We watch a lot of old Peanuts episodes in our house, of late, the "Great Pumpkin" episode, which is a great reminder of the beauty of belief and pillowcase trick-or-treating. (We're dressing up as old-fashioned ghosts this year, obviously.) This wine club is the proverbial moment to pull back the mask on a few wines that aren't exactly what you might have first perceived them to be. A phantom orange, a witchy gamay, and more spookiness abounds.
Bura "Plavac Mali Sivi" Dalmatia, Croatia 2022
Costume Idea: A long, elegant trench coat, sleek and polished giving off the impression of elevated minimalism. Underneath, a riot of tailored interior pockets full of curiosities, colorful and vibrant enough to dazzle, distract, and delight.
This is Bura’s Plavac Mali Sivi. A sleek trickster.
The wine itself is soft rose-gold in color, and could lure you into thinking of it as a subtle, light-red. However, it is actually made from a grey grape, a natural mutation of Croatia’s plavac mali (a rich red varietal proven be a parent of zinfandel) with skins ranging in color from white to soft pink. Macerated for four days on those "grey" skins delivers wine deeply tinted and wild with flavor—an explosion of ripe apricot, sour cherries, and red apple skins. Fresh and complex it blends the boundaries of red, rosé, and orange.
The Bura family, after finding this mutation in their vineyard a few years ago, has lovingly tended to the small plot on the Peljesac peninsula of Croatia’s Dalmatian coast. It is the country's only plot of plavac mali sivi that is farmed organically, making it quite a treasure. Cheers to this Carmen Sandiego of wine, may she steal your heart. —Cassandra Vachon
Nicole Chanrion "Effervescence Brut Traditionnelle" Beaujolais, France NV
Are we talking costumes? Are we talking unexpected? Consider this lady: 100% red grapes (gamay noir) from a region known for their still red wines (Beaujolais), in a sparkling dress (méthode champenoise). Oh hello!
Nicole Chanrion is not messing around. She was one of the first female winemakers and cellar masters in Beaujolais, training with her father and taking over the estate in the 1980s. She was elected as the Côte de Brouilly Appellation president, garnering the title of Patronne de la Côte, and now runs the Chanrion estate with her son Romain. It was they who decided a sparkling white wine was needed. Sourced from 50-year-old vines, made in the same method as Champagne, and spending 18 months on the lees, this wine truly delivers.
Gamay, as a grape, is known for being a lighter to medium bodied wine with earthier and floral aromas, one of my favorites to pair with anything Thanksgiving-related. This beauty maintains the grape's red berry quality, but also has some yeasty/brioche notes and beautiful minerality on the finish. This is a wine you could enjoy as an aperitif, after dinner, or pair with your favorite fried snack (I see you wings and chicken parm). —Allison Whittinghill
Colectivo Mutante "PX #1" Limari Valley, Chile 2021
Enjoyed by the likes of Shakespeare, Magellan, and Benjamin Franklin (all excellent Halloween costume choices), Pedro Ximenez, the grape base of Colectivo Mutante's PX #1, and its sherry berry brethren have been relished for centuries as sweet and savory dessert wines and aperitifs. Pedro Ximenez is most notably cultivated in southern Spain where it’s picked overripe and/or sun-dried to concentrate its natural sugars, which produce some of the world’s greatest rich and decadent sherries. It's also used to make Chile and Peru's national spirit, pisco, brought to South America in the early 16th century. How versatile of you, PX.
However the bottle in front of you is neither sweet nor pisco. When Diego Edwards and Cedric Nicolle of Colectivo Mutante stumbled upon an outcrop of PX in the Limari Valley of Chile used for pisco production, the coastal orientation and calcareous soil composition of the vineyard sparked an idea. What about a a white, dry, unfortified wine? Vinified this way, PX displays honeydew melon and gardenia notes on the nose, finishing crisp, and tart—a lean, mysterious Chilean skeleton to Spain's velvet-robed royal. With only 500 cases produced, enjoy it with your fruity, tart candy leftover from your Halloween stash. —Drew Clowney
Malauva "Rosso En Commune" Umbria, Italy 2022
Working in a wine shop, I’m reminded every day of our connections to other continents. Especially Europe. Usually that discussion revolves around vine cuttings, farming practices and the rich history of wine making over many years. But this time of year I choose to honor my favorite connection between us: Halloween.
Brought over from old traditions, we have made it our own and I can't help but continue to be delighted by the mysterious magic of treats, costumes and good old fashioned scares. For the Rosso En Comune, I tried to find a ghost story. A dark and ominous tie to spook the spooky season out of yore. But, the friends who craft this potion are about as free-loving, nurturing, earth-driven, hippie commune cute as you can get.
Hmmm. Hippies. Commune. Should be something nefarious going on there right? A collaboration between Trish of Gazzetta wines, Jacopo of Ajola and their friends Elisa and Giovanni of Malauva, all four winemakers share a love for biodiversity and letting nature take the reins. Their wines are fresh, easy and endlessly engaging. They share sky and land in Castel Giorgio, a comune (municipality) in the Province of Terni. This unique location, bordering Umbria, Tuscany, and Lazio, is a stone's throw from Lago di Bolsena. Thanks to the Lake, they farm in a unique microclimate with soils, mainly ash and sand of volcanic origin, that possess a compelling minerality that each variety expresses differently. Sounds pretty witchy to me.
A mysterious alchemy, this little franken-wein is a blend of Chardonnay fermented on the skins for five days, pressed to vat and infused for two days with the skins of sangiovese. Then, it's aged in vat until the following Spring. On the nose you can smell the animals grazing freely around the property. On the palate, shears of pomegranate and rose petals.
It is, I think, best and most romantically described as a “Bloody Chardonnay.” Technically a Rose, It wears a compelling costume of something much darker and I often sell it to unsuspecting victims looking for a light red. Looks like I was the little devil in this story after all. Trick-or-treat. —Beth Altenbernd
Pearl Morissette "Primesautier" Niagara, Canada 2021
Perhaps not a costume per se, but a creature of the autumn season hiding in plain sight, Pearl Morissette comes to us from the Niagara Peninsula of Canada, a place haunted with terroir lent by red shale soils, clay and cool beachy silt. A blend of gamay, pinot noir, and cabernet sauvignon, it produces a "spritely" red, Jonathan Gray of Selection Massale calls it. Perfect for an evening of sitting on the porch with your pumpkins. —Leslie Pariseau