Maker's Table

Schooling

Scholium Project
Marcher sur la Lune
2008
15.0% ABV | Price: about $32

A bright gold wine made from verdelho grapes. It smells earthy, fishy, floral, savory, buttery, citrusy. I can't really decide, because it smells like almost everything except fruit.

It fills the mouth. In the middle, it's got apricot and citrus, and is somewhat like a big, plush Viognier, but there's the faintest hint of something odd, maybe money coins or sardines, too. It's hugely alcoholic for a white—15% by volume—and so leaves a hot vapor trail behind. It's more feeling than taste. This is a white that could stand up to steak.

Curious, odd, interesting, inimitable. We've been to school.

 

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The Black Bee

Torrevento
Puglia IGT "Il Filare" Rosato
2008
12.0% ABV | Price: about $12

I'm gonzo about this wine. I've been drinking it all summer. It's so simple, so juicy and bright, yet it has a serious, Old World core.

Brilliant jewel pink, it smells like strawberries and fresh-cut grass. Dry as bone with brilliant minerality, it has beautiful fruit and acidity and finishes clean. It pairs effortlessly with fresh summer fare: a handful of green beans, some fennel, a few orange tomatoes, fresh rosemary, fresh goat cheese. "Il filare" means "the row" in Italian, suggesting that the vineyard and the garden share this structure, this idea. They are kindred.

A rosé of 80% Bombino Nero and 20% Montepulciano, it's not a heady wine, not intellectual. It makes no demands. No multi-syllabic adjectives need apply (except that one).

Maybe I just love drinking a wine made from a grape called the "black bee."

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Quincy

Domaine Lecomte
Quincy "Vielle Vignes"
2008
13.0% ABV | Price: about $20

Pale straw yellow and aromatic, with a salty, floral nose. On the palate it has brilliant acidity: citrusy, but with pear and basil, too. It tastes like jasmine in full bloom. It offers an herbaceous finish that's spicy but languorous. It takes its time.

Restrained and elegant, this wine poses an Old-world counterpoint to the explosively grassy, lemony Sauvignon Blancs found in the New.

"It's alive," says my husband. Yes, and I'm glad I am, too.

 

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