We love the old adage—"when tomatoes are in season…we run with tomatoes. When the season ends we look & plan for the next seasonal specialty”.
For May, we are quite lucky wine wise, as we uncovered FOUR real savory driven red wine standouts to taste together.
Salute!
$39 PP + Tax & Tip
2021 Maxime Magnon “La Démarrante” (France)
A real revolutionary, "game changing” winery & winemaker. A real prodigy. Having not a lot of money in his pocket, Maxime purchased land in the RUGGED, remote terrain of Corbières—high elevation, mostly rock & very little topsoil. Despite the bleak & savageness of his vineyard sites, his resulting, mainly Carignan based red wines are so wonderfully delicious, juicy & so savory at the same time.
2020 Raúl Pérez Ribeira Sacra (Spain)
We follow up with the New Age winemaking prodigy from northwest Spain—Raúl Pérez. He questions every aspect of vines, grape growing, harvesting, winemaking & aging. He has taken a "back to basics” approach to it all, guided by many of the principles that his ancestors followed. The wines are so savory AND Old Vine driven; yet fresh, energetic & so wonderfully food friendly. Welcome to Wine World of Raúl Pérez”.
2019 Paolo Conterno Langhe Nebbiolo “A Mont” (Italy)
In comparison to the style of Raúl Pérez, this a VERY traditional, classically minded winemaker who has inherited some CRU quality vineyard sites in the most revered, high elevation, steep Ginestra vineyard within the Barolo countryside. It’s an interesting time…everything about this wine says Barolo, except the site faces the wrong direction to the sun. We chose & offered this wine, because it proudly shows what the Nebbiolo grape variety can do—earthy, musky, masculine & so haunting—in a very soulful way. Yes, some finally made its way to Hawaii, after sooo many years of trying. Here is your chance to taste it!
2020 Sang Des Cailloux Vacqueyras “Doucinello” (France)
One of our favorite red wines from the Old World. Just to fully clue you in…this wine will NEVER get much acclaim or high scores. NEVER. It’s just NOT one of the cool kids. But, that’s exactly why we love it. It’s REAL…... authentic, funky, incorrect/ bordering flawed…just full of sun baked countryside character as wild & brazen as its surroundings where it is born.. This feral, wild beast is brooding & soulful & a most provocative glass of red wine. Take a trip on the wild side.
- Chuck Furuya