Wine Club: Porch Pounders
I’m putting out all the good vibes I can on this one. For those of you who are local to VT we have watched this summer fly by…and it hasn’t exactly been filled with summer boating sessions or glorious rays of sunshine. It has been a tough one with over 4 months of rain in just a few days causing devastation in our neighboring communities, varying temperatures swings, awful gardening season and now it’s August.
But nonetheless I am doing my sunshine dance- hoping for a sunny & warm month where we can enjoy the dog days of summer. Enter PORCH POUNDERS! We all love a good patio session with some light bites, good friends and crushable wine. So whether it gets warm or not, we are going to send it for the last days of summer time.
Cheers
WINE CLUB: 2 Bottles
Poderi Cellario ‘É Rosato’ Piedmont Italy • Dolcetto, Nebbiolo
If you’ve been shopping here long you’ll recognize the lovable wines of Fausto Cellario. Fausto and his wife Cinzia are a third generation winemaking family in the Piedmont region of Italy. We have had the pleasure of working with the Cellario wines for probably close to 10 years now- we have hosted Fausto & his son Simone at Cork in 2015 and we have visited with them in Italy and Boston over the years as well. So yeah- we love them! Not only are they great people, they make great great wine- and a lot of it. Cellario is definitely one of the largest producers (still incredibly small in the industry) in the SN portfolio but always with a dedication to highlighting indigenous varieties and maintaining the local traditions in winemaking from organic agriculture, only indigenous yeast, and very very tiny amounts of sulfur.
The family’s most notable variety they produce would be Dolcetto - which if you haven’t dabbled in Dolcetto- now’s the time to start. But in the meantime we will kick you off with a little rosato blend of Dolcetto & Nebbiolo. The ‘É’ wines are all liters of wine so naturally they are ideal for porch pounding! Just a little extra for when you need it. This wine is full of juicy cherry, wild strawberry & watermelon with a vibrant acidity & freshness- a super glou (aka gluggable).
Check out Fausto’s video on the ‘É Rosato’ from a couple of years ago HERE
Stolpman Vineyards ‘Love You Bunches’ Orange Santa Barbara County CA • Pinot Gris, Orange Muscat, Gewürztraminer
I mean seriously- the marketing behind this wine is on point. Who doesn’t want a wine called ‘Love you bunches'? What helps is that the wine is legit. Stolpman is a new producer to the state and I have been so pumped to be working with them. They have been in the Santa Barbara area for over 20 years in the hills of California’s central coast. They are committed to preserving the land around them through conscious farming, dry farming & sustainable employment.
Their orange wine sees 7 days of skin contact to produce a delicate & clean orange wine. Lately I have been getting a lot of folks coming in and asking about orange wines- wines like the Love You Bunches makes for such a great entry into orange wine or skin contact wines in my opinion. The aromatic varietals make it loveable and fruity but the acidity remains to balance it. They are ideal for sipping and or for meals- whatever your preference but the Love You Bunches in my mind is a total ‘porch pounder' so get after it!
WINE CLUB: 3-4 Bottles
Martha Stoumen ‘Honeymoon’ Redwood Valley & Mendocino County California • Colombard, Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc
We recently featured her entry level ‘Post Flirtation’ wines in the springtime so you got a little time to get to know her wines. Now comes the Honeymoon period- where you’re flirting has turned to a full blown love affair- you think about them all the time, you wonder if their available for dinner tonight, and you simply just keep coming back for more. That’s what “Honeymoon’ is all about.
It’s bright & floral but then shows incredible range and complexity. It’s familiar yet exciting. This wine could quickly turn into the ‘real thing’ for you.
Raphaël Monnier ‘Avis de Tempete 3’ Jura France • Mondeuse
The Jura is known for its lean & vibrant red wines and Raphael Monnier doesn’t disappoint on this one. This ‘Avis de Tempete’ is his first foray into a negociant project with the help of Marie Bourdon. This project appeared on the tail end of a brutal growing season in 2017 that started with frost and ended Raphaël’s already minute harvest to nothing. The Avis de Tempete project was then born with the help of likeminded grower’s selling their fruit to Raphaël & Marie. The ‘Avis de Tempete 3’ is 100% Mondeuse. It’s a spritzy, low-abv (10%), and short maceration of the Mondeuse varietal. Give it a good chill- allow it to open up and have some salumi & hard cheese to pair with it. It’ll be gone before you know it!