Hello from a lake in New Hampshire. There is no cell service or wifi here, and I must say that it is very disconcerting to be away from both the wine shop and the pizzeria, like having twins and being like "okay, village, good luck with this weirdo pair" and then taking a cruise to Greenland. But one must rest after such a wild year and one must drink riesling on a lake if one is to survive another year of such intensity. (One must also send this newsletter with the wisp of stolen internet that floats in and out.)
While enjoying this bit of live-free-or-die (lol) America just following America’s birthday, I’m attempting to get a piece of my creative brain back. So often, I get mired in the bill-paying, paperwork-pushing, supply-ordering muck of running a business, that I can lose sight of the wine part. When turned over and really examined, wine is a prism of influence—cultural influence, political influence, economic influence, agricultural influence—and the wines from this month put perspective on how America has benefitted from the rest of the world coming in.
This month, we’re thinking about domestic wines, particularly domestic wines made with international grape varieties. Because America wouldn’t be what it is without all of the people and flavors, plants and animals that arrived on these shores seeking cultivation.
Brij “Albariño” Santa Maria, CA 2023
Earlier this year, Raj Parr stopped by the shop to taste the wines from his new project Phelan Farms, a regenerative vineyard in Central Coast, California. One of recent history’s most famous sommeliers, Indian-born Parr works in international varieties across his many labels—palomino, grenache, gruner-veltliner, mencia, mondeuse—and while he’s been pouring his energy into Phelan, his Brij line has become his single-source nègociant outlet (a label that sources grapes from growers) that allows for a bit of experimentation, par example: albariño.
Sourced from an organic vineyard in Santa Maria, a coastal stretch of central California that feels the seaside influence, it’s a meant to be reminiscent of Galicia, a place Parr loves, home of tinned fish, salty seas, and much albariño, a tiny, thick-skinned grape that expresses grass and bitter citrus. It's rare to see albariño aged in oak, but Parr’s is pressed and aged in old oak barrels for six months, which lends it body and mellows the grape's typical bitter almond quality. Grab some shrimp, boil a box of pasta, melt butter, slow cook a head of garlic, open the wine. Drink. The end.
Vending Machine “Wine Dive” Lodi, California 2022
This wine is special to our hearts. It was one of the first wines I stocked for the pop-up three years ago when Neil Gernon and Monica Bourgeois brought it by. At the time, they both worked for a distributor that was stocking their Vending Machine label made in California. Back then, Wine Dive was made with grenache, and was a lightly spicy, juicy little number in a psychedelic ombre label. For the last couple of years, it’s been made with mission, the very first vitis vinfera grape to arrive to America from Europe. Mission or país, is a study in the colonial trade routes of the 16th century. The grape traveled from Spain to South America and California with the Spanish missionaries (hence the name), and while it all but disappeared in its homeland, flourished in the Americas so vibrantly that many of the vines that exist today are own-rooted and well over a century old—much older than many grafted European vines.
Vending Machine's iteration is sourced from a 100-year-old vineyard in Lodi and sees carbonic maceration (whole clusters of grapes dropped into a container and sealed while they macerate and produce CO2, which provides the finished wine with a fuzzy lift. Gernon describes it as a “bright magenta glow stick color with aromas of what I describe as carnival food—bubblegum, cotton candy, taffy” yet it finishes dry like hibiscus tea. “A real noodle bender,” he calls it. Wine Dive is a perennial a favorite in the shop, always served chilled, and often quaffed quickly.
Hot Tip: Neil and Monica recently acquired a vineyard on the North Shore they’ve renamed Wild Bush Farm + Vineyard, and have, over the past couple of years, transformed it into an oasis of low-intervention farming plus music venue that's producing piquette, port, and fruit hybrid wines. This is exciting not just for Louisiana, but for the entirety of American wine produced in regions beyond the West Coast. Wild Bush is the perfect place for a day trip, and a way to support Louisiana agriculture at its most sincere.
Red Tail Ridge “Perpétuelle Change” Finger Lakes, New York NV
Red Tail Ridge has quickly become one of Patron Saint's favorite sparkling wine producers over the last seven months. We’ve run the label’s pet-nat riesling and this methode traditionelle cuvée for several weeks at a time on our by the glass list out of sheer enthusiasm. Nancy Irelan, Red Tail Ridge’s co-owner and winemaker, has a PhD in grape-breeding and grape physiology from UC Davis, and works with her grower husband Mike Schnelle to create beautifully precise wines in the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York.
Known for its ethereal translation of German and Austrian grapes, the Finger Lakes—bedazzled with glacial water and dramatic gorges—is sloughing off its reputation as a hidden gem of American winemaking and coming to the fore with wines like Red Tail Ridge’s. What makes this wine so special is that it employs champagne's perpetual reserve method of blending older wines into the cuvée base (Red Tail's wines from 2019 to 2022, probably a majority riesling), making it a bit of a time capsule that casts its gaze back over weather, land, and soil. The Perpétuelle Change is wonderfully aromatic and salty with zippy, fluffy bubbles that feel akin to champagne, but with the its own wild streak of a personality. Open it up for low-key celebrations, go-cup strolls, card nights, and late summer cicada-listening parties.
Broc “Amore” Mendocino, CA 2022
“Italian sunshine in a glass,” Broc Cellars declares of its Amore blend. And it is. Bright, golden, and sun-drenched, it’s meant for drinking on the patio with herb-crusted fresh cheese or grilled veggies dripping in lemon juice. Beth Altenbernd, the lantern-keeper at our shop, helpfully describes Broc’s Love line of wines as “one size fits all,” universally beloved, easy-peasy bottles that don’t require too much thinking to enjoy. And then there are the Broc single-vineyard bottles, which integrate thoughtful methods of aging, blending, and bottling for a little more engagement. These include the Massa Cabernet Sauvignon (a juicy, berry bramble light manifestation of cab sauv), the vibrant Fox Hill Sangiovese, and this skin contact Amore, among others.
Tocai friulano is most associated with northern Italy where its "tocai" prefix has since been legally dropped due to Hungary's territorial stance over its Tokaji wines. Broc’s version is sourced from Fox Hill, a wild little plot of land planted with a menagerie of Italian varieties, farmed organically, and tended by sheep. The friulano is blended with 30-percent trebbiano and 10-percent ribolla gialla, two other traditional Italian grapes. All three are fermented in sandstone jars on their skins, which mellows tannin and provides subtle structure, and a bit spends time in old oak. The result is an orange wine that recalls traditional Italian skin contact beauties, while maintaining an identity that is distinctly experimental California.