed on for certification, been investigated and deemed additive-free.

For reference, there are over 1,600 brands of tequila. It’s not fair to conclude they all have additives, since brands might have other reasons for not to wanting to go through certification.

The concern is less about health effects from the additives than it is about a battle for the soul of the spirit. Aside from obvious issues around terroir, if people are introduced to tequilas that taste like butterscotch and icing, what will they make of tequila that tastes like herbs and pepper?

It looks like the tide may be turning back to terroir and away from cake batter, which is

a good thing, given that the battle isn’t only about taste. Sustainability is on the table, too.

Thanks to the list, it might be possible to find our way back there.

1250 ESPRESSO MARTINI Ingredients 1 ½ oz Elevación1250 Tequila 1 ½ oz chilled espresso ¾ oz pomegranate juice ½ oz simple syrup 5 drops hot pepper bitters 3 pomegranate seeds Method Shake tequila, espresso, pomegranate juice and simple syrup together over ice for 60 seconds. Strain into chilled coupe, add bitters and garnish with three pomegranate seeds.

Christine Sismondo, PhD, is an historian and the author of America Walks into a Bar: A Spirited History of Taverns and Saloons, Speakeasies and Grog Shops; Mondo Cocktail: A Shaken and Stirred History; and, most recently, Canadian Spirits: The Essential Cross-Country Guide to Distilleries, Their Spirits and Where to Imbibe Them (with Stephen Beaumont). Sismondo also acts as Canada’s Academy Chair for The World’s Best 50 Bars and as a judge for the World Gin Awards. Christine lives in Toronto and is working on a new book about cocktails and art. Her cocktail of choice is a Pisco Sour.

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Quench Magazine is the longest-running wine and food magazine in North America and we know the importance of remaining an independent publication.

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YOUR GENEROUS AND SUSTAINED CONTRIBUTIONS WILL BE DEDICATED TO: • hiring more talented, underrepresented voices • providing opportunities and mentorship to young writers and storytellers

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QUENCH.ME

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Sarah Heller

Building Bridges Between Life, Art & Wine By Åsa Johansson

Images courtesy of Sarah Heller MW

Sarah Heller is a Master of Wine born in Hong Kong.

She went from art studies at Yale University to an internship as a chef in Italy and then moved into the wine world. Today she is impacting the industry through her poetic visual artwork.

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Chateau Petit-Village 2010 (acrylic on canvas), from the Visual Tasting Note series which gives visual form to Sarah’s experiences of individual wines.

Sarah Heller is quite similar to a grape-

vine. Strong, sensitive, and resistant at the same time. Just like grape vine https:// w w w. g o o g l e . c o m /s e a r c h ? c l i e n t = s a f a ri&rls=en&q=photoshop+extend+background&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 s, Sarah moves between continents and is a citizen of the world. “I see my role in the wine world as someone who builds bridges; between countries, markets and people,” she says during our meeting over Zoom.

The road to becoming a Master of Wine in 2017 at the age of 29, at the time the youngest Master of Wine ever, was everything but straight. She grew up in Hong Kong but was raised American by Korean parents.

“How was I as a child? You are the first one asking that. I was a dreamer, I loved to paint, and I could be drawing for hours, and I remember sitting in the back seat of our car during long drives creating novels fantasizing how my life would be,” recalls Heller.

Sarah did not have “tiger parents,” (a term rooted in East Asian culture) meaning parents who micromanaged her education and extracurricular activities with high and strict expectations.

“My parents were the first generation growing up in America and especially my mother probably had a more strict education than me.

My parents wanted me to be happy, but when

they saw my interest in the art world, I guess they were surprised and asked, ´Why do you use so much paper?´” she says, laughing.

Art and creativity would be the centre of her existence during her art studies at Yale. At university, it was the first time she had to take care of herself, which also meant starting to cook. “I love cooking; it is like art, it is creative, making something new from raw materials, and I got into it more and more and at a certain point, I decided to become a chef. The French culinary school was so expensive, and my parents told me I should get an internship somewhere,” she says.

Through her father´s contacts in Italy, Sarah secured an internship as a chef in a restaurant in Turin. “The owner loved wine, and he took me to wineries and opened the door to this magical world,” she reminisces. It didn’t take long before she was hooked.

“I probably relate more to wine producers than to chefs; winemaking is a slow process; there is more awareness that you are just a step in a long process; I feel the same about myself, that I am part of a complicated eco-system.

Wine producers seem humbler knowing that they are a part of something bigger, but when it comes to chefs, it seems more focused on the person,” she says.

After the internship, Sarah returned to Hong Kong, working as a wine consultant.

“It was a great time; Asia was excited about the opportunity to take ownership of its wine market and not always follow the traditions of other countries, understanding they could create their own Asian wine culture. At the time, wine education was not so big; it was more learning on the field,” she says.

One day a person, after a conversation, told her that she should get a proper wine education. “What he was saying was more or less, cut the marketing bullshit and get into it for real,” she explains. So, she did. Sarah quickly moved on to the highest education in the wine world and the Master of Wine program.

“I think there are few educations like the Master of Wine program structured with the expectations to fail. The passing rate is lower than 10 per cent on the tasting exam,” states Heller. The most challenging moment was after four years of studies when she had completed the program. Or she thought she had.

“I thought I was ready with the last step, which is a research paper. I had just become a mother for the first time when my mentor called and said that all my statistics were wrong. I had to leave my one-month-old baby with my husband for two weeks while I tried to figure it out; it was brutal.”

Sarah went through the MW program even though she did not know what she wanted to do in the industry and where precisely she QUENCH.ME

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Left: Texture III (acrylic on canvas); top right: Texture II (acrylic on canvas); bottom right: Energy (graphite and watercolor on paper), all from the Sense of Language / Language of Sense series which are visual allegories of terms typically used to describe fine wine.

should position herself. “It was so much pressure, people from the industry told me that is something I should know, but my role in wine has been and still is a work in progress since the wine world is so big,” she says.

In the last years, she has slowed down, emphasizing the idea of wine as a life-altering experience, something we should experience more slowly. “Today you should go fast, learn new things, do more things. I want to slow down, contemplate, and think of the significance of something, maybe live wine more like we live art. I want to take the time to understand what making a wine meant to the person that created it.”

Her visual art project was a reaction to the strict Master of Wine program. “It is necessary to have an academic approach to wine when we talk between professionals, but it is not romantic and in the end, romance is the main reason for working with wine. I did not go into wine to write accurate wine descriptions.”

Sarah believed there must be a way to express the magic of wine without using words. “I am not a musician, but visual art is something I could do. People learn through images, and since there were no standards, I had the freedom to work out a new way to communicate what I felt when tasting a wine,” she says.

Sarah’s art is a visual tasting note. She

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expresses her feelings when tasting wine through colour, shape, and finely lined details.

Her work is intimate; seeing them feels like sneaking into something very private. They also give a sensation of movement, just like the energy you receive from an expressive wine.

Sarah held an emotional tasting at Vinitaly this year, with famous Italian wines for which she had made visual tasting notes.

“I have been so excited to be able to create my vocabulary with this work,” she explains. What Sarah means is that the visual tasting notes are not made to be a tool for communication but more to communicate what a wine could be to her. She realized that references and languages were so diversified when working on different continents. “I thought my work could be a tool to get beyond that. Art was always separate from my work in wine, and I am so glad I managed to merge them,” she says. Her latest project takes it one step further, creating an abstract image starting from the tasting experience of another prominent person in the wine and food world. “It felt logical to do this because wine and food are all about sharing,” she explains.

All of the different languages, references and continents that are a part of Sarah also merge into her philosophy in her teaching at the Italian Wine Ambassador Academy.

“I was so happy to get the chance to teach Italian wine. Initially, I thought some pieces were missing, like geology, history and how grape vines came to a certain place. To me, it is important always to ask the question why and not only what,” she says.

Her goal is to break down details and complex information and make it possible for her students to grasp it without simplifying.

“In the following years, I would like to understand the US market better without losing my connection to Hong Kong and Asia, which are such a big part of me. Wine is a bridge, and I will try to follow that philosophy as I go.”

Åsa Johansson came to Italy from Sweden in 2001 because she loved Italian films from the ‘50s and ‘60s and wanted to learn Italian. It was love at first sight.

Following a degree in political science and journalism at the University of Florence, she now writes about wine, food, and travel for Swedish, Norwegian, Italian and Canadian publications. Åsa travels back to Sweden on a regular basis to hold courses and seminars on Italian wines. Since 2019 she produces her own extra virgin olive oil, La Collina Blu, from the olive trees on the Tuscan hills where she lives with her husband Stefano and two children. Her latest project is Sweden’s first podcast about Italian wine.

Standing on Stories -

Chef Kwame Onwuachi Has Officially Arrived.

By Aman Dosanj

Photo credit: Storm, courtesy of Kwame Onwuachi

“If a dish tells a story, it has a soul,” says James Beard Award-winning American chef Kwame Onwuachi. The first time I read Notes from a Young Black Chef, Onwuachi’s inspirational memoir (co-written with Joshua David Stein) was during one of the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020.

Touching on the intersectionality of his identity shaped by his upbringing in New York City, Nigeria, and Louisiana, the former Top Chef season 13 contestant intimately lays out every bump of a life guided by food.

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Photo credit: Evan Sung, courtesy of Kwame Onwuachi

From being kicked out of more schools than

most have ever attended and aspiring to be a drug kingpin, to graduating from the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), learning the symphony of service in bustling three-Michelin-starred New York kitchens, including Per Se and Eleven Madison Park, and opening his dream restaurant, Shaw Bijou in Washington DC, at 23, is no stranger to manufacturing opportunities and moving with intention. While Shaw Bijou closed after six weeks, the restauranteur opened another five, including Kith/ Kin, before he turned 30.

“So many different cultures influence America, and that makes the fabric of what it means to be American,” he says. “You can’t really talk about American cuisine without speaking about West African influence. People don’t talk about it enough. It’s important to continue to scream that from the mountaintops.”

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That’s why the activist curated The Family Reunion: Presented by Kwame Onwuachi, an annual multi-day culinary festival at the Salamander Resort & Spa in Middleburg, Virginia, to celebrate the rich history of Black contributions to the industry in a setting that reflects its excellence. “There’s music, entertainment, breakout sessions, and panel discussions, so I wanted a food festival where you didn’t just leave with your stomach and liver full but your mind and heart full,” he adds.

Now barely 34, Onwuachi is making an even bigger splash with the arrival, in November 2022, of Tatiana in Lincoln Center. Deeply influenced by the multitude of cultures that make up the tapestry of New York, his first NYC joint is the #1 ranked hotspot in the city, according to The New York Times.

We spoke with Onwuachi about his must-try recipes from his debut cookbook, My America: Recipes from a Young Black Chef, what to expect from his first New York restaurant, how he’s evolving as a leader, and why it’s okay to fail.

After cooking in high-end French restaurants, why did you want to take things back to your cultural roots when launching your own restaurants?

You don’t know where you’re going unless you know where you came from. It’s always important to reach back for inspiration for the future.

I was able to get rigorous training, then revert to what I know is great, which is the food of my people and the blue-collar generation or group of people. That workforce really makes this nation what it is.

Which recipes from your cookbook, My America, do you hope our readers try?

I hope they try the Nigerian red stew, egusi soup, curried goat, Mom Duke’s shrimp, oxtails, and the piri piri salad—all those are great representations of Afro-Caribbean cuisine.

People will find the roots of a lot of dishes they love in African and Caribbean cuisine.

What are some of your go-to pantry items?

Probably house spice, like a Creole spice blend that we put on everything. My mom would make it and keep it within arm’s reach. It’s pretty much an all-purpose seasoning that has a lot of familiar flavours in it—from garlic to cayenne and paprika. I put a little Worcestershire powder in it for acidity. Then pepper sauce, which is a fresh hot sauce. So, scotch bonnet or habanero peppers with garlic and some sort of pickling liquid like vinegar solution. My grandfather used to make it—he’s from Trinidad—and it’s always on the table.

He used to send it to everyone in the family. A small jar would last pretty much a year because it is really hot!

Tell us about the concept and inspiration behind Tatiana.

Tatiana is a celebration of the people that make New York City what it is—it’s my love letter to New York City. I grew up in the Bronx, and in that one-block radius, you could have so many different cultures that thrive together. I took inspiration from my childhood and things that I really enjoyed eating. What I feel defines New York City cuisine is the people that built this city.

We make oxtail and crab Rangoon with mushroom jus, braised oxtails with coconut-scented rice and peas, curry goat patties, and we even have a trip to the bodega, which is like a cosmic brownie with a powdered donut ice cream.

Sometimes we have chopped cheese on the menu, which is like a corner store staple sandwich, but we make it with truffles and dry-aged ribeye and taleggio on brioche. You’ll see a lot of fun influences and even a nod to the Asian culture here. We have dumplings but stuffed with that egusi soup from my book. There are a lot of different plays on things that don’t feel convoluted, it really sings, and I believe it makes sense. Everything is important here— from the music to the silverware to the food that goes out.

At the age of 23, you opened and closed Shaw Bijou after six weeks. What lessons did you hold onto this time around with Tatiana?

Just having a team-orientated establishment: taking care of us first and, most importantly, having fun. We work too hard not to have fun

Was naming the new restaurant after your sister extra pressure?

It added intention more than pressure. I [was] opening a restaurant in New York City; that’s pressure enough. It was more about honouring my family, preserving that authenticity, and moving with intentionality—that’s why I named it after her.

You recently received the #1 restaurant in the city nod from The New York Times. How does such high praise feel?

It feels really great to be recognized by the city, the country and even across the ocean. I’m so proud of the team here because it doesn’t happen without them. When you create something, you don’t know how people [will] receive it. It always starts as an idea in your head; when you get recognition, it’s just a bonus. We do it for the people that come in day in and day out.

We do it for our staff. We do it for our ancestors.

Why did you want to publish a young edition of Notes from a Young Black Chef? What words of advice do you have for those entering the industry?

The reason I want younger people to read it is so that they know that it’s okay to fail, you know? It’s okay to try something they’ve never done before. Whatever you want in life takes hard work: there’s no linear path, no easy or one lane to success. It looks different for different people, so find your definition of it. My advice is to focus on your craft first and foremost (in whatever you do), and you’ll be more successful. Don’t be afraid to put in that hard work. Don’t do things just for likes. Do it because it means something to you—and have more intention in what you’re doing.

In the past, you said America might not be ready for a young Black chef. Do you think that has changed?

I hope so, and if not, they better get ready because a whole bunch of us are coming in, finding our voice, and getting opportunities.

Tatiana is a beacon of light for other up-andcoming chefs of colour—and chefs in general—[to show] we can open a space that’s very authentically us and a place that generally doesn’t have something like this in it. Hopefully, more people will invest in and give chances to us and our food.

What has the reaction to Tatiana been from those in the community?

I had somebody in here from the Bronx the other day. They came from the same neighbourhood I grew up in, and to have them so proud was one of the highlights of my day. Having someone that knows where I come from— which is rough, especially back then, growing up—be so proud and inspired by what I’m doing means the world to me. That’s what we do it for. Restaurants are a cornerstone of the community for many reasons, but it’s where people gather if they’re mourning, meeting for the first time, [or] celebrating. I’m very grateful that we get a chance to host that every night here.

Photo credit: Clay Williams

What can people expect from the dishes you are serving at Tatiana?

with what we do, so that was important to me this time around, and not take ourselves too seriously— we’re just cooking dinner. We put a lot of emphasis on the craft, but we don’t lose ourselves. We don’t take that baggage home with us. We’re very, very professional in what we do, and we like to have fun, and that’s important. It’s how we treat each other. The checking in, making sure we’re treating people like human beings.

In your memoir, you speak about the discrimination and abuse you’ve experienced throughout your culinary career. Opening Shaw Bijou, you had a vision for changing that culture. 10 years on, what type of leader are you becoming?

I’m learning every day. I think the more you know, the more you realize you don’t know. I’m still developing into the leader I want to be. I try to treat people the way I like to be [treated], talk to people the way I like to be [spoken] to and be direct. When I make a mistake, [I] apologize for that. Every day we’re all learning, so I’m learning. I still feel young in my career, and I feel like I have a long way to go.

From My America: Recipes from a Young Black Chef

Scan the QR code for Kwame’s recipe for Mom Duke’s Shrimp

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PROFILE:

Sana Javeri Kadri

By Amrita Amesur

Photos: courtesy of Diaspora Co.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Having landed in her hometown of Bombay just the day prior, Sana Javeri Kadri seems at ease, back at her parents’ house. It’s overcast outside and the July monsoon is lashing out as we speak through our respective screens in the same city.

For Javeri Kadri, this homecoming is special after having spent nearly 15 years away – her time divided across Italy and New York before settling in California. At just 29 years of age, she’s built one of the undisputable darling brands of the internet – Diaspora Co. out of Oakland, California, selling high quality, single origin spices sourced from regenerative farms in South Asia. An ambitious mandate was set to create an equitable supply chain from scratch, disrupting the centuries old exploitative trail set by colonial conquest. Diaspora Co. famously pays its farm partners an average of three to five times the commodity price, freshly milling and blending spices for maximum flavor and potency – edging far beyond 16

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their competitors. They’ve also set up a farm worker fund in addition to providing healthcare to farm laborers.

With Javeri Kadri’s enthusiasm for dynamic storytelling through social media, Diaspora Co. has created a wholesome community that rallies around all of its product drops, often selling out their inventory within a few hours from launching. She has won a number of awards for entrepreneurship, been featured in prestigious magazines and is a mini-social media star in her own right. Her home in Oakland Hills– what she lovingly refers to as the “masala cabin” reflecting her kaleidoscopic aesthetic and queer identity - graces the pages of Architectural Digest. She’s also writing the Diaspora Cookbook comprising stories and recipes of 25 of their farm partners, deep diving into their regional cuisine and local foodways.

Javeri Kadri now stands at the precipice of taking Diaspora Co. to the next level, driving for further social and cultural change while

championing food in its cultural context.

We speak in the quintessential Bombay English-Hindi right off the bat, setting the tone for the exchange.

“Food has always been a defining feature for me. At age three, during my nursery school graduation – nobody could find me ’cause I was in the kitchen eating everybody’s snacks!” she describes her childhood in a nutshell. We discuss her formative late teenage years spent learning about the Slow Food movement in Italy and regenerative agriculture in Northern California, the catalysts that cemented her food philosophy.

“I already knew early on from having had jobs since I was 16, that I didn’t like working for other people. I’m a very good employee because I’m a people pleaser, but I wanted to be in charge.” By 19, she knew she wanted to work in sustainable agriculture. After stints at a farm, a restaurant and a food centered venture capital fund in her gap year of college, she returned to

Kashmiri Chilli

Cinnamon quills

Harvesting Anamalai cacao pods

Working harvest at the Anamalai farm in Tamil Nadu

school with much clarity, organizing a conference around food politics, justice and sustainability. “Frankly, at 23, I had a pretty articulate idea of what I wanted to do because I’d been scheming it since I was 19! That being said, I’ve now been in this role [founder and CEO of Diaspora Co.] for six and a half years and it’s very obvious how little I knew back then, and how much I’ve learned since then.”

We discuss her journey through Diaspora Co., of leading a queer immigrant woman led business, raising conscious investment, and the need to prove that such an idealistic venture can be financially sustainable while being effeminate and care led.

What are the challenges in running this business that doesn’t compromise on mission or quality? How do you manage the repercussions of putting your money where your mouth is?

I would say that it’s because we do set boundaries and we do say no. We didn’t take money for five years. And then when the time came, we were very thoughtful about not taking institutional capital. We raised money from angel investors, people who believe in our work and believe in me and from a family office that’s very clear at not wanting majority stake, not wanting a seat on the board. It’s still me and the three people that I have elected as advisors on the board, those who understand our values.

Jaggery blocks

Ultimately my team and I, we are all answerable to each other and to our community and we define that, right?

And we’re saying that our community is not the white executives at the large grocery store, that’s not who we’re answerable to. It’s the people who share our values and that’ll also always be the core of what we do. And I think that it does mean that we will not grow as fast as our competitors or our peers. [Albeit] we have made a hell of a business case for the fact that we have grown pretty fast. We know that there will be compromises for running our business.

But I think that connects perfectly to our values of sustainability and of growing at the rate of regenerative agriculture. I think when our core values are so defined everything feeds into each other. Whilst there are challenges - I don’t know- I actually wouldn’t define them as challenges - the opportunity cost of saying yes to things that are not in line with our values is much greater.

And how has it been since you raised investment, have things changed?

It’s only been a year. We put the board into place and that’s been really valuable for me personally, because after five and a half years, I didn’t have any oversight but I also didn’t have people really advising me in a formal capacity.

It’s very easy to ultimately be a founder and a

CEO and like 2023 hustle culture, it can really go to your head and start to feel like you’re all the hottest shit alive and that’s often not true, right? I think part of the job is acknowledging that we fuck up every single day. So having the board in place to really push me or make me accountable has been amazing and makes sure that they’re steering us in the right direction.

We’ve realised though a lot of our ways of doing things is very true to who we are culturally, very queer, very feminine, and very feelings and care led. That’s always going to be who we are. I didn’t raise from venture capital.

I didn’t raise from private equity. I think in being very thoughtful about who we raised from meant that luckily not a whole lot changed. It’s just allowed us to hire the team members we needed and grow the team so that we can build what we really want. It will allow us to have this big rebrand [that launched on August 15th].

Could you discuss the social and cultural impact that your work through Diaspora has created, particularly for Indian farmers and the wave of changes that have come about in the otherwise staid agricultural industry.

My larger answer is how much further there is to go and how much more we see the potential for. We’ve put $2.1 million so far into the hands of sixty Indian farmer families, which is significant and a very large number that I could not QUENCH.ME

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Harvested turmeric

have imagined. I mean, six and a half years ago, even getting to one million revenue was like, ‘This is amazing!’ We have also seen attitudes shift very quickly where all of the sceptical uncles, aunties, cousins on these farms where I visit would call our farm partners crazy and now, they say ‘Madam, why don’t you buy from us also!’ There’s a business case for it, right?

You can say [regenerative farming] is better for your children, better for the world as much as you want, but unless those farming families are actually making more money and seeing prosperity, it’s all bullshit.

When I’m in California, I’m in rooms full of people talking about regenerative agriculture, all the time. And every time I talk about South Asia, and I’m saying like, look with Diaspora we have 2000 acres of land under cultivation.

That doesn’t sound like that much, but it’s 2000 acres across 150 smallholder farms. So, 150 farming families and that impact is tremendous, but they need more resources. They need incubator programs. We need zero interest working capital loans, even investment, for regenerative agriculture to be sustainable.

And I’m repeatedly told, ‘South Asia is kind of a difficult region for us’, ‘too much bureaucracy in South Asia’, like the whole region has been written off as like, too hard. My biggest work now is how do we get that support and

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international solidarity for the South Asian regenerative agriculture movement, so that it’s sustainable and reliable. We would just go so much faster and be able to have so much more depth of impact if we had [external financing] partners and it seems very possible. I’ve been having great conversations with people about this. Within the next year or two we’ll be able to pull this off.

How are you upholding the values of giving back equity to farm partners?

We provide the best price commitment to our farm partners that is four to six times the commodity price. That doesn’t go away, that stays and is the foundation of everything we do. And making sure that our prices are always the highest on the market because we’re asking our farm partners for the highest quality.

There’s also the farm worker fund for which we raised $20,000 last year and while that may not be much, it’s a significant amount for a company of our size to earmark and for farm workers who are often the weakest link in receiving equity. It’s providing them with comprehensive healthcare, literacy and other schemes. We’ve also earmarked a pretty solid 20% of the company for a farmer exit [and] that has been in our charter since day one, since we are a public benefit corporation.

What is the future aspiration for Diaspora Co.?

We’ve gone from buying everything that the farmer produces to them producing far more than we can buy. Which is great, we can now find bigger and wider markets. The farmers are doing their part and so our part now is to disseminate, expand our markets, ship to the UK, the EU, Singapore. Now that our manufacturing unit is set up in Mumbai with the new tin style packaging, we can reach the global audience and make these spices available across larger grocery stores across the US. As regards the Diaspora Cookbook, it’s about our farm partners and I think what’s most interesting is - what are these farmers doing that makes these spices vicious [ie. extracting an amazing flavour profile from their format of agriculture], that’s the story, right? Those are the stories we want to tell. When the company started, I was a 23-year-old trying to find space for myself within the industry. At 29, I have plenty of space and we need to let other people come in and make space for themselves.

What makes Diaspora and its management radical is its wholehearted commitment to creating authenticity to thrive in a world where hustle culture and linear growth are the norm.

PROFILE:

Rajat Parr

By Michelle Bouffard

Photo credit: courtesy of Rajat Parr

Rajat Parr is one of the world’s most celebrated wine personalities. Every time he undertakes something, he is crowned with success. There is something magnetic about Parr that goes beyond his realizations. You feel his presence when he walks into a room. He is calm, grounded and naturally commands respect. It is as if he possesses the wisdom we all strive for.

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Parr was born in India and left his home coun-

try at the age of 18. He moved to the United States to go to cooking school and become a chef. However, meeting Larry Stone MS turned out to be pivotal. After six months of working as a food runner at Rubicon Restaurant in San Francisco, Parr became Stone’s assistant. The latter became a father figure to Parr, the one who taught him everything about hospitality and blind tasting. Wine became Parr’s career.

From meeting Larry Stone to quickly being in charge of the wine program at Rubicon, the list of achievements that followed is nothing short of impressive. Sommelier/wine director at Fifth Floor for 4 years, at Michael Mina for 18 years, at RN74 for 7 years. Parr then started many exciting wine projects which are still ongoing: Sandhi from 2009, Domaine de la Côte from 2011, Evening Land from 2014 and Phelan Farm from 2020. Not to mention the two globally acclaimed books he co-wrote with Jordan Mackay - Secrets of the Sommeliers released in 2010 and The Sommelier’s Atlas of Taste: A Field Guide to the Great Wines of Europe released in 2018.

We asked Parr how he explains his ongoing success.

RESILIENCE “I started from nothing [no education]. I left my house when I was 17 or 18 years old. When you live alone and you travel alone, you have to make it alone. There’s no backup plan. You must succeed just to make it to the next day. I remember sleeping on a bus stand or sleeping in Grand Central Station many times because I missed my train, or I was waiting for the morning train to go to a tasting in the city. You’re young and resilient and you keep moving.”

CONSISTENCY “I think one thing in today’s world which is not prevalent, is consistency. I wanted to completely master what I knew to the best of my ability and to do it at the highest level and be present for it. I remember when I worked at RN74, I was there seven days a week. I lived above the restaurant because I wanted to give my 100%.

I think that is just an old school mentality and what I learned from Larry Stone and my mentors. I don’t see many people doing that now.”

From the outside, it looks like a path blessed with success and little failure. But another key to Parr’s numerous accomplishments is making mistakes. They are his biggest learning curves. “The biggest mistake I made was taking things for granted,” says Parr. “Mother nature and in some cases business partners. I assumed that a partnership was a partnership, but it is not always the case because sometimes people take advantage of things.” He adds, “Fifty or a hundred years ago humans were sustainable.

Everyone had a garden, and you would take care of yourself. Now we rely on grocery stores

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and Amazon. That is the biggest realization.

Every day when I wake up, I learn how I can self-sustain and encourage to self-sustain.”

His strength and attitude also play a major role in his journey. Equality and diversity are sine qua non to today’s era. However, this was not the case when Parr started his career.

“When you are a young minority [and I had a thicker accent back then], there are people judging you. But I never thought about it.

There were many times when people were racists. But I didn’t really worry about it and let my energy focus on the negative things. I kept working and focused on what I was doing.”

Parr is still growing and learning. In the future, you are less likely to find him travelling the world non-stop as he did in the past.

The pandemic changed many things. “It [the pandemic] showed me how humans polluted the planet. I asked myself what I could do in a small way to help the world. The most obvious idea for me was to move to one place and learn about regenerative farming and a more holistic way to soil management. Wine is a platform. If I was growing potatoes or vegetables, no-one would really care. But we produce luxury products so people might listen to the wine world.

We need to talk about that we only have 3% of our topsoil left.”

Another important part of Parr’s DNA is curiosity, which leads him to forge his own path rather than follow what everybody else is doing. Currently, he is devoted to cultivating the land without the use of copper or sulfur. Not an easy task as fungal diseases are prevalent in Cambria, California where Phelan Farm is located. “Preventative agriculture is the type of farming I am interested in. I want to make the plants healthier, stronger, and resistant. I want to make the soil stronger. I want to inject more fungal material; I want more biomass. I want to make the soil rich with organic matter. It’s about making a healthy ecosystem.” So far, he is succeeding. He mentions Dr. Elaine Ingham, recognized as the foremost soil biologist in the world, as a source of knowledge and some of his peers such as Jason Jardine of Hanzell and Morgan Twain-Peterson MW of Bedrock Wine Co. with whom he exchanges ideas to achieve his goal. “I want to continue refining the farming we do. Study more about science and how to get from point A to point B in soil and plant health.”

Eventually Parr wants to write a guide to help young people who want to practise the same type of farming. His wish is to make things easier for them. “When I started [this kind of farming], there was no template for me.”

Speaking of the younger generations, Parr is very optimistic about the future. “They worry about organic viticulture, where things come from. I think the old style of farming needs to phase away and we need to bring in the younger generation who really cares about the soil,

the plants and the wines. It’s very important to come together, connect and share knowledge.

We need to have a common platform so everyone can share ideas. The world is so uncertain and working together is the only way we will succeed and do the right thing for the planet.”

Rajat Parr continues to be a mentor for many. He offers these words of wisdom: “If you’re smart, you are going to be successful.

And when you get successful, then just remember where you came from. Stay humble and curious. I think that the biggest mistake humans make is that they let their ego take over themselves and think of themselves as bigger than they really are.”

Rajat has a beautiful quote from Mahatma Gandhi in his email signature, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”

Thanks M. Parr.

Michelle Bouffard is a sommelier, author, speaker, educator and consultant based in Montréal. Her first book Dis-moi qui tu es, je te dirai quoi boire was published in 2017 and for the past six years, she has been the sommelier on the popular Quebec cooking show Curieux Bégin. In 2017, Michelle founded Tasting Climate Change, an international symposium to explore the challenges and solutions in the wine industry.

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The majestic condors soar above the Andes capturing in their flight Argentina’s finest wine appellations.

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Photo credit: The Nomad Foodie

Pure Punjab

Meet, Sherry Mehta, the pioneering chef reviving the ancient cuisine of Multan, United Punjab. By Aman Dosanj

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I’m not going to lie: Even with my own ancestral background deeply rooted in Punjab, the mention of the region immediately conjures old-school imagery of travelling between multigenerational villages and lush green agricultural kithe (farmland) on a tractor with Mithe Ganne by Malkit Singh blaring in the background.

But after meeting Sherry Mehta during a recent trip to Bengaluru (India), the self-taught chef suddenly had me questioning everything.

“People relate Rajasthan to a desert area, but Punjab also had one, which was Multan, but no one has ever spoken about that place,” explains Mehta, the Shimla-born, Mumbai-based Multani who is championing this almost unheard-of cuisine of United Punjab. “There are Punjabi restaurants all over the globe, but Multani food is not something many were aware of.”

Located on the banks of the Chenab River, Multan is one of the oldest inhabited cities in Asia. Like much of Punjab, however, the story of Multan is marred by the aftermath of the 1947 Partition of India and the ever-lasting scars of colonialism. In a country split by religious lines, the Muslim majority found themselves residing in what is now Pakistan, while Hindus and Sikhs attempted to migrate south to modern-day India. “I have listened to the stories from my grandmom, whom I call my chaiji. She used to cry; it was very emotional to mention the Multani belt,” says Mehta.

Growing up in the hills of Himachal Pradesh, Mehta realized just how unusual her chaiji’s cooking was. “When friends came over, they didn’t know the recipes my grandmom was cooking,” she explains. Eager to learn more, “I connected with the Multani communities on both sides of Punjab; I started reading about geographical regions and their history, eating in their homes. To my surprise, it was far beyond what people know [about Punjabi food] today.”

Now, through regular food festival appearances and pop-up dinners with her business, Kanak by Sherry, this nearly-forgotten “traveller’s food” of Multan has reached the likes of Akshay Kumar, Ranveer Singh, Kangana Ranaut, plus other stars of Indian cinema. “There is a lot to talk about with Multani food. I can write a book,” she says with a laugh.

The first thing I did was read about the geography, climatic conditions, and history of the region. I went into a deep study; that helped me discover the food in Multan. There was scarcity with ingredients, no green vegetables available—and no rich culture there. Trade was happening with the Persian Gulf.

It was mainly spices and grains that travelled from the Arab Gulf to Pakistan—those did not belong to Multan. It was a good exchange of food. The way Multanis use a lot of nuts and dried fruits [in their cooking]; it all travelled from Persia. These days, people talk about the progress of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), but no one talks about Multan. Multan is the region where the maximum trade was once happening, and people were making the most amount of money.

What are some of the differences compared to the dishes of Punjab, India?

The core of Multani cooking is meat; there is hardly any vegetarian food. When I talk about the India side of Punjab, specifically Sikh and Hindu communities, they are 70 percent vegetarian. The meat eaters preferred mutton, but mutton was not on our dining table every day. We’ll make sabzi (a dry vegetable dish), dal or rajma chawal (hearty red kidney beans with rice). But the Multan side of Punjab is the other way—they are [roughly] 80 percent non-vegetarian.

You mentioned how Multan was a prominent trade belt, but what did that mean for its foodways?

Multanis were traders travelling for weeks with very few resources, so the food preparation had to sustain them for three or four days.

They were hunting for whole meats—from camels or whatever they found on the road— then would start cooking whole meats stuffed with whatever grains they were carrying from their homes, whether millets or rice, on the fire. That’s why the concept of saaji came into existence. Many people just know tandoori chicken from Punjab, but saaji mainly exists on the Pakistan side of Punjab. When you go to the streets of Peshawar and Lahore, there’s usually whole chicken or goat for special events and celebrations. It is quite famous in that region.

How is saaji different to tandoori chicken?

Tandoori chicken is very rich and dense; we use yogurt and mustard oil with a lot of ginger-garlic paste and masalas. If you travel to Lahore or Peshawar for saaji, you will realize you can actually taste the meat. It’s subtle with minimal ingredients: maybe some chilli powder, salt, lemon, mustard oil (or maybe not), and a few garam masalas in powder form. There is no yogurt, cream, or butter in it. So, it’s a light dish with bags of flavour. Another really interesting thing is their unique breads. Whenever they were making saaji, they would make korno or kaak using stones. The stone is wrapped with dough and then put in the fire. These Multani techniques are my favourite! I want people to eat as much as they can because people hardly know about this food.

When we met last fall, you showcased a delicious moth dal kachori, which I had never tried before, where the dal didn’t have a tadka (tempering). What’s the story behind that dish?

The kachori has a shelf life of a week or so.

Even if you travel at extreme temperatures, it’ll still be fine. Now, you won’t find fresh organic tomatoes, onions, or ginger-garlic, so considering what a traveller could eat, that dal had a little amchur (mango powder) or tamarind, salt, some chilli powder, and that’s it. Travellers would top that dal on top of the kachori and eat it. Slowly it became a street food in Multan.

You also served a dreamy doodh ki nalli (lamb shank slow cooked in milk). Can you tell us about the cooking process?

Punjab is a rich land where you will find dairy in abundance. When you go to villages, every household has cows and buffaloes producing milk, curd, lassi, butter and ghee. If I go back in history, Multanis used to slow-cook meat in milk with whatever was available. Doodhi ki nalli was one of those dishes my grandfather cooked, and I still remember the flavours. In the whole region, you will find loads of cloves and black and green cardamom, so that’s why they were used in milk. People don’t even know that it’s part of the Punjabi community.

But if I describe Punjab, then this is Punjab!

This is pure Punjab, not butter chicken.

How has the reaction been to your work through cooking?

When people eat this food for the first time, they say, ‘We didn’t know this existed in Punjab, and we never knew how different Punjabi cuisine could be.’ Then they want to order it again and again and again. It’s like an addiction for them—that makes me happy [laughs].

I got so much love from the Muslim community; they told me, ‘Sherry, you are promoting Multan; you are promoting our region!’

Being mindful of the politics of naming, conversations about Punjabi cuisine should probably start by asking which side of the manmade border they mean. “I always take pride when I talk about my Punjab. It’s very, very close to my heart,” shares Mehta with a warm smile.

Photo credit: The Nomad Foodie

When you started your research, where did you begin?

What was traded?

Scan the QR code for Sherry’s recipe for Moth Dal Kachori

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‘From Here’ Chef Debora Fadul is the Ultimate Champion of Guatemalan Gastronomy.

Now She’s Putting the Country on the Culinary Map.

By Aman Dosanj Photos: courtesy of Debora Fadul

“Oh my god, that restaurant sounds so cool.

Wow!” mouthed chef Debora Fadul, the 2022 Flor de Caña Sustainable Restaurant Award recipient, as she listened to the presenter at Latin America’s 50 Best last November in Mérida, Mexico. Captivated by the work of the impressive-sounding winner, she was unaware that they were talking about Diacá, her cozy rooftop eatery in the heart of Guatemala City, which also debuted at 47 on the list. “It completely blew my mind. This award was for our producers; to realize how important their job is and how they are an example for the rest of Latin America,” she explains with infectious enthusiasm.

A few months later, the hidden gem received international recognition beyond the Americas from La Liste (an international body which compiles the world’s best restaurants according to 1000 guides, publications, and cross-referenced reviews). Even as the praise for her modern Guatemalan cuisine mounts, the humble chef-owner quickly re-focuses our conversation. “We are not the main character here; we don’t work without our farmers,” she explains via video call.

Born and raised in Guatemala City, Fadul completed a culinary arts program at Camille

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Escuela de Alta Cocina in 2008. Shortly after, the changemaker made a name for herself by hosting successful farm-forward pop-up dinners through her catering business, Chef de Mon Coeur (‘Chef of My Heart’). “It’s so important for chefs to [experience] moving around, building the kitchen from nothing, then cooking because it [helps] solve problems easily in the kitchen. We have a simple way of doing stuff, but it’s very complex too,” she says.

As the project approached its tenth anniversary, it morphed into Diacá (meaning ‘from here’ in Spanish). “The restaurant industry was the opposite of what I wanted to do,” she admits. Before moving to a new permanent (fixed) location, Fadul recalls penning 30 principles or rules to guide her rule-defying restaurant of the future—ranging from how to treat her staff to questioning the need for flatware.

Today, dining at Diacá is an exploratory feast for the soul where every decision has a reason behind it.

“The main purpose of [Diacá] is not to make money; it’s to educate consumers in Guatemala,” she states. With lush agricultural lands and one of the largest markets in Central America in Chichicastenango Mercado, the chef-owner tells me about the bounty of high-quality sea-

sonal produce available year-round. Like many countries neighbouring the US, and therefore closely linked, not only are grocery store shelves teeming with cheap imports but among locals, there is still a colonial mentality that “whatever comes from a white person is better.” Without government-issued subsidies readily available to farmers in the US, it is difficult for local producers in Guatemala to compete on price—or yield. “Making cheeses in Guatemala is three times more expensive than in the US,” she says.

Much of her 16+ years of tireless work attempts to re-shift consumer perceptions, place value in Guatemalan-grown ingredients and foster the power of a circular economy.

Highlighting the scale of the issues, “It’s not just how we [as consumers] buy, but what farmers do and how the markets work,” explains Fadul. For example, the country’s cropping season for avocadoes is November, a month behind neighbouring Mexico. Instead of listening to the rhythms of the growing season, some farmers impatiently harvest early, which results in small, under-ripe fruit. As a result, locals perceive Guatemalan-grown varieties as, in her words, “shittier.” But for Fadul, that is far from the truth. It is happening with beans, too. Even though the country grows almost

18 multi-coloured species, approximately 85 percent of those regularly consumed originate from Mexico and Peru. “It doesn’t make sense,” says the activist. With every plate, the idea is to build awareness so cultural traditions continue for future generations.

While some seasonally-focused restaurants rely on weekly fresh sheets to determine menus, that is not the case with the vegetable-forward tasting menu at Diacá. “We don’t tell farmers what [ingredients] we want. We try to listen to what they have, then use those.”

During our private virtual tour of the restaurant, we pass through the airy restaurant into the open-planned kitchen until we get to a lone upright double-doored fridge: one of her safeguards to guarantee freshness.

To raise awareness of the complexities that exist within seasons, Diacá changes its menu roughly seven times a year. The restaurant even invented its own menu headers (such as spring-spring from January to February, the bounty of summer-summer from March to May, rainy winter from August to October, and windy winter between November to January) to help locals understand how biodiverse the country is in a fun and approachable way. “The reaction has been super positive,” she says.

Built on three pillars—soil, people, and kitchen—I ask Fadul what she looks for in her award-winning, 10-person restaurant team. “I don’t need super fancy chefs because they will learn everything from zero here,” she explains.

“We prefer, above everything, to have amazing souls and personalities with a beautiful way of seeing the world. I’m not their mom. I’m not the one that should be teaching someone how to behave or talk to people.” To add to a positive working environment, hierarchies or divides between front-of-house and back are deliberately missing.

As we reminisce about her childhood, it’s easy to see where her deep respect for ingredients came from. “We own a recipe book written by great-great-grandmother and the women on my mom’s side of the family,” she says of the sacred family heirloom passed from one generation to the next that stretches back almost 100 years. “[Cooking from scratch like this is] so imprinted in my DNA, which is beautiful.

[As a child] I remember my parents giving me Barbies, but my favourite toys were these huge boxes of cups, glasses and little plates. So, it makes sense that I have my restaurants now,” she adds.

To say a lot has happened since I first met the smiley Guatemalan activist in the sun-dappled state of Yucatán is an understatement. In a country teeming with premium quality coffee beans, green cardamom, sesame seeds and even rum, Fadul hopes Guatemala will one day become recognized for its quality rather than negatively judged for the small-scale nature of its exports. With the arrival of her first child, Fadul is welcoming a beautiful new chapter in her culinary career. “It’s going to be awesome to teach a little one,” she says. “I want her to be part of my restaurants because she is part of my life. Next is to teach my daughter that you don’t have to choose [between having a successful career and raising a family].”

“Most Guatemalans don’t feel proud about being Guatemalan, but when they come [to Diacá], they see there’s a lot to feel proud about,” she explains. “People from other parts of the world are dying to have what we have [access to] daily here. Seeing that our producers are now valued and how they feel part of this is amazing because it’s how it should be.” Best of all, the ambitious chef-owner is adamant this is only the beginning. “I feel like we’re in diapers,” she says through one of her trademark laughs.

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Years of Women in Wine

By Jacky Blisson MW

My grandfather was a wine merchant in post war London. It was a genteel time when men attended to their business matters in the morning then retired to their clubs for a bottle of Pauillac, a nice cut of steak, and an afternoon snooze behind the newspaper.

The nice women were at home, keeping do-

mestic affairs in order. They were certainly not out pounding the pavements. After all, there was “no place for a woman in the wine trade.”

Or so the late Sarah Morphew Stephen was told when applying for her first winery trainee position and just as Jancis Robinson was asked at wine events early on in her career, if she was “there to taste for her boss?”

Despite these dismissals, both women went on to become Masters of Wine and lead highly distinguished careers. We owe a debt of gratitude to these trailblazers, and many more like them. Their example has helped women across the wine world aim higher, speak out, and refuse to be marginalized.

The tales of women building successful wine careers over the past fifty years, without financial backing or family legacies, are particularly inspiring.

FROM BULGARIAN REDS TO THE VALPOLICELLA HILLS Karen MacNeil did not come from a wine savvy family. “There was never anyone wealthy

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enough in my family to drink wine,” she explains. At an early age, MacNeil left her Nevada home and supported herself during her final years of high school.

Inspired by the evocative depictions of wine in her favourite classic novels, MacNeil began sampling the most affordable bottles at her local supermarket. “Every night, while doing my homework I would have a glass of wine. It was a $0.89 Bulgarian red and I thought it was delicious.”

Across the Atlantic, Marinella Camerani also forged her own path into the wine world.

In the 1970s, she was languishing in an accounts job at her family’s industrial factory.

“My father preferred to work with my brother, my sister’s husband, really any of the men, rather than give the women of the family any real responsibility.” Camerani recalls.

This realization led her to make a radical life change, moving out of the city to manage the family’s rustic country house in the Valpolicella region. At that time, the grapes from their few hectares of vineyards were sold to the local cooperative.

Photo credit: courtesy of Karen MacNeil

Karen MacNeil and her globally best-selling guide The Wine Bible

“When I left for Mezzane di Sotto I had never worked in a vineyard or a cellar,” Camerani shares. “I never thought I would make good wine, but now this was my job, so I had to learn.” Today, Camerani’s biodynamic Corte Sant’Alda estate produces among the most admired wines in Valpolicella.

FIGURING IT OUT IN THE FACE OF REJECTION Filipino-American Annette Alvarez-Peters grew up an army brat. After attending nine different schools between kindergarten and grade 12, she was done with formal education.

“I always found school hard and knew that college wasn’t for me,” says Alvarez-Peters.

Instead, she took an entry level administrative job that eventually led her to Costco. After working her way up to audio buyer, Alvarez-Peters joined the alcohol beverage department. “I knew nothing about wine at first,” she laughs, “but I promised my boss that I would figure it out.”

Leaning on recommendations from wine drinking friends, studying wine menus, and scouring wine shop shelves, she slowly built up her portfolio. Alvarez-Peters also went back to school, despite a diagnosis of dyslexia, studying first with the Society of Wine Educators and then completing the Wine and Spirits Education Trust programs.

At the height of her Costco career, Alvarez-Peters had indeed figured it out. She was lauded by Forbes Magazine as one of the most influential wine buyers in the world, heading up a team that, in 2019, brought in $4.8 billion dollars in global sales.

Karen MacNeil headed to New York after high school to pursue a career in journalism.

The early days were not easy. “I thumbtacked every rejection slip to the wall of my fifth floor walk up. I collected over 324 of them and would look at them every day,” she says.

After an initial focus on social and political issues, MacNeil turned to food writing – in part to supplement her meagre diet with free samples. When her first successful article on local butters was published, MacNeil could never have imagined the success to come.

KEEPING QUIET WHILE THE MEN TALKED Marinella Camerani also faced her share of rejection in the early days. Within five years of her move, she and her husband divorced. She chose to stay on and, through hard work, the right guidance, and sheer perseverance, learnt her craft. And all this in the face of heavy disapproval from the local community.

“They thought I was crazy! They couldn’t understand me, especially once I was alone.

Women were good for marrying and being wives, not for working in a winery. I had a bad relationship with the people of the village early on. It was a very difficult time.”

It was the early 1980s. The banks would not lend to her, and the tradespeople would not sell her equipment unless she brought a man along to negotiate. “They wouldn’t even look at me,” Camerani recalls with a raised eyebrow. “By then I knew far more about tractors than my father, but I couldn’t buy one without him there.”

In New York, Karen MacNeil was just starting her wine writing career and looking for educational opportunities. She gained access to the tasting group of an elite circle of male wine critics, but on one condition, she was not allowed to speak.

“It is unthinkable today, but at the time I was not insulted. In truth, I didn’t feel that I had a valid opinion, so I didn’t want to talk. What frustrated me was not being able to ask questions. I wanted to benefit from their knowledge.”

Like Camerani, MacNeil turned this adversity into a strength. She kept quiet and took everything in, slowly building her knowledge over time. All of the questions she wasn’t allowed to ask stayed with her, eventually forming the basis for her globally best-selling wine guide, The Wine Bible.

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SHOWING THEM WHO’S BOSS For Annette Alvarez-Peters, one of the most difficult challenges of her career came from within. “My biggest problem was self-confidence,” she says. “On the wholesale and supplier side, I was always meeting with presidents, chairmen and CEOs. My lack of self-confidence made me hesitant to push too hard.”

In 1995, there were not many female executives at Costco. Alvarez-Peters became a keen observer of the few in her sphere. She watched how they handled interactions and slowly began modelling her professional comportment on the behaviours she admired.

While Alvarez-Peters built up a network of female peers, Marinella Camerani followed her intuition. “I saw how men were with each other and decided to be tougher. When they saw that I wouldn’t back down, they changed. Now, they speak to me. They know that I am the boss.”

For MacNeil, the combination of these two approaches is key to advancing women’s status in wine. “We need to develop a thicker skin and not let ourselves be stopped by criticism,” she says. “We also need to learn to ask for more money for our work.”

Though she is encouraged by the growing number of prominent women in wine, MacNeil is also dismayed by the rising trend of female wine influencers trading on their looks. “This flighty, little girl, wine chick aura is detrimen-

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Photo credit: courtesy of Annette Alvarez-Peters

photo credit: courtesy of Marinella Camerani

Marinella Camerani with her daughter

Annette Alvarez-Peters

tal to every serious woman out there in the industry. It sets women back.”

CHAMPIONING THE NEXT GENERATION OF WINE WOMEN There is still a long way to go on the quest for gender equity. According to women in wine advocacy group, Bâtonnage Forum, the median annual wage gap between male and female sommeliers in America is $7,000.

And, while women make up roughly 60% of enrollment figures in University of California Davis oenology programs, 2022 figures from Santa Clara University researchers show that only 14% of California’s wineries have a female head winemaker.

France’s agriculture social protection group, MSA, reports that less than one-third of French wine-producing companies are headed up by a woman. Various reports also estimate female sommeliers in France as making up a mere 20% of the industry.

“There have been a lot of improvements,” says Alvarez-Peters, “but we still have a long way to go. We need to stand up and cheer each other on,” she adds. Since retiring from Costco, Alvarez-Peters has become an active board member and mentor with Bâtonnage Forum and Wine Unify.

Camerani is also focused on passing on her years of accumulated wisdom and seeing

where the next generation takes her estate. “I have a beautiful young team,” she says with a smile. Times have changed, “my daughter Frederica doesn’t have to be as fierce as her mother.”

With a multitude of new book ideas and projects on the go, MacNeil is still building her empire. She does not boast about her achievements, but neither does she shrug them off.

Her advice to young women entering the wine world? “Persevere! Work hard and claim your authority.”

Jacky Blisson MW is an independent wine educator, writer, and consultant with over two decades experience in all facets of the global wine trade. She is the first Master of Wine in Québec and one of only ten across Canada. After studying wine science and commerce in Beaune France, Jacky managed exports for Burgundian and Rhône Valley firms. She also worked harvest seasons in Beaune and Walker Bay, South Africa. Jacky produces a self-titled wine website and YouTube channel. Her go-to restaurant that never disappoints is L’Express in Montréal and the best concert she ever attended was The Tragically Hip on New Year’s Eve 2000.

PROFILE:

Randall Grahm

Is one of California’s Original Mavericks still a Maverick?

By Elizabeth Gabay MW Photo credit: courtesy of Popelouchum Estate

Is being called a maverick a compliment? A maverick is described as someone who challenges established thinking, a loner, a rebel and potentially someone who is potentially disruptive. Much has already been written about Randall Grahm and his maverick reputation, and another life history is not needed. But Grahm has not stopped being a maverick, and his current plans are possibly even more revolutionary than anything so far. As Grahm says, “Thirty years ago I was considered a maverick, but in some instances, I have been proved right.

Maybe I am contrarian for the sake of being a contrarian? If everyone made Tibouren, I’d be making Cabernet and Chardonnay.”

When I first met Randall in 2015, it was to explore the indigenous Provençal variety Tibouren. Walking through the vineyards, Grahm showed his true love, happily touching the soil, the vines, the grapes, discussing pruning, harvest dates and Tibouren’s propensity to irregular ripening. He is evidently at his happiest amongst the vines, so his latest project, Popelouchum (meaning paradise in the local Utian language Mutsun), should come as no surprise.

Purchased in 2011, this 168ha estate set out to achieve Grahm’s “long term vision being one of both simplicity and great complexity: a property which will produce wine of distinction, as well as a destination to host thinkers, leaders, contemporaries and wine enthusiasts - an epicentre of a new wine community.”

Still a work in progress, Grahm is attempting to do what no vigneron has ever attempted: “to propagate 10,000 new grape varieties, some from disease-resistant progenitors, with the aim of identifying one or more new ‘genius’ grape varieties,” but, in Grahm’s view, likely more promisingly, “employing a radical new methodology for creating complexity in wine (the elucidation of terroir) by creating a highly diverse population in a vineyard (every variety being genetically distinct from the other).”

Well known, and less well known own-rooted varieties, with the source material coming from around the world in suitcases, the post, nurseries and friends, were planted. Over the years Grahm has worked with creating new crossings, as well as more controversial selfQUENCH.ME

Randall Grahm in the Popelouchum Estate

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Popelouchum Estate

Credit: courtesy of Popelouchum Estate

crossed vines to create “genetically diverse selections (maybe 60 - 80 different biotypes in a given block) but not necessarily each one genetically different.”

Here it is possible to hear global shudders of horror at the maverick varieties being created.

“When I first started, everyone told me what an extremely bad idea this was. You’ve got problems, you’ve got inbreeding, there’s a lot of genetic defects that are expressed, you don’t end up with the best grape varieties.” Both José Vuillamoz and Jamie Goode have both been supportive, but also see the problems, with Credit: courtesy of Popelouchum Estate

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Goode commenting that “Every time you grow a vine from seed it is a new variety, even if it is a self-cross. Hit rate from breeding projects is incredibly low: it’s a numbers game. Take two varieties and cross them and you don’t get something with the shared characteristics of the parents.” But what excites Grahm is that you also “get a lot of differences and it’s the differences that are interesting.” His biggest fears are that the self-crossed selections would have problems with in-breeding, while the “proper crosses” are not guaranteed to be successful or taste particularly great.

With most vineyards boasting at most twenty varieties, Grahm has lost count of how many varieties he is working with at Popelouchum. “That depends on how you count them, every vine is genetically different and is its own unique variety, so by that count I have 5,000 and counting. With the self-crossings of Sérine Noire (which itself has a red parent, Dureza, and a white parent, Mondeuse Blanche) the white grape characteristic is expressed on a recessive gene, so a fraction (approximately 25%) of the offspring are white grapes. They’re more interesting in their cluster conformation and more consistently delicious, some varieties are very floral (like Viognier), some peppery (like Syrah).

Grahm believes that a set of them will make a much more interesting wine. The “selfed” offspring of Sérine Noire should not be referred to as either Sérine Noire nor as Sérine Blanche because they are now a distinctive new grape variety and Grahm admits that the nomenclature becomes quite convoluted - maybe the ‘red (or white) self-crossed offspring of Sérine.’”

Grahm is clear that this is not criticism of traditional clonal selection, but rather reflects his curiosity and his search to find “a biotype better suited to us, one not specifically adapted to Côte-Rôtie but to California.” The reference to the Rhône brings to mind his early role as a “Rhône Ranger,” used to describe the Californian producers who planted Rhône varieties in California. Grahm admits that “frankly, I’m not crazy about the term Rhône Ranger, we should be aiming higher. We shouldn’t define success as our ability to replicate European wines. We should be aiming to make our own distinctive wines, not to be a copycat of the old world.”

Credit: courtesy of Popelouchum Estate

Popelouchum Estate

As with all innovative experiments, the results remain unknown. “My biggest fear with these self-crosses is that they will be less productive or even sterile. I’m confident that a blend will produce an interesting, delightful and harmonious wine, they’re all from the same family. In my other project, where I’m doing complete crossings, such as Ciliegiolo x Picolit, I am genuinely concerned that the composite of these ‘proper crosses’ will be something dreadful or non-descript and might make a wine that no one will want to taste more than once.”

With the Popelouchum experiment, Grahm is hoping that with the “proper crosses” he will “see the effacement of varietal characteristics, and thus, (one hopes) the emergence of more distinctive soil characteristics … it is my observation that in a strong terroir, if you can find a way to express those soil characteristics, you will likely have an interesting and complex wine. The intriguing thing about this wine is that every vintage will be different and impossible to replicate. The only consistent element Credit: courtesy of Popelouchum Estate

is the terroir of Popelouchum … [but] whether I’ve matched the soil type up with a given variety remains to be seen, there’s a lot of diversity.”

Grahm is excited by creating something totally new and unique. “What I’m doing is very radical, maybe even doomed to failure, making a lot of breathtaking leaps of faith. If you plant a vineyard in a strong, distinctive terroir with a lot of soil expression, it may almost not matter what grape you grow, you’ll likely make a complex wine. I’m doing what I can to efface varietal expression to permit soil expression to be the dominant character of the wine - it’s cheeky and ambitious.”

The project is still young, but already the potential for this maverick project is emerging. “What I do have now is this incredible diversity, which is interesting in and of itself.

This composite is way more complex than any individual component.” A trial vintage of a red and white version of the self-crossed offspring of Sérine will be made in 2023.

Sometimes the life of a maverick can be lonely. If everyone else was doing the same thing it would become mainstream. Grahm admits that currently his most maverick moments are in the field and that when it comes to winemaking, “Not so much, [only] in my dreams. You need financial stability and resources to sustain total losses in the cellar. I can’t afford to risk that much in the winemaking department.” As he puts it, “the challenge is to sell the wine, and whilst Popelouchum is not quite providing the required financial stability at the moment, it certainly provides a constant intellectual challenge.”

Is Randall Grahm a maverick? According to Grahm, no, “just someone with imagination and the desire to make something original. If you have imagination in the wine business, you can do something special. Because it’s such an old business, sometimes there is a bit of a lack of imagination.”

Elizabeth Gabay MW grew up a Londoner but always travelled around Europe with her family. After backpacking around the world, Elizabeth returned to London where, by accident she fell into the wine trade when her parents bought a holiday cottage in Provence. Elizabeth passed the Master of Wine exam in 1998, and, in 2002, moved to a village an hour north of Nice. Her thirty years of working in Provence led in 2018 to her first book Rosé, Understanding the Pink Wine Revolution. With her son Ben Bernheim, they have put together an on-line Buyers Guide to the Rosés of Southern France, published in 2021.

Elizabeth recently released a natural rosé called Sen (Dream) made with Slovakian producer Vladimir Magula.

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Bechthold Vineyard old vine Cinsault

Photo credit: Randy Caparoso Photography

California’s Old Vines & Those that are Saving Them

By W. Blake Gray

In California, old vines exist in the margins. You’ll find the most old vineyards in regions that are reasonably well-regarded, but that have never been the pinnacle of popularity. Sonoma Valley, for example, rather than Oakville. Lodi, rather than Pritchard Hill.

You’ll also always find a farming family that

believes keeping the vines is more important than turning the greatest profit. Someone like Will Bucklin, owner of Old Hill Ranch in Sonoma County.

“When my stepfather bought the vineyard in 1980, he had some UC Davis consultants look at it,” Bucklin tells Quench. “They all said rip it out. They said it wasn’t economically viable. My stepfather loved the old vines and he loved dry farming. He was an environmentalist. He didn’t think adding irrigation helped in

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any way. He was a Francophile. I think the word stubborn is apt. He was a gentleman farmer.

He didn’t need to make a lot of money and he loved the wines.”

California has had wine since the 1850s, and it had a thriving wine industry in the 1890s. There are vineyards in the state that have been continuously producing wine for 100 years -- even with a break in the 1920s to produce sacramental wines during US Prohibition. But neglect is an important reason why many of them exist today. Today, they

Photo credit: courtesy of Beckstoffer Vineyards

Photo credit: courtesy of Beckstoffer Vineyards

Andy Beckstoffer Photo credit: courtesy of Beckstoffer Vineyards

Bourn Vineyard (ie. the portion of the Hayne vineyard that Andy Beckstoffer purchased and renamed)

Bourn Vineyard

must be nurtured by a caring vineyard manager. But at some time in the last 100 years, they must have been neglected by the market.

Old vines have many benefits, including drought resistance, the ability to produce more balanced wines under extreme weather conditions, and more complexity and elegance in the wines. But what old vines do not produce is large yields; younger vines can produce three times as much fruit, or more. So unless a farmer is making a lot of money per ton for smaller, more concentrated old-vine grapes, the incentive is always there to rip out those vines and plant something new -- even if it’s the same grape variety as before.

This is why there are almost no old Cabernet Sauvignon grapevines in Napa Valley. The prices for Napa Cabs make it economically unviable to leave old vines in the ground when a grower can replant new vines and make much more wine from the same plot of land. Turley Wine Cellars winemaker Tegan Passalacqua recently estimated that the average grapevine in Napa Valley is 17 years old.

This is not at all unique to California. Despite being a far older wine region, Bordeaux has almost no old vines at all, according to the Old Vine Registry. The financial pressure to replant is just so great.

Andy Beckstoffer is the largest owner of vineyards in Napa Valley. He likes old vines -but to a point.

“We keep them as long as we can and it makes economic sense. And you don’t have a disease that spreads,” says Beckstoffer.

In 2010, Beckstoffer bought part of the Hayne Vineyard in St. Helena, paying a reported $3.9 million for 13 acres. Hayne Vineyard was known as the source of some of the best Zinfandel and Petite Sirah in California. But even the best Petite Sirah in California doesn’t fetch as much from consumers as, say, the 100th best Cabernet from Napa. Beckstoffer didn’t want to tear it out -- but he knew how much money he wasn’t making.

“We had some old Petite Sirah and we found a way to keep it,” indicates Beckstoffer. “B Cellars is going to pay a Cabernet price. But the yield is less than two tons. So for me, it doesn’t make economic sense. But they can afford to pay Cabernet prices for Petite Sirah.”

Jim Borsack, founder of B Cellars, isn’t sure he can get Cabernet prices from consumers. He said that this will be his first vintage and he’ll have to charge more than $100 a bottle for Petite Sirah, but he wants to keep those vines in the ground. Fortunately, he’ll only have about 150 cases to sell, and he’s confident his mailing list will be interested.

“They brought us a couple of bottles (from the vineyard) from previous vintages,” says Borsack. “I told myself, ‘Jim, hate this wine.’

But I fell in love with it. Andy said these vines are historical. They were planted in 1950 and they’re to our knowledge the oldest vines left in St Helena. I’m a history major and that’s a pretty cool story. I did it because the wines tasted good, and it’s historically important to the valley. About every 25 years vineyards have to be replanted in Napa. The yields get so low

that it’s not economically feasible for growers to do it anymore. Or it gets red blotch (virus) so it doesn’t produce the quality you want. This is a leap of faith, but we’ve done things like this before.”

Randy Caparoso, a sommelier who blogs frequently for the Lodi Wine Commission, points out something technical about old vines. If they are trellised -- which means their extended limbs are stretched out on metal bars, the way most vineyards look today -- they deteriorate faster, as they are more prone to disease.

Most vineyards that endure are “head-trained:” their spurs aren’t attached to anything to make them grow up and away from the main vine. In Australia they call these “bush vines” because they look like little bushes, rather than the crucified look of trellised vines. They are more costly to farm, because they resist mechanization, but they are healthier.

“There are numerous Syrah blocks in South Australia that are over 50, 100, and a handful as much as 150 years old, because these are largely head vines,” says Caparoso, who also works with an old-vine project called Save the Old. “With the exception of a few scraggly Syrah vines in McDowell Valley, ‘old vine Syrah’ does not exist on the (U.S.) West Coast because Syrah is usually planted on trellises, and therefore cannot maintain quality and production over long periods. Spain is famous for old vine Monastrell and Garnacha. With the exception of Enz Vineyard’s head trained Mourvedre in Cienega Valley, ‘old vine Mourvedre’ does not exist in California; and with the exception of

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Photo credit: Randy Caparoso Photography

Photo credit: Randy Caparoso Photography

Manassero Vineyard old vine Grenache

Greg and Leonard Manassero amongst their old vines Grenache

one head trained block of 1940s Grenache in Lodi, Manassero Vineyard, I know of no ‘old vine’ Grenache in the U.S.” What California does have old vines of is Zinfandel.

Zinfandel was one of the most popular grape varieties in California prior to Prohibition for a number of good reasons: It is heat-tolerant, can produce big crops when young, and yields a fruit-forward wine that Americans like. Its ability to produce more alcohol than other grape varieties was also a big advantage until about 20 years ago; today farmers have to take steps to curb this tendency.

Most of California’s oldest vineyards feature Zinfandel, but not exclusively. The state’s early wine industry was mainly built up by Italian emigrants who planted in their style of the time: field blends. A single old Zinfandel vineyard might have 30 different grape varieties planted together that were meant to be harvested together. Today, winemakers blend in the winery. A century ago, vignerons blended when they planted the vineyard.

It’s interesting to think of what the state was like when its oldest vineyards were planted. France in the 1850s had a well-established wine industry that exported all over the world.

In 1855, Emperor Napoleon III commissioned a ranking of Bordeaux wineries that still endures to this day.

Across the Atlantic Ocean, it was literally the Wild West. California had become a state just five years earlier. Wars elsewhere between white settlers and Native Americans were on-

going, with the Rogue River War taking place in Oregon just as the Bordelais were anointing Lafite-Rothschild as a first growth. The Pacific Northwest had been the focus of more settlers until 1848, when gold was discovered in California, leading to a rush of 300,000 people from around the world. San Francisco’s population boomed from 1,000 to 25,000 in just two years.

To give themselves wine to drink, Italian miners planted vineyards, and a few endure today.

In 1849, William McPherson Hill was one of the savvy gold rush participants to realize that the real money was to be made selling things to miners, so he bought land in Sonoma Valley and planted peach orchards -- his main moneymaker -- and vineyards.

Hill planted his vineyard in 1852, making what is now called Old Hill Vineyard one of the oldest documented vineyards in California. In the early days he probably sold as many grapes as finished wine; many people made their own wine at home then, a practice that didn’t really diminish in the US until after Prohibition.

Old Hill is unusual today in California in that it was established before phylloxera hit the state hard in the 1880s, causing many growers to not just tear out their vines, but plant an entirely different crop. Napa Valley went from 20,000 acres of vines in 1890 to just 3,000 at the decade’s end. But for people who did want to plant, phylloxera-resistant rootstocks had become popular, so some vines from that era, and every time afterward, endure.

Ravenswood founder Joel Peterson put Old Hill on the wine map when he began making a

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single-vineyard wine from it. That became part of a series of single-vineyard Zinfandels that highlighted old vines and brought the vineyard owners more money, removing the incentive to replant.

When he sold his winery Ravenswood to Constellation Brands, Joel Peterson used some of the money to buy a Sonoma County vineyard planted by mining baron George Hearst -- father of the newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst -- in 1888.

“I was told they were going to pull out those old vines and plant Cabernet,” says Peterson.

“Most of the grapes had been going to Sebastiani. I pitched a fit with one of the younger people in the family. Two weeks later I got a call from the matriarch who said, ‘You like those old vines, maybe you’d like to buy the vineyard.’

I had just sold Ravenswood. I had a little mad money to play with. Usually the conversation is, if these grapes are so important, can you pay me enough to keep them in the ground? Part of the cycle of being in the wine business is keeping the entire system healthy.”

Peterson has been making wine from old vines for more than 50 years. In his early days at Ravenswood, his competition for the state’s oldest vines was Gallo, which was buying the grapes for its Hearty Burgundy jug wine, and Sutter Home, which kept many of these old vines alive by buying the grapes for sweet pink White Zinfandel. Peterson said many growers then didn’t replant because they couldn’t afford to. Ravenswood paid a little more than Gallo or Sutter Home for the grapes; along with

Ridge, it was one of the first wineries in California to actually pay more for old-vine grapes.

Peterson now makes wine from some of the same old vineyards at Once and Future Wine.

His son Morgan, who made his first wine before he was legally able to drink, has learned from his dad’s corporate adventure, instead making small-lot single-vineyard wines for his own Bedrock Wine Co. “These vineyards, planted by California’s viticultural pioneers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, are living pieces of history,” Bedrock’s website says. “If something has been growing for over 100 years it not only deserves the respect of us humans, but it probably makes some darn good wine too.”

This leads us to Lodi, which has the biggest concentration of old vines in California. Peterson was one of the first to value the many old vineyards planted in a region that was then known for cheap wines. Most of Lodi’s old vineyards are Zinfandel-based field blends, but not all.

The Bechthold Vineyard was planted in Lodi in 1886 on deep, fertile soil that kept its vines healthy for 125 years rather anonymously, as the owners thought they were an obscure and not valued grape called Black Malvoisie. They were selling the grapes for $200 a ton to go into jug wine and thought they would rip them out because they weren’t worth the trouble. Then a UC Davis professor visiting a neighboring vineyard took some samples of leaves and grapes back to the university, where they were quickly identified as Cinsaut, a grape used mostly in

Photo credit: lodiwine.com website

Photo credit: Randy Caparoso Photography

Bechthold own-rooted Cinsault vines

Al and Wanda Woock Bechthold

rosés in southern France. The Bechthold Vineyard is now considered the oldest Cinsaut vineyard in the world, and the wines made from it are special (and highly recommended).

That takes us to the most important person in preserving old vines: You. Bechthold Vineyard was preserved because the owners can sell the grapes for more money, and they can do that because people like you are willing to pay more for the wine.

In June, the international Old Vine Registry was launched. It’s an amazing resource: a searchable database of old vines from around the world. You can search for any region and it will show you vineyards at least 35 years old in that region. There are even links directly to buy the wines from them. And hopefully you will.

“We strongly believe that old vines must be sustainable,” says Rosa Kruger, founder and chair of the Old Vine Project. “We feel a great responsibility to keep workers on the land.”

Bucklin said that while he needs Old Hill Vineyard to be self-sustaining, that’s not what drives him.

“It’s sustainable,” Bucklin says. “We go to the bank and pay our taxes. We can keep putting money into the vineyard. We don’t get money out of it. I don’t think about that. I think about this place that I live, this place that I love, and hopefully have the next generation come and not encumber it with a lot of debt. It’s never crossed my mind to replant the old block.”

W. Blake Gray is US editor for WineSearcher, the world’s most-visited wine website. He has written about wine for many publications including the San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times.

In 2013 he won the Roederer Award for best online wine writer in the world.

During the pandemic, Blake rediscovered his childhood love of cheeseburgers, but his death-row meal is steamed crabs. His cocktail of choice is a Manhattan. Blake lives in San Francisco.

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Sustainability …

It’s complicated.

By Michelle Bouffard

As human beings, we like when things are black and white. It’s somehow comforting.

Grey areas require thought and weighing pros and cons. They often come with the need to accept that things might not be as perfect as you would like them to be.

Unfortunately, the journey of adopting sustainable practices is rarely black or white.

Regardless of how committed you are, you will be faced with legitimate challenges along the way. To make the change requires bravery and resilience.

When interviewed for this article, people

were asked what their biggest dilemmas were with respect to adapting to and mitigating the effects of climate change. The immediate answer was the same every time: ‘this is an enormous and complicated question to answer.’ From the vineyard to the glass, the list of challenges is exhaustive and varies from one region or producer to another.

Long-term vision and patience are essential when one decides to do things differently. Anyone who has watched the documentary Kiss the Ground finished the movie with an overwhelming sentiment of hope. The film talks about the

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power of regenerative agriculture and the significant role it can play in mitigating climate change. Is it the miracle solution? While many wine producers have faith in it, the transition to regenerative viticulture takes time and comes with its load of challenges. There is no quick fix. Especially in hot and dry climates. As Michel Gassier in Costières de Nîmes explains it, the ‘old way’ to conduct a vineyard in many parts of the world was not necessarily ideal for regenerative agriculture.

Like many others, Gassier planted high vine density vineyards with vigorous rootstocks.

“This allowed us to get quality relatively fast.

But if you put cover crops in those vineyards today, especially permanent cover crops, they compete with the vines for water and nutriments. Going forward, we will select different rootstocks and plant with lower density.” In the meantime, the dilemma for Gassier is around keeping his vines healthy during this transition. This means, irrigating. “One of the reasons I can go from organic to regenerative agriculture is that I have access to water. With climate change, we already have water stress.

In a year like 2022, we only had 150 mm of rain by mid-August. Luckily, we have a canal that takes its water from the Rhône 30 km before ending up in the ocean. But once we have built more organic matter in the soil [through regenerative agriculture] which I think it will take four to five years, we won’t need to irrigate anymore.”

Currently, Gassier has converted 80% of his 140ha to regenerative agriculture. Step one is to find out which species is best adapted to each type of soil. Next step will be to identify which plant sinks the most carbon. L’Institut de la Vigne et du Vin is doing a lot of research and Gassier meets with Eric Chantelot, the director of the organization, regularly.

Research is constantly evolving. One of the difficulties with climate change is the urgency to act now despite all the uncertainties. Let’s just look at grape varieties, for example. Climate change is increasing disease pressures in every region, particularly fungal diseases.

In 2021, some producers in the Penedès region

lost over 50% of their production to mildew.

According to l’Institut Français de la Vigne et du Vin (INRAE), fungal diseases are responsible for 80% of the use of fungicides in the industry. INRAE have invested heavily in the research of hybrids as they think hybrids could eliminate the need to spray. The newly developed hybrids, so-called PIWI or ‘cépages résistants,’ were created to have multiple resistant genes as the result of multiple crossings. Many people are skeptical though on their miracle abilities.

Diseases adapt and mutate and find a way back in, warns Thomas Dormegnies, engineer in Agronomy, who works at the nursery of Lilian Bérillon in the southern Rhône. At Lieslehof in South Tyrol, the Morandell family has fully embraced PIWI in the name of sustainability. However, owner Julian Morandell admitted at the last conference of Tasting Climate Change that after 20 years, vines start to lose their resistance. While more producers around the world are exploring PIWI as a solution, it might be wise not to rely solely on them.

Additionally, the laws put in place in Europe to protect the typicity of the appellations limit the use of PIWI. Regenerative agriculture and PIWI are just two examples on how complex things are when seeking solutions in the vineyard to adapt to climate change. Things are evolving rapidly but research takes time. And research is needed in so many other areas: mycorrhiza, autochthonous grapes, clones, rootstocks,

irrigation, agroforestry, and the list go on and on. Not to mention that there is a different equation that works for different regions, sites, terroirs, and microclimates.

Knowledge and access to expertise are key.

But while waiting for answers, one must start their journey and the answers often come after many trials and errors. Mac Forbes reminds of the importance of having conversations and celebrating progress...even if it’s not perfect.

“If for example, someone starts looking at alternatives and uses one instead of four chemical products to treat his vine, that’s progress.

Focus on what they are doing right rather than focusing on what they are not doing. Going from four to one is not perfect but it’s a major shift. People stop making progress when they don’t see a change. Encourage your neighbour to be brave.” In addition, what’s easy for a region might be difficult for another. It’s easy in Argentina to have organic vineyards reminds Laura Catena of Catena. Much easier than other regions, “but we have other challenges.”

One of the big struggles for producers is the cost that comes with adopting sustainable practices. Argentina is faced with financial difficulties. According to Catena, “In my country, we have subsidies for gasoline but not for solar panels. Unlike in Europe where producers have access to subsidies [for solar panels]. This makes it hard for small and even big producers to reduce their carbon footprint by using solar panels.”

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In addition to that, Catena reminds that her government takes 0.50 cents in taxes for every dollar earned and on top of it, companies must pay corporate taxes. Therefore 70% of the population in Argentina simply don’t pay taxes. Meanwhile, like producers from other countries, Argentines have the pressure to be carbon zero. “This was one of the problems with the Paris Accord. The countries who are the biggest emitters of C02 like the US and Canada expect the countries with fewer financial means which pollute much less to have the same standard. In Argentina, we have 25% per capita of the carbon emissions of the US and Canada. The wealthy countries should help the poorer countries. And sometimes, the most valuable help is knowledge, not money.

For example, producers in Argentina have little knowledge on how to track carbon emissions. Providing that expertise [which can cost a lot of money] would be a huge help.”

Mac Forbes is also worried that sustainability is attached to wealth. “Many companies decide to be sustainable to tick boxes as a self-elevation. But they don’t necessarily embrace it as a way of life. Meanwhile, you might have a small farmer who wants to embrace sustainability and stop using herbicides, but he simply can’t justify a $30k under-vine cultivator. It is a very fragmented industry.” It is not a level playing field, yet we judge everyone by the same standards. Don’t we?

Forbes also reminds that even when you have the financial means and want to purchase 38

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the most sustainable equipment, it is not always possible. Getting an electric tractor in Australia is nearly impossible. The demand is high, but the market is small and most of those machines made in the US are not shipped to Australia. And there is a long waiting list. And sometimes the technology is not quite there yet. Recently, Forbes wanted to get an electric forklift, however, he was told by the manufacturer that the machine was not powerful enough to get up the hill at his winery. He will have to wait until a new and more powerful model comes out.

Besides expertise, time and money, the other biggest barrier everyone mentioned was the gap between what the producers are willing to do versus what the consumer is willing to accept, especially with respect to alternative packaging. Market perceptions vary from one country to another and that’s a struggle. “At the end, if we can’t sell our wine because we are not putting a capsule on our bottles, we won’t be financially sustainable. Luckily, things are starting to change,” says Forbes.

At Catena, they tried selling their ultra-premium wine in a cardboard box rather than wooden boxes, but consumers pushed back.

“It’s difficult to make changes when other players you’re competing with within the same category are putting their wine in beautiful packaging. Consumers buying fine wine are not ready for alternative packaging. Just the same way they don’t want to see their expensive bottle of perfume in a cheap packaging.

When a monopoly like the LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) or the SAQ (Société des alcools du Québec) require light weight bottles for a category of price, it’s an even playing field for everyone,” shares Catena. It’s a vicious cycle. Consumers won’t change their perception if leaders in the wine industry don’t educate them.

The list of dilemmas is much longer. As Mac Forbes said it so well, your brain is always going to find an excuse for starting tomorrow or to stop what you have begun when faced with challenges. That’s why we must encourage bravery. It’s about creating small steps that are achievable and accessible. You might want to go from A to Z and just got to B, but what’s important is that you have already made progress.

As the poet and scientist Johann Wolfgang von Geothe once wrote “Whatever you can do or dream you can begin it. Boldness has genius, magic and power in it. Begin it now.”

Michelle Bouffard is a sommelier, author, speaker, educator and consultant based in Montréal. Her first book Dis-moi qui tu es, je te dirai quoi boire was published in 2017 and for the past six years, she has been the sommelier on the popular Quebec cooking show Curieux Bégin. In 2017, Michelle founded Tasting Climate Change, an international symposium to explore the challenges and solutions in the wine industry.

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39

Riesling:

the Misunderstood Maverick

By Barbara Philip MW

Photo credit: Thirty Bench

More than any other grape variety, Riesling is misunderstood, undervalued and stylistically undefinable. In spite of Riesling’s non-conformist personality, we wine professionals feel compelled to force it into a neat package for consumers and are then frustrated when they don’t understand or appreciate it.

The general populous, it seems, doesn’t value tension, depth, complexity, length and ageability in a wine as much as we do.

Riesling has never taken off the way many of us predicted it would. In fact, in British Columbia, it is harder to sell than ever; today shoppers are nine times more likely to reach for a Pinot Gris. Great wine producers talk about staying out of the way of terroir and stewarding the grapes toward the wines they are destined to be. Perhaps we can try a similar tact with marketing Riesling. Recognize it for the maverick that it is and let curious consumers find their way to it. Traditional marketing tactics are not effective with Riesling as there is an enduring bias against its potential sweetness, the wines can be complicated as they reflect the extreme conditions in which they are grown, and the innate character of the variety is an acquired taste.

Catherine Faller, proprietor of Domaine Weinbach in Alsace, puts it bluntly: “Several markets including North America were flooded with bad, sweet, cheap/industrial German Rieslings a few decades ago. Many consumers still carry a prejudice towards Riesling in general because of that and despite the fact that nowadays most of German and all of Alsace Rieslings are dry.”

Indeed. What sommelier, wine merchant or tasting room host hasn’t heard, “I don’t like sweet wines” when a customer declines a suggestion of Riesling? As an industry, we have tried patiently to explain that, while some of these wines are sweet, many are dry and there is a delicious range of possibilities everywhere 40

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Old vine Riesling grapes

in between. It’s all about the balance, we say, as the customer’s eyes glaze over. We’ve developed labeling systems, put on seminars, written articles and poured hundreds of wines to try to prove our point. And yet the reputation persists. Meanwhile other trends come and go. Sweet Moscato, sweet red blends, sweet Cabernet, sweet Pinot Noir have all had their time in the spotlight in North America. So why is the fear of sweetness levied only at Riesling?

Could it be because the wine trade focuses so much on it? Are Riesling lovers inadvertently propagating this prejudice?

Top Riesling comes from unapologetic vineyards that convey their strong personalities to the grapes. Thoughtful producers respect their sites and learn how to guide the grapes through the winemaking process without imposing their will. Nowhere are conditions more dramatic than in the dangerously steep

Photo credit: Austrian Wine/Gerhard Elze

Steep sloped vineyards in Austria’s Wachau region Photo credit: courtesy of Flat Rock Cellars

slopes of Germany’s Mosel Valley. The vineyards where Johannes Selbach and his family work have been farmed continuously for over 2,000 years, yet he says, “what the combination of a long, gentle growing season and a unique, crumbly, mineral-rich, 400 millionyears-old soil hold in store for us, certainly still fascinates and influences us.” Selbach admits that there is some consideration for market trends during the winemaking but, ultimately, the terroir has the final say.

Catherine Faller, whose Schlossberg Riesling is nothing short of transcendent, calls Riesling, “one of the most terroir-transparent grape varieties.” She refers to the Schlossberg vineyard as a very “demanding” site that “is double the work and half the yields compared to most other Crus in Alsace. It is a poor soil, very dry, steep and terraced, where you need to give young vines 20-25 years before they can start to thrive and produce great fruits.” Wine from this kind of vineyard can never be simple.

In Austria, Riesling, not Grüner Veltliner, is planted on the steepest sites along the Danube where the combination of marginal climate, slope and weathered rock soils produce uncompromising wines. The most extreme examples both in terms of topography and style are the Smaragd Rieslings from the Wachau that bring the boldness of the terroir to the glass.

Producers outside of Europe generally have a wider choice of what to grow in their vineyards and the non-conformist nature of Riesling has meant few regions have embraced it as a signature variety. Where you do find it, you also find producers that don’t shy away from taking risks.

In Ontario, Riesling is valued for its ability to transmit the raciness of cool climate terroir. While there are a range of styles, the pronounced minerality and relentless acidity are constants. As far as the issue of sweetness goes, producers are aiming for the best quality

Flat Rock Nadja’s Vineyard

wine regardless of what the final tech sheet says. The goal, according to Magdalena Kaiser of the Wine Marketing Association of Ontario, is “for balance in their Rieslings so that the high natural acidity is in harmony with the natural sugars.”

One of the earliest vinifera planted in British Columbia, Riesling was traditionally modeled in a sweet and light bodied Germanic style. In the early 2000s, Tantalus Vineyards broke with tradition by making a brazenly austere Riesling and have been trailblazers for drier, full-bodied examples.

Tangy, lime-scented whites are not what most consumers think about when they consider Australian wine but with the work of producers like Stephanie Toole from Mt Horrocks and Jeffrey Grosset of Grosset Wines, Clare Valley Riesling has become a benchmark. In 2000, mavericks Jane and Andrew Mitchell along with Toole, Grosset and 10 other Clare producers, changed the course of winemaking history when they made a pact to bottle their top Rieslings in screwcap.

As wine professionals, we recognize that stunning wine is made from Riesling grown in some of the most impressive vineyard sites in the world. We also have to acknowledge that

only a small percentage of drinkers will get to the level of wine appreciation that allows them to fully embrace it. For most, intense minerality and driving acidity are way scarier than sweetness. “Riesling is something people graduate to,” says David Paterson, winemaker for Tantalus.

Catherine Faller agrees that the variety is not necessarily for beginners: “It is not an immediate wine like Chardonnays or Pinot Gris can be, with their soft, rounder profiles. Some Riesling may be a little austere when young, showing a sharp acidity, it could be compared to music: the first approach might be difficult, but once you enjoy, you get addicted…!!!” Johannes Selbach explains, “a big, commercial producer might be tempted to make a small number of ‘easy-to understand’ wines by blending many of the small batches made during a given harvest,” but for Selbach-Oster, “the family and the team alike will go to great lengths to preserve characterful wines, to bottle multifaceted, ‘complicated’ but delicious wines in relatively small batches.”

Those of us who believe in Riesling, believe in it fiercely and are thankful there are dedicated producers willing to make the racy and complex wines we love. But the very things that excite us about Riesling are what makes it a niche product. Like great art and interesting people, the best wines are complicated and thought-provoking. And not for everyone.

Those curious enough to get to know this maverick variety, however, will be richly rewarded.

Barbara Philip MW was the first Western Canadian to achieve the Master of Wine designation in 2007. She is currently a Category Manager for BC Liquor Stores where she is responsible for the European and Canadian selections. Through Barbariain Wine Consulting, Barb works as a presenter, journalist and judge. Barb has been recognized for her work in European wine by some of the world’s most prestigious wine organizations and is a member of the Confrérie des Gentilshommes de Fronsac, the Confraria do Vinho do Porto, the Commanderie des Grands Vins d’Amboise and the Confrèrie des Chevaliers du Tastevin in Burgundy.

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Verdejo D.O. Rueda:

The Little Grape & Region that Could

By Christine Sismondo

Aerial view at Bodegas Castelo de Medina

En route to Valladolid, our future home base for a tour of the Rueda wine route, we stop in Segovia, a medieval city an hour north of Madrid that’s known for its impressive castle, striking cathedral and one of the best-preserved Roman aqueducts in the world.

Those are the three greatest hits of this UNESCO World Heritage site, but there’s at least one other thing Segovia is well-known for—suckling pig. In the core, practically every other restaurant seems to offer cochinillo (roast suckling pig). The ones that don’t sell pig seem to mostly sell lechazo de Cordero (milk-fed lamb).

We settled on Mesón de Cándido, a restaurant that’s something of an institution, partly because of the show they put on involving slicing the meat with a plate (to show how tender it is). Then they smash the plate on the ground, perhaps to show how breakable the plate is.

Anyhow, since it’s lunch and we’re headed to white wine country, we order Verdejo, even though that’s not exactly the textbook pairing for pork. It was, however, the perfect match for the first course, a rustic white bean soup, 44

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as well as the second, white asparagus. And, when it came to the main event, the 2021 Palacio de Bornos Verdejo, a lively wine with herbaceous character, bright citrus and punchy acidity, managed to more or less hold its own.

That meal, and the overall food scene in Segovia, make it perfectly clear why Verdejo has a history of being an underdog—to the point that, 50 years ago, this grape was one vineyard away from extinction. It’s a fresh young wine in the old world and, even though it stands up relatively well to rich foods, in the past it struggled for recognition, even in its own backyard.

Now, though, Verdejo from D.O. Rueda is having a serious moment, both in terms of growth and acclaim, for a range of reasons, including the fact that, even in Spain (although perhaps not so much in downtown Segovia),

Bodegas Castelo de Medina has 180 hectares of its own vineyards, all of which are 30 years old and considered the "soul" of the winery.

Santiago Mora, director general of the D.O. Rueda, says that the potentiality of the region is still to be discovered.

diets have lightened up to include more vegetables and fish, which pair perfectly with this bright white.

The wine owes its new-found success, largely, to one region, D.O. Rueda, with which it has a perfectly symbiotic relationship. This Denomination of Origin, only established in 1980, is thriving thanks, largely to the grape, which now represents 88 percent of its vineyards. D.O. Rueda has become Spain’s third largest wine producer—and number one in whites—largely because it put all its faith in Verdejo—the little grape that could.

Last year, the region’s production was over 100 million bottles and it’s still experiencing rapid growth. According to Santiago Mora, director general of the D.O. Rueda, “the potentiality of the region is still to be discovered.”

The last time there was this much excitement over wines from Rueda was nearly four centuries ago, when the region (then called Medina del Campo), was known for its Dorado, a fortified wine made with Verdejo that was favoured by the Spanish Royal Court. In the eons since, the region has faced many of the same problems as the rest of the continent— frequent wars, the collapse of empire and, of course, phylloxera, which was the first blow to the region’s signature grape. Pre-aphid, Rueda had 90,000 hectares of vines, believed to be essentially 100 percent Verdejo. Now, even with the rampant growth, there are still only just under 21,000 hectares.

When it came to post-aphid replanting in the 20th century, the region went all in on Pal-

Faced with food shortages, many growers in Rueda (and elsewhere) understandably ripped out grape vines and planted subsistence crops.

And even the few growers whose vines made it through the Civil War weren’t making a lot of wine. When owner and manager José Antonio Arévalo showed us the stunning sandstone brick wine cave in the basement of the Garciarévalo winery, he stopped to explain one small example of the hardship and the impact it had.

“During the crisis, there was almost no wine for aging, so people used tunnels like these to grow mushrooms because they are dark and cool,” says Arévalo.

Although the economy recovered and food shortages ended in the late 1950s, there still wasn’t much of an appetite for Spanish wine outside its borders. And, since the domestic market was mainly focused on red wine, many growers in the region planted a new grape, Viura, which was used to make bulk wines.

This all started to change in the mid-1970s, towards the tail end of the Francoist dictatorship, when el caudillo’s health was failing and a new era of democracy appeared to be on the horizon. This opened the door, not only to the possibility of new markets, but also to collaborations with foreign winemakers, who brought with them invaluable expertise. In the case of Rueda, one of the first and certainly most consequential, was French Oenologist Émile Peynaud, who, in 1974, was hired by nearby Rioja’s Marqués de Riscal to establish the Sauvignon Blanc grape in Rueda and, of course, impart his knowledge of modern winemaking.

omino Fino, the dull, low-acid, workhorse variety used to make sherry in Jerez, with a plan to make more of its own fortified wines—Pálido and Dorado. “In Spanish, ‘dorado’ means ‘golden’ so, since the wine is golden, we call it that,” explains Mora, “And ‘pálido’ means ‘pale’, so, since it’s a pale wine, we just say what it is. In Rueda, we are very basic about our wine.”

Although some wineries still make these fortified wines, most are now made with Verdejo instead of Palomino Fino, which gives them a more aromatic character. Since re-plantings of Palomino Fino are now not allowed by the Rueda Regulatory Board, which is focused on restoring the region’s indigenous grape, it should all be Verdejo-based soon enough.

Pálido and Dorado from this region never achieved the acclaim of the wines from the ‘Sherry Triangle,’ although, to be fair, wine wasn’t a top priority for anybody circa 1935 to 1955, owing to the Spanish Civil War (19361939) and the ensuing Hunger Years, a period of food scarcity that persisted into the 1950s.

Most of Spain experienced food shortages long after most European countries had recovered from the famines that plagued much of the continent after the Second World War. The Hunger Years lasted here longer than elsewhere because, despite Spain being officially neutral, authoritarian ruler Francisco Franco had blatantly supported the Axis powers. After the Allies won, that fact was neither forgotten nor easily forgiven. As a result, the country gained a “pariah status” and was shut out of post-war aid and trade.

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Established in 2019, the average age of the vines at Bodegas Pandora is 25 years.

Rosa Zarza Gil, enologist and director at the ultra-modern Bodegas Pandora.

“That, for us, was a turning point to replant an area where the vines had been uprooted and to turn it into a productive wine-growing area again,” says Santiago Mora, noting that the D.O. was established a few short years after the French oenologist arrived. “That was the first step towards putting us on the map.”

Peynaud recognized that the conditions in Rueda—mineral-rich rocky soils, high-altitude plots and the dramatic changes in temperature from day to night—made this region an ideal candidate for producing high-quality still white wines. That was a novel concept in a place that had spent decades working on either bulk juice or dessert wines and, in fact, in Spain, period, which made little of this style of wine. The Riscal-Peynaud plan was focused on Sauvignon Blanc, but just opening the door to making this style of wine in this region was an important step in the revival of Verdejo.

“Peynaud found the Verdejo grape in parcels mixed with other varieties,” says Mora. “Its potential was soon realized and, by 1980 when the Denomination of Origin was created, its main purpose was to recover the autochthonous grape, the Verdejo.”

Referring to this variety as autochthonous (or indigenous), can be slightly confusing, since the grape is originally from North Africa, but, since that migration happened a thousand years ago and it thrives in the region, it’s considered a native grape. One that Peynaud wasn’t initially overly enthused about, and that happened to be practically extinct, save for a few scattered plants and, most importantly, the bush vines at Martínsancho, Ángel Rodríguez 46

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The "cascajo" (gravelly) soil at José Pariente.

Vidal’s 17th century family vineyard that he refused to replant with Viura, despite pressure.

“At the time, the cooperative wineries were buying grapes for bulk wine and they didn’t care about the quality,” says Vidal’s daughter, Concepción Rodríguez García who maintains the family tradition as winemaker at Bodega Martínsancho, a winery in La Seca that was established in 1780. “My father believed that, even though he made less money with it, the Verdejo, in these pebbly soils, was producing a better wine than the Viura.”

Since his pre-phylloxera bush vines saved the grape from extinction, Vidal is considered the godfather of Verdejo. He would go on to be a major force in the establishment of the D.O. Rueda, which saw many growers come together and unite in their mission to restore the grape to its former glory. In recognition, in 1982, King Don Juan Carlos awarded Vidal the Civil Order of Agricultural Merit.

At Bodega Martínsancho, Concepción Rodríguez García makes wine like her father did—extremely small quantities of a single expression aged in oak in an ancient cellar. These elaborate cave and tunnel features, like the ones we saw at Garciarévalo are common and a highlight of the tours of this wine route. At Alvarez y Diez, we had the pleasure of touring “the Inquisition,” a five century-old veritable maze of tunnels in Nava del Rey that this pioneering Rueda winery uses for its cellar. The winemakers in this region have always understood the importance of keeping things cool and now that’s been taken to an artform with wineries armed with a toolbox full of strategies

for protecting the Verdejo and getting the most out of that delicate grape.

The methods include night harvests, careful attention to lees-ageing, elaborate refrigeration systems, protective canvas sheets—all designed to transform this delicate grape into the perfectly-structured, energetic, crisp, aromatic and high-acid wines that are now pouring everywhere. Despite the rich heritage, which includes centuries of winemaking and an ancient grape, the Verdejo revival is profoundly modern and based in enthusiasm for the oenological science that Peynaud first introduced here nearly 50 years ago.

And now that the methods are down pat, many winemakers are putting their unique stamp on it, whether it’s playing around with barrel-fermentation, the use of indigenous yeasts, amphorae-ageing and a new generation of delicious biologically-aged wines. Still, there is a crystal-clear vision of what the basic fingerprint is, namely, lively, high-acid and bone-dry.

Or, as Mora puts it: “never flimsy, never flabby and never muddy.”

Mora is also probably right about the potentiality of Rueda’s Verdejo. Although it’s already a somm fave and wine pros love it for its value, consistency and ability to pair with challenging plant-based dishes, it’s not exactly a household name outside the industry. Once it is, it’s likely to take off even more.

It’s a grape with a rocky past and it barely scraped by. But, for Verdejo, and the region that believed in it, the future looks bright.

A small parcel named Finca Las Comas at José Pariente was planted in 1910 and is devoted to bush vines in pebble soils.

Victoria Pariente and Martina Prieto Pariente

Harenna Verdejo Edicion Limitada 2018 After tasting the elegant and vibrant wine with its strong citrus notes and herbal nose, a telling number of people in the group started reaching for their wallets. Made from old vines with ancestral clones in the winery’s own sandy and dry pre-phylloxera high-altitude vineyard, the wine is fermented with wild yeasts, aged on the lees and in clay. It’s a treat.

Cuatro Rayas 61 Vermouth Verdejo Although there’s a long history of making fortified wines in Rueda, it’s a pretty niche side hustle for most wineries. One of the few exceptions is Cuatro Rayas, a co-operative winery on the outskirts of the town of Rueda, just south of the Douro river, that makes both vermouth and Dorado, the fortified golden wine the region used to be famous for. The vermouth is a lovely aperitif, with plenty of anise, citrus peel, and a perfect hit of bitter on the finish, which is best served over ice with a splash of fresh orange.

Although we’re less likely to see the Dorado in Canada, the biologic aging expressions are worth looking out for, in particular the 61 Dorado En Rama, which is a dry, nutty, complex and gorgeous expression that sits somewhere between a sherry and a dry marsala.

Bodegas Pandora Pandra Verdejo That’s not a typo, a trademark dispute has meant that Bodegas Pandora, a state of the art, thoroughly modern addition to the Rueda wine trail, has to omit an “o” and spell its wine’s name “Pandra.” As winemaker Rosa Zarza Gil notes, though, the labels are so captivating, it’s

The winery at Bodega Finca Montepedroso sits at 750 metres and overlooks a small valley.

actually easy to mis-read it and think the name is spelled as you might expect. This gets even easier to forget about once you’re sipping this bright and complex wine made from grapes grown at 800 metres above sea level. Wildly aromatic, full of punchy citrus and stone fruit, this high-acid, medium-bodied wine is a classic verdejo born to be enjoyed with a rich and indulgent veggie-forward lunch.

José Pariente Verdejo Fermentado en Barrica 2020 José Pariente is note-worthy for having been one of the first in the region with a woman winemaker, Victoria Pariente, as well as and early outlier for producing highly-acclaimed expressions. Now it’s pioneering the art of barrel-fermented expressions, such as this weighty wine that somehow manages to balance the spice, smoke and other influences from the French oak, while still retaining the fresh character, herbal qualities and lemon oil notes on this silky and profound wine.

Tres Pilares Verdejo on Lees (Donkey)

Finca Montepedroso Verdejo 2021 Wineries from nearby Rioja figure heavily in the evolution of Rueda’s Verdejo, since, starting with Marqués de Riscal, many winemakers from that famous region have expanded west to build out their white wine programs.

Founded in 2010 by Familia Martinez Bujanda that has two wineries in the Rioja region, Finca Montepedroso is an impressive facility housed in an architectural masterpiece situated on a stunning slope next to its own vineyards. The 2021 Verdejo is an exquisitely balanced combo of pepper, floral notes and a little sweet lychee.

Bodegas Protos Verdejo 2021 Better known for its winery in nearby Ribera del Duero, which is nearly 100 years old, Protos established an outpost in Rueda in 2006 so that it could delve into serious white wine production at an impressive custom-built facility in La Seca. With a full mouthfeel and tight structure, this wine is serious enough but, at the same time fun, with plenty of youthful fruit—a balance of bright kiwi and fresh citrus.

This incredibly friendly family-owned winery in La Seca that also plays around with oxidative aging, differentiates its expressions with imagery—labels with foxes, bicycles, carts, horses indicating the style and production method of the wine. The donkey is a standout verdejo achieved through bâtonnage—six months on lees with careful agitation—and the result is a buttery, full-bodied wine with a little strawberry and plenty of stone fruit.

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Short Eats - Long Nights

The Love for Sri Lankan Drinking Bites

By Meher Varma

I first discovered drinking bites – colloquially called ‘bites’ – on my fourth visit to Sri Lanka in 2021. The economic crisis that would devastate the country a year later had been anticipated by some, but was both far and speculative enough for drinking culture to press on at the full beat that it usually does on the teardrop shaped island.

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By this visit, I had done most of highly insta-

grammable Sri Lanka: I had stayed in many of Geoffrey Bawa’s gorgeous villas that came to define the aesthetic of tropical minimalism; I had been to many of Colombo’s upmarket bars and restaurants, and checked off the must-do Sky Bars that offer great views of the city (but at the cost of predictable, foreign-friendly menus). I was in search for something beyond the touristy life of sun, sand and spa.

I called a local friend. She suggested we go out and get trashed. Before I could stop her to say that this experience wouldn’t quite be novel either, she informed me that we’d be going to her favourite ‘bites place:’ – a phrase she hurriedly translated as ‘short-eats’ but with the warning that the anglicized translation could not capture what I’d experience. I was pleased with the other instructions - to dress down, and come with low expectations. “It’s anything but fancy” she added, before hanging up.

Mintage was bustling by the time we got there, at around 730pm. I could hear 90s hip-hop thumping through the speakers. We got a table outside, sandwiched between two groups of drinkers, one of which seemed to be happily inebriated. While there were a few women present, almost half of the restaurant was occupied by men (as recently as 2018, the Sri Lankan government imposed a ban on women buying alcohol, which was later lifted).

Many members of both groups were still in office clothing; I noted gently creased shirts that seemed to be finally retiring into the weekend.

Not long after we took our seats, a gentleman from the happy group began chatting with us and offered to send a few beers our way.

My friend informed him that I was here to “ex-

perience bites,” and with that, he insisted we join tables - “bites are about coming together,” he said, the liquid confidence translating into pure friendliness.

What I noticed about the Mintage menu right away - an observation that would be true of all the bite centered bars I would come to visit - was the incredibly affordable prices, especially of liquor. Delicate drinks are anathema to places like this: all alcohol is served either in 50 or 100ml; ask for 25, and you’ll be laughed at. A local gin was about Rs. 200 in 2021, and hasn’t gone up much since (that is well less than a dollar). Arracks, the preferred local liquor, was priced at about Rs.150 for a 50ml shot (that’s 50 cents, US).

But I was more interested in the food on the table, which seemed to be in endless supply. The group that we had joined had, along with their multiple drinks, many plates of spring rolls, an order of fried rice, hot buttered mushrooms, and fried chicken wings. They generously passed around their plates. There was no rationing, no accounting, no question of who-ate-what. Part of this had to do with the low prices of the foods – one of these dishes cost approximately Rs. 400 (about $1.5) – but the spirit of sharing, “of coming together” as my new friend said, was the stronger force that guided the night.

The food itself was consistently marked by a tingly, sensational, deep umami flavour.

This came from the abundance of chili flakes, onions and capsicums that were used in the dishes. Discussing the flavour profile of these bites with my friend who drove me home, I noticed that her interest was less in helping me pin down the exact nuances of the dish, but to get me to understand that bites serve as a kind of fuel. “The less filling they are the better, for what is important is that they create a scenario

in your mouth for which more and more liquor can be washed down….” A zingy canvas, and oxygen for more talking, more drinking, more sharing is what I understood that night, is the prime purpose of bites.

Bites, which were once more commonly referred to as Short Eats – and still are, especially on some of the island’s more upscale restaurants menus – have a colonial history, but the range of foods that fall under this gastronomic category suggest a complex history of immigration to the island.

According to the Ceylon Daily News’s Cookery Book—a sort of Sri Lankan Joy of Cooking—”short eats’’ are “derived from the tidbits Europeans on the island served with sherry at six in the evening, a sort of cocktail party nosh.”

But now, as even a short trip to Sri Lanka would confirm, they are everywhere – on roadsides, at train stations and in the trains, on pushcarts, and of course– at local watering holes.

While Mintage gave me a glimpse into some of the dishes that constitute drinking bites, I soon discovered a whole array of options that are easily available to anyone in search of a partner for their drinks: kotthu rotis (flaky breads that are essentially envelopes to succulently cooked fish, egg, vegetables or meats), a variety of vadais (deep fried lentil fritters ) and cutlets – which many locals say make the perfect cure for munchies. Deviled everything – i.e chicken, vegetables, fish, shrimp – is staple bites vocab: a method which roughly translates to creating a fiery bed of chillies and onions for an ingredient to sit on. There are also regional differences when it comes to bite preferences: in Kandy, the largest city in Sri Lanka’s central province, the beef samosa is a favourite.

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Compact enough to be enjoyed in one big bite - this constitutes a layer of crisp pasty parceled around spiced, ground beef.

This small sample of bite varieties alone point to the deep cosmopolitanism of the island. The rolls came with the Chinese, the cutlets and patties with the British, and the vadais with the Tamils from India. The roots of ‘devil-ing’ can be traced to Rome, but most likely, became popular with the British in Sri Lanka.

I was also fascinated to learn about a short eat that was named during the war. The Mithivedi, a flat roll that consists of potatoes and boiled eggs, is named after a landmine.

This reminded me that while the easy observation may be that bites are drinking food, they are always so much more: they are loaded with politics, seasoned with history, and reflective of the people who enjoy them the most.

When a debilitating economic crisis took hold of the island in 2022, drinking bites, and drinking in general became distant memories.

Basic necessities - milk, oil and gas – became luxuries and the videos of people queued up to buy fuel, 24/7, broke the internet. This was followed by mass protests against the Rajapaksa government who the people pointed to for the huge piles of foreign debt the country had amassed. This was exacerbated by a series of lockdowns, soaring inflation rates, and fall in the foreign currency. Tourists naturally disappeared and going out for fun – even when offices re-opened – became something of the past.

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I was in touch with a few of my local friends during the peak of the crisis. To help me understand the gravity of the situation, one said: “imagine waking up one day and finding that you are a whole socio-economic class lower than before…. ie. from middle class to poor, or rich to middle class.” Another, who has a relentless sense of humor that shines through even the worst of times, asked me to mail him some cheap gin to reverse the situation.

We reminisced about the bites that we’d have alongside. I think we both recognized melancholy to be the conversation’s aftertaste.

Even with my limited knowledge, I knew that it wasn’t just gin and bites that were being missed. It was what they facilitated – being together.

When I returned to Sri Lanka in 2023, the island was thankfully showing signs of stabilizing, although economic anxiety still marked the mood of most middle class Sri Lankans. In a context where hosting and attending fancy gatherings was still reserved for the elite, going out for drinking and bites had regained the important position they always occupied in the Sri Lanka culinary universe.

I even discovered a new dish or two, thanks again, to local friends. I came to love handelo, for instance, which is a large fish with tiny, edile bones, coated in an airy-light batter. And one evening, when walking back to my hotel, I came across what is now my favorite Sri Lanka snack: the kandala. Found on carts all across

the city, this snack is made of chickpeas, which are boiled and tempered. A heady mix of green and red chillies, chili flakes, curry leaves, salt, and coconut coat them, lending them a fiery, addictive flavour. As I lined up behind two locals for my purchase, they struck up friendly conversation. I took the opportunity to ask them how much of “normal” life had resumed for them, given the ongoing effects of the crisis, and if what they did for fun had changed.

“Not much,” the younger of them was quick to reply. “We still love drinkin’, we still love chilin’, and we still love our bites.” I joked with them that at one point I wondered, while hearing about the deepening crisis, if bites culture would go extinct. “Never!” he laughed, before making a dramatic statement that will always stay with me — “No bites, no Lanka!”

Meher Varma is a New Delhi based anthropologist, writer and brand strategist. She regularly writes for Indian and international food and lifestyle publications and hosts a podcast called BadTableManners for WhetstoneRadio.

Since completing her PhD from UCLA in 2015, Meher has been working as a creative storyteller with an ethnographic approach. Her go-to restaurant that never disappoints is Carnatic Café in New Delhi for a casual meal and Tres for something fancy.

Ulysses Lisbon

The Greatest Cocktail Experience per Square Metre

By Christine Sismondo Photos: courtesy of Ulysses

On many an Insta-post, a small bar in Lisbon called Ulysses has been mistakenly tagged as the world’s smallest cocktail bar.

Granted, it’s an understandable error, given that this

micro-speakeasy, which is tucked away on a quiet laneway in Alfama, the city’s oldest neighbourhood, is truly tiny. On a busy night in the before times, owner Manuel Barreira allowed up to 12 guests in his “Cocktail Closet,” which is three square metres. Try to imagine drinking in a medium-sized foyer with benches lining the walls on either side and a small service bar, just big enough for one person to lean on, at the end of the cattle chutelike space.

Now, even though pandemic restrictions have been lifted, Barreira tries to keep the numbers down to two customers at a time. Exceptions can be made for parties of four or even six, so long as everyone knows each other and is comfy sharing this miniscule space.

Still, Ulysses is not the world’s smallest. In fact, it’s practically roomy compared with, say, Backdoor, a cocktail bar in Milano with room for four guests.

A cocktail bar aptly-named “Tight” in Tokyo’s lively Shibuya district only seats five.

None of those other tiny bars offer up what Ulysses does, though. Barreira promises an odyssey into flavour, lessons on the history of spirits, Portugal’s largest bourbon collection and smart custom cocktails, all delivered up with a focus on the guest. Or, as Manuel Barreira says, when it comes to “experience per square metre” Ulysses wins the prize, hands down.

“It’s a bespoke concept, so we don’t have a menu,” explains Barreira, noting that a key part of the experience is that it’s guest-centric, as opposed to bartender flair.

“It’s mostly riffs on classics.”

“I’m not into foams, wafers, gels, cocktail caviar, or anything resembling molecular mixology,” he adds.

“I’m not here to reinvent the wheel.”

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All guests at Ulysses are asked four questions so that Barreira can concoct the perfect custom cocktail for everyone.

1. At a fruit market or grocery store, what non-citrus fruit would you pick?

2. Lemon, lime or orange, what would you pick?

3. What is your favourite spirit or what spirit you are currently in the mood for?

“Those first three questions are just Cocktail 101,” says Barreira. “All cocktails are made up of part sweet and part sour and part spirit, the latter of which is the star of the show.”

But then comes the wild card, No. 4: “If you walked into an ice cream shop, what flavour of ice cream would you pick?”

“Nobody’s ever asked you that question about the ice cream in a cocktail bar,” says Barreira, “But it presents the framework in which I can start composing the masterpiece of the cocktail.”

Vanilla and pistachio are the two most common choices. When he hears that, he knows he has to stay “within the borders.” When people choose a really unusual flavour, though, like, say, wasabi or pickled mango, he knows they have an adventurous palate, which gives him licence to “push the envelope.”

Why ice cream? He thinks it’s the key to unlocking childhood taste memories.

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“My DNA is 100 percent Portuguese, but I was raised in Edmonton,” Barreira explains.

“When I was a kid, an ice cream truck would come to the street in front of my house every day in the summer so, as soon as you heard the bell and the music from the truck, that would bring back a memory. One that stayed with you.”

“I had a guest from the United States come in last year who picked butter pecan ice cream,” he recalls. “And the drink I made him brought back such strong memories he had tears in his eyes. The most important thing about bartending is being a good listener.”

The second most important thing, surely, is knowing the standard formulas and ratios of mixology that make it possible for cocktail bartenders to “freestyle.” Some classic cocktail recipes, like the Corpse Reviver #2 from the 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book, for example, act as blueprints for mixing sour, sweet and strong elements. It’s exceptionally amenable to swapping things in and out, making it possible to use almost any combination of spirit, liqueur, aperitif wine and citrus, which makes it possible to use obscure liqueurs that might remind people of, say, butter pecan or pistachio.

None of that would be possible, though, without Barreira’s spectacular back bar, full of antiquities and esoteric bottles, such as Amaro Ferrochina (which was initially invented as an iron supplement), Génépi, Singeverga (a Portu-

guese monastic liqueur), Chartreuse Tarragona, century-old Campari and Bénédictine from the 1930s, all of which have unique flavour profiles that North American bartenders covet for their power to transform a drink. Although the dozens of bottles of Pappy Van Winkle get all the press, it’s the rare monastic liqueurs that cocktail folk drool over.

Prior to opening Ulysses in 2017, Barreira worked with a lot of bartenders in his role as founder and owner of Global Wines and Spirits, which is the main reason he knows all about these bartender favourites and secret weapons. Interestingly, the esoteric liqueurs in question aren’t nearly as popular in cocktail bars in Portugal as they are in the United Kingdom and the United States.

“Portuguese people really stick with wine,” explains Barreira, “And, when it comes to cocktails, the palate is sweeter. You don’t see a lot of Negronis here.”

“The only country in the world Martini Rosso changes its recipe for is Portugal to make it sweeter for the local palate,” he continues. “It’s not a country with a great cocktail culture.”

Despite this, Barreira decided to go against the grain and open up this venture in Lisbon.

Since Ulysses is generally more likely to be “full” of out-of-towners than locals, it’s worked out.

It begs the question, though: Why Portugal?

It started when he inherited the family vineyard in northern Portugal and began making more frequent trips to his parents’ homeland.

“I wanted to know more about my roots,” he recalls. “I was born on that vineyard, and I sleep in the room I was born in when I visit.”

The vineyard, though, is in Póvoa de Lanhoso, which is nearly 400 km north of Lisbon, the easiest place to fly in and out of. After a year of putting in offers, Barreira finally managed to find a small building in the capital’s Alfama neighbourhood to call his own. And the main floor space, once home to a shoe repair store looked like the perfect place to show off his world-class spirits collection.

The Cocktail Closet is more than just a tiny bar with an outsized liquor collection, though.

It’s a concept, a philosophy and an approach to service and cocktails that’s starting to outgrow its tiny digs. It’s hard to contain all that fun in three square metres, which is why Barreira has increasingly been asked to take the Closet on the road to places like Victoria, Vancouver and Edmonton, cities where he has plenty of old friends behind the bar.

This fall, he’s scheduled to make an appearance at Toronto’s Fairmont Royal York to freestyle drinks with his old friend and DIAGEO World Class great, James Grant, who heads up the program at the acclaimed Clockwork bar.

And we’re quite sure that, even in these much larger spaces, Barreira will still manage to deliver up the greatest experience per square metre. That’s a prize he’s always sure to win.

Photo credit: courtesy of Dead Rabbit

An Irish Whiskey Revival

The Tap Room at NYC’s famed Dead Rabbit

By Jessica Dupuy

Somewhere on the wild west coast of Ireland, an old man sits in a small, time-worn pub with whitewashed walls, a simple reedthatched roof, and old wooden doors and window panes painted a cheerful shade of blue. He sits at the bar, his face weathered by years and the salt-kissed winds of the Atlantic, eyes twinkling with Irish humor and tales untold. In his hands, he cradles a glass of Irish whiskey. He inhales the aroma - vanilla, oak, a hint of Irish grain fields. Taking a sip, the smooth spirit rolling over his tongue, warming him from the inside and leaving behind a complex symphony of flavors - a little sweet, a hint of spice, a touch of fruitiness, all underpinned by a distinct, earthy undertone. In that moment, there’s only him and his whiskey – a simple pleasure, a cherished ritual, a salute to the enduring spirit of Ireland.

Irish whiskey’s allure stems from its storied history as one of the first ever produced.

Its name of origin was uisge beatha in Gaelic, meaning “water of life,” the phrase evolved from a pronunciation of “wishka ba-ha” to whiskey. This spirit has significantly influenced Irish social customs, gatherings, and storytelling traditions. Despite enduring political and agricultural challenges, including

the Prohibition era in the United States, Irish whiskey remains deeply connected to the land and its tale of survival and revival.

For decades the category has been dominated by industry pioneers such as Jameson, Bushmills, Powers, and Tullamore Dew. Jameson alone is one of the biggest success stories in the world of Irish whiskey, with a global presence and recognition that began in 1780 when John Jameson, a Scottish businessman, established the Bow Street Distillery in Dublin. In 1966, a merger between Jameson & Son, John Power & Son, and the Cork Distilleries Company established the parent company Irish Distillers, a tribute to the company’s heritage in Irish spirits.

In 1971, the company relocated to Midleton in County Cork, and in 1988, Irish Distillers became a subsidiary of Pernod Ricard. Other brands under the Irish Distillers umbrella, in addition to Jameson, include Redbreast, Green Spot, Powers, Paddy, and Midleton Very Rare.

The Old Bushmills Distillery in Northern Ireland is one of the oldest licensed distilleries in the country, dating back to 1608. And the original Tullamore distillery was established in 1829 in Tullamore, County Offaly.

Over the past decade, many global conglomerates have been eager to have at least one, if

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Photo credit: courtesy of Micil Distillery

Brothers Pádraig and Jimín Ó Graillais of the Micil Distillery

not a handful of selections in their portfolio.

Bushmills belongs to Proximo (which is owned by the same family that owns Cuervo), Kilbeggan Distilling Co is owned by BeamSuntory, while Tullamore D.E.W. is with Grant & Sons, Slane Irish Whiskey is with Brown Forman, Teeling Whiskey is with Bacardi, and Dublin Liberties Distillery is with Quintessential.

Though these are only a handful of examples, the recent growth in popularity for the category makes it easy to see why these global brands want a piece of the Irish Whiskey pie.

In 2016, the category in the U.S. alone was up 18.7% in volume to 3.8 million cases, with revenues growing by 19.8% to $795 million, according to a 2017 report by Beverage Dynamics.

Statista reports that by 2023, the revenue in the Irish whiskey market is projected to be $0.70 billion, with an expected annual growth rate of 7.41% for the period 2023-2027. The volume of the whiskey market is expected to amount to 9.66 million liters by 2027, with the market expected to grow by 3.2% in 2024. These data points illustrate the considerable increase in demand for Irish whiskey over the past several years.

While multinational conglomerates drive the volume of Irish whiskey sales, independent distilleries are adding new depth and creativity to the category. The emergence of smaller producers has diversified the market, offering unique flavors, styles, and quality.

This modern era of Irish whiskey kicked off with the Dingle Distillery in 2012. The humble operation is located in a converted sawmill in Milltown on the outskirts of Dingle, a Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking region) in the southwest of Ireland.

“We were of the first new breed of whiskey distilleries when we started. There were only three other distilleries on the island, but now there are nearly 50,” says Elliot Hughes, Managing Director at Dingle Distillery.

Under the direction of master distiller Graham Coull whose background includes brewing and distilling for such brands as Glenfiddich, Balvenie, Kininvie, and Glen Moray Distilleries, the brand has garnered a reputation for its single malt and pot still whiskeys matured in different types of casks including Pedro Ximenez, Oloroso sherry, bourbon, and port casks. Leveraging the unique maturation conditions along the west coast of Ireland, Coull has used his knowledge of Scotch whisky to develop distinctive new expressions and releases.

Others soon followed, including the Echlinville Distillery in Belfast, The Shed Distillery in Drumshanbo, and Royal Oak Distillery in County Carlow, each growing to sizable production of up to 1 million liters of pure alcohol (LPA) within their first decade.

“These independent distilleries create variety that larger businesses and distilleries can struggle to bring to the industry, making the

Photo credit: Micil Distillery

Micil head distiller Jimín Ó Graillais 54

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category rather repetitive,” says Hughes.

These smaller producers have become a foundational part of the industry, not only helping to preserve a tradition of a spirit heritage passed down from generation to generation but also bringing healthy competition, pushing other producers to embrace the freedom of creativity and experimenting with different methods of production, maturation, and blending.

“The distilling landscape in Ireland is more vibrant than ever with more variety in terms of the quality and the styles of whiskey being produced,” says Mark McLaughlin, Director of Irish Whiskey at New York’s famed Dead Rabbit.

Recent years have also witnessed the emergence of micro-distilleries such as Killowen Distillery in Northern Ireland and Micil Distillery in Galway. Emphasizing the tradition and heritage of Irish whiskey was a prime motivation for brothers Pádraig and Jimín Ó Graillais when they opened Micil in 2016. Located in the seaside neighborhood of Salthill in the back of a former brewery, the small operation was the first legal distillery in Galway in over 100 years.

“We owe a lot to the big brands like Jameson who have recruited people into the category,” says Pádraig Ó Graillais, who named the brand in honor of their great-great-great grandfather, Micil Mac Chearra.

For Ó Graillais, producing an excellent spirit is only half of Micil Distillery’s goal. Reviving Connemara and Galway City Whiskey traditions deeply rooted in the region’s heritage is

IRISH POITÍN

equally important.

“It’s up to the smaller producers to express their regional character. In our case, we’re using peat, casks of various sizes, and casks with lots of Latin European heritage, which reflects Galway’s history as an important trade city for Spain and Portugal in the 15th century.”

McGlaughlin points to other companies like Sliabh Liag Distillers and Ardara Distillery in Donegal who are focusing on producing 100% peated whiskey marking a return of smoky Donegal-style whiskey as well as a range of independently sourced smoky whiskeys, bringing new depth to the peated category in Ireland.

“I think there are several distilleries throughout the island that now have a truer and clearer sense of identity,” says McGlaughlin.

Blackwater Distillery & Boan Distillery in counties Waterford and Meath have emphasized reviving long-lost mash bills containing barley, oats, wheat, and rye. Church Of Oak Distillery in County Kildare began in 2021 to produce the most distillates than any other distillery in the country from 100% Irish grain, in both double, triple, and hybrid distilled setups, a seemingly small detail, but in truth, it’s a testament to how independent producers are driving creativity.

The growth of independent producers owes, in part, to a change in legislation. The 2018 Intoxicating Liquor (Breweries and Distilleries) Act allowed small-scale craft breweries and distilleries to sell their products on-site to visitors participating in guided tours. Under

As moonshine is to American whiskey, poitín is to Irish whiskey. This traditional spirit is as ingrained in the culture of Ireland as fourleaf-clovers and Guinness. Pronounced put-cheen, it’s a spirit made in Ireland since the sixth century, when Christian monks produced it as aqua vitae. Historically, distillation was not regulated in the country until the 17th century, when it was banned under British rule to control smuggling and protect tax revenues. However, this prohibition led to a thriving underground poitín trade, similar to moonshine.

In 1997, legislation was introduced in Ireland to regulate the production and sale of poitín, defining it as a spirit distilled from cereals, grains, whey, or potatoes, with an alcohol content of up to 94.7% ABV. This marked a significant shift, allowing licensed distillers to produce and distribute it legally. Historically, the production of poitín was often passed down through generations in secret family recipes, as is the case with brothers Pádraic and Jimìn Ó Griallais of Galway’s Micil Distillery, whose family has been distilling for more than 170 years over six generations in Connemara, on the west coast of Ireland.

"Poitín’s evolution has followed our history as a country from colonization and taxation to independence,” says Pádraic Ó Griallais, whose distillery makes a range of Irish whiskey and gin but began in 2016 by first releasing poitín. “We’re proud of our poitín-making

heritage and wanted to expand on that tradition now that it’s legal.

So few people understood poitín as a category, and we were excited to share this tradition and spirit with the world.”

Though it has been made from potatoes, beet sugar, and molasses, poitín is typically made with cereal grains such as barley, oats, and wheat. It’s often clear and un-aged, though some producers may let it see a little time in barrel before release. As to the taste, poitín is a strong spirit (anywhere from 40 - 90 % ABV), rich in congener characteristics from distillation. Notes of malt and cereal grains shine through with sweet and spicy flavors. Many poitín offerings are peated, giving the finish a distinct, subtle smokiness.

In 2008, Poitín was designated with a Geographical Indication (GI), protecting the spirit as an official product of Ireland with specific regulations to ensure quality and authenticity. As a result, poitín production has seen a resurgence in recent years, with several distilleries, including Micil, Teeling, Glendalough, Bunratty, and Bán, releasing unique selections to promote the spirit’s unique character and heritage.

The revived interest in Poitín reflects a broader trend in the spirits industry, where traditional, artisanal, and lesser-known spirits are gaining recognition and appreciation. It allows locals and visitors to taste Ireland’s spirited past and experience a unique aspect of the country’s drinking culture.

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IRISH WHISKEY STYLES Irish whiskey is protected as a geographical indication, meaning it must be produced in compliance with a specific set of regulations in order to bear the “Irish whiskey” label. These requirements ensure that Irish whiskey maintains a consistent standard of quality and authenticity. It must be made from a mash of malted cereals (such as barley) with or without whole grains of other cereals. The use of enzymes and caramel coloring is allowed, but no other additives or flavorings are permitted.

The spirit must be distilled on the island of Ireland in a traditional pot still or a column still. It must undergo a distillation process that produces a spirit with an alcohol content of less than 94.8% by volume (abv), and bottled at a minimum of 40% abv. The whiskey must then be matured in wooden casks, such as oak barrels, for a minimum period of three years. The casks can be previously used for other wines or spirits, but they must not exceed a capacity of 700 liters. The minimum aging period of three years must take place in Ireland.

However, if the whiskey is exported for additional maturation, the total aging period must still be at least three years.

There are several types of Irish whiskey, including: Single Malt Irish Whiskey: Made from 100% malted barley in one distillery using a pot still. It is often complex and full-bodied.

Single Pot Still Whiskey: This uniquely Irish style of whiskey is made from a mix of malted and unmalted barley distilled in a pot still within a single distillery. The inclusion of unmalted barley in the mash gives it a spicy, creamy, and full-bodied flavor.

Grain Whiskey: Made from a mixture of malted barley and other grains, typically corn or wheat, grain whiskey can be produced using continuous column stills, which results in a lighter, smoother spirit.

Blended Whiskey: This is a mix of two or more types of whiskey (e.g., malt, grain), often combining the complexity of malt or pot still whiskey with the smoothness of grain whiskey.

Single Grain Whiskey: This type is made from grains other than barley or a mix of grains, distilled at a single distillery. It is typically lighter and milder. Examples include Teeling Single Grain and Glendalough Double Barrel.

Peated Whiskey: While not as common in Ireland as it is in Scotland, there are a few examples of Irish whiskeys made using malted barley dried over peat, which imparts a smoky flavor.

the old regulations, visitors to distilleries in Ireland could participate in guided tours and learn about the production process. But they were prohibited from purchasing or consuming alcoholic beverages on the premises. This shift opened new opportunities for distilleries to engage directly with consumers, offer tastings, and sell their spirits. Distillery tourism has flourished as visitors can now experience the production process firsthand and purchase bottles directly from the distillery.

As an ambassador for Irish whiskey, Mark McLaughlin works closely with brand owners to showcase the growth and diversity of the category. Irish spirits take center stage in innovative cocktails at establishments like New York’s renowned Dead Rabbit. A recent update to the menu includes 22 cocktails showcasing 15 Irish spirits, 9 of which are made by independently-owned Irish producers. Celebrating these brands and distilleries reflects the depth and breadth of the Irish whiskey category.

“As we’ve seen this growth over the past decade, it’s been important for us to place emphasis on celebrating these brands and distilleries so more people know about what Irish Whiskey has to offer,” says McGlaughlin.

Irish whiskey’s appeal extends beyond its borders, resonating with the Irish diaspora worldwide. With its cultural connection and availability in more countries than ever, Irish whiskey is embraced as a symbol of Irish heritage and a testament to the enduring spirit of the Irish people.

“We’re seeing new layers to the Irish Whiskey category with smaller producers exploring regional variations and innovations with process and maturation,” says Ó Graillais. “A shelf with only a handful of selections of Irish whiskey doesn’t come close to representing the depth and breadth of what the category offers today.”

Indeed, as the industry evolves, the dynamic landscape of Irish whiskey production brings forth a wide range of offerings and regional expressions, ensuring that this beloved spirit remains cherished and celebrated worldwide.

Jessica Dupuy is a wine and spirits columnist, certified sommelier and WSET Diploma candidate. She is the author of several books including Uchi: The Cookbook; The Salt Lick Cookbook: A Story of Land, Family and Love; The United Tastes of Texas; Tex-Mex: Traditions, Innovations, and Comfort Foods from Both Sides of the Border. Her latest book, The Wines of Southwest U.S.A. covers the emerging wine regions in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado. Dupuy lives in the Texas Hill Country, just west of Austin, with her family. Among the things she enjoys most are cooking with her kids, sharing great wine with friends, and fly fishing with her husband.

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The Making of

Lou Reed’s

Berlin

By Annie Zaleski

Lou Reed was never one to be conventional. And so after finally earning longed-for mainstream success with his 1972 glam opus Transformer, the former leader of the Velvet Underground retreated to Berlin: a challenging song cycle about a couple’s illfated relationship and the tragic events that led up to this ending.

Musically, Berlin is an evolution for Reed.

While David Bowie is an influence on the roiling orchestral flourishes of Caroline Says I, other songs are dour and gritty. Horn blasts and syncopated guitars inform the louche-grooved Oh Jim; Lady Day is offbeat German cabaret; Men of Good Fortune is prog-like in its ambition and execution. Even tunes with a more colorful palette—Sad Song brims with flutes, horns and woodwinds, a rather lush backdrop for the subject matter—are more ambitious.

The sonic pivot was unexpected. Reed had a very successful 1972 that saw him releasing two albums: a self-titled debut effort and then Transformer. The latter married the Velvet Underground’s counterculture vibe with grand instrumentation: meditative strings, crunchy guitars, groovy horns, shimmying rhythmic grooves. Vicious is an extroverted, swaggering rock number, while the majestic Perfect Day and introspective Satellite of Love showed off his tender vocal side. And then Reed’s biggest hit ever, the ahead-of-its-time queer anthem Walk on the Wild Side, a languid stroll that celebrates Andy Warhol’s universe with (among other things) evocative lyrics and a saxophone solo

by David Bowie’s one-time teacher Ronnie Ross.

Reed recruited multiple glam luminaries for the record, starting with Bowie, who co-produced the album and provided backing vocals

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The Making of Lou Reed’s

and arrangements. Two members of Bowie’s band, The Spiders from Mars, also played a prominent role: Mick Ronson co-produced the LP and added his signature guitar pizzazz, while Trevor Bolder contributed trumpet. Bass came courtesy of future Marc Bolan contributor Herbie Flowers—the man responsible for the sinewy underbelly of Walk on the Wild Side—and Manfred Mann member/Beatles associate Klaus Voormann.

Driven by Walk on the Wide Side—which became Reed’s most successful U.S. single ever, peaking at No. 16—Transformer became a worldwide hit, reaching the top 20 in the UK, Canada, Australia, and the Netherlands.

However, the LP’s success was a double-edged sword. In a striking first-person essay published in The Independent in 2015, Reed’s thenwife, Bettye Kronstad, revealed that Reed’s record company subsequently put “enormous pressure” on the musician; a protracted case of writer’s block ensued, which led to drinking and depression. “He got caught up in a fairly familiar, but vicious cycle.”

However, Reed found a direction forward in part thanks to Canadian producer Bob Ezrin, noted for his work with Alice Cooper. When the pair met in person, it sparked a creative collaboration: According to a 2013 interview in Metro News, Ezrin said he wanted to learn about the endings of the stories Reed told in songs—particularly the couple in the 1972 solo song Berlin who are parting ways for an undetermined reason, even though the protagonist seems to have nothing but happy memories of the union.

Reed agreed, noting in a 2007 interview, “I’m writing these songs and a character appears in a song and then disappears forever.

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And we’d thought; ‘Why does he or she disappear forever? Why can’t they re-appear in the next song or the song after?’ That was the basic idea.” Reed retreated to New York City to write, and came back to Toronto a month later with the bones of Berlin. The songs featured “just magnificent, visceral, elemental writing,” Ezrin recalled. “So unadorned. So simple, so to the point, but eloquent, sensitive, and kind of romantic. That’s Lou. Unadorned but romantic to his core.”

Berlin starts with a nod back to the 1972 solo song, Berlin, by shortening the song’s lyrics to just the briefest exposition: a couple named Jim and Caroline sitting in a café together enjoying some music. Appropriately, the song sounds like an upscale eatery; a burst of ambient background noise (complete with a snippet of a rousing sing-along of Happy Birthday) gives way to a jazzy piano number. (Of interest: The contemplative instrumental piano coda was initially only heard on the cassette and 8-track version of Berlin).

On this song, Reed’s voice possesses a slightly ominous tone—as if he’s an omniscient narrator and knows that things won’t stay so tranquil. Indeed, the album quickly starts to deteriorate. On Lady Day, Caroline comes out of her shell, shedding any shyness after being drawn to sing to the music in a bar. That seemingly minor gesture would eventually seem to be her undoing: Jim spends the next few songs unraveling emotionally, first via a cynical critique of class differences (Men of Good Fortune) and then trashing Caroline herself as a mean, callous person (Caroline Says I).

We get a small glimpse into what might be causing these feelings on How Do You Think It

Feels—Jim hints at drug use, meaning he’s not in his right mind—before the album’s perspective pivots on Oh Jim. First Jim himself admits he’s lashing out at Caroline—before Caroline herself takes over the song and laments the poor treatment she’s receiving. The rest of Berlin is a slow, sad descent, with Caroline first standing up for herself and telling Jim off, then losing her kids due to her perceived shortcomings as a mother and then finally dying by suicide.

Speaking to The Guardian in 2007, Reed said Berlin’s theme was “jealousy, jealousy, jealousy. There are certain subjects that will always stand out, and jealousy’s a real big one. Show me a man that’s never been jealous.” Jealousy can cause rifts and discord; fittingly, in the same interview Reed added that he viewed the real city of Berlin in Germany—then divided into East and West by the Berlin Wall—as a symbol for interpersonal conflict. “I’m thinking of A Streetcar Named Desire, Death of a Salesman,” he said. “Or novels. I was reading Ginsberg, Burroughs, Selby. I’m thinking: what happens if you put a drum in there and some music. What happens?”

However, Berlin also has deeper things to say about oppressive gender roles—Caroline seems to be punished for behaviors that don’t conform to womanhood, and her story and voice aren’t as prominent in the narrative as Jim’s thoughts and perspectives. As a protagonist, her persona is filtered through his eyes.

The insinuation is she’s not as valued or respected—and neither are her thoughts.

Berlin To record this batch of songs, Reed headed to Morgan Studios in London. His studio collaborators were an entirely new crew, encompassing now-notable names—bassists Jack Bruce and Tony Levin, drummer Aynsley Dunbar, Steve Winwood on organ and harmonium—and newcomers like guitarist Steve Hunter. In an interview with Guitar Player magazine, Hunter praised Ezrin’s acumen. “A major part of producing—especially in those days—was putting together the right musicians for the job, and Bob was (and still is) brilliant at that.”

That harmony was certainly evident throughout—and persevered despite Reed himself entering a period of turmoil. According to Kronstad, he started dabbling in hard drugs during the Berlin recording sessions, and also became abusive toward her. “Fame strode on to the stage, front and center,” she said. “The guy I began dating was a sweet, quiet writer who, like most of us, had challenges. The man I left had become a monster. Sometimes fame is a fiend. It turns people into monsters until they learn how to ride it.”

He’d soon find out what it means to have his ego checked. Although Reed loved Berlin, critics largely didn’t. Billboard’s review of Berlin in the October 13, 1973, issue took a rather neutral stance on the album. “A top notch set from one of the most creative artists on the pop music scene today, featuring Reed’s highly distinctive vocal style combined with his often witty, often sad songs.” Other reviews weren’t so kind: Rolling Stone called it “a disaster” and wrote it “was his last shot at a once-promising career,” while critic Robert Christgau concluded “the story is lousy” and “the music is only competent.”

Berlin’s commercial performance was also underwhelming. While a top 10 hit in the UK,

the album only reached No. 98 in the U.S. on the album charts. Kronstad also noted in The Independent that Reed had been dismayed by the realization people only wanted to hear him play Walk on the Wild Side and other Velvet Underground hits—and not his more challenging or nuanced work. “At first he was hurt,” she said. “Then he realized the fine print of the contract he had with the world. If he wanted to be a star, he had to give his audiences what they wanted, because it was also what they needed.

The overwhelmingly negative response to Berlin only confirmed his epiphany.”

The negative response to Berlin appeared to scotch at least one endeavor: Reed and producer Bob Ezrin were quite seriously considering translating Berlin to the stage. “Actually planning: what the hotel looked like, what the club looked like, how many floors, things like that,” Reed told The Guardian. “But they didn’t like it.

There was no way to get backing, no way to do it. That was that. You win some, you lose some, like a football game.”

Reed bounced back after this disappointment, landing his highest-charting U.S. album ever with 1974’s Sally Can’t Dance, before making another polarizing album with 1975’s Metal Machine Music. In short, Berlin wasn’t an anomaly but part of Reed’s solo career pattern: following his muse wherever it took him, no matter how uncompromising or outside of the mainstream.

Somewhat remarkably, however, time has been very kind to Berlin. Scottish band the Waterboys named themselves after a line from Sad Kids, while Rolling Stone changed its critical position and named the LP to its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. In 2007, Reed performed Berlin live in full in the US and UK,

with a band encompassing traditional rock band instrumentation as well as horns, piano and a cello. Backing him was a choir—including the New London Children’s Choir in the UK or Brooklyn Youth Chorus in New York—as well as vocalists such as the soul powerhouse Sharon Jones and, occasionally, avant-garde interpreter Anohni. Artist and filmmaker Julian Schnabel contributed stage set design. This configuration went a long way to helping Berlin rightfully take its place as a classic album.

Rolling Stone’s assessment of the show sums it up completely: “The triumph was all Reed’s, and too long in coming.”

Annie Zaleski is an award-winning author, journalist and editor with profiles, interviews, and criticism in a variety of publications including Rolling Stone, NPR Music, The Guardian, Salon, Time, and Billboard. She contributed liner notes to the 2016 reissue of R.E.M.’s Out of Time and Game Theory’s 2020 collection Across The Barrier Of Sound: PostScript and wrote Duran Duran’s essay for their 2022 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction.

Annie has been a radio commentator on various music and pop culture topics and also a talking head in the 2005 movie Punk’s Not Dead and in a 2014 Ovation TV special on the band Blondie.

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The Waning Legacy of

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Hyderabadi Irani Chai

by Amrita Amesur

Photos courtesy of Amrita Amesur

In India, chai is an emotion. The morning for most common people here doesn’t even begin until they take their morning tea (yes, take – not have/drink!). With local bakery made cake toast and khaari biscuit dunked into the hot spiced liquid, it’s THE morning caffeinated beverage of choice. There are countless variations of what eventually forms a potion of tea leaves, water, sugar, milk and spices. Each household has their own combinations of these ratios- personal blends of chai masala, whole or pounded spices, water to milk ratio, buffalo milk or cows, sugar or jaggery to sweeten, bashed ginger root or lemongrass for that vegetal backof-the-throat-heat, of course also the brand of black tea leaves! Not to mention the un-sweetened spiced chai for the very many suffering from diabetes in India.

Hyderabadis are no different and absolutely swear by their legacy of painstakingly made, sweet and custardy Irani chai. This rich cup of tea made with reduced milk has origins from the Persian and Zoroastrian immigrants that came and settled in Hyderabad in the late 19th and early 20th century, mainly for economic reasons, banking on its cultural similarities with their homeland of Iran. It helped that the Nizam of Hyderabad was incredibly welcoming of such immigrants. Persian or Dari was even a second language here during the pre-independence era. While the Irani chai in its current form may have emerged from the erstwhile British cities of Bombay and Poona, it has truly sustained as an everyday formidable feature only in the lives of Hyderabadis. The custodians of this tea-culture are the oldest of Irani cafes of Hyderabad and Secunderabad, providing space and quarter for the local community to congregate. Often equipped with their own in-house bakery, which doles out freshly baked goodies multiple times a day to go with the ubiquitous Irani chai, these cafes prove to be an irresistible oasis to the heaving masses.

Unlike other teas in India which are typically made by simply bringing milk, black tea, water and sugar to a vigorous boil together,

the Irani chai is unique in its preparation. Tea dust is brewed with water to create a decoction which is essentially a potent black tea. The decoction is then poured into what is referred to as a bhaapni which translates to a large steamer vessel that gives it the signature Dum/strength and depth in flavour, as it simmers slowly.

Separately, a large vat of milk is boiled on a low flame for several hours, until it turns into a sort of evaporated and lusciously sweet condensed milk, enriched sometimes with saffron and cardamom. These two separately simmered potions are then combined into porcelain cups with a saucer to match, to be served to the bustling local patrons - often with a side of freshly baked buttery Osmania biscuits, Hyderabadi onion and meat filled samosas and bun-maska (a soft bun sliced, slathered generously with salted butter and sandwiched) which is never far away. It’s often proclaimed that the roots of this milky sweet tea and the biscuits are decidedly a British era creation in India and bear no resemblance to the tea actually made in Iran itself, where they take their tea black.

But now with the costs of all ingredients having gone up astronomically, it is no longer feasible for many of these old joints to sustain

making Irani chai in the traditional way. Since places like these are expected to sell a cup of tea costing no more than Rupees 15-20, the rising costs of purchasing good quality milk, running the stove all day long to condense the milk and steam the tea decoction and source the specific Irani chai powder are all putting these places out of business. The low price point that made the Irani café a democratized space is no longer tenable. To add insult to injury, when certain owners increased the prices for this traditional chai, the customers stopped coming. Conversely when others moved to acquiring lower quality ingredients to maintain the current price point, the customers, unsurprisingly, stopped coming. Then there are those who’ve adopted the alternative and simpler approach to making this tea without suffering the hours of condensing the milk from scratch. Spoonfuls of store bought sweetened condensed milk are now added into the tea decoction by many restaurants as a sort of instant, if achingly sweet, Irani chai.

Along with the evolution of the chai itself, these democratized spaces are fast disappearing as the city expands and swallows them whole in lieu of infrastructure and development projects. There are countless cafes and QUENCH.ME

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bakeries that have caved and made way for road widening, newer fancier restaurants in its place, or simply just shut shop because the children of such café owners no longer wish to continue running the business for meagre returns.

Café Ramser in Secunderabad shuttered in 2019 after 57 years leaving a trail of many heartbroken patrons in the neighbourhood.

Cosmopolitan is now a restaurant serving only North Indian and Chinese food. Whereas Niloufer Café has embraced its new swanky avatar in its many branches littered across the city, where they attempt at setting the vintage sepia toned charm and ambience of the erstwhile cafes through decorative means. In this economy, who could even blame them for becoming the Starbucks of the Irani cafes, where the seating area is plush and the food menu is family friendly. The owner of The Grand Hotel, Mr. Mohammed Farookh Jaleel Rooz in an interview said that, “All these changes have come and there’s a large percentage of people who are liking it. At the end of the day, what sells really matters.”

According to native Hyderabadis, Irani chai and Irani cafes today make up a significant part of the city’s culture. Journalist and oral historian Yunus Lasania, a Hyderabadi local who has made it his mission to shed light on the city’s longstanding, complex political and cultural past starts his mornings in the city’s oldest Ira62

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ni cafes and still swears by the city’s teahouse traditions. In one of his posts about Irani cafes, he laments that upon re-opening of these Irani cafes post-pandemic, many of them have discontinued common seating arrangements and the use of traditional vintage porcelain cup and saucers. While they may seem like innocuous and necessary hygienic changes in a post pandemic world, Lasania believes it to be an albatross leading to the inevitable extinction of the city’s cultural makeup. “Sadly, though these traditional cups have made a comeback (not in all places however), some cafes like Grand now don’t have seating arrangements like earlier.

So, the whole concept of sitting and sipping Irani chai over long conversations might become a thing of the past.” Lasania is referring to the aforementioned Grand Hotel in the historic Abids neighbourhood, which is the oldest surviving Irani cafe in the city, having opened its doors in 1935.

Irani cafes have been known to be a safe space for the working classes, journalists, politicians, activists, auto rickshaw drivers, students and migrants, communists and poets, writers and historians. A place to mingle, hang out and engage with the stories and happenings of the city and its underbelly, rubbing shoulders (quite literally) with all classes of people. In a fiction novel called Milk Teeth by Amrita Mahale, based on Bombay in the 1990s, the characters discuss how Irani cafes were

seen as a more inclusive environment compared to the strictly vegetarian South Indian joints and eateries that prided themselves on their misplaced sense of caste purity.

“Going to Irani cafes has been more a men/ boys thing” says Sadhana Ramchander, a Hyderabadi local with whom I spoke. Welcoming though these spots may be, they generally tend to attract a hoard of crowds almost all of whom are generally men, the patrons, the owners, the servers – all of them. Ramchander gleans on an important perspective highlighting that public spaces such as these across India, have been dominated and created by men and mostly for men. Women, especially in South Asia, have been historically discouraged from being in crowded, male dominated spaces, such as these, for very logical reasons. While the Irani café today might be mostly harmless to any who venture into it, it continues to be an Adda of sorts for men to fraternize, much like the several roadside tea and cigarette stalls littered in every neighborhood in India, where too, women feel unwelcome and therefore, unsafe.

For Ramchandar and others not enamoured by the crowds, there are now gentrified versions of these cafes formed as franchisees of some of the original Irani cafes. They provide a curated version of the “quaint old-world charm” and cater to an upscale crowd that would like to access the Irani café experience, without the hassle of heading into the Old City.

RECIPE: IRANI CHAI Irani chai, especially the kind made in Hyderabad, is not typically the chai made at home, considering the long extensive process to making the tea decoction and the reduced sweetened milk, from scratch. Part of what makes it fabled is the shared drinking experience amongst the common public at the city’s various tea stalls.

However, there’s a quick store-bought solution in the form of sweetened condensed milk that can step in place of the reduced milk! This is my version of the ideal Irani chai.

YIELD - 2 CUPS OF TEA

This manner of de-contextualized up-scaling of the Irani cafés has pleased many of the newly onboarded patrons but been a blow in the gut for the Hyderabadis that grew up in and around this diverse commune of a space.

In his piece called Heterogenous Hyderabad in Economic & Political Weekly, Lasania wrote, “To me, a life without these cafés, where lakhs of Hyderabadis like myself spend time chatting nonchalantly over cups of tea every day, is simply unimaginable. Beyond the simple act of drinking tea to start the day, it is the unique taste and setting that Irani cafés offer, which have become part of Hyderabad’s essence.

Without these spaces, and the people who make them vibrant, the city will simply not remain the same.”

Chai may be an emotion in India but in Hyderabad, it is also akin to community and kinship.

Ingredients: Saffron – a few strands 2-3 cardamom pods bashed 1 small stick of cinnamon 2 tsp black tea leaves 1.5 cups milk of choice ½ cup of water 1.5-2 tablespoons of sugar or sweetener of choice 3 inches of bashed fresh ginger root 2 tbsp - condensed milk (adjust according to desired sweetness and taste)

Process In a small saucepan or pot over a stovetop, bring water to a boil. Add in the cardamom, saffron and tea leaves, simmering until the tea brews and spices steep into the water.

About 2 minutes or so.

Add in the milk to the brewed tea and bring it to a boil. About another 3-4 minutes, until it rises and falls a couple of times.

When the chai starts smelling fragrant and acquires a beautiful brown colour, lower the flame and add in the dd in the bashed fresh ginger and the sugar.

Simmer for a minute and turn off the stove. Put a lid on the pot of chai and rest for a minimum of 5-7 minutes and let the ginger gently infuse into the chai.

Reheat the chai, if necessary. Stir through and strain in the hot chai through a fine mesh strainer into cups.

Spoon in the condensed milk individually into the cups and stir through the tea.

Yes, this is meant to be a creamy, rich and custardy tea but I think the use of spices and fresh ginger root give it a fresh heat and kick, balancing the richness of the dairy.

Serve hot immediately with freshly baked goods and buttered toast.

Amrita Amesur is a corporate lawyer who is deeply passionate about food. She has spent the last year dedicatedly studying and documenting all of her family’s food experiences, while learning to develop her own voice as a cook and a writer. Her favourite comfort food is ghee idli podi and her go-to restaurant that never disappoints is Café Madras in Bombay.

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BAROLO

VINTAGE REPORT: 2019 | Michaela Morris

After two uniquely challenging consecutive vintages, Barolo’s winegrowers were content to encounter more familiar weather patterns in 2019. Classic, conventional, traditional and even ‘normal’ were all descriptors being bandied around.

The winter was long and much drier than usual, but

April’s generous rains replenished reserves. By midMay, the cool wet conditions resulted in the growing season being two weeks behind current norms – but consistent with patterns in the past. When temperatures finally shot up in June, the well-watered soil yielded rapid growth. Summer continued with heat spikes at the end of June and again end of July. The latter concluded with intense storms followed by a period of warm rather than hot temperatures in August.

Overall, the season was reasonably stress-free – no spring frost, no prolonged drought and relatively low disease pressure - certainly less than in 2018. For example, organic producer Chiara Boschis calculated spraying 13 times in 2019 versus 18 in 2018.

“The biggest challenge was hail before harvest,” says Silvia Altare who purchased the Elio Altare estate from her parents in 2016. The worst of the storms hit on September 5th marking a path through Grinzane, Roddi, the lower reaches of Serralunga, parts of La Morra and a bit in Verduno. Fortunately, damage was localized and affected estates suffered only minor losses for the most part. At Mauro Molino in La Morra, Martina Molino estimates losing 10% production exclusively in the estate’s Bricco Luciani vineyard - a reminder that owning parcels in diverse corners of Barolo’s intricate hills is an advantage.

Crucial to defining the character and quality of the vintage is, as always, autumn. In 2019, it was dry with warm days and cool nights through to mid-October. The Barolo harvest was solidly in October with most producers picking Nebbiolo within the middle two weeks. The long growing season gave balanced ripeness of sugars and polyphenols – conferring wines well-endowed with colour and structure.

One of the wines’ signatures is contained alcohol levels. Fabio Alessandria at Burlotto attributes this in part to the brevity of June and July’s heat waves, adding: “Autumn was sunny but with lower temperatures (compared to recent years) and significant diurnal tem-

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perature ranges.” In several wines, I noted a full degree less than 2018’s counterparts, and most hover around a reasonable 14%. pH levels are also lower in 2019 compared to 2018.

This gives more succulent, refreshing acidity and greater potential for ageing.

In the inevitable comparison with other vintages, both 2013 and 2008 are repeatedly referenced. Maria Teresa Mascarello at Bartolo Mascarello explains, “In terms of the weather, 2019 was similar to 2013 - but 2013 has more tannins.” Conversely, Valter Fissore at Elvio Cogno calls the tannins of 2019 “sharper.”

Some even equate it to the feted 2016 vintage. “But 2019 has more intense red fruit,” says Luca Currado, who surprised colleagues, journalists and enthusiasts alike by announcing his departure from the Vietti estate just as the new release tastings were starting in January.

In order to form my own judgement, I tried approximately 200 wines blind in January, supplemented by estate visits and tastings with producers at Vinitaly.

Though 2019 is not a particularly cool vintage – it is cooler than the vintages that follow. The wines have neither the structure, flavours, nor alcohol of an excessively warm year. Instead, they can be austere with upfront youthful tannins and underlying nervous tension.

The vintage offers plenty of thrilling wines, though they will need time – particularly the MGA bottlings. (Short for Menzioni Geografiche Aggiuntive - additional geographical mentions in English, MGA refer to defined subdistricts within Barolo.)

While 2019 is truly excellent, not every wine was a success. Some were marked by flaws such as excessive VA (volatile acidity) or Brettanomyces. Furthermore, not every commune was uniform in quality. My recommendations are organized by townships with further comments there. I have only included wines I tried from bottle (as opposed to unfinished cask samples) and limited the selection to one wine per estate. However, the region’s top producers should be proud of the exceptional quality throughout their range.

MULTIPLE COMMUNES

BAROLO

MONFORTE D’ALBA

Despite the trend to bottle single MGA Barolo, producers continue to offer a Barolo from a blend of ‘cru’ as well. Often, this is made in a more approachable style and represents a lower price point with respect to the rest of the range. In 2019, you can find some great value and relatively early drinking examples from Azelia, Borgogno, Luigi Oddero and Réva.

Within the township of Barolo, I noted a number of underwhelming wines. It was also difficult to identify any standout MGAs, with perhaps the exception of Bricco delle Viole represented by both G.D Vajra and Mario Marengo. And without taking away from the recommended bottlings from Einaudi and Serio e Batista Borgogno, Cannubi did not live up to its reputation.

The overall quality level in Monforte d’Alba’s 2019 is high, though be forewarned, the wines are the most brooding of the vintage. Bussia, in particular, offers plenty of successful examples.

The following should be cellared longer before approaching.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED Bartolo Mascarello Barolo DOCG 2019 Steadfastly counter the trend of single MGA bottlings, Maria-Teresa Mascarello continues to craft just one Barolo. It is a co-fermentation of distinct parcels – Cannubi, Ruè and Monrobiolo di Bussia in the township of Barolo and Rocche dell’Annuziata in La Morra. The 2019 is delicate, almost dainty in its expression at first.

Hints of tobacco and strawberry are followed by rosehip and rose. The midweight palate is the epitome of elegance with seamless, silky tannins and succulent acidity seducing every part of the mouth. And then that tiny last drop at the very bottom of the tasting glass explodes with potpourri and orange. Graceful and sneaky in its might.

E.Pira & Figli Barolo DOCG ‘Via Nuova’ 2019 Beside two cru bottlings (Cannubi and Mosconi), Chiarla Boschis and family offers this exceptional blend of seven parcels in three different townships (Barolo, Monforte and Serralunga). It is not an ‘entry level’ Barolo; rather a sophisticated panoramic shot that captures the many facets of a complex territory. A charming expression of balsamic herbs, tea, tobacco and smoky incense to begin.

Clean and focused, the palate brings in lovely brambly fruit underscored by pressed roses. It is full yet bright. And while it seems accessible now those suave tannins build to quite a grip.

RECOMMEDED Grimaldi Bruna Barolo DOCG 2019 ‘Camilla’ 2019 Besides two MGA bottlings - Badarina (in Serralunga d’Alba) and Bricco Ambrogio (in Roddi), the Bruna Grimaldi estate offers this multi-commune blend, which also includes fruit from parcels in the townships of La Morra, Verduno and Grizane Cavour. Camilla, as it is known, is an admirable ‘classic’ Barolo. Evocative autumnal aromas of brushwood and chestnut meld with cranberry fruit and a blood orange accent on the palate. There is plenty to chew on here.

Tannins are assertive though not unyielding, and the fruit concentration is a perfect match.

Ironically, the Camilla vineyard in the Raviole cru in the commune of Grizane Cavour, which gives its name to this wine, was completely decimated by the September 5th hail.

RECOMMENDED Poderi Luigi Einaudi Barolo DOCG Cannubi 2019 Einaudi’s 2.36 hectares in Cannubi are in the historic heart of Barolo’s most famous cru.

Attractively scented and expressive, the 2019 exudes cinnamon, mint and sweet pure cherry.

It sports a lovely texture with chalky tannins that layer up. The relatively soft acidity makes this approachable now, but it has the depth to age gracefully for another dozen years.

Intriguing autumn leaf nuances bring this to a close.

Fratelli Serio e Batista Borgogno Barolo DOCG Cannubi 2019 I have been tracking the evolution at this estate for the last few years and believe that it is in good hands with the new generation.

Emmanuela Bolla is making her mark in the vineyard and cellar in the most respectful, unimposing way. The 2019 Cannubi shows gorgeous scents of allspice, mint and delicate blossoms. On the palate, a red fruit backdrop of cherry and currants is tangled in dusty earthy. Midweight and elegant with crunchy acidity and tight tannins, it seems to want a bit more substance, but this could put on weight with time. Ultimately very classy.

Brezza Giacomo Barolo DOCG Sarmassa 2019 Brezza makes solid, steely Barolo and the Sarmassa bottling can be particularly austere in its youth. The 2019 is all this yet also so admirably complex and promising. Accents of warm earth, cherry, tobacco, sage and violet eventually come to the fore. Confidently extracted tannins provide a powerful backbone that is balanced out by fleshy fruit. Finishes with a blood orange streak.

Cantine dei Marchesi di Barolo Barolo del Comune di Barolo DOCG 2019 Representing the character of the Barolo township, this is an assemblage of Marchesi di Barolo’s historic cru sites in Cannubi, Sarmassa and Coste di Rose. The nose is upfront and appealing as it imparts sweet garden herbs, cinnamon spice, strawberry blossom and red cherry. There is midweight elegance yet a plushness to the fruit. Tannins are suede-like in texture, gripping appropriately to the finish.

Really quite hard to resist now in some ways but this is easily a 10-year wine.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED Poderi Colla Barolo DOCG Bussia ‘Dardi Le Rose’ 2019 Within the large (almost 300-hectare) Bussia MGA, the Colla family owns over 6 hectares in the revered hamlet of Dardi from which they make their striking Le Rose bottling. The 2019 leads with enticing aromas of dark chocolate, red cherry, sweet garden herbs and fragrant yellow blossoms. While it begs a sip, the palate is far from ready. Deep and dense, ample fruit fills the mouth with layers of rich, robust tannins to match. Still firm and austere, this lingers suggestively with sage and a minerally sensation. Poderi Colla should be on every Barolo-lover’s radar.

RECOMMENDED Agricola Gian Piero Marrone Barolo DOCG Bussia 2019 Third generation Gian Piero Marrone runs this estate with his three daughters - Denise, Serena and Valentina, who heads up winemaking. She sticks to a traditional style with long macerations and ageing in large casks. The result here is a rather commanding and brooding Barolo. It starts with distinct and compelling fennel, anise, mint and curry aromas. The palate is dense and stern; yet as assertive as those tannins are, they are not over-extracted.

Fully packed, with iron and dark moist soil at its depths. This will require patience and food to glean enjoyment.

Silvano Bolmida Barolo DOCG Le Coste di Monforte 2019 Le Coste di Monforte’s claim to fame is that Giacomo Conterno used to source grapes from this MGA to include in his iconic Monfortino bottling. It is one of the most southern cru in Barolo and with a southern exposure. Silvano Bolmida’s plot reaches a lofty 470 metres. The 2019 is fresh and fragrant exhibiting balsamic herb notes of sage, rosemary and thyme. A generous core of cherry and strawberry brings weight to the palate. Forest undergrowth lends some depth. This is ripe in fruit and tannins but retains refreshment. Smooth overall.

Josetta Saffirio Barolo DOCG Castelletto ‘Persiera’ 2019 Somewhat confusingly, Sara Vezza continues to make wines under her mother’s label – Josetta Saffirio - as well as under her own eponymous label. This is from a steep parcel where peaches (persiera) once grew. It is attractively scented with florals, ripe red berries, mint and wood nuances. The palate offers smooth, chocolatey tannins with a fennel note that echoes on finish. Fleshy and easy to like, though won’t make old bones.

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Amalia Cascina in Langa Barolo DOCG Bussia Vigna Fantini 2019 This is a site-specific expression from the large Bussia MGA. The vineyard sits at 450 metres, the highest elevation of the cru, in a wooded area of the zone. It is understated and restrained in aromas, for now suggesting ginestra (yellow broom) and anise. The palate broods – concentrated but not heavy. Tannins are dry, firmly fastened, rigid and in need of a couple of years. Cinnamon and wood spice finish.

SERRALUNGA D’ALBA Known for rigidly structured wines, Serralunga shone in 2019. While most sport a degree of austerity at the moment, they offer an equalizing profundity as well as admirable site specificity. It was difficult to narrow down my recommendations. The MGAs of Lazzarito, Margheria, Cerretta, Parafada and Prapò are all excellent. I also can’t wait to try more Vignarionda but as these are often released as a Riserva, we’ll have to wait. There is also great value to be had among the Comune di Serralunga d’Alba bottlings. Besides Giovanni Rosso, look for Negro Angelo and Boasso Franco.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED G.D. Vajra, Luigi Baudana Barolo DOCG Baudana 2019 In 2009 the Vaira family (of G.D. Vajra) took over the historic Luigi Baudana estate in Serralunga. Rather than simply assimilating it into their production, they have kept it as a separate label to honour a legacy. The 2019 Baudana bottling is captivating, if not fully ready to drink. A tangle of wild forest berries, licorice, stone and sweet earth, this is large but not overdone. Layers of fruit pad out steely, vertical tannins. Distinctly ferruginous on the finish. Give it at least a couple of years.

Palladino Barolo DOCG Parafada 2019 The Palladino estate skims coyly under the radar, which surprises me. The wines are always among my top picks at annual blind tastings. Both the Ornato and Parafada are worth seeking out in 2019, though I find the latter especially compelling. It flirts between austerity and a sweet ripeness. Though not explosive, aroma of licorice, mossy undergrowth and leather are piercing. The palate is linear, framed by chalky textured, polished tannins and a thrilling acid bite. Savoury and persistent, this is not an easy-going wine, but it is so well-worth making the effort.

Azelia Barolo DOCG Margheria 2019 From 75-year-old vines on white, calcareous clay soils, Azelia’s Margheria is a commanding, stately wine. Gorgeous scents of rosehip, cranberry and brushwood make way for stony minerals and perfumed earth on the palate.

Tannins are at the fore and stick tenaciously to the gums. Yet these are impressively smooth in texture. As large as the wine is, it leaves the mouth refreshed and energized – perhaps thanks to that salty tang. Give this at least a couple of years before opening.

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Massolino Barolo DOCG Margheria 2019

Garesio Barolo DOCG Gianetto 2019

Massolino’s Margheria demonstrates the floral, elegant character of Margheria. Rose and violet permeate the nose eventually allowing for pristine raspberry notes to poke through. The palate is vertical in drive carrying its concentrated fruit core effortlessly. Tannins are suede-like in texture but sinewy in nature giving a well-etched yet graceful shape.

Underlying salinity is lip smacking.

Gianetto is one of Serralunga’s lesser-known MGA and only a couple of producers craft a cru bottling. Garesio’s 2019 highlights its potential.

It possesses a distinct balsamic quality with sage blossom and rosemary nuanced by hints of smoke and orange peel. The palate is tangy, sapid and packed with powdery tannins.

Perhaps a bit forced but finds its balance in the end. Really quite intense and vibrant. Give it another year.

Pira Luigi Barolo DOCG Marenca 2019 I like both Pira Luigi’s Margheria and Marenca bottlings. The two MGAs sit side by side, yet the wines are distinctly different. In 2019, Marenca is decidedly exotic with a sweet/sour spice note and tamarind undertow. It is dark fruited with generous earthy depths. As ample and vigorous as it is, the palate is succulent and seamless with sweet, sophisticated tannins and no hard edges.

Fontanafredda Barolo DOCG Lazzarito La Delizia 2019 In a region where small, piecemeal holdings prevail, Fontanafredda boasts the largest contiguous property with a huge swath at the northern end of the Serralunga commune.

However, it is the estate’s La Delizia vineyard in the MGA of Lazzarito that is the crowing jewel.

This appeals with penetrating cocoa, bay leaf and lavender essence. The palate is firm and unwavering with upfront, steely tannins - yet there is a sweetness to them. An underlying juiciness sallies forth from the compact cherry core. Lots of refinement here. This should cellar well for the next 15 years.

Vico Luigi Barolo DOCG Prapò 2019 I was impressed with Luigi Vico’s first ever vintage of Prapò in 2016 and the 2019 is equally magnificent. An engaging interplay of earth and fruit where wild forest berries are tangled with moist soil, bay leaf, licorice, incense and iron. The palate is polished and sophisticated with seamless elegance to the abundant and sumptuously layered tannins. Lots of density, tang and charm with a promise to evolve slowly. Well-done!

Giacomo Conterno Barolo DOCG Cerretta 2019

LA MORRA La Morra is a large commune and can indeed be variable in quality. Nonetheless, there are some excellent finds here in 2019. The Brunate MGA is tops, with Elio Altare, Enzo Boglietti and Vietti all sitting alongside the highly recommended Mario Marengo below. Also look out for bottlings from La Serra.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED Mario Marengo Barolo DOCG Brunate 2019 The Marengo family boasts two plots in the renowned Brunate MGA. This is made from the oldest vines, planted in 1942. It is quiet and leisurely in its expression slowly revealing dark chocolate, tea and herb blossoms. The palate is full, confident and precise. It fills the mouth with both fruit and structure – though it is not heavy. It needs tons of time and has a solid couple of decades to give.

RECOMMENDED Elio Altare Barolo DOCG Arborina 2019 Silvia Altare is one of the remaining ‘ultra-modernists’ who continues to favour short maceration in rotofermenters and refinement in barriques. Only 20% are new here – less than in the past – and the style is well-honed and balanced. An evocative truffle nuance runs through the red currant core. This is fine in its frame though tannins still provide texture and tension. Beautiful fruit purity with sneak density and a sweet herb twist. Wait two to three years, then enjoy leisurely over the next dozen.

Bovio Gianfranco Barolo DOCG Arborina 2019

RECOMMENDED

An excellent comparison with Altare’s Arborina. Bovio’s plot veers to the east rather than fully south and winemaking style is completely different. Both wines are excellent. Here, the wine sees a medium to long maceration with ageing in large casks. Aromas are discreet to begin – hinting at cocoa, red berries, juniper and smoky leaves. Relatively light in frame though not insubstantial. Attractive, ripe fruit pleases the palate. Offers midterm ageing potential over the next decade.

Giovanni Rosso Barolo DOCG del Comune di Serralunga d’Alba 2019

Burzi Alberto Barolo DOCG La Serra 2019

Giovanni Rosso boasts some pretty prime vineyard plots in Serralunga (including Vignarionda). Here, an assembly of parcels speaks to the general character of the township. Dark chocolate and balsamic herbs are offset by mineral notes of iron and stone. This is full and savoury yet with a sweetness of fruit through the core. The tannins are very textural, almost pixilated but ultimately approachable.

Alberto Burzi has been hailed as an up-andcomer since he started making wine under his own label from family vineyards about 10 years ago. I was particularly taken by his new release from a high altitude, east facing plot in La Serra. It exudes purity from start to finish.

Mint and pepper infuse the vivid red berry fruit and zesty acidity lends palpable crispness. It will need another year for those dense chalky tannins to settle.

Giacomo Conterno’s Cerretta starts in the dark earthy depths of a dense forest then progresses to a meadow of wildflowers with a pervasive iron note throughout. Carrying ample dark red fruit, it washes over the palate with a wave of tannins though these are suave in texture. As youthfully tight as this is, a buoyant brightness lifts it effortlessly to truffly, peppery conclusion.

Molino Mauro Barolo DOCG Conca 2019 Brother and sister team Matteo and Martina Molino make uber-clean, polished wines that demonstrate more and more charm each vintage. Conca, which means shell, is a small, protected amphitheatre. The warm, southeast to southwest facing site gives generous fruit with a robust structure. Yet there is brilliant lifting acidity here. Ageing in barriques imparts a subtle vanilla note which plays well with mint and strawberry. Grainy tannins keep the palate in check. Give this another year to knit.

Alessandria Marilena Barolo DOCG Capalot 2019 Striking aromas of rose, rosehip, tobacco and licorice root leads to an elegantly crafted, midweight palate. The red currant core is expansive yet kept in check by a tight tannin frame. Bright acidity gives plenty of buoyancy.

Crissante Alessandria Barolo DOCG del comune di La Morra 2019 This was my first time tasting the wines of Crissante Alessandria (at least that I can remember). I was intrigued by the nervous energy and slim build of the wines. The backbone of this comes from the Roggeri cru, with San Biagio and Bettolotti rounding it out. It exhibits the fragrant charms of La Morra – with allspice, orange zest and autumn leaves. Tangy raspberries provide a backdrop on the palate with scratchy acidity and powdery tannins still tightly wound. Drink confidently over the next 10 years.

Dosio Vigneti Barolo DOCG del comune di La Morra 2019 Assembled from five neighbouring vineyards, Bosio’s flagship Barolo is dominated by fruit from Serradenari – Barolo’s highest MGA reaching 540 metres. Compelling scents of forest floor and earthy roots meet wild rose, strawberry and red currants. Linear and sinewy, the palate moves with purpose. Solid tannins are still slightly austere on the finish.

Lingers with nuances of cinnamon and juniper.

Dosio has been transiting to larger casks and less time in wood to the benefit of the wines.

CASTIGLIONE FALLETTO A smaller commune with fewer MGA, Castiglione Falletto boasted some stunning wines within its small set. The Villero and Rocche di Castiglione MGAs were particular standouts.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED Vietti Barolo DOCG Rocche di Castiglione Vietti’s lineup of 2019 Barolo is impressive.

It is hard to go wrong here. Equally worth seeking out are the Monvigliero and Lazzarito bottlings. But it is the Rocche di Castiglione that tugs at my heart strings. Not immediately explosive in its aromas, it infiltrates and seduces slowly with blood orange, pomegranate, black tea and vanillin. The palate is as dense as it is graceful and agile. Layers of raspberry and nectarine are seamlessly wrapped in long silky tannins that gripped tightly on the finish.

Don’t touch for 4 to 5 years. After that, it will surely continue evolving gracefully for a couple of decades.

Giacomo Fenocchio Barolo DOCG Villero 2019 This wine penetrates right to the stomach from the very first whiff. Precise, elegant and persistent, notes of truffle, mint, licorice and sweet moist earth emerge steadily from the glass. The palate is dense yet airy, with plenty of substance but never weighted down.

Tannins are ample yet smooth and the finish lingers with tangy charms. Drink this through to 2040.

Poderi e Cantine Oddero Barolo DOCG Villero 2019 The historic Poderi e Cantine Oddero estate isn’t as celebrated as it should be. The style is classic and quality topnotch. So far, I have only been able to try this Villero bottling from 2019 but it bodes well for the rest of the offerings.

Characteristically reserved but confidently hinting at what is to come, it reveals pressed rose, mint and fennel on a backdrop of red currant. Grainy tannins wrap around the mouth with a firm, confident caress. Jaunty and lively, but above all sophisticated.

Brovia Barolo DOCG Rocche di Castiglione 2019 The Brovia family owns less than two hectares of 50-plus year-old vines in Rocche di Castiglione. The steep, sandy southeast facing plot is warmed by the gentle morning sun giving a refined, elegant wine. The beautifully weighted 2019 is decidedly mineral-driven and resolutely firm. Subtle and understated it offers red cherry laced with sweet herbs and bitter cocoa for now but has plenty more to reveal over the next 20 years.

Giovanni Sordo Barolo DOCG Monprivato 2019 Monprivato is most closely associated with (and almost whole owned by) Giuseppe Mascarello. However, since the 2013 vintage, Giovanni Sordo crafts a cru bottling from the small sliver it possesses. The nose boasts sweet/savoury appeal with red cherry tinged by bay leaf. It comes across as midweight at first, then builds in powder and profundity as it expands across the palate. Stony mineral notes counters impressive fruit ripeness. Built for the next 15 years.

knit and sculpted. With the clarity of a cool, clear day, it evokes peppy springtime nuances of strawberry, rhubarb and a snap of pepper.

Bravo!

VERDUNO Similar to Novello, renown is dominated by one MGA in the township of Verduno – Monvigliero. Besides Fratelli Alessandria, examples from Bel Colle, Castello di Verduno and Vietti all shone in 2019. (I have yet to try Burlotto’s.)

Bottlings of San Lorenzo di Verduno are also worthwhile.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED Comm. G.B. Burlotto Barolo DOCG 2019 Undoubtedly one of Barolo’s top producers, Burlotto’s Fabio Alessandria makes truly spine-tingling cru bottlings of Monvigliero and Cannubi. However, his ‘classic’ Barolo should not be overlooked. An assembly of lesser-known MGA in Verduno (Breri, Neirane, Rocche Olmo and Boscatto), it offers exceptional value for money in 2019. Beautiful floral notes meet fresh fragrant herbs and spice - winter mint, clove and earthy licorice.

Sumptuous summer berries through the core are braced by citrusy acidity and those powdery tannins layer up. This has a solid decade of ageing potential.

Fratelli Alessandria Barolo DOCG Monvigliero 2019 Dating back to the mid-1800s, Fratelli Alessandria is among the most historic estates of Barolo. Firmly rooted in the township of Verduno, the family owns 1.4 hectares of the now highly sought after Monvigliero MGA. The 2019 sports a delicate yet compelling nose of scented blossoms, sage flower and pink peppercorn. Orange zest lift the palate, magnifying sneaky fruit depth. With a graceful flow and silky tannins that fasten tightly to the finish, this is relatively accessible though I’d give it another year yet.

NOVELLO While there are several MGA in this lesser-known commune, it is the Ravera cru that has put Novello on the map. Above all, Elvio Cogno is the reference but Vietti and G.D. Vajra’s are equally worth seeking out in 2019.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED Elvio Cogno Barolo DOCG Ravera 2019 Since 2018, winemaker and owner Valter Fissore has introduced whole bunches during fermentation which helps keep alcohol levels in check. The 2019 could be the best vintage of this wine that I’ve tried. It is going to require patience but will reward for a couple of decades. Besides a deft balance of alcohol and fruit concentration, there is true refreshment lurking here. The tannins are also intricately

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BARBARESCO VINTAGE REPORT: 2020 | Michaela Morris

Besides the obvious ‘lockdown’ growing season that characterized all Northern Hemisphere regions, it’s difficult to put a finger on 2020 in Barbaresco. Climatically, there wasn’t a specific incident or marked extreme to define the vintage – no frost, hailstorms, severe drought or untimely deluge. In the vineyard, growers found tranquility amidst the global mayhem.

Consistent with current trends, the winter was dry – with little rain or snow to build water reserves. Spring began under the same unseasonably dry conditions. It wasn’t until May that the tide finally turned, with frequent downpours through to mid-June helping ward off water stress in the weeks that followed.

Summer was sunny and decidedly warm – certainly hotter than 2019. However, intermittent showers offset. By the end of July, growers were predicting an early harvest. Yet once again, Mother Nature smiled benevolently. The fresh August evenings and cooler temperatures in early September slowed ripening down to a leisurely pace. While slightly earlier than in 2019, harvest was soundly in October - which is typically considered ideal for Nebbiolo. Crucially, grapes reached both technical (sugar) and physiological ripeness without losing acidity.

Simone Allario Piazzo at Piazzo Comm. Armando compares 2020 to the highly touted 2016 vintage. “Both years were characterized by rather balanced climate conditions that translated into two years with great balance, aromatic richness and supported by an excellent tannin structure - though not excessive,” he explains. Monica Rocca at Albino Rocca also describes 2020 as balanced, though she references 2007, another warm and luminous year that saw even ripeness. “Like 2007, 2020 offers wines that are already approachable, pleasant from the start - and elegant,” she declares.

I sampled approximately 80 Barbaresco 2020 at the beginning of the year and came away charmed. The wines are distinguished by density, volume and generosity without over-ripeness.

It is difficult to find unripe tannins, and the wines shouldn’t take long to come around. Nevertheless, they have the structure and fruit for ageing. If I was to find a fault, I would say that some lack that extra thrill of tension. But overall, there are plenty of delightful, expressive wines to choose from.

The Barbaresco denomination is made up of four townships – Barbaresco which gives it its name, Neive, Treiso and a small part of Alba (specifically the hamlet of San Rocco Seno d’Elvio). The latter produces very little compared to the other three. Beyond that, it is difficult to generalize about the three main townships in 2020. Instead, it is specific Menzioni Geografiche Aggiuntive (MGA) - or ‘cru’ in colloquial parlance – that demonstrate defining characteristics. In general, my top picks hail from the most highly regarded MGAs – Pora, Rabajà and Asili in Barbaresco, Cottà and Serraboella in Neive, and Pajorè and Rombone in Treiso.

It is also worth noting that most of the Barbaresco I tasted were MGA bottlings rather than blends of multiple crus. That said, the estate Barbarescos from Cortese Giuseppe, Giacosa Carlo, Castello di Verduno and Massolino are all well worth seeking out.

Finally, I have only included reviews for finished wines. However, cask samples from Marchesi di Gresy, Adriano Marco e Vittorio and Molino were very promising. I look forward to trying these when they are bottled.

All in all, the 2020 vintage boasts wines that are as accessible as they are age worthy – above all at Barbaresco’s still-accessible prices. It is a win for collectors, particularly those branching out to Italy for the first time.

BARBARESCO HIGHLY RECOMMENDED Chiarlo Michele Barbaresco DOCG Faset 2020 From the well-known Faset MGA, this is impressive indeed. Intense woodland notes of forest growth and berries meet heady hyacinth. Despite mouth filling volume, the palate is well-weighted and balanced by tangy, citrusy acidity. Tannins are assertive yet refined and distinctly chalky in texture. Long, mineral-dipped sour cherry finish.

Poderi Colla Barbaresco DOCG Roncaglie 2020 Roncaglie has long been recognized as a source of top-quality fruit in Barbaresco.

Beppe Colla was able to purchase a large chunk of this 13-hectare MGA in the 1990s when land in the Langhe was still available and affordable. He compared the expression to the austere elegance of the Bussia MGA in Barolo.

The 2020 has inklings of this but with the generosity of the vintage. Fresh herb, tobacco leaf and irony accents waft from the glass. The fruit is quite crunchy rather than plush but with satisfying succulence and chew. Zesty acidity and sweet ripe tannins are well parsed.

Lingers with minty nuance.

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Giacosa Carlo Barbaresco DOCG Montefico 2020 Not related to Bruno Giacosa and definitely not as famous, Carlo Giacosa has been making Barbaresco since the late 60s. The estate is small – just 5 hectares – but it is currently one of the most exciting ‘up-and-comers’ in the region. The 2020 Montefico is a fine example.

Wonderfully proportioned, in is generously endowed with cherry and red currant while graceful tannins hold everything in place. Orange essence, forest floor and allspice accent the ripe fruit core and juicy acidity brings a fresh tanginess. The estate’s ‘classic’ Barbaresco is also worth getting your hands on.

Cortese Giuseppe Barbaresco DOCG Rabajà 2020 Among my top picks of Barbaresco’s 2020 vintage, Cortese Giuseppe’s Rabajà is the estate’s crowning jewel. The family boasts four hectares of prime south to southwest facing vineyards there. It comes into crystal clear focus with violets, dry earth, and tarragon infused raspberry. This is one of the more brooding 2020 showing tight tannins and a steely backbone that should confer 10-15 years of evolution in the cellar. It is finessed in its power and girth. Sweet citrus blossoms and savoury minerals reverberate on the finish.

Ca’ del Baio Barbaresco DOCG Asili 2020 The nose opens slowly with licorice, pepper and captivating truffle. Gratifying and flattering, this fills the mouth – though is broad in shape rather than round. Stony minerals titillate the palate. Finessed tannins finish firm as this tapers off with spice and mint. It is just about ready and will drink well for a dozen years.

Musso Barbaresco DOCG Pora 2020 Immediately engaging, Musso’s Pora exudes fragrances of rose and violet with juniper and pink peppercorn. The palate is equally perfumed and expressive where ripe, sunsoaked cherries burst with flavour. Grainy tannins provide textural drama, and there is a linear direction to the structure that lends gravity. This confident, comfortable in its skin Barbaresco should unfold graciously over the next 8 to 10 years.

RECOMMENDED Cascina Morassino Barbaresco DOCG Ovello 2020 Cascina Morassino owns a respectable 3.5 hectares in Barbaresco’s largest MGA of Ovello. The family’s parcels are located on the eastern flank of the cru. The 2020 bottling speaks to the relatively cool microclimate in

a warm vintage. There is a weightiness and ripeness to the dark sweet fruit core, but bright acidity and citrus notes offset and lend another dimension. Rich earth and purple flower accents add further intrigue. The tannins are large, grainy and in need of time. Finishes with a distinct herbal twist.

Giordano Luigi Giuseppe Barbaresco DOCG Asili 2020 From just half a hectare in the renowned MGA of Asili, the Giordano estate puts out this elegantly crafted Barbaresco. It is pale in colour and delicate in aromas – and yet not a fading flower. Reserved red summer berries and fragrant blossoms are eventually teased out. The palate is smart and focus. Lean rather than plush, it is decidedly linear and firm with sneaky stuffing on the backend. Another year or two in bottle should bring out more.

NEIVE HIGHLY RECOMMENDED Albino Rocca Barbaresco DOCG Cottà 2020 Undoubtedly one of the top names in Barbaresco, Albino Rocca consistently puts out stunning site specific Barbaresco. A contender for the vintage’s best in show, the Cottà is as gracious as it is intricate with vibrancy and purity for miles. Red cherry and raspberry mingle with rose and lavender as a mineral undertow laces through the whole. Silky tannins meet steely acidity in this long, sapid and succulent red. The finish is awash with blood orange, leaving the palate refreshed. Giving so much pleasure now and should continue to do so over the next 15-18 years.

Sottimano Barbaresco DOCG Cottà 2020 On par in quality with Albino Rocca’s Cottà, Sottimano’s version is denser, sturdier and in need of a bit of time. Made from 60 to 65-yearold vines, it offers impressive concentration and a gorgeous enveloping texture. Scents of cherry, cocoa, mint lead to dark berries on the palate – all lifted by a pomegranate tang. The tannins are chewy yet yielding. Barbaresco with a capital B. Paitin di Pasquero Elia Barbaresco DOCG Serraboella 2020

Poderi e Cantine Oddero Barbaresco DOCG Gallina 2020 Though long established in Barolo for two centuries, the Oddero family makes one single Barbaresco from two hectares of rented vineyards in the renown MGA of Gallina. While ageing is in large 45-hectolitre oak casks, there is a youthful top note of wood spice and chocolate. This cedes to nuances of black raspberry, cherry, rose and lemon balm. The palate has volume but is underscored by crunchy, citrusy acidity. Long, confident tannins wrap around the sizable core. Everything is in place for a leisurely stint in the cellar.

Elvio Cogno Barbaresco DOCG Bordini 2020 This Barbaresco is a relatively new wine for the Cogno estate, which is rooted in the Novello commune of Barolo. It hails from a 2-hectare southwest facing parcel within the sprawling Bordini cru. It is characterized by winemaker Valter Fissore’s signature elegance. Gorgeous purity of rose meet spicy pepper and fresh turned soil. It builds stealthily with fine, silky tannins that embrace the red berry-soaked palate. A streamlined wine with lovely clarity.

RECOMMENDED Fontanabianca Barbaresco DOCG Serraboella 2020 The young Matteo Pola started taking over winemaking at his family’s estate in 2016. He is ageing the wines for less time in wood than his father and using various techniques in the vineyards to curb sugar accumulation. With its elegance of proportion and freshness, the 2020 Serraboella is a testament to his work.

Strawberry and sweet herb nuances pervade the nose and palate. Chiselled tannins hem in midweight fruit giving sinewy contour. Needs another year or two to reveal its full charms.

Antichi Poderi dei Gallina di Francone Marco Barbaresco DOCG Starderi 2020 An open-knit, expressive nose speaks of cinnamon, red cherry and vanilla with some leather bringing in a sombre hint. The palate is midweight and well put together. Soft, plush fruit is juicy through the core and tightened up by well-fastened, taut tannins. Sweet herbs, bitter roots and red berry prolong the finish.

I always find Paitin’s Barbaresco slow to open - and age. The 2020 will be no exception. With coaxing, dark floral accents of lavender and violet surface giving compelling contrast to earthy leather, tar and mushroom nuances.

The palate is tight and structured with firm, imposing yet finesse tannins and plenty of substance to back these up. It hints at further intricacies with tobacco and mineral-like flavours. If you buy into stereotypes of Barolo and Barbaresco, you could easily mistake this for the former.

Pelissero Pasquale Barbaresco DOCG Bricco San Giuliano 2020

Massolino Barbaresco DOCG Albesani 2020

TREISO

A new wine for Massolino as of the 2019 vintage made from rented vineyards. The nose soars with dark cherry and red rose but has earthy depths of moist soil and tar. Yet the palate is still daunting and folded in on itself. Dense chalky tannins are countered by bright frisky acidity. The throughline here is great purity, and the finish simply vibrates with pristine black raspberry.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Ornella Pelissero and her son Simone tend this modest 8-hectare property. The estate’s flagship Barbaresco hails from the top of the San Giuliano hill with a sunny, southwestern exposure. Hints of vanilla overlay red cherry with tar and tobacco in the background. Ripe yet firm, the savoury palate has stage presence without being overdone. A robust style with plenty of grainy tannins to shore it up.

Vigneti Luigi Oddero e Figli Barbaresco DOCG Rombone 2020 Rombone is considered a ‘lucky’ site. It tends to make good wines in both cool and hot vintages. It also is well-endowed with both aromas and tannins. In the hands of the Luigi

Oddero estate the former express with such purity, opening immediately with strawberry, raspberry and bergamot. It packs in quite a bit on the palate. And, as for those tannins, they are dense, chalky and long-lasting. I’d wait a year or so to open this then drink until 2035.

Belcolle Barbaresco DOCG Pajorè 2020 Owned in large part by Gaja, Pajorè is regarded one of the finest MGA in the Barbaresco denomination. A few producers, like Belcolle make a single cru bottling that demonstrates its breed. The 2020 is very pretty with red summer fruit galore. Subtle background note of tobacco and mint add complexity. Midweight and light on its feet though not a pushover, this has hidden depths. The tannins are chalky and invigorate the palate. Finishes with appetizing bitter woodland herbs.

Piazzo comm. Armando Barbaresco DOCG Pajorè 2020 This mid-size estate with holdings in both Barolo and Barbaresco is now in the hands of fourth generation brothers Simone and Marco. They have modernized the winery and are crafting polished, sophisticated wines.

The Pajorè starts with some fruit cake and oak spice then allows red berry purity to chime in. The palate is tight-knit and textural with chalky tannins providing plenty of support.

Lots of concentration and depth for cellaring.

Nada Giuseppe Barbaresco DOCG Marcarini 2020 Winemaker Enrico Nada explains that Marcarini’s cool, eastern exposure gives a fresh expression driven more by fruit than powerful tannins. While the 2020 feels midweight at first, you soon realize that it is a fine balance of concentration and structure which makes this seem so light on its feet. Yet there is depth and detail, not to mention a stony core and layers of powdery tannins. Refreshingly delicious tart cranberry and red currants to finish. Mouth cleansing and long.

RECOMMENDED Lodali Walter Barbaresco DOCG ‘Lorens’ 2020 While not declared on the label, Lodali’s Lorens comes from the Giacone cru from vineyards planted almost 60 years ago. With compact fruit, steely acidity and crisp, ironclad tannins, this wants a couple more years in the bottle but should unfurl enjoyably until the mid-2030s or so. Nuances of mint and alpine herbs bring complexity to the strawberry core.

There is plenty lurking here.

Ada Nada Barbaresco DOCG Rombone ‘Elisa’ 2020 This emerges from a slightly diffused, sulphur haze at first to reveal attractive scents of strawberry and winter mint. The palate also takes time to express its potential. Mineral edged with upright powdery tannin, this is quite dense and reserved for now. Yet the succulent finish accented by cinnamon and nutmeg suggests more to come. Give it another year.

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The Buying Guide All wines listed are recommended by our experienced panel of tasters. Each wine is rated based on its varietal character, representation of style and/or region, balance and price-quality ratio. Readers should assess these, and all wines, using the same criteria. Browse our experts’ tasting notes to find the wines that may appeal to your taste or pique your interest to try something new. Afterall, one of the best parts about wine is the discovery. The prices listed are approximate retail prices and will likely vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. A large number of these wines can be purchased across Canada and the USA, so check with your local private wine store or liquor board for availability.

Our tasters are Tony Aspler (TA), Gurvinder Bhatia (GB), Michelle Bouffard (MB), Michaela Morris (MM), Brie Dema (BD), Tim Pawsey (TP), Barbara Philip MW (BP), Christopher Sealy (CS), Donatella Dicca (DD), Christine Sismondo (CSO) and Jaimy Warner (JW).

STELLAR VALUES (Buy by the Case): Incredible values that overdeliver with respect to their quality/price ratios. Ideal for everyday drinking and entertaining. Wines in this category retail for less than $25.

Quinta de Curvos Loureiro Vinho Verde DOC, 2022, Minho Portugal ($14) Bright, shining white gold colour. Minerally, apricot nose. Medium-bodied, dry, crisp, elegant and fresh with lively green peach flavour.

Great length. Easy drinking. (TA) Cocchi Grifoni Tara Rosso Piceno DOC, 2021, Le Marche Italy ($19) This is a bottling made since the 1960s - one of, if not the first, to carry the Rosso Piceno designation on its label. A blend of equal parts Sangiovese and Montepulciano, grown at the Tara estate, surrounded by untouched forest and wild spaces. Quite floral on the nose, red rose, red cherry. Beautiful balance on the palate, grippy tannins and fresh acid linger over generous body and fruit core. Light herbal notes add an appetizing twist to the finish.

Easygoing and a real bang-for-the-buck. (BD) St. Hubertus Gamay Noir Okanagan Valley BC VQA ‘Oak Bay Vineyard’, 2021, British Columbia Canada ($19) This nod to classic Beaujolais yields up-front red berries followed by a light bodied, fruit driven palate with cherry and peppery notes supported by juicy acidity and just assertive enough tannins. Certified organic from what is now declared as South Kelowna Slopes Sub-GI. Think fondue or pink salmon dishes. Great value for under $20! (TP) Featherstone Black Sheep Riesling Niagara Peninsula VQA, 2021, Ontario Canada ($20) A refreshing sipper, the Black Sheep Riesling has orange blossom and white flowers on the nose with ripe pear and apple on the palate.

Finishes fresh and clean. Perfect at the dim sum table. (BP) 70

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Erdevik Roza Nostra Fruska Gora PDO, 2021, Srem Serbia ($20) Erdevik used to be a state-controlled winery that churned out mediocre wines. After the collapse of former Yugoslavia, it had the fortune to be purchased privately and is now focused on smaller quantities and higher quality wines. Roza Nostra, the estate’s top-selling wine, is easy going and effortlessly enjoyable. A blend of equal parts Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah, this rosé has a bright, berry driven nose, with blood orange, pepper, and violet notes. The palate is dry, with fine acidity, but still quite rounded and generous with the fruit. Medium in length, this is a jack-of-all-trades style rosé. Drink now, not meant to age. (BD) Weingut Loimer Lois Grüner Veltliner Kamptal DAC, 2022, Niederösterreich Austria ($21) It is always refreshing to find producers who can make clean and natural wines that have a sense of place. You can count on Fred Loimer for this. My go-to Grüner for everyday drinking, especially for the aperitif or with many styles of curry or spicy Asian dishes. Juicy and light on its feet with crisp acid and notes of white pepper and stone fruit. Mouth-watering. (MB) 13th Street Riesling Creek Shores VQA ‘June’s Vineyard’, 2021, Ontario Canada ($22) Terrific value from a challenging year. This estate vineyard, named after one of the winery owners, always gives a boost of complexity by way of good fruit ripeness. The wines also show a lovely mineral tone. Dancing between dry and off dry at 8g/l residual sugar with pleasant acidity, and classic Riesling aromas and flavors of green pear, grapefruit, lime, and peach. Straightforward, the kind of wine you can enjoy without fussiness. Drink early and often. (BD) Casa Relvas Alicante Bouschet Alentejo DOC, 2021, Portugal ($22) The French Alicante Bouschet grape is on the rise in Portugal’s Alentejo region. Casa Relvas coaxes out its character effortlessly offering a well-priced example. True to the variety’s nature, this is deep and dark in colour with concentrated blueberry and blackberry fruit.

While full-bodied with lush fruit and velvety tannins, it keeps its freshness and hands its alcohol very well. Represents excellent value for the money and sure to be a crowd pleaser.

(MM) Pierre-Marie Chermette Les Griottes Beaujolais AOC, 2021, Beaujolais France ($23) This estate has been in family hands since the late 1700s. This is their bottling of younger Gamay vines - less than 30 years of age - from a vineyard in Saint Véran in the north of the Beaujolais region. Made with 50% carbonic maceration in concrete vessel, this is a fruity and fun style. Dark cherry aromas (no surprise - griottes translates to sour cherry), wild strawberry, and juicy damson plums. Silken tannins, mouth-watering acidity, light, and joyous.

Drink now or over the next 2 years. (BD)

OFF THE WALL (Absolutely worth a shot): Unique, distinct, interesting wines from lesser-known grape varieties or regions that are worth tasting because they are that good. Don’t bypass them because they may be unfamiliar or judge them by the first taste. They are well made wines and your palate deserves to give them a shot even if it takes a little time to get to know them.

Pearl Morissette Primesautier Niagara Peninsula VQA, 2021, Ontario Canada ($28) One of my go-to Pearl Morissette wines, this is a fun red blend of Gamay, Pinot Noir and a hint of Cabernet Sauvignon. The fruit notes of red currant, wild strawberry, and sour cherry are juicy, tart, and slightly funky. Light to medium bodied at most, this is a thirst-slaking style that always brings me in for a second glass. Low tannin levels add to the silky, bright personality.

Drink now, in copious quantities, with good company and energetic music. (BD)

Stratus Alto Niagara-on-the-Lake VQA, 2021, Ontario Canada ($28) One of the most whimsical Stratus wines I’ve tried, and from a challenging vintage. This is a blend of both red and white grapes, dominated

by Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon totaling 61%, Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc and Viognier each at 5%, Merlot and a whisper of Sangiovese to complete the motley crew of varieties. The result is a flirty yet elegant wine, quite fruit-forward, with aromas and flavors of ripe and tart mixed berries, gin botanicals, rose, and toasted clove. The palate is energetic, fresh, medium-bodied, and well-balanced.

Drink this in its youth, within 3 years of bottling. (BD) Envinate Albahra Vino de la Mesa, 2021, Castilla-La Mancha Spain ($30) A blend of mostly Garnacha Tintorera (Alicante Bouschet) and a rare grape called Moravia Agria. The former contributes colour, fruit, and body while the latter lends bright acidity.

Envinate is known for honouring the efforts of the vines, and so this is not in new oak. Instead, it rests in concrete. Aromas of candied red fruits, dusty earth, and a green sap note that may be from the moderate stem inclusion. On the palate, it is supple, driven more by acidity than tannins, and buoyed with concentrated fruit flavours of Swedish Berries, ripe black cherry, and zippy currants. (BD) Domaine Espiègle Drôle d’oiseau Blanc de Pinot Meunier, 2021, Québec Canada ($35) Newly arrived on the Quebec wine scene, Zaché Hall is perhaps the most talented winemaker in the province. He makes very small quantities, but his wines are worth seeking out.

His 6.5 hectares are located in Dunham and the resulting wines express the Nordic climate of the region. Austere with tangy acid balanced by pastry notes coming from ageing on the lees. Lovely red currant fruit with an umami finish and delicate pleasant bitterness. Meant for food. Delicious with tuna and salmon sashimi. (MB) Alpha Box & Dice Ö Gruner Veltliner Adelaide Hills ‘Springhill Vineyard’, 2021, South Australia ($35) This ‘out of the box’ winery explores alternative grape varieties growing in Australia giving each endeavor a letter of the alphabet. O is for their outstanding Gruner-Veltliner. It is cloudy and light golden in hue due to some skin contact - but definitely clean. Aromas of orange and pear skin are accented by subtle lees. Tangy with pulpy fruit, the palate is as tactile as it is juicy and characterful. Hints of white pepper show up here. Refreshingly, this clocks in at under 13% alcohol. (MM) Bodegas Carrau Petit Manseng Gran Reserva, 2020, Canelones Uruguay ($37) A taste of Madiran but from Uruguay, this standout, complex white was fermented and aged ten months in French oak. Stone fruit and citrus aromas preview a layered citrus and

honeyed palate underpinned by good acidity with a lengthy end. The Carrau family hails from a long line of Catalan winemakers. In 1977 they acquired and restored Casa de Varzi, a historic Montevideo area estate founded on the estuary of Rio de la Plata. (TP) Bodega Los Bermejos Diego Seco Lanzarote DO, 2021, Canary Islands Spain ($40) The rare Diego grape is native to the Canary Islands. On the island of Lanzarote, it grows on black volcanic soil with the vines protected from incessant hot winds by stone walls. From such a unique setting, the expectation is an equally singular wine. And indeed, this is. It is an umami explosion where intense salty minerals provide refreshing balance to the unctuously textured white. I don’t think I have ever tasted a wine so briny yet so luscious at the same time. Hints of almond and fennel are secondary but add to the complexity. Try with sashimi. (MM) De Martino Las Olvidadas Mezcla Tinta Guarilihue, 2019, Itata Chile ($70) Crafted from centenarian vines, this red blend champions the ‘forgotten’ grape varieties País and San Francisco which are co-planted and co-fermented. Tangy and thrilling with cranberry and sour cherry perfumed by hibiscus and bush flowers. The medium weight and light but pleasantly astringent tannins call for a slight chill. Complex in its marvelous simplicity. There is something untamed about this. (MM)

CELLAR-WORTHY (Rewarding patience): Wines that will not only benefit from some time in your cellar, but will evolve, develop and reward those with patience. Cellaring times are recommendations only and optimal drinking windows will depend on each individual wine lover’s personal preference.

Henry of Pelham The Dry River Riesling Short Hills Bench VQA, 2021, Ontario Canada ($20) Pale straw in colour. Minerally, grapefruit nose with developing petrol notes. Light-bodied and dry with lime and grapefruit flavours. Great length. (TA) Tedeschi Capital San Rocco Valpolicella Ripasso DOC Superiore, 2019, Veneto Italy ($27) Deep purple colour. Toasty, cedary, black plum and licorice nose with oak spice. Full-bodied, dry and richly extracted blackberry and plum flavours carried on fresh acidity. Beautifully balanced and firmly structured with ripe tannins. (TA)

Cave Spring Riesling CSV Beamsville Bench VQA, 2020, Ontario Canada ($35) Riesling lovers have high expectations with Cave Spring’s CSV and the 2020 doesn’t disappoint. Restrained and even austere on the nose with starfruit, lemon and waxy notes.

The palate is full bodied with wax, lemon pith and lots and lots of wet stones. Quenching, concentrated and fairly unyielding at this moment. Needs time. (BP) Sonora Desert Winery Mythology Syrah Okanagan Valley BC VQA, 2017, British Columbia Canada ($35) Deep ruby colour. Cedary, toasty, mulberry nose with oak spice and a note of rose petal.

Full-bodied, dried, fleshy and elegant blackberry and mulberry flavours with fresh acidity.

Beautifully balanced and juicy on the palate with a long finish. (TA) Château Cambon Brouilly AOC, 2021, Beaujolais France ($35) The wine immediately seduces with its silky texture, pure notes of red cherries, raspberries and delicate floral nuances. As tempting as this is to drink now, a vertical tasting with Marie Lapierre going back to 2014 showed the benefit to put these wines in the cellar. With time, they exude the depth Gamay is capable of when planted on the right site. They could easily be mistaken for a complex Pinot Noir from Burgundy. (MB) Tawse Riesling Twenty Mile Bench VQA ‘Carly’s Vineyard’, 2016, Ontario Canada ($40) This wine is hitting its stride and peak drinking window. Carly’s Block Riesling tends toward being closed in its youth but is a complex and graceful thing of beauty with bottle age.

This vintage shows aromas of white peach, lime curd, candied grapefruit, gunpowder, and orange oil. On the palate, the sweetness is perceived but the acidity steals the show, keeping the palate fresh and laser-like. (BD) Torres Salmos Priorat DOQ, 2018, Catalonia Spain ($50) A blend of Cariñena and Garnacha. Dense purple in colour. Spicy, tobacco nose of black fruits with vanilla oak notes. Full-bodied, dry and elegant with a lovely mouthfeel. Beautifully balanced flavours of blackberry and black plum carried on lively acidity to an end taste of dark chocolate. (TA) Lucien Muzard Vieilles Vignes Santenay AOC, 2021, Burgundy France ($52) Tale as old as time, this is a family estate with Lucien’s sons now at the helm. Tradition follows, and they craft wines in an honest way just as their father did. They have 3 hectares that yield about 14,000 bottles of Santenay Vieilles Vignes from Pinot Noir vines averaging 60 years of age. The nose is enticing yet youthful, on the floral/herbal end of the spectrum with wild currant and forest berry fruits. There is stem inclusion here, about 30%, which adds aromatic complexity and gives some tannin QUENCH.ME

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grip. On the palate, it is tightly wound, waiting for the bottle age to settle it - ideally 3 years more but should be great up to 7. Finishes on its bright acidity with lingering tart fruit. (BD) Thirty Bench Wild Cask Cabernet Franc Beamsville Bench VQA, 2020, Ontario Canada ($55) Deep ruby in colour. Cedary, blueberry nose, lightly floral with oak spice. Medium-bodied, dry, richly extracted and firmly structured with green herbs and blueberry flavours. Beautifully balanced with a tannic lift on the finish.

(TA) Clos du Soleil Signature Similkameen Valley BC VQA, 2020, British Columbia Canada ($56) This flagship Bordeaux styled blend combines Merlot (34%), Cabernet Sauvignon (33%), Cabernet Franc (21%), Malbec (9%) and Petit Verdot (3%). Each was hand harvested from optimum blocks from the estate vineyard and nearby Blind Creek Vineyard, in what is considered an ideal vintage with a prolonged, gradual ripening season. Concrete fermented with wild yeasts and aged for 16 months in premium French oak barrels. Inviting aromas of red berries with floral and cedar notes lead to a supple, medium-bodied, raspberry, mulberry, blackberry and damson palate with spice hints, a streak of minerality and a touch of graphite, wrapped in fine, very well integrated tannins and balanced by measured acidity. Already impressive, this wine will continue to reward and further evolve over the next decade. (TP) Château des Charmes Equuleus St. David’s Bench VQA, 2020, Ontario Canada ($60) Deep ruby-purple in colour. Cedary, blackcurrant nose with oak spice. Medium to full-bodied, dry and elegant with beautifully balanced flavours of black and red currants. Lovely mouthfeel, harmonious and firmly structured.

Very Bordelais in style. Worth cellaring for a decade. (TA) Domaine Pinson Chablis Premier Cru ‘Mont de Milieu’ AOC, 2020, Burgundy France ($62) If you are the hunt for a well-priced Premier Cru from Burgundy, Chablis is the destination to go to. Charlene Pinson and her father Laurent craft some of the best wines in the region. Classic, focused and pure, the wines always provide a sense of place. The 2020 Mont de Milieu is simply stunning and offers a nice balance between crisp acid, creamy and chalky texture and a pleasant austerity. Long lingering finish. With time it will reveal more depth and minerality. Worth keeping for 5-8 years. (MB) Domaine Weinbach Riesling Alsace Grand Cru AOC Schlossberg, 2021, Alsace France ($94) A stunning wine that satisfies the intellect just as much as the soul. Compact and dense with high dry extract, crisp acid and pronounced mineral notes along with delicate white floral 72

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and citrus. So precise and impressive with a long salty finish. Put it down for 10-15 years.

(MB) G.B. Burlotto Barolo DOCG ‘Monvigliero’, 2019, Piedmont Italy ($100) A wine of delightful duality. It is engaging as it opens up with a depth of ripe berry to raspberry fruit aromas, then turns elusive in a swirl of orange citrus to pomegranate with another breath. The palate gives firm structure, velvety texture of milk chocolate, red berry fruit and remains lifted and bright all along the way. (CS) Ar.Pe.Pe Nuova Regina Valtellina Superiore DOCG Riserva ‘Sassella’, 2016, Lombardy Italy ($100) Valtellina Nebbiolo is special, a true alpine expression of the grape. And Ar.Pe.Pe is one of the region’s top producers making a variety of bottlings that demonstrate Nebbiolo’s versatility and ability to interpret place. In the subregion of Sassella, Nuova Regina reaches a lofty 550 metres sustaining old vines on particularly rocky soil. It is ethereal in its nuances of red forest berries, tea, licorice root and undergrowth. This expands seductively on the palate bringing in accents of mint, tarragon and gravel. Tannins are silky and fine yet chiseled and amplified by linear acidity.

Lightness but so much flavour and simmering longevity. (MM) Domaine Houillon Canne Vin de France, 2021, Rhône Valley France ($108) A blend of Grenache and Syrah. A spiced and floral natural wine. The aroma opens with intense spice box, then moves to deep dark berry fruit. On the palate, juicy, crushable and fine fruit flavours. The wine is a whirlwind of elegant and deep fruit flavours. (CS) Monteraponi Trebbiano Colli della Toscana Centrale IGT, 2021, Tuscany Italy ($110) High yielding and rather neutral, Trebbiano Toscano (aka Ugni Blanc) doesn’t get a lot of respect. But there is a growing interest among Tuscan winemakers to coax intrigue and character out of this grape. Michele Braganti at Monteraponi was at the forefront. Made from 40-year-old vines, with 30% whole bunches and a skin maceration of 5 to 6 days, this is aged in untoasted barriques. It is golden in colour with wafting scents of orange peel, dried herbs and rising dough. Dry yet with a compelling sweet sensation, the palate brings in luscious apple nuanced by hints of nuts and smoke to finish. Satisfying now but suggests a fascinating evolution over the next 10 years.

(MM) Fèlsina Chianti Classico Riserva DOCG ‘Rancia’, 2019, Tuscany Italy ($115) Sangiovese of Chianti Classico at its finest.

The aroma of this wine exudes warmth and ripe dark red berry fruit. Salted mineral tones welcome you into a palate of chalky gripping tannins that will take time to settle, revealing a core of deep juicy fruit that will further unravel in pleasant ways with time in cellar. (CS)

Le Macchiole Paleo Toscana IGT, 2019, Tuscany Italy ($149) Eugenio Campolmi and his wife Cinzia Merli were among the pioneers in Bolgheri. Campolmi was also the first one in the region to produce a 100% Cabernet Franc. He strongly believed in the quality the grape could achieve.

Time showed he was right. Cabernet Franc is continually gaining ground, especially in the context of climate change, because it has the ability to produce fresh wines. Paleo is a fine example! Profound with beautiful symbiosis between pencil shaving, cedar, raspberries, dark plum and the hint of green bell pepper.

Elegant, fresh and bright yet still very tight.

Time will allow the wine to open up and the tannins to resolve. (MB) Vega Sicilia Valbuena 5° Ribera del Duero DO, 2018, Castilla y León Spain ($225) The level of detail at each step of the production at Vega-Sicilia is very impressive and it shows in the final wines. For those who can’t get their hands on, or afford, the winery’s revered Unico, Valbuena 5° is more accessible and definitely worth a splurge. Very elegant with fine grained tannins, firm structure and a harmonious contrast between dark ripe fruit and bright acid. Licorice and violet notes lift the profile. With time, the notes of vanilla and coconut coming from the oak will integrate. If you can, put it down for 15-25 years. (MB)

TOP SUSTAINABLE WINE PICKS: Sustainability refers to social, economic and environmental practises.

It is important to understand that it is a process and journey rather than a finite destination. No one is perfect and we make no claims as to the degree to which the practises of these producers align with varying global standards, guidelines and certifications. But, the wines selected for this category are from producers who appear engaged in sustainable practices and, in the opinion of the reviewers, deserve recognition. Of course, they also taste great.

Les Vignerons d’Estèzargues La Montagnette Côtes du Rhône Villages Sinargues AOC, 2021, Rhône Valley France ($17) A blend of Grenache 70%, Syrah 20%, Carignan 5% and Mourvèdre 5%. Pretty nose with typical aromas of blackberries, black pepper, ripe raspberries, dried herbs and black olives. Violet notes provided by the Syrah lift the wine. Soft ripe tannins with high alcohol well integrated and fresh acidity balancing the dark fruit. I love the pure profile offered by the absence of oak. Outstanding value. (MB)

Domaine Thymiopoulos Jeunes Vignes de Xinomavro Naoussa, 2021, Macedonia Greece ($20) Apostolos Thymiopoulos is one of Greece’s most talented winemakers and he is part of the young and dynamic generation who has changed the perception of Greek wine on the international market. His 34 hectares are located in Naoussa between Trifolos and the village of Fytia at the foothills of Mount Vermio. Here he crafts some of the most stunning Xinomavro in the country. While his premium cuvées are meant for the cellar, Jeunes Vignes should be enjoyed when young and fruity.

Pretty notes of wild strawberries, tomato leaf and orange zest are framed by firm tannins and crisp acidity. (MB) Parés Baltà Materia Prima Orange Penedès DO, 2021, Catalonia Spain ($26) Respected biodynamic producer Parés Baltà produces a very accessible orange wine which provides a great introduction to the style.

Tangy with a characterful palate and aromas that go back and forth between dried herbs, blood orange, gentian and saffron. Slight bitterness makes you take another sip. Delicious with a salad of roasted beets, orange and mix of fresh herbs. (MB) Catherine et Pierre Breton Épaulé Jeté Vouvray AOC, 2021, Loire Valley France ($26) Clean natural wine with tension and energy.

Generous palate with classic chamomile, honey, red apple and dried apricot aromas you expect in Vouvray. Touch of residual sugar well balanced by tangy acidity. I love the pastry notes that linger on the finish. Made for duck rillettes or goat cheese. (MB) Alta Alella Pansa Blanca Alella DO, 2020, Catalonia Spain ($26) Besides ongoing development of PIWI hybrids, Mireia Pujol crafts organic Cavas and still wines from grapes local to the tiny appellation of Alella. Here Xarel-lo is known as Pansa Blanca, and with a bit of bottle age, it takes on enticing petrol notes. The nose expands with nuances of unbaked bread, thyme and fennel.

Steely rather than fruity, the palate relies on its mouth cleansing salinity for freshness. The finish is positively salivating. Mireia suggests a regional match of peas prepared as her mother does – with Absinthe and pork cheek. I’d trek to the hinterlands of Barcelona for that! (MM) Lightfoot & Wolfville Brut Annapolis Valley, 2017, Nova Scotia Canada ($45) As the climate becomes more challenging so does sustainability in the already extreme environment of Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley.

Yet at Lightfoot & Wolfville, the goal isn’t simply survival, it is succession, and all decisions are based on this, from the vineyards - which are organic and biodynamic certified and seeded with 40 different cover crops to attract beneficial native insects – to the work force. For example, the family provides accommodations to house temporary workers. As for the wines, they exude purity and authenticity. The Brut is light and lovely with white blossom floral

scents, citrus zest and grapefruit. These carry through to the racy palate where fresh cut apple and lemon cream meets frothy bubbles.

Touches of pastry draw out the finish. (MM) Nikolaihof Hefeabzug Grüner Veltliner Wachau DAC, 2020, Niederösterreich Austria ($50) Aged on the lees as the name denotes, Hefeabzug is a wine that seems to defy nature.

It is textured, concentrated and structured yet with a lightness, buoyancy and resounding energy. Notes of struck stone, pepper and fennel meet zesty citrus and green apple. At a refreshingly modest 11% abv, it is a wine to sip on at any point during the day you desire. With a history of almost 2000 years, Nikolaihof is in this business for the long haul. The transition to biodynamic viticulture was natural as it reflects the estate’s philosophy of symbiosis with the environment. Official certification was awarded in 1998. (MM) Long Meadow Ranch Chardonnay Anderson Valley, 2018, California USA ($60) Long Meadow Ranch is a self-contained 800-hectare property with organically grown fruit and vegetables, livestock, olive oil production and vineyards. Dry farming is the goal with deficit irrigation only when needed. And the estate is currently transitioning from diesel to electric tractors. Just as impressive is their Anderson Valley Chardonnay. It exhibits restraint while capturing the ripeness and generosity of California. Subtle and intriguing aromas of flint, lees and cream make way for just-picked orchard fruit. The palate is textured and layered with a decidedly savoury undertow. Integrated understated oak and assertive structure make for a very drinkable package. This is long on flavour. (MM) Montenidoli Fiore Vernaccia di San Gimignano DOCG, 2020, Tuscany Italy ($60) A ‘naked’ Vernaccia, Fiore is made from free run juice that remains on the lees in stainless steel for a year. Timid in its youth, the 2020 offers a gentle lemony nose with delicate white blossoms and a suggestion of almond.

More about texture than flavour, this flows across the palate with soothing grace leaving green apple and stony minerals in its wake. It is a quiet wine that reveals its complexity by listening attentively and ageing. Founded in 1965 and never touched by pesticides, Montenidoli’s 200-hectare estate, including 27 hectares of vines, was certified organic in the 1990s. It is still run by the 87-year-old Elisabetta Fagiuola who established a foundation to help troubled youth, hosting them on her property. (MM) Felton Road Chardonnay Central Otago ‘Block 6’, 2020, South Island New Zealand ($71) Nigel Greening and Blair Walter’s commitment to mitigate climate change is so inspiring and impressive that it would be impossible to list everything they do in a few words.

But I especially commend their courage to adopt light weight bottles for the premium wines. Their Chardonnay has always been

my favourite wine from them and 2020 is no exception. It is rich and generous yet balanced by great freshness. Beautiful creamy texture with lingering notes of hazelnuts, cream, stone fruit, lemon rind mingling with vanilla. (MB)

QUENCH HOUSE WINES: What the editors and writers of Quench are drinking at home and why.

The Grape Grinder Wild Olive Old Vines Chenin Blanc Swartland WO, 2022, Western Cape South Africa ($14) This surprisingly elevated, unoaked Chenin Blanc, made from 30-year-old goblet (head trained) bush vines yields stone fruit and citrus aromas before a quite generous, gently honeyed palate underpinned by a touch of minerality. Perfect for sipping but also pairs well with pan fried sole, shellfish or simple chicken dishes. (TP) Quinta dos Aciprestes Douro DOC, 2017, Douro Valley Portugal ($18) Opaque purple in colour. Cedary, mulberry nose with oak spice. Full-bodied, sweet blackberry and mulberry fruit with a rich, fruity mid-palate and a firm finish of mellow tannins.

Great value. (TA) Nicolas Grosbois La Cuisine de ma Mère Chinon AOC, 2021, Loire Valley France ($21) Regardless of the time of the year, I am always in the mood for a good Chinon and this wine offers great value for the money. Typical nose of Cabernet Franc with green bell pepper, raspberries, red plum and fresh earth. Ripe despite the green aromas with bright acid and delicate chalky tannins. Fresh, juicy and savoury everything you want from a Chinon! (MB) Altes Schlösschen Mittelhaardt-Deutsche Weinstraße, 2021, Pfalz Germany ($24) From vineyards near St Martin, nestled in the foothills of the Haardt mountains. Good fruit ripeness gives this Pinot Noir rosé an advantage over similar ones that can come across as too lean. Sunned strawberries with cream, fresh cherry, and light summer herbs dominate the nose. Yet still cool climate in sensibility. There is a lovely backbone of acid that drives the texture to freshness, balanced by a generous fruit-driven mid-palate. Drink now with a wide range of dish flavours and weights. (BD) Blue Mountain Pinot Blanc Okanagan Valley BC VQA, 2022 British Columbia Canada ($26) I have always had great affection for this restrained, mineral-scented wine that is able to capture the essence of an Okanagan orchard while maintaining an austerity at the same time. The ‘22 is a classic example with stone fruit and white pepper aromas on the nose and a lovely balance on the palate between brisk, citrussy acid and a slight creaminess. (BP) QUENCH.ME

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Domaine de L’Ecu Orthogneiss Vin de France, 2020, Loire Valley France ($32) Formerly bearing the Muscadet Sèvre et Maine appellation, now L’Ecu’s mineral driven Orthogneiss is simply labeled as a Vin de France. It is still made from biodynamically grown Melon de Bourgogne grapes fermented spontaneously with indigenous yeast and aged on the lees for 18 months for a smooth and flowy yet energetic white. It is scented with apple blossoms and tastes like liquid stone and river water. Appetite-stimulating acidity makes this perfect for apéro but it transitions so seamlessly to seafood fare. I would happily drink a glass of this daily. Sometimes I do. (MM) Wieninger Wiener Gemischter Satz DAC ‘ried Ulm Nussberg’, 2020, Vienna Austria ($44) Charming white floral perfume, waxy golden apple, with a touch of honeyed powder. It is open and engaging like sunshine. The light of this wine brings you into a bright apple, pear and citrus medley on the palate with warm spice to finish. A complex wine in more than 8 ways - it’s a field blend of 9 different grapes. (CS)

BEST OF THE REST: Wines that are Recommended and Highly Recommended by our experienced panel of tasters listed by price from low to high: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED Bartier Bros. Chardonnay Okanagan Valley BC VQA, 2022, British Columbia Canada ($22) Bright straw in colour. Lightly toasty, apple nose. Medium-bodied, dry, yellow apple flavour with lemony notes. Elegant, beautifully balanced and well-integrated oak. (TA) Sonora Desert Winery Mythology Sauvignon Blanc Semillon Okanagan Valley BC VQA, 2020, British Columbia Canada ($25)

Township 7 Reserve Sauvignon Blanc Okanagan Valley BC VQA, 2021, British Columbia Canada ($28) Bright golden colour. Grassy, lanolin nose with a light floral note. Medium-bodied, dry and elegant Bordeaux-style. Beautifully integrated oak and lovely mouthfeel with green plum and passionfruit flavours ending on a saline note.

(TA) Red Barn Jagged Rock Lost Art Semillon Okanagan Valley BC VQA, 2021, British Columbia Canada ($30) From the newly unveiled, Kundig-designed Red Barn, right below the dramatic Jagged Rock, on the eastern edge of Black Sage Bench.

Whole cluster pressed 100 percent Semillon is fermented and aged in concrete ‘eggs.’ Up front aromas of orchard fruits and mineral hints precede a creamy, textured, tropical and citrus palate. Well balanced, with fruit and acidity perfectly in synch before a lengthy close. Certified organic. Drink it now but also be tempted to wait two to three years—or more. (TP) Selbach Riesling Dry Mosel, 2019, Mosel Germany ($32) It is the mouthfeel that impresses the most on this Riesling from Johannes Selbach and his family. The nose is restrained with dried apricot and wet stone while the palate is textured and long with stone fruit and red apples. (BP) Thirty Bench Small Lot Riesling Beamsville Bench VQA ‘Steel Post Vineyard’, 2020, Ontario Canada ($32) The ‘20 ‘Steel Post’ is all about focus. Very pure flavours with wet stone and orange oils aroma on the nose. Great balance between delicacy, ripe citrus and vibrant acidity in the mouth. Delicious now but I’d be interested to see the flavour development over the next 5 to 10 years. (BP) Vietti Perbacco Langhe DOP Nebbiolo, 2020, Piedmont Italy ($33)

64% Sauvignon Blanc; 35% Semillon. Pale straw in colour with grassy, green plum and lanolin on the nose. Medium-bodied and dry with beautifully balanced, gooseberry and green pineapple flavours. Reminiscent of a white Bordeaux. Lovely mouthfeel. (TA)

My go-to when I want a serious Nebbiolo but can’t justify splurging on a Barolo or Barbaresco. A serious expression of the grape with firm dusty tannins and haunting aromas of licorice, strawberries, cherries and a hint of tar. Must enjoy with food to fully appreciate it. My choice is mushroom risotto or rabbit fricassee. (MB)

Altugnac Terres Amoureuses Limoux AOC, 2021, Languedoc France ($26)

Flat Rock Riesling Twenty Mile Bench VQA ‘Nadja’s Vineyard’, 2020, Ontario Canada ($33)

(90% Chardonnay, 10% Mauzac) The vines for this wine are among some of the oldest plantings of Chardonnay in Limoux, dating back to the 1970s. This very much reminded me of Côtes de Beaune in its character. On the nose, the 20% new oak is present, warm spice and toast dance above the orchard fruits, lemon zest, and apple blossom. The palate is bright, zippy, with flavours of Greek yogurt, green apple, and that comforting spice tone.

Lingering, concentrated, this is a wine of excellent quality, especially considering the price tag. (BD)

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From the “Capstone Series” of wines which Flat Rock considers to be the finest expressions of terroir in their range. The 2020 Nadja’s vineyard is sprightly and stony, bursting with apple and ripe citrus fruit. Drink for pure pleasure now or wait 5-8 years for even more exotic flavours to develop. (BP) Henry of Pelham Riesling Speck Family Reserve Short Hills Bench VQA, 2022, Ontario Canada ($33) The youthful ‘22 Speck Family Reserve is full of interesting contrasts: it is delicate but braced

by steely minerality. The fruit is powerful, but the body is light, and the finish is long and salty. Ready to drink now but can age. (BP) Tawse Riesling Twenty Mile Bench VQA ‘Carly’s Block’, 2020, Ontario Canada ($33) Delicious wine with a haunting orange spice note throughout… The nose is lower toned than some examples from Ontario and has aromas of starfruit and preserved lemon.

Broad and textured palate backed with hallmark acidity. (BP) Closson Chase Chardonnay Prince Edward County VQA, 2021, Ontario Canada ($35) I always anticipate high quality from Closson Chase, but this wine is truly remarkable. From estate fruit and a straightforward vintage, it is a beautifully balanced. With only 10% new French oak, barely noticed, the nose combines minerality with plentiful fruit notes of peach, bakery-in-the-morning, pear skin, pear blossom, and lemon crumble. The palate is focused, acid-driven, with a fleshed out mid-palate that goes on for a long, refreshing finish. Proof that buying local can be amazing value for quality, and proof that Closson Chase and winemaker Keith Tyers know a thing or two about world class Chardonnay. (BD) L’Erta di Radda Due & Due Rosso Toscana IGT, 2021, Tuscany Italy ($36) ‘Two x Two’ brings together Sangiovese and Canaiolo Nero with approximately 30% Trebbiano Toscano and Malvasia Bianca Lunga from a single plot co-planted in 1971. The grapes are picked at the same time and co-fermented, then see an addition of partially dried white grapes to kick of a slow second fermentation.

Old school winemaking by someone (Diego Finocchi) with a deep understanding of the craft. The result is an aromatic, crunchy and joyful explosion. Scents of cinnamon, chestnut and orange blossom lead to a fresh, midweight palate where bright cherry is infused with red floral and sweet herbal accents. Light dusty tannins tug in all the right places. Difficult not to chug. (MM) Quails’ Gate Clone 220 Chenin Blanc Okanagan Valley BC VQA, 2022, British Columbia Canada ($40) A step up from Quails’ Gates’s delightful estate Chenin, the Clone 220 hails from a single block. Free run juice is divided between concrete eggs (80%) and neutral barrels (20%) and aged on the lees for 4-5 months giving gorgeous texture to this citrusy white. Hints of spring blossom lend complexity. Midweight and concentrated but with an agility that keeps it light on its feet thanks to zippy, zesty, ripe acidity. (MM) La Soeur Cadette Galerne Vézelay AOC, 2020, Burgundy France ($40) La Soeur Cadette is a négoce label created by Burgundian Valentin Montanet, though the Galerne cuvée hails from his family’s organically cultivated vineyard in the appellation of Vézelay, just south of Chablis. This unoaked

Chardonnay rings out animatedly with sense of place as it bursts with fresh, sun-ripened apples right down to the crisp, juicy flesh.

Creamy in texture with hints of pastry, spice and lingering oyster shells. Thoroughly satisfying. (MM) Soito Encruzado Reserva Dão DOC, 2021, Portugal ($45) Dão is often referred to as the ‘Burgundy of Portugal’. Certainly the region is making some of the country’s most complex, age worthy whites - from the native Encruzado grape.

However, they have yet to reach eyewatering prices – thankfully! The 10-year-old Soito winery offers a solid example. It is leesy and toasty with intense lemon, grilled herb and vanilla aromas. Mouth filling and vibrant, the palate is creamy with peach and guava carried by zippy, citrusy acidity. Well integrated oak notes frame the edges, and the finish echoes sweet herbs. (MM) Tenuta Maso Corno Declivi Sauvignon Blanc Trentino DOC Riserva, 2018, Italy ($45) Declivi is a contender for one of my favourite whites of the year. With all due respect to the grape, I never thought I’d say that about a Sauvignon Blanc. Yet this Trento version delivers in its aromas of tropical lychee and guava offset by hints of licorice and fennel while also satisfying the palate. It is weighty, concentrated and seductively textured yet so juicy. I had this with Peking duck, and it was an absolutely inspired match. (MM) Koerner The Clare Red Blend Clare Valley, 2020, South Australia ($50) With tempting scents of red currant, raspberry and lead pencil right off the bat, this has inklings of a Loire red as it begs for a hearty sip. And the palate is rewarded with all of the wine’s juicy charms. Here the fruit is deeper and darker with black currants laced with violet and clayey earth. A midweight concentrated core is carried by bright, fresh acidity and hemmed in by pleasantly scratchy tannins.

As for the blend, it brings together Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Grenache, Malbec and a hint of the Sciaccarello (aka Mammolo).

(MM) Reia Poanta Goriška Brda, 2017, Primorska Slovenia ($52) A delightful skin-contact cuvee of Rebula, Malvasia, Friulano, and a splash of Chardonnay gives earthy and vegetal vibes, with mineral, citrus and yellow flowers on the nose. The palate is textured, pithy, and creamed with sweet peach, apricot puree and nectar, orange peel, and ginger. So much, too much to say. It is a wine to enjoy. (CS) Burrowing Owl Meritage Okanagan Valley BC VQA, 2021, British Columbia Canada ($55) Expressive red and black fruits lead this top tier Bordeaux style blend of Black Sage Bench estate-grown Cabernet Sauvignon (37%), Cabernet Franc (32%), Merlot (23%), Petit Verdot (5%) and Malbec 3%). The superbly

integrated palate defined by approachable tannins and balanced acidity yields intense cassis, black cherry, anise and spice notes that open beautifully in the glass. Very drinkable now but well worth waiting a few more years. (TP)

lemon, peach and crisp apple, it is juicy on the palate with a finish that tastes like Mandarin oranges. (BP)

Companhia de Vinhos dos Profetas e Villōes Tinta Negra dos Villōes Madeirense DOP, 2021, Madeira Portugal ($56)

From organically farmed Malbec vines ranging in age from 15-30 years located on a limestone rich plateau in Cahors, this is a delightful version of what can be a rustic and dense wine.

The nose opens with brambly blackberry, charred herbs, and black currants. Large concrete is the aging vessel which allows the purity of fruit to shine and softens the tannin expression. Still very much Cahors, there is an element of honesty and straightforwardness that is incredibly charming. Drink in its youth to enjoy the beautiful fruit expression. Pair with grilled foods. (BD)

If you are a fan of fresh and vibrant wines, then this salty, floral wine from Tinta Negra will please the palate. It leads with complex red berry fruit, bright cherry to deeper bramble, stewed currant and pomegranate. The island origins of this wine add elements of salinity, a slight rusticity framed by soft tannins, more bramble fruit and hibiscus with herbal spiced accents. (CS) Gelveri Manufactur Mayoglu-Terebinth Western Cappadocia, 2019, Central Anatolia Turkey ($56) Terebinth (of the cashew family) is a tree in the Central Anatolia region. Its resin, which was historically used to line wine amphora, is applied to this wine, giving way to an other-worldly aromatic intensity. Floral scented of the resinous sap-lifeblood of the tree, it moves to a palate that is earthy, bitter and sweet opening with more florals in the mouth.

An energetic range of flavours. A must-try as it reshapes the imagination of wine flavours. (CS) Bodegas Ostatu Selección de Ostatu Rioja DOCa, 2018, Rioja Spain ($70) Tempranillo and Graciano sourced from old vines planted up in the mountains above the bodega. This makes way for warm spiced fruit aromas, that are toned by red floral and garrigue. The palate is tart and textured with more herbs - rosemary, thyme and sage. A delightful Rioja that breaks the mold. (CS)

RECOMMENDED Gérard Bertrand Côte des Roses Sauvignon Blanc Pays d’Oc IGP, 2021, LanguedocRoussillon France ($20) Pale straw in colour. Lightly floral nose of cut grass and lemon. Medium-bodied, dry and crisp with gooseberry and green plum flavours.

Good length. (TA) Salentein Reserve Malbec Valle de Uco, 2021, Mendoza Argentina ($20) When you finish your first glass of Malbec and you reach for a second one because your mouth is watering, it is always a good sign!

Here you find the blueberries, dark plum and violet notes mixed with black liquorice that we associated with fine Malbec. Elegant ripe tannins with crisp acid balancing the ripe fruit. Juicy and bright. I applaud the restraint use of oak. Made for burgers, ribs and grilled sausages. (MB) Selbach Riesling Mosel, 2021, Mosel Germany ($23) Selbach’s “Fish label” is an accessible Riesling with lots of varietal character. Aromatic with

Château du Cèdre Juvéniles Cahors AOC, 2020, South West France ($24)

Cloudsley Cellars Pinot Noir Niagara Peninsula VQA, 2020, Ontario Canada ($24) Cloudsley Cellars, a boutique sized winery led

by Adam Lowy, is proving to be a contender for great Niagara Pinot Noir. This bottling is from a range of sites across the Twenty Mile Bench sub-appellation. Not yet fully realized but already giving complex aromas of red berried fruits, ripe cherry, cedar chest, anise, and a hint of violet. The palate is a harmonious balance of freshness, young tannins, moderate alcohol, and concentrated flavors. This will go somewhere special in 2-3 years and can drink well up to 2030. (BD) Malivoire Small Lot Gamay Beamsville Bench VQA, 2021, Ontario Canada ($25) Bright ruby in colour. Lightly cedary, black cherry nose with a touch of oak spice. Medium-bodied and dry with juicy cherry flavour carried on lively acidity. (TA) Blue Mountain Pinot Gris Okanagan Valley BC VQA, 2022, British Columbia Canada ($26) Blue Mountain was one of the first BC wineries to define themselves as a quality producer and they continue to offer some of the best wines in the province. This wine has gentle spice with pear on the nose and just enough body weight to remind you that you’re drinking Pinot Gris.

Crisp and elegant on the finish. (BP) Tightrope Riesling Naramata Bench Okanagan Valley BC VQA ‘Fleet Road Vineyard’, 2022, British Columbia Canada ($26) Forward notes of vibrant citrus and orchard fruits with some flinty hints introduce a juicy, well-structured palate, driven by firm acidity, that builds to textured layers of bright, juicy lemon lime, green apple and some tropical hints before a lingering, zesty close. Whole cluster pressed, before 14 hours of skin contact and cool fermentation over 30 days, this wine will continue to evolve over the coming five years or more. Produced with fruit from Sustainable Winegrowing BC’s first formally certified winery – a small but growing number.

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Stag’s Hollow Albariño Okanagan Falls Okanagan Valley BC VQA, 2022, British Columbia Canada ($26) Forward notes of citrus and tropical tones lead to good acidity on the palate with peach and pear plus a touch of salinity in the background, and a well-textured mouthfeel from lees stirring through a lengthy end. Winemaker Keira Lefranc feels the 2022 displays much more of that salinity that so often defines the variety in Rías Baixas - and I agree! (TP) Gérard Bertrand Hampton Water Rosé Languedoc AOC, 2022, LanguedocRoussillon France ($30) A blend of Grenache (60%), Cinsault (15%), Mourvèdre (15%), and Syrah (10%). Pale orange-pink in colour. Red berry bouquet.

Medium-bodied, dry and subtly aged in oak with elegant redcurrant flavours. Beautifully balanced and lingering. (TA) Château des Sarrins Grande Cuvée Rouge Côtes de Provence AOC, 2016, Provence France ($34) Syrah and Grenache are rounded out with a co-ferment of old bush vine Cabernet Sauvignon, Carignan and Mourvèdre. With scents of sweet garrigues, mint, black cherry and olive, this is immediately evocative of the South of France. The palate is sumptuousness but not overripe and envelops with smooth, plush tannins. Mellowed yet not tired, it culminates with an evocative finish of thyme and lavender.

Ah, I miss Provence… (MM) Cartuxa Évora Branco Alentejo DOC, 2021, Portugal ($35) A classic white blend in Alentejo with Arinto providing zippy acidity, Antão Vaz giving body and structure and Roupeiro lending a pop of fruit. The nose is fresh and vibrant replete with peach and apricot along with a touch of orange blossom. This is packed with fleshy, juicy fruit. Floral notes repeat and flavours of pink grapefruit surface on a chalky backdrop. There is no oak to get in the way, and the 13% alcohol is well balanced. (MM) Ravasqueira Vinha das Romãs Vinho Regional Alentejano, 2020, Alentejo Portugal ($35) A field blend of Portugal’s Touriga Franca grape and Syrah from a single vineyard, Vinha das Romãs is delightfully expressive, even exotic in aromas. A tangle of black raspberry, licorice, sweet herbs, lavender, tea and sumac. The palate is energetic, red fruited and particularly redolent of currants. Tannins are ripe but give a bit of grip. The wood dries the finish slightly but should back off with time. (MM) Maçanita Vinhos Letra F Vinho de Mistura Douro DOC, 2021, Douro Valley Portugal ($35) Letra F references the grade assigned to this Douro Valley vineyard, the lowest according to the historical classification of port vineyards.

While the grapes likely wouldn’t have made it into port, as a dry table white this wine offers a fresh and energic taste of how traditional, 76

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early Douro wines were made. A field blend of white grapes gives herbal laced red fruit flavours, true finesse and elegance. With 30 days skin contact, the aromatics and flavours are allowed to interweave in an engaging manner. A distinct contrast to heavier styles of the region. (CS) Macatho Chimiltito Valle del Itata, 2020, Chile ($35) The nose offers up a sensation of ripe red berry fruit - spiced candy cherry, with red floral aromas. Concentrated but not too sweet. On the palate, the generous fruit is robed in tart, savoury, ripe tannins. Both earthy and fruity, this wine is a pleasant medium-light sipper. It is a wine with a sense of place, approachable with good energy. (CS) Domaine de Sanzay Saumur-Champigny AOC, 2021, Loire Valley France ($35) The deliciousness of this Cabernet Franc from Saumur-Champigny exudes a pedigree different than neighbouring Chinon. It is nuanced by layers of earthiness and bold ripe blue fruit with lasting intensity, yet still lean and fresh. Tasting this wine brings back pleasant memories of a long Sunday evening in my favourite bistro in the Marais of Paris enjoying a peppered steak with frites and haricots verts. (CS) Guillerault-Fargette Les Panseillots Sancerre AOC, 2021, Loire Valley France ($37) This is an ‘immediate pleasure’ style of Sancerre – showy and aromatic, driven by inviting passionfruit, grapefruit zest and lime candy notes. It is not as mineral as some but still shows some flintiness. Less austere than many Sancerres on the palate, this is still a firm, powerful wine. The flavour profile gives way to a charred green bell pepper note. But still, this is a fruit-driven style and one that I would suggest drinking now or in the next 3 years to make the most of its charms. 100% Sauvignon Blanc. (BD) Tawse 3xP Chardonnay Niagara Peninsula VQA, 2016, Ontario Canada ($38/1500ml) From magnum, this is just entering its twilight phase. This is a collaboration between the late Paul Pender and micro-negociants Nicholas Pearce and Will Predhomme. Most of the fruit was sourced from Niagara Benchland vineyards which translates to a high-toned, expressive mineral-focused Chardonnay.

Fruit notes are fresh lemon, grapefruit pith and green pear elevated by fresh lees. Drink now until 2028. For 750ml sized bottles, drink sooner rather than later. (BD) Weingut Harteneck Spätburgunder, 2019, Baden Germany ($40) Germany is bona fide source for fine Pinot Noir.

Fresh cherry-Pinot tones in a lightness of being energy. Light-ish with nice concentration and tone on the palate giving sweet juicy fruit. A wine that is pleasant …simple and graciously showing Pinot charm that does all you want without being one way or another. (CS)

Ruby Blues Syrah, 2021, British Columbia Canada ($50) Winemaker Graham Pierce (ex. Black Hills and Kitsch) purchased this fruit from a respected grower on the west side of north Osoyoos Lake and brought the wine in barrel with him on arrival at Ruby Blues in 2022. Aged 17 months in premium French oak, the wine is an excellent, ripe expression of south Okanagan Syrah with forward notes of black berries and spice before a mouth-filling, dark cherry and pepper toned, supple palate with lingering spice on the finish.

Worth putting away, it will evolve well over the coming decade. (TP) La Gerla Rosso di Montalcino DOC, 2021, Tuscany Italy ($50) While not necessarily priced as an everyday drinking proposition, Rosso di Montalcino does provide a lighter, fresher expression of Montalcino compared to its big brother Brunello.

It also hints at what is in store for the former in upcoming vintages. With scents of warm, spiced red plum and a relatively rich dried cherry palate, La Gerla’s 2021 speaks of a hot vintage. But is well-balanced by Sangiovese’s zesty acidity. Nuances of pressed flowers, earth and iron add appeal and the whole is layered with powdery tannins. (MM) Torres Purgatori Costers del Segre DO, 2020, Catalonia Spain ($58) A blend of Cariñena and Garnacha. Dense purple colour. Cedary, plum bouquet with oak spice. Full-bodied, dry and richly extracted with ripe plum flavour, balancing acidity, well-integrated oak and great length. (TA)

BEFORE… Sparkling wines, fino sherries, other wines that would traditionally be served before dinner.

Hinterland Borealis Rosé Prince Edward County VQA, 2021, Ontario Canada ($24) A delightful pink Charmat method sparkling from Gamay and Cabernet Franc grapes.

Floral, raspberry bush, black currant, candied strawberry aromas - not overly complex.

Created as a local response to modestly priced Prosecco, this is meant to be drunk young. It is slightly off dry which gives a riper, confected twist on the fruit flavors. Nice acidity and bouncy bubbles keep it fun and fresh. (BD) Paltrineri Piria Lambrusco di Sorbara DOC Secco Frizzante, 2022, Lombardy Italy ($25) (70% Lambrusco di Sorbara, 30% Lambrusco Salamino) Electric pink in the glass, and the aromas are just as exuberant - ripe floral berry notes, candied cherry, and mint. On the palate there is a wonderful tug-of-war between austerity and creaminess. Bone dry, crisp acid, and then fleshy fruit. This is a fun interaction, and one that is delightful to wash down snacks like tapas. Perfect for apéritif – or aperitivo hour. (BD)

Bartier Bros. Brut Okanagan Valley BC VQA, n/v, British Columbia Canada ($40)

Donnafugata Ben Ryé Passito di Pantelleria DOC, 2019, Sicily Italy ($55/375ml)

Waterford Heritage Hunter Single Malt Irish Whiskey, Ireland

Golden straw colour and active mousse of tiny bubbles. Apple and citrus zest bouquet.

Medium-bodied, dry and elegant with apple and lemon flavours. Great length. A good Champagne substitute. (TA)

One of Italy’s most renown dessert wines, Ben Ryé is made from sundried Moscato di Alessandria grapes on the volcanic island of Pantelleria. Tantalising aromas of toffee, marmalade, sultanas and orange blossom honey are worth the price of entry alone.

The palate follows through with orange oil and pleasantly bitter citrus peel. Incredibly intense and creamy in texture without being heavy. The generous 14.5% alcohol provides structure. But before becoming too serious, a flirtatious lingering finish of honeysuckle and dried herbs kicks in. (MM)

This whisky is distilled from Hunter barley, a species that’s been revived after being essentially extinct for over half a century. As is often the case with Waterford expressions, it’s another unique experience—an elegant whisky with honey and pear, a distinct peppery note, plenty of cinnamon, some earthy sarsaparilla and pronounced oak. (CSO)

Garnet Valley Ranch Traditional Method Sparkling Okanagan Valley BC VQA, 2016, British Columbia Canada ($50) First tastes from this high altitude, organic planting above Summerland continue to impress, especially as the vines (planted in 2012) start to mature. Sparkling wine was the driving force behind Garnet Valley Ranch.

Hence, it’s dedicated primarily to Chardonnay and Pinot Noir (along with some Riesling, of course). This classic blend was aged for six years, and rewards accordingly. With a lively stream of fine bubbles and persistent mousse, it sports up-front brioche, bready notes and red berry hints on the nose before a generous, juicy but elegant and bone-dry palate of citrus and creamy elements through the lengthy, zesty finish. A regional wine in its own right but also a pretty good nod to Champagne. (TP) Elena RAV 18 Vermouth di Torino, n/v, Piedmont Italy ($97 – 1000ml) An aromatized wine, Vermouth is usually blended in cocktails like a Negroni or Manhattan. On its own, it is typically enjoyed before a meal to stimulate the appetite, however, it works equally as well as a digestivo. Whenever you drink Elena Penna’s limited-edition Vermouth, be sure to savour it. Hailing from Vietti’s Nebbiolo holdings in Barolo’s Ravera cru and blended with Arneis from Roero, it is flavoured with local botanicals such as gentian, cloves, rhubarb and wormwood, of course. You find these along with poignant scents alpine herbs, Mediterranean oranges, exotic vanilla and more. Above all, this has depth and soul, and is deftly balanced between sweetness and bitterness, concluding spectacularly with the latter. Quite endless and expansive. (MM)

…and AFTER Dessert wines and digestifs that would traditionally be served after dinner.

José Maria da Fonseca Alambre 20 Años Moscatel de Setúbal DOC, n/v, Península de Setúbal Portugal ($55/500ml) Alas, fortified wines are unfashionable but when they are this unique and delicious, it’s worth finding an occasion to crack a bottle.

Here 19 vintages of Muscat of Alexandria ranging in age from 20 to 80 years old are blended together after long ageing in wood.

The bouquet is exotic with gorgeous salted caramel, toasted nuts, dried florals, orange peel and smoke. It is lusciously sweet yet balanced by mouth cleansing acidity, a firm structure and salty tang. I recommend inviting over a few friends and serving with a selection of fine cheeses. FYI – this does not require ageing. (MM)

SPIRITS Elevación1250 Tequila Blanco, Mexico Iliana Partida notes that the terroir of the highlands in Jalisco, Mexico, where the agave for this spirit is grown, is very different than the terroir in the valley, since the soil is so distinct.

Rich mouthfeel with plenty of sweet fruit balanced out by a distinctly minty herbaceousness and a subtle hint of baking spice, all winding up with a clean finish. (CSO) Tequila Ocho ‘Mesa Colorada’ 2023 Plata, Mexico This bat-friendly, sustainable, single-estate, additive-free tequila has been lighting the path for terroir tequila since it was founded 15 years ago by Tomas Estes and Carlos Camarera.

Made from seven to 10-year-old agave plants from the Mesa Colorada estate, this tequila has a distinctly fruity aroma with abundant esters and an earthy profile balanced out with rich, ripe pineapple, orange, honey and baking spice. (CSO) Volcán de mi Tierra Blanco, Mexico Another blanco tequila that made the additive-free list, Volcán is a boutique tequila made in partnership by Juan Gallardo Thurlow and Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy in El Arenal, Jalisco, according to the traditional method— slow-roasted agave crushed by tahona milling stones, roasted in clay ovens and distilled in copper alembic stills. The profile is a classic bright and crisp peppery and herbaceous spirit with plenty of citrus and sweet cooked agave.

(CSO) Fortaleza Blanco Tequila, Mexico When Guillermo Sauza’s grandfather, Don Javier, sold the Sauza distillery in the 1970s, he kept a small, 80-acre parcel of land for the family. Several decades later, Guillermo successfully managed to realize his dream of turning it into a traditional-method tequila distillery. This additive-free blanco is distinctly earthy and has a rich, oily body with bold pepper notes and a hit of salt and restrained fruit—an excellent expression of lowlands terroir. (CSO)

Suntory World Whisky Ao The pronounced smoke, peat and orange aroma is an honest introduction to this intense oaky, vanilla-rich and chocolate-forward spirit that has clearly been blended with a “more is more” philosophy. That’s to be expected, given the ambition of the project, which sees whisky from Alberta, Kentucky, Ireland, Scotland and Japan blended together to bring together the major whiskies from around the world. (CSO) Highland Park Cask Strength, 3rd Release, Scotland Although the first whiff might have you think this is a total smoke bomb, there’s plenty more to know about this over-proof spirit, especially once you open up this cask strength (64.1 percent) spirit with a little water. Sweet orange liqueur and maple notes permeate a creamy body all wrapping up on a peppery note and a long finish. (CSO) Fettercairn 12-year-old Highland Single Malt, Scotland Fettercairn chose the 2023 Victoria Whisky Festival for its North American launch, at which it released a 16-year-old in addition to this 12-year-old expression. Opens with a punch of ripe tropical fruit—banana and a hint of pineapple—before the influence of the cask kicks in. Plenty of rich vanilla and toffee, with some clear oaky notes, this is like a Bananas Foster on wood. (CSO)

BEER Bobcaygeon Brewing Co. ‘Cottage’ Lager, Bobcaygeon ON, Canada (ABV 5%) On a hot summer day in 2017, two men wrote the blueprint for Bobcaygeon Brewing Co. as they reclined in Muskoka chairs in the Kawarthas. Once they received the green light to convert an old post office into their headquarters, the pipe dream quickly became a thriving craft brewery specializing in quenching cottage-inspired lagers, quirky stouts, and sessionable beers. The Bobcaygeon Cottage Lager is well-named as the perfect crushable accompaniment to a hot day hanging on the dock. Smooth, crisp, and refreshing, with a light sweetness and touch of malt for a seriously satisfying cold one. (JW) Stack Brewing ‘Puppers Premium’ Lager, Sudbury ON, Canada (4% ABV) The official beer of the breakout Canadian sitcom Letterkenny has become a reality thanks to the folks at Stack Brewing located in QUENCH.ME

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Sudbury Ontario. Stack is celebrating its tenth year brewing award-winning beers including the iconic Puppers Premium Lager as of 2017.

Puppers offers a clean, golden pour with a moderate head. Notes of tangerine and soap on the nose lead to a malty, slightly honeyed sip that goes down smooth. Best enjoyed shootin’ the sh*t with the buds straight out of the can. (JW) Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. Pale Ale, River NC, USA (ABV 5.6%) When Ken Grossman bought his first home-brewing kit in 1969 there was no way he could anticipate that by 2023 he’d become the founder of the third-largest private brewing company in the US. Still family-owned and operated, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. is known for its flagship Pale Ale. Straw in colour, with a heady hit of pine on the nose, the bready and citrus-forward brew ends with a malty sweetness. This classic Pale Ale is a blast from the past, using the same recipe as its debut in 1980. (JW) Le Trou Du Diable ‘Les Quatre Surfuers De L’Apocalypso’ White IPA, Shawnigan QC, Canada (ABV 6.5%) Le Trou Du Diable brewing takes inspiration - and its name - from the legend of the whirlpool in Shawnigan, Quebec, said to be home to trouble, the damned, and evil spirits.

Daring and creative brews such as Les Quatre Surfuers De L’Apocalypso deliver bold flavour and complex profiles. This White IPA pours with a generous head and grapefruit-forward nose. Peach syrup, a pithy bitterness, and a melange of hops punch the palate and linger with warmth well after your first sip. (JW) Quayle’s Brewery ‘Fiddle and Field’ Pale Ale, Coldwater ON, Canada (ABV 5.6%) Sitting on 12 acres of hop yards in the hills of Oro-Medonte, Quayle’s Brewery prides itself on a farm-to-glass style of brewing using only farm-fresh hops and water from their personal spring. The Fiddle and Field Pale Ale pours a clear straw colour, with strong notes of grapefruit, lemon, and stone fruit on the nose. Tangy, hop-forward, and a dry finish on the palate create the perfect sipper for any season. (JW) Rally Beer Co. ‘Trail Blazer’ Golden Ale, Thornbury ON, Canada (ABV 4.9%) Rally Beer Co. was founded on the dream of building “functional” beers imbued with electrolytes and salts designed to help adventure-seekers enjoy brews which wouldn’t slow them down. While there’s little evidence to suggest the level of these ingredients is enough to counteract the effects of alcohol, they still make a tasty beer. The Trail Blazer pours pale gold with a pleasant strawberry nose. Strawberry forward in flavour with hints of blackcurrant, the creamy golden ale is well-balanced with a drying hit of hops on the end. (JW)

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Omnipollo Vending Machine ‘Zodiak’ IPA, Omnipollos kyrka, Sweden (ABV 6.2%) Omnipollo Vending Machine - which is indeed a brewery despite its name - built its home base in Sweden in 2010 and now creates beer all over the world, including Brooklyn and Toronto. Specializing in a mish-mash of styles, Omnipollo thrives on experimentation. The Zodiak IPA combines Columbus, Citra, and Centennial hops to produce an explosion of citrus flavours with a cloudy pour and grapefruit nose. Mandarin orange, pineapple, and citrus rind hit the palate in a pleasant concert, with a drying bite of grapefruit and an earthy finish.

(JW) Great Lakes Brewing ‘Miami Weiss’ White Pale Ale, Etobicoke ON, Canada (ABV 4.5%) As one of the oldest independent craft breweries in Canada with 35+ years under their belt, GLB has made a name for itself as an industry leader. Well known for their punchy IPAs that aren’t afraid to deliver on the hops, their Miami Weiss White Pale Ale is a surprisingly crushable offering. Hazy straw pour with a generous head and hit of tropical fruits with guava coming through on the nose. Citrus forward with a hint of apricot. Quenching and quite dry, with notes of grapefruit coming in the backend that will stick with you. (JW)

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Equilibrium Brewery ‘Astrophysics’ IPA, Middletown NY, USA (ABV 6.5%) Equilibrium Brewery was founded by a group of MIT students who became obsessed with craft beer while working as Environmental Engineering majors. After outgrowing a homemade brewing system, which included a shower head, the group opened the Equilibrium Brewery in 2009. The Astrophysics IPA has a generous head with a cloudy gold pour. This is thick with a creamy nose and hints of vanilla that pay off in flavour. Pine, tangerine, and melon come together to create a fruit salad vibe that satisfies with a drying finish. (JW)

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Siren Craft Brew ‘Caribbean Chocolate Cake’ Mole Stout, Workingham GB, United Kingdom (ABV 8.8%) Siren Craft Brew is seriously prolific- with roughly 100 new releases each year- and a dizzying range of brews from barrel-aged bottles to lagers and beyond. Their Caribbean Chocolate Cake Mole Stout delivers on every promise. Dark chocolate in colour with a creamy head and a strong aroma of cocoa nib.

The flavour profile is all about chocolate, with baker’s chocolate coming in dark and bitter with a pleasant and well-balanced hit of red chilli. The spice lingers on the palate but isn’t overwhelming. A decadent brew to be enjoyed responsibly as its ABV is 8.8%. (JW)

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BREWED AWAKENINGS

Robin LeBlanc

‘Ol Reliable

AROUND THE MIDDLE OF THE PANDEMIC I BEGAN TO SUSPECT IT, BUT THE PAST YEAR, IN WHICH I THREW AWAY THE WELL-WORN T-SHIRT OF THE FREELANCER IN EXCHANGE FOR A WELL-MADE BLOUSE OF THE CORPORATE HOI POLLOI, IT BECAME CLEAR. My beer tastes had changed. I no longer craved the experimental, and preferred to lean back on the familiar.

Now, granted this change was a mix of things, up to and including a general fatigue of the ten thousandth iteration of some fruit sour with lactose. But mostly it was the overwhelming daily occurrences of the 2020s paired with the exhaustion of 9-to-5 life that brought me back to one of the base scenarios of beer - the act of cracking open a cold one to wind down from the day.

No longer was I craving the bold, boozy Belgian ales or the bitter, hoppy brews. I wanted something straightforward, light, consistent, stable, and most importantly, well-made. Thankfully, that left me open to a few choice beer styles in pilsners, pale ales, wheat beers, and blonde ales. And for someone looking for those styles in particular, I’m lucky to be in Canada where some of the best representations of them are in abundance.

I know I’ve long sung the praises of Toronto’s Godspeed Brewery, for both their Světlý Ležák 12° and the several versions of Bůh, particularly the one made in collaboration with the king of pilsners themselves, Czechvar. The pilsner that brewery makes is truly a world class example of the perfect end of day beer. Additionally, the purchase of Side Launch Brewing in Collingwood by London, Ontario’s Equals Brewing has brought forth the triumphant return to the famed original brewer Michael Hancock to restore the Wheat and Mountain Lager Helles to its former glory, thankfully putting an end to the previous owner’s reign of terror making atrocious beer. The Wheat is as good as it ever was. a traditional and delicious example of a quality hefeweizen with notes

of banana and clove in a light, almost creamy body. And the Mountain Lager, with its notes of graham cracker and honey and a somewhat dry finish, feels like a return to form.

Further notables throughout this past summer have been Great Lakes Brewing’s Summer Ale, made with lemon and ginger to provide an almost sunny note to the golden ale, and the Gaslight Helles Lager from Muddy York Brewing being one of the province’s best, with flavours of grassy hops and bready malt notes to make a refreshing background to a wind-down with friends.

But look, all of this is to say…in the world of nearly constant innovation and flavour in the alcohol world, particularly within the craft beer sector where bold styles are more often than not synonymous with the need to stick out in a near-oversaturated market…there’s never any shame in opting to reach for a can or six of a reliable classic style that helps you recover from a long day of work.

Life is too short for a bad beer. So make sure it’s one that you’ll happily drink.

Robin LeBlanc is an award-winning beer columnist, author, and podcaster with over a decade of experience in writing about the ins and outs of the beer world. In 2011 she started her blog The Thirsty Wench, which went on to win multiple awards including the Saveur Magazine Best Food Blog Award in the beer category. She has been a contributor, columnist, and co-author of both editions of the Ontario Craft Beer Guide. In addition to her regular contributions in multiple publications, she is the co-host of the Ontario Craft Beer Guide The Podcast. Robin lives in Toronto.

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Complex chemical reactions between sugar and amino acids that impart toasty, rich, caramelized flavours in Champagne. This reaction is also what gives flavour to foods when they are browned, seared, or toasted.

This Indian-American sommelier now makes wine in California and Oregon.

Pioneering viticulturist who self-funded the importation of grape vine material from Spain and France to Australia in 1830s.

French name for Vermentino.

The first Regenerative Organic Certified vineyard in the world.

The compound that makes some wines taste peppery.

A sweet wine made on the Greek island of Santorini from sun dried Assyrtiko and Aidani grapes.

The Hungarian name for its red blend commonly known as Bull's Blood.

The local name for Pinot Gris in Champagne.

This type of pressure-formed rock lies underneath many of the great vineyards of Burgundy (and elsewhere).

The stem that connects a grape cluster to a vine.

The first estate winery in Santa Barbara County was founded in 1972 by a scion of this tire dynasty.

This popular Chinese sweet wine is infused with fresh osmanthus flowers.

A special cooked wine of the Uyghur people in China.

If you were drinking Pansa Blanca with a dish of local peas, you’d likely be in this Spanish DO. The first AVA (American Viticultural Area) in the entire U.S.A. was in this state.

"Maverick" TV star James Garner once owned a 25-acre vineyard in this wine region.

This Bordeaux grape found a comfortable new home in Chile, where it was long mistaken for Merlot.

South Africa's dry south-easterly wind that cleans the air but can cause problems for vines at flowering.

The highest classification of Italian wine.

This historic grape behind Chile’s table wines is the same grape as California’s Mission grape.

Unlike many of its renowned neighbours, this famous Burgundy village has no Grand Cru vineyards.

This country boasts the highest wine consumption per capita but is only the 10th largest producer.

A unit of measurement of a wine’s length or “finish”.

Blending partner with Marsanne in the Northern Rhône.

The U.S. state with the fewest number of wineries.

Spanish grape variety also known as Macabéo.

The most planted grape variety in Italy’s Piedmont region.

When separating wine from its sediment, this vessel may be used to hold and serve it.

Sometimes called "rice wine" - but this is made by a brewing process similar beer.

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Zweigelt is the specialty in this Austrian region which was awarded DAC status in 2019.

The first winery in Canada to plant Syrah (in 1990).

Aroma compounds produced primarily during fermentation by the reaction of acids with alcohols.

Gewürztraminer is said to have originated in this country.

This wine-producing region is known as “Green Spain” due to its lush vegetation thanks to the high rainfall.

The slender forked stem that coils around trellis wires securing the vine’s leafy arms in an upright position.

Only municipality in Etna allowed to produced Bianco Superiore.

In the movie "Casablanca," Rick runs a "gin joint" but drinks this instead.

Which Bordeaux chateau recently scooped up Ornellaia’s longtime winemaker Axel Heinz?

The most planted red wine grape in Québec.

Panther Creek makes a Pinot Noir from Maverick Vineyard, which is in this Oregon AVA. James Bond’s Champagne of choice – at least since Live and Let Die. Four Vines winery makes a Pinot Noir called "The Maverick" with grapes from this cool coastal area of California.

This grape variety was traditionally used to make sweet Vermouth.

The second-largest wine producing state in the USA. Dallas Mavericks star Luka Dončić is from this well-regarded wine country.

Spanish term for wood-matured wines that are aged for shorter periods than Reservas or Gran Reservas.

Italian name for soil formed by ejections from volcanos; the Greco grape has a particular affinity for it.

Where is Slavonian oak from?

Washington's oldest and largest winery.

This country exports the most cheese (by value) worldwide.

When maverick Tuscan producers first decided to break their region's rules, their wines were labeled as this.

This wine company produced Australia’s first varietally labeled Chardonnay in 1972.

Sauvignon Blanc is to Sancerre what this is to Barolo.

Portuguese term for a wine made from both red and white grapes, with the latter accounting for no more than 15% of the blend.

New Zealand region with the largest number of Syrah plantings.

This fining agent, which is obtained from dried swim bladders of fish is not permitted in the production of vegan wine.

He planted Santa Barbara County's first Pinot Noir vineyard in 1971.

The French name for Sherry.

The first Napa Valley winery to make single-vineyard Cabernets from adjacent estate vineyards.

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AFTER TASTE

Tony Aspler Photo credit: courtesy of Flat Rock Cellars

Flat Rock Cellars Nadja’s Vineyard

AS A WINE WRITER I HAVE BEEN PRIVILEGED TO ATTEND MANY, MANY WINE TASTINGS AROUND THE WORLD IN MY (SO FAR) 47-YEAR CAREER. I can put my hand on my heart and say that the most fascinating and compelling tasting I have participated in occurred in Toronto on March 2nd of this year. Along with fellow wine scribes and sommeliers, I was invited to attend a sit-down tasting in Joey’s Private Dining Room. The theme: a 20-year vertical of Niagara’s Flat Rock Cellars Nadja’s Vineyard Riesling.

I have always been a great fan of this wine and have looked forward each year to tasting it on release. And I have always noted how consistent it is, given the vagaries of the Niagara climate. Now here was an opportunity to taste, comparatively, 20 vintages of the same wine - including a tank sample of the 2022 vintage.

What made this event so remarkable was the fact that Flat Rock Cellar’s proprietor Ed Madronich offered every single vintage of the Riesling produced from the vineyard planted in 2001. Many winemakers would think twice about including a wine from a poor vintage when they mount such a vertical retrospective. Kudos to Ed for showing his wines, warts and all.

The star was the 2019 Nadja’s Vineyard Riesling which won ‘Best in Show’ at the 2022 Decanter World Wine Awards, beating out 18,500 submissions from all around the wine world. The magazine’s note on the wine reads: “One measure of Ontario’s success in the wine world is the fact that so many different varieties seem to be happy there - Chardonnay and Pinot can both be outstanding, while Cabernet Franc, Syrah and Gamay all show great promise (and that’s before we start talking about Ontario’s dazzling panoply of Icewines). Riesling, though, may still be the most successful variety of all, as this assured dry table wine shows.

The scents trace out citrus and cologne in pithy, zesty style, while the wine is no less zesty and pithy in the mouth: crunchy apple and juicy clementine with a twist of lemon peel. Crisp natural acidity, balanced and fruit-resonant, leaves the mouth tingling after every sip. Best in Show. Score - 97.”

The 2.32-acre Nadja’s Vineyard was named to honour the family’s matriarch, Mary Nadja Madronich, now 86. It’s located at the highest eleva82

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tion of Flat Rock Cellars’ property (160 to 165 meters), immediately south of the facility. The soil here is red-hued clay loam till over fractured dolomitic limestone. In the press release that was handed out at the tasting, it’s described as follows: “Perched atop the Niagara Escarpment, Nadja’s Vineyard sits 100 feet higher than the rest of the property resulting in cooler average temperatures that increase hangtime, slows maturation and produces some of the best Rieslings in the world.”

Over the course of twenty years, there have been seven different winemakers who have been responsible for vinifying the fruit of Nadja’s Vineyard: names that belong in the pantheon of Great Canadian Vintners. Chronologically, Darryl Brooker (2003 – 2005), Marlize Beyers (2006 – 2009), Ross Wise (2010 – 2011), Jay Johnston (2012 – 2016), Dave Sheppard (2017-2020). In 2021, Allison Findlay made the Nadja’s with Dave Sheppard and in 2022, Hayley Thompson.

Interestingly, each winemaker brought his or her own signature to the wine with Jay Johnston conjuring from the fruit the most Germanic style - particularly the 2015 vintage, which was a dead ringer for a Riesling from the Rheingau.

But the take-away from this tasting was how vibrant the wines were after all these years, replete with flavours of honeyed grapefruit, lime, lemon, green apple and tangerine, and the thread of minerality that runs through the collection and speaks to what is unique about the terroir of the Twenty Mile Bench as the perfect place to grow Riesling.

Small wonder about the intensity of flavours when the vines are cropped at 3 – 4 tonnes per acre.

Tony Aspler, Order of Canada recipient, has been writing about wine since 1975. He is the author of 18 wine books, including The Wine Atlas of Canada and three wine murder mystery novels. The best concert he ever attended was Rush with the Tragically Hip as the opening band. His favourite comfort food is milk chocolate and his cocktail of choice is a Kir Royale. At home, he drinks wine (lots of wine).

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