You're listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm Chris. I do wine-related things, among other things, at Binny's. And today we've got a pretty exciting episode because it's a bunch of really cool new arrivals that are maybe flying under the radar, but they're from great producers who do everything the right way. And we're going to taste them and tell you what we think. Who's here with me? I'm Greg. I do communications at Binny's. Hey, I'm Pat. There's a code word to come and rescue me somewhere. That's a safe word. Yeah, whatever I meant. Hey, it's Pat. I'm here. Hiding in the closet drinking my best. I'm here. I'm going to drink some wine today. I'm Alicia. I also do wine. I'm thrilled that we're talking about some new arrivals because we are a large store and in our marketing, we talk about a lot of wines. We were doing some math. This week, when we're recording this- Thanks for interrupting me, Greg. It's like 3,200 wines. At the top of the e-mail, it says 3,200 wines. I think we count new vintages in that sense. That's bullsh**. Well, it counts as a new wine. I mean, why vintage date them if you're not going to point out that they're distinctly different wines? I was saying that you had come into Binny's every day and buy a solid mix case of wine, and never taste the same wine twice. I like that. Is that not an amazing idea? Yeah. Who's got the endless talking book? That's an awful lot of wine to drink every day, man. Are you doing okay over there? I'm doing better than okay. You're not on speaking terms with your liver anymore? I had it removed. It was bugging me. Anyway, but we do get a lot of new stuff, a lot of exciting stuff. We don't talk about it. And we never talk about it. So thanks for putting this together, Chris. Sure, gladly. Some cool wines await us. Yeah, the whole idea is that we sell tons of wine, commodity wines, but we're all things to all people, in my opinion, and we bring you the best of the world. And here is a little tranche of that. And we're going to start out today with something really inexpensive and kind of fun and lively from an area that most people probably aren't that familiar with. It's from a small village called Apremont. That's kind of cookie, right? Right. Yeah. Seriously? I don't know. From Pierre. Look at Frenchie over here. When I first looked at the name of the village, which is one of the crews within this appellation, I just put together Apres, like Apres Ski, without the S though, but whatever, and then Mont, like after the mountain. That's how I'm looking at it. In the mountainous region of Savoy, or Savoy, as Americans would say. And if you're trying to imagine this in your mind, it's near the Swiss and Italian border. I was gonna ask, isn't Savoy, there's some vermouth production down there, and it's near Italy, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we're just south of Geneva. Okay. Yeah, this is like where Dolman's from. Right. Yeah. Exactly. So mountain, and this is one thing that you might notice about this, is this kind of spring mountain freshness to this wine. And it's made with a grape called Jaquer, which is- You're right. Spring mountain freshness. It does taste like Coors Light. I was going to go drier sheet, but- Dryer sheet. I was thinking Irish spring. This is very like white alpine floral. Yeah, exactly. It's edelweiss in a glass. And I always think of this as a quintessential cheese wine. It's great with those mountain cheeses from France and Switzerland that you make into fondue or raclette, or even something a little funkier like Reblochon, if you ever had that, which is now illegal in this country. Why? It literally has an affinage period, an aging period of like 55 days, and it has to be 60 to be legal here if it's unpasteurized. So here in Savoie though, what's cool about Jacquer as a grape variety and this wine is it makes these very early drinking, lively, dry wines that are pretty naturally low in alcohol. So this is only 11.5%. And Jacquer is the grape variety? Jacquer. Jacquer. Yeah. And this region really flies under the radar. It's only responsible for 0.5% of all French wine produced. So we don't really think about it too much. It's a lot of isolated kind of sub regions within it. But as you can see, it makes really food-friendly, very kind of pretty high acid white wines. High acid is right. Yeah. I've never had a white wine that had like a coppery finish. Is it the glass maybe that I have or is the big aspect that I have? I think that's there. That's there. I get that too. Like, I don't know. In that regard, it's almost like a sherry, except it's fresh fruit instead of anything like. You mean like a Fino sherry? Yeah. Well, I mean like in that it's like not salinic exactly, but it's like a mineralic finish that's not like, you know, I don't know. I think there's a ton of minerality for sure. Yeah. This wine is pretty good. Yeah. And it's a- Never heard of it before. Yeah. Exactly the point. Only $15.99. And if you're- Oh. Whipping up some fondue or something- It's fantastic with that. Also good with whitefish and obviously lighter, fairer, but fun, fun wine. I could really go for some illicit cheese right now. Yeah, me too. So I don't know if I said this, but this is Pierre Boniface Le Rocaille is the name of the wine. It's from the Rocaille. Gozunhe. Say that again all at once, the whole thing. Pierre Boniface. And then the- Le Rocaille. And then the rest of it. Apremont. Apremont. Sauvoy. Just like taking a direction from Pat, Chris brought what, nine bottles? Yeah, we are up to nine bottles. Rookie numbers. Am I gonna have heard of any of them? There will be some things that you are familiar with. I thought these were new arrivals, not new to Greg. We are finally going to give you some new material to use rather than just bring up Zweigelt all the time when you want to bring up a new straight ride. Now you can talk about Apremont. You know why Zweigelt works is because I could remember it. Right. And you just like saying it, don't you? Plus he's going to like all of these. This is pretty good. So there you go. And at 15 bucks it makes a lot more sense. I kind of assumed because it's French and kind of obscure that it was like in the 20s. But for 15 bucks, and I don't know if you're playing along at home and you're trying to imagine what we have here, it's like the peachiest Sauvignon Blanc you've ever had with much more focus, like laser-like focus. None unlike the citric bite either. There's acidity here but it's not like that citric acid type of acidity. And lemon peel, but not citric acid, like the vibrancy of it. Who knew you were a big Jacquer guy? I am. Am I? You are. Apparently. Can we start calling you Jac? Yes, I like this. So, the other two points to not forget that alpine. It's diner being called dumb Greg. Yeah, that's getting fatiguing. I wasn't called dumb Greg, it's just that he's smart Greg. Well that implies the existence of a less smart Greg. That's by the transitive properties of nicknames. Next wine, we're leaving Savoie, and we're heading to Italy. Yeah, we are indeed. We're in Italy. Way down at the heel of the boot in Opulia. I've only had really inexpensive red wines from Opulia. That's the real hot, sweaty part of Italy, right? It is very, very warm down here. It's the Lincoln Wood Small Conference Room of Italy. That's where Brett went on vacation. Yes. Yeah. Weird. It smells like Sprite. Check it out. It smells like Sprite. When Chris first selected some of these wines, we were debating on the last one and we both found this wine. Greg, we thought the same thing that you just articulated, which was, wait a second, we're about to taste Fiano, a white grape variety, mostly grown in Campania, from Opulia. What is going on? It's hotter, so you think it could be riper. Yeah, but also it's such a small percentage of plantings there, it's surprising to see on our shelf. This is mostly known from the DOC, Fiano Diavolino, which is of course in Campania, but this is from Salento, where you're more likely to run into Primitivo and Negro Morrow. So you just have Primitivo. So to further illustrate the confusion around this bottle to people who aren't in the room, it looks like a Cabernet bottle, it's very dark glass, you can't tell it's a white wine at first glance, and it says the word Zin on the label, which is just, We also imagine that exact reaction and smiled with great joy thinking about- Oh, Greg's gonna really bite the hook on this one. About the confusion it would cause for you. How is anybody selling this anywhere? Zin is about 10 times as big as Fiano is on the label. There's some kind of cactus ottoman on the label. They do, it's a sea urchin. That is a sea urchin. That's cancer. Greg? But they do tell you why they named it Zin, which in an Italian dialect is sea urchin. They put that in the back. Of course, this is on the coast, so they eat sea urchin roe there. Nice. That might be a great pairing with this because sea urchin roe is very, very briny and salty and you want something with some weight because it's creamy, but then some cut too. Fiano is nothing if not round and waxy in texture and big, and surprisingly can age quite well. There are examples of Fiano di Avelino that I've had that are 20 years old that turn very honeyed and rich and darker in color. This is very reasonably priced. Like I said, it's from a cooperative in Puglia that is known for making Primitivo, which is in fact genetically the same as Zinfandel, just to add to this weird labeling. But I see what you're commenting about, a little bit of that sprite kind of character. Total lemon line. There's a lemon line. There's like an herbal quality to it, a slight kind of hazelnut, and it is, it's round and waxy in texture. On the palate, there's melon, but there's a weird prickly grippy quality, like on the mid palate that I don't know is very familiar to me. It almost, I would expect it more in a red wine. It's like a texture that's real broad. Is it like a little dry extract? There's definitely some dry extract that sits on your tongue after you swallow. What does that mean? Well, imagine all of the flavor components of a wine. If you evaporated it, that would be what would be left, is literally the dry. So are you using that as a descriptor or as like they put that in? No, no. This is a descriptor. Oh, okay. Gruner has it sometimes too. So certain grape varieties just have that sensation, that textural element to it. I learned something today, dry extract. Dry extract, yeah. It's weird. People measure things strangely, like this is off the subject, but we were just talking about cheese. Fat content in cheese in Europe in particular, is measured in dry matter. So in the same way that you would have to evaporate this wine to get out all the dry extract, theoretically, 50 percent butter fat in a cheese is measured if all the water was taking out. So ironically, some really soft, creamy cheeses that have high water contents, labeled as 70 percent butter fat are actually lower in fat by the ounce than something like Parmesan, where all of that water is aged out of it. Chris, I feel like part of your personality is dry extract. That's dry wit, my friend. Pat, what do you think? Boil me down. I like it. It's pretty good. I like the first one better. This is fresh and it's easy drinking. It's pretty zippy. Another one for fans, a soft one. Yeah. I don't know much about wine and I don't blind taste wine often, but if I was blind tasted this, I would assume it was a Sauvie B. I completely disagree. Nice. I actually do not think this is a Sauvignon Blanc drinker's wine. It's rounder. We talked about the waxy texture. It's not as high in acid. I actually think an un-oak chardonnay drinker would love this. There's nothing to disagree with because I didn't say it was a Sauvignon Blanc drinker's wine. I said my dumb ass would have thought it was a Sauvignon Blanc. Well, did you guys, Alicia mentioned hazelnuts in the Tasting Out. You're noticing a nutty aspect to it at all. So I didn't want to say Sherry two times in a row, but yeah. Yeah. Interestingly, in Avellino, this is mostly planted among hazelnut groves. It's a common descriptor now, which came first, it was just eucalyptus in Australian cab or something, you know. Yeah. Where is the influence coming from? I think actually that in that case is pretty clear that sap or something is getting there. It is a bit broader on the palate than you would think, you know, looking at it and smelling it. Yeah. Yeah. It's a weightier wine. In Campania, you have Falangina and Greco di Tufo, and Fiano are kind of like the Trinity of white wines produced there. This is definitely the roundest and weightiest of all of those. All right, what random grape are we going to do next? Are you loving this, Greg? I have no idea what's going on. Well, you know this next grape, right? It's Chenin Blanc. Chenin Blanc. Oh, sweet. Well, not too sweet. Not sweet in this case. We're going to Domaine du Closel in Savennieres. Savennieres Blanc. Savennieres Blanc, 100 percent Savennieres Blanc. Savennieres is a famous appellation primarily for dry versions of Chenin, unlike Vouvray, where you can have dry sweet dessert, or Carduchem, where they're invariably sweet and botrytis-affected. This is an easy one for a customer that does want a dry Chenin, and can be thrown off in Vouvray because some of the labeling in Vouvray is misleading. Why? Even if when it's labeled sick, then you still have, you could still have some RS in there. It's not labeled as anything. Right. So if you want to guarantee yourself a dry Chenin Blanc from the Loire, Sauvignon is your go-to. It's just south of the Loire River. It also is known for, I think the wet wooliness of Chenin is highlighted even more in Sauvignon. It tends to be a little funky. Lana-luli. It is kind of the- I thought it was a little funky. Yeah. That's a good way of putting it. That's very typical for this appellation. I was going to say corky or something, but it's not wrong. It's not indicative of a flaw. It smells like a wet sweater. Yeah. It's really not pleasant. I think it's okay. This comes from one of the most famous vineyard sites, Clos du Papillon. It's literally, papillon means butterfly for you, non-French speakers like myself. The vineyard is actually shaped like a butterfly rather than being like an environment for butterflies. Yeah. Highly sought after fruit. What's also pretty remarkable about this vintage, they are already pulling really low yields from this vineyard anyway. But in this vintage, they only got 11 hectoliters per hectare. I don't know what that means. Can you believe that? I received no shock and awe reaction in the room. I mean, it's low, but I don't know how low that is compared. What's the standard? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think by law, their max is a bit like 50 or 55. But most, a lot of white wines, when you go to Italy, some white wines can be 90 hectoliters per hectare. We're talking like soturn levels right here at 11. Yeah, very, very, very low yields. How much is this bottle of wine then? This bottle of wine is 57.99. No thanks. Way, way. This isn't, this doesn't, this is not good enough for that kind of money. This is a wine geek's wine. Yeah. This is a little too challenging for me as a wine drinker. Like this one, I'm glad to taste this and I'm happy to like try to digest what I'm tasting here, but I can't see myself ever finishing a bottle of this. You know, it's not like a weird, you know, Said Jenna about scotch last week. It's not a weird single malt where I can just like cork it back up and go back to it whenever. Like, you open this and you have to drink it, and this is just a little too out there for me. I don't know. This wine is kind of a powerful white wine. I think you could keep it in the fridge for a number of days. You think so? Yeah. And in the bottle, unopened for a long time. They are certified biodynamic, which is actually pretty common in Savennier. Raj Par in his book actually had kind of a good description, if you will, of kind of the cultural difference here of like Voovriving, very established, not like corporate in any way, but very kind of textbook and what people think of. And then Savennier are like the hillbilly farmers across the river that are experimenting and trying new things and often farming biodynamically and kind of all the geeks are over there in Savennier. Yeah. I mean, the brand that we probably sold the most of is Beaumard and they also make a clue to Papillon, which might appeal to you more. It's not quite as funk driven as this one. Is there something, I know it's dry, but is there something like Frisante, something about the texture that's almost fizz, but it's not? Maybe people always tell me that's acidity, but I don't know if that's it. I felt like this was on the sweet side of things almost, like it had this sweetness that went into that cheesy funk, like I wasn't sure what to think of this at all. Interesting points. Chris, I was looking up this wine before we chatted, I don't know if you found this too. They said that they were harvesting, so Chenomlong ripens unevenly, okay? We kind of know that, just like Zinfandel, so they often have to pass through the vineyard several times to handpick everything. So what they'll do is they'll harvest the first bunch and then days or a week or however long later, they'll go ahead and harvest the next kind of tranche of grapes. In this winery, they are then fermenting those wines separately and that second pick, some of those grapes are infected with botrytis. That's probably a lot sweeter. And so, that will have that constant- You can still ferment it to dry itself. Yeah, yeah, it's still dry, this wine, but you get that little bit of honeyed, ripeness of fruit that is telling your palate that there's like a little bit of sugar, but there isn't. It's just a little sweetness that's coming from that botrytis quality that some of these grapes in the winemaking were infected by. Like a PX Scotch. Agree with that. And another thing I would say is- Or a Saughtern Cask Scotch or something. Yeah, yeah. You guys all like bitter things. True. Are you noticing a distinct bitter note on the finish here, like a tonic like note on the finish? It's really interesting. This is an interesting wine. Again, I'm glad I've tasted it, but it's just one of those wines where I'm not the right audience to finish a bottle of this. Totally. It is a very thought-provoking, ethereal wine. I often bring people to the Loire when they're buying gifts at the holiday season, and they don't know they're going to a dinner party or something, they're bringing something, they don't know if that person that they know loves wine, is going to want to open the wine, age the wine. This one is age-worthy, but you won't cringe at the thought of opening it now. I would say food-wise, this would be great with fish, pike canals, and sauce nantes, or lobsters. I mean, pike is a delicious eat. Well, pike, what's the second word of that? Canal? Yeah. It's like a little dumpling. I like dumplings. It's a well-known dish. You sound like me right now. Do you know what a canal is, first of all? No. It's actually a shape you can make with two spoons. Oh, okay. Yes, yes. It's this oblong thing. Sometimes in fancy restaurants, they do ice cream that way on top of your dessert or something. These are made in that elongated zeppelin shape, and they're made with- Pike is so delicious. It's just such an extreme pain in the ass to clean the fish. Right, bony and bothersome, which is why it's great to shred it up and put it into a canal, which is light and fluffy, and then you broil it with a crayfish sauce usually, and it's delightful. So you get this shellfish richness and life. You'll have to make that for us sometimes. Sounds like another recipe pairing coming your way on the Binny's blog. Then open another bottle of this and we'll finally get it. Yeah. Moving on, we are going to the- Dr. Wadenschlagen? What did you say? Falkenschlagen? Falkenschlagen. Falkenschlagen. Hofgut Falkenstein. And this wine in particular is Niedermeninger Sonnenberg. So Niedermening is their hometown, and Sonnenberg literally means sun mountain. This is a vineyard site. And it's the 2021 cabinet trocken, so fermented dry, which is this producer's want most of the time. Is that picked late and then fermented dry? Well, I mean, by German standards, kind of, not really. Picked early and then fermented dry? That answer really represents the complicated German wine law so well. Yeah. Kind of, not really. I like, is he telling me to f*** myself? No, no, no. So, number one, the word trocken on the label just means that it's been fermented to dryness to differentiate it from the fruitier product. Except for when it's a trockenbarrenaushleisen. Well, that would be very sweet. But it's the same word. But there, though, it's that trocken is a modifier to the actual fruit, so dry berry, trockenbarren. Right. And it's björnarsleisen, not björnarsleisen. How many did I say? I'm pluralizing things. Anyway, this Hofgut Falkenstein is a very famous producer in the Saar River Valley, which is down in the southern portion of the broader Moselle wine region. It's very, very cool, and there's some very famous producers. They're like Egon Mueller. This is awesome. It smells like long grasses. Yeah, it's fresh and grassy. Yeah. That's why I love it. Not a gross Sauvignon Blanc grass. Love cutting a good lawn. Like I'm walking through a field of wildflowers with high, high grasses. So the house style here is very, very bright, intense, saline. This is so good. This is so good. Hello. It's like zip. Is your enamel still at present? Let me check. This is like a sour beer lovers wine. This is truly awesome. This is going to give me heartburn. Yeah. Acid levels here are off the charts. Let's talk about a wine with texture. There's a chalky texture to it in the mouth. It's minerally. There's still the sense, in my opinion, of peachy fruit, but it is so dominated by that lime zest. Yes. Boom. Yeah. And mineral. Yeah. It is front to back in a hurry, but it leaves all of these aromas and flavors in your mouth along the way. I don't mean that to say it's so linear that you forget about it. No, right. And it just shows too. Yes. I mean, it's so zippy right now, but I mean, how long? Can you age it? 30 years. I love old Riesling and something like this. I mean, this is such a delicate wine in some ways. I mean, it's like 10.5% alcohol. Yeah. But that acid level is going to serve it so well. What's going to happen to this as it ages? Speaking of dry extract, I mean, you can tell this is loaded with dry extract. That's where all that flavor is coming from. If I buy one of these and forget I own it for 10 years, what's it taste like after 10 years, you think? It's going to be slightly softer in its acidity and it's going to start developing some nuttiness to it, which I actually, I'm not sure. I feel like it already exists a little bit, but it's going to remain super fresh. I mean, literally for decades. What are we charging for this wine? So this is on the relatively inexpensive end of their line at $24.99. That's a great price. Oh my gosh, really? I know. We got a whole bunch of these in minute quantities. So they're scattered around the chain. Every store's got something different. If they got any at all. It's scant is what you're saying. Scant, yes. Cue the Roger, you can't have these. No, you can't have this. But they're out there. I mean, they just arrived. Literally just arrived. Most of them are labeled trocan or fine herb, which is kind of an alternative to halbtrocan labeling, which means half dry. It's one question for you guys. It's shockingly vibrant. Yeah. If a Cabernet were as tannic as this is acidic, you may say that it's out of balance. Yeah. May you say that this is out of balance? Yeah. You could say that they have purposely tilted the balance in a certain direction. I mean, balance at the end of the day is a matter of taste. Is this acidity? Can you add this acidity to a wine or is this purely from- This is 100% natural. Yeah. You can. You can certainly acidify to get to this level. It will not taste like this. Yes. It's not going to be as cohesive. You're going to notice that it stands out much more. But also in this cool of a climate, there is no need for them to acidify. No. I mean, this is very cool climate, great growing, and even if you are drinking an Auschlesse from this producer that has significant residual sugar, it's still going to come off as relatively dry and just bright and popping. I mean, these are amazing ones. Not to say that it's, Mike, not to joke that it's too acidic, it's like halb atomic warhead. Okay. All right. I don't know what you're referring to. Yeah, of course you don't, because it's a candy that you buy in a store. For a nickel. She's never had candy before. The warhead candies? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I've had those. I just know what the first part was. Halb. Like halb trochan. Oh. It's only halfway there. It's a really dumb language joke. Yeah. So to round out, round this out, you know, the acid level is so high here. This is obviously something to drink with food. So think about pairing this with something that has sauerkraut or something that has lots of citrus in it or a bright, fresh cheese that all of which have their own acidity. What will happen is that acid in the wine will back off a little bit and the fruitier elements will pop out of this wine and it will be a different experience. Like a soft, fresh goat cheese, the creaminess of that would pop more than usual too? Precisely. Yeah, that'd be awesome. That'd actually be great because there's so much acid. Yep. That is exactly what I'm talking about there. Well done, Greg. I just repeated what he said. Greg, your notes are so on today. Shut up. Just one little note. This Falkenstein is so old school that they pick, you were talking about going through the vineyard in Treis in Savennier. Similar situation in Germany and a lot of times, it's to go through to pick different Pradaquette levels, different levels of sugar. Right. It's not to compensate for the grapes, but it's to make stylistic choices. But these guys are so particular that within a vineyard site, they will ferment different patches of the same vineyard in separate oak foudres. These are oak age, very old oak, no real influence. There's something in Germany called the AP number, which basically is a bottling number. They bottle every single foudre they make under a different AP number. So you could buy this wine, AP number six, and then there's also exactly the same thing, Cabinet Trokan AP number nine, and it's just a different barrel. Okay. Pokemon, you got to buy it. You got to buy them all. That's how particular these guys are, and people swear up and down that they're distinct completely from one another. So don't think you can conflate one AP number with another. Because you can't. Because you can't. Woof. Good little tidbit. Single barrel, assocary, German Riesling. Gotta drink them all. I know. German wines. Pretty nerdy stuff. Super nerdy stuff. Yikes. Speaking of Pinot Noir. Yes. Okay, going a little more mainstream with this next one. Pinot Noir, I know what that is. I know exactly what I'm getting with this Pinot Noir. From Australia? That's right. Way to play along with the bit, guys. Australia's no stranger to Pinot Noir. There's several places that it's grown. Is it like hazy? Is it like cloudy? It is. It looks like it. It might just be unfiltered. Yeah. Almost certainly. So. Not filtered. Another in a long line of biodynamic growers that we were tasting today. Everybody basically so far, I think. And these guys make insanely expensive Pinot Noir. By the way, this is. Don't tell us. Yeah, don't tell us. That's all guess. It's going to make us mad. Let's just say what we would pay for it. Bass, Phillip, Bass, Phillip, Pinot Noir. And they're making what part of Australia is it from? Raspberry colored. Yeah. Yeah. Like very pale, bricky red, raspberry jam type color. Raspberry jelly. Like the raspberry jelly you get in the little plastic things at a diner. Kind of compote-y. Yeah. We're in Victoria. Is it cold in Victoria? Victoria. Yes. Really the best known, I think, of the states for Pinot Noir. For sure. At Tasmania, we can talk about in a second. But within Victoria, we're in a region called Gippsland or a zone, I think actually Gippsland zone. A lot of family-owned properties up this way. And Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are the most planted varieties. Okay. Yeah. So very cool. Influenced by the water. It's right on the southern coast. And Tasmania is not too far afield. And there's also mountains, too. There's always mountains. Not in Illinois. I know. There's not good wine in Illinois. One time I was taking a class on Australian, and it's so easy to just think about Australia and say, oh, it's a pretty warm climate. And it's like someone being like, what's the climate of the United States? What is that question? It's a whole continent, right? Right. And there are a lot of different climatic influences. And yeah, so much of the continent is uninhabited. Yeah. Most of Australia sucks. Not if you're on walkabout, isn't it? But a lot of people think, oh, Pinot Noir in Australia where there are actually a lot of cool climate areas to be found. So don't be lazy. And it's all about water or elevation. So you can be inland in the Adelaide Hills and they grow Pinot, or you can be down south here, where the water is a strong influence and grow Pinot and Chardonnay in a Burgundian style. So just, man, you already said it. So just so that you guys can tell me I'm wrong, I'm going to throw it out there. There's like a wild funkiness that you get from natural winemaking and then a wild funkiness that you get from Burgundian winemaking. And I don't know what like Burgundian styles, like mushrooms and savory qualities and stuff. And I don't know which one this is. Well, it's both naturally made. I mean, if you were to be technical about this, this might fall into the broad natural wine category. But so would the the Savennieres. I mean, the thing about natural wine is that it's been made forever by really serious minded, organic, biodynamic growers. And now there's just a name to it and a movement behind it. And it's a big category too. Not everybody does the same thing. Right. And what these people do is take great pains to avoid real flaws and whereas they're more accepted in the modern natural wine movement. So you can have lots of volatile acidity or brett or whatever going on in your wine and people will just say, well, that's what the wine wanted to do. So there it is. Yeah, that's lazy. Pat, you said like raspberry jelly. I think this smells like wild cherries. I don't think it smells like it. I think it looks like it. I think it's a strangely bright color for a Pinot Noir. Smell-wise, I agree, it is wild cherry. Very much so. Greg, to your point, I think both of those wild and funky attributes that you mentioned are there. There's like a cremini mushroom thing going on, there's that turned wet earth, and then there's also a little funkiness to it, no doubt. But it's also vibrant in its fruit. It's not like it's- It's not dirty. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Agreed. I mean, I might pick this as burgundy if I was tasting it blind. Yeah. $49.99 is what I would imagine. I'm going to go $42.99. But you don't know where it always costs too much, and it's an esoteric wine region, and it's a producer doing natural stuff. I'm guessing higher. I think it's like $74.99. It's $55.99. But what you need to understand about Abass Philip is, this is their entry-level wine. Oh, yeah. Oh, my gosh. It only comes up from there. Literally, you can spend Australian Pinot Noir, hundreds and hundreds of dollars a bottle on release from this winery. It's a very unassuming label. Yeah. And it also says, so it says Bin 17K. Do you know what's behind it? Bin 17K. I don't know. The one little Penfolds bin action. Or they're considering raising the price to $17,000 a bottle. I don't know. So there's a bigger Burgundy connection here than we've touched on yet, which is the longtime winemaker whose name is Philip Jones, just by chance. This is the last vintage he worked on, the 2019, and a Burgundy domain bought this estate. And they saw the wine from 2019 through its Elevage and Barrel together. So this guy made this winery famous for Australian Pinot Noir. People will plunk down $800 a bottle for it. They will. Yeah. If you like Old World Pinot and you are open to a little more of that funk, a little more of that low-intervention style, like this is your jam. I think it's gorgeous, personally. This is delicious. All right, people, hold on a second here. We're pouring some India ink into glasses. It's Jeff Cohn Cellars. Yeah, this is a dark ass wine, huh? Yeah. So opaque. Pat, have you ever had a Petite Syrah? Yeah, I've had a Petite Syrah. This looks like quill ink. Right. Pat, have you ever had a wine from the Russian River Valley? Yes, I've had a wine from the Russian River Valley. Have you ever had a Petite Syrah from the Russian River Valley because I have not? I don't think so. I mean, mainly you think of Pinot Noir when you think of Russian River Valley. Yeah, it's ubiquitous. Pinot Chard, maybe some sparkling. This wine smells like someone mixed blackberries and blueberries in an ash tray. How delightful. Do you? I mean, it's like some char. Maybe it's not ash, maybe it's more like really, really dark cocoa. Yeah, maybe it's that. Maybe I'm just being provocative. I think it's all of that, all at once. I don't think there's an easy answer here. There's a lot going on. When your mother lies around, what is it? Something appointed Tuscan Villa. She's so corpulent that when she lies around. She really lies around it. Yes, this wine is lying around my glass for sure. So this is Jeff Cohn, Russian River Valley, Petit Seurat, which sounds crazy. And maybe it is, but you have to remember the Russian River Valley is long, and you can get really close to the ocean. And as you go out toward the coast, there's more fog. This is great. It's wacky. This is awesome. You would like this wine. I think it's schizophrenic, Pat. I don't know how to respond to that. It's a good wine. Okay. On the nose. I mean, it's no doubt a well-made wine. Globs of fruit. And then on the fruit, it's huge. And then it dries out. It gets this like weird, sickly, burnt, acidic, dry, tannic, lingering. I'm making a face. It's like a gentian root, bitter dryness. He likes it. Yeah. It's like a bitter, like a pair of Tivo. There is definitely a powerful bitter streak running through it. Yeah. Big fan of this. But to your point, I totally agree. In terms of the structure, it enters the mouth and it expands quickly. Very mouth-filling. It is like we always come out with these wines, kind of meal in a glass, but up front, it kind of closes towards the back of your palate, I think a little bit quicker than I would anticipate. And then I'm kind of left with alcohol. Is it alcohol? Just this like boozy-ness. It's this astringency. It's big. It's this huge plush thing that just sucks down into this. Well, I mean, Petite Syrah is famous for its high tannin levels and the difficulty of managing those tannins. I think he's done a good job on the tannin manager. I was going to say, this is nothing like Petite Syrah of yesteryear, which was they're just coarse and grainy and just so drying in your mouth. It was almost ridiculous to decant a bottle a week in advance before drinking it if it was young. Should we decant this for a week and come back to it? Possibly. So Chris, I want to ask you, so speaking of Rushmore Valley, it is a very large AVA. I think when people are first introduced to it, they think of it as actually a cooler place because that's where Pinot Noir is grown, but it's really not that cool. We're really dealing with moderate torum sites. As you get inland, as you mentioned, and especially in the sub AVA of Chalk Hill, I mean, it's really warm. So do you remember when Russian River Valley was expanded because it was a much smaller AVA, and then we followed the Italians lead, I think. They were like, we want more Russian River wine, so we're just going to open the gates and redraw the boundaries and make it much larger, and it lost its topicity in that time. But that was quite a while ago. Yeah, it was quite a while ago. The other thing is, where this vineyard site is, I'm not entirely sure, but I'm guessing it's a budding up against something like Dry Creek Valley, because these areas touch, and Dry Creek, of course, is much warmer, perhaps too warm for Chardonnay and Zinfandel, but there's a lot of crossover. There's Zin grown in Russian River Valley too, and historically, there was quite a lot of Zin grown in the Russian River Valley. Not so much anymore, but there still is plenty. Australia is a big place. Russian River Valley is a big place. Right. So I think this is relatively inland and northerly, as far as the Appalachian goes, and is a budding up against somewhere. What's a bottle is going to set us back. So let me take a quick look here. I'm afraid of the answer. It's so extracted and right that I'm kind of worried that it's going to be stupid expensive. And that also I'm starting to add up the amount of we spent on this stupid podcast so far. Don't think about it. $59.99. I would take that Pinot Noir like everything. I mean, two very different wines obviously. Yeah, very different wine drinkers, right? I mean, this is going to appeal to a lot of people because it's so bold. Steakhouse Cabernet guy is going to love this. Although I would say that oak influence is relatively restrained here. I think there's some vanilla in the plushness up front. Sure. You get it? Yeah, but I don't think I would call this wine strongly oak influence. Okay. I completely agree. Oftentimes when you get the density and the power that this wine has, you get that representation from the oak and from the tannins as well. Those two things are really well integrated in the wine. The purity of the fruit is still there, but gosh, is it big. I love how bitter it is. Yeah, I know. We know. We know. Sometimes people actually get these two grapevirties confused, or they think they're the same kind of family, or they share these characteristics, but they're actually quite different. That means the next one is a Syrah and not a Petite Syrah. Yeah. Greg, your notes are so good today. I looked ahead. So yeah, Petite Syrah and Syrah just happen to sound similar. This grape is called Durif in France. Petite Syrah. Well, I'm just going to throw this out there. If Petite Syrah and Syrah aren't actually related, maybe they f***ed up. Well. What do you call it? Oh, it's a little butterfly. Is it a butterfly? No, it is a beetle. Right. Well, I mean, that happens all the time in naming. Ladybugs and fireflies are totally mistaken. I didn't mean to go to entomology. I should have gone with, I don't know what. What don't you know about, Chris? Well, those are both beetles and there are such things as bugs, which do not include beetles. I just use bugs as the over-arching umbrella for anything that crawls or flies. It's anything gross. Which is fair. Anything gross. Most people do. But you should know bugs because they include things like phylloxera. Oh, yes. That is what's known as a true bug. What about a flu bug? A flu bug? I'm getting my vaccine tomorrow. Okay. Hey, nice to see some more Washington State wine on the podcast. Here we go. So this is made by a guy named Charles Smith. This is K Vitners. What is this? The Sundance Vineyard? Jeff calls Charles Smith the Slurms McKinsey of wine. The Slurms McKinsey? Slurm. Wimmy, wim, wim, wazzle. If you knew what I was talking about and you know Charles Smith, you know what I'm talking about. So Charles Smith, bold personality, making bold wines in Washington. He's got a whole stockpile of different labels now, but he started off with K Vitners, what, 20, 22, 23 years ago now? Is that one of his first? He's got a bunch of different projects. Right. He does the wines of substance and a lot of those black and white labels. Yeah, this one is too. Yeah, House Wines was his label. House Wine and Kung Fu Girl and all of that stuff, but- The Bomb. The Bomb Diggity. What was the bomb? Bomb? It was like the Merlot or the Cabernet or something. Yeah. Oh yes, Merlot I think, yeah. It's pretty tannic, right? It's like the heavy fruit, but it's less and it's more focused and it's brighter and it seems like it has a citric acidity. I asked a yes or no question. Why is Pat so grumpy? We're tasting wine. No, I just want to know if I'm correct in that assessment. You are correct. It's very tannic. Yes. Think about both of the wines we just had and now the one we're having now. Both are dense, big, extracted, fruity. What a difference oak and tannin on this wine compared to the previous. We talked about how they were so well integrated last one. They went really under the radar. They just gave it structure. Here, it is in your face. The oak aromas are hitting you. The tannins are drying your mouth out. I mean, it's like a butterscotch bomb on the palate. It's caramel. Talk about not being able to have a whole bottle of something. It does seem candied. Yes. This is from the Walluk Slope, which is one of the warmest and driest sub-AVAs within the Columbia Valley. It's actually pretty all sandy soils, pretty much heavily irrigated in that whole place. You definitely can see that ripeness. Not that they do on this wine pat, but coming from such a warm climate, this would be a wine that maybe they would think about acidifying. They don't. I'm just saying that it's in these warmer climates where your acid's dropping quickly in fall, that you would think about adding acid to keep it fresh. This isn't going to shock you. I could totally have a whole bottle of this. Of course you could. Yeah, I like this. It's the old fashioned of wines. Yes. It's so butterscotch-y though. It's distracting to me. I think all that's been said is true. The only thing about Washington is pretty strong dips in temperature at night to preserve acidity as you find in almost any desert situation. It is an absolute desert over there. Just sitting with our Washington state buyer and we were tasting a ton of wines that were absolutely gorgeous. And unfortunately, people don't know about them. And I can only encourage you to seek these out. They won't be in their own aisle, but they'll be labeled within the overhead sign of the grape variety you're looking for. So please ask someone if you need help, but there's great wine coming out of Washington and it's grown so significantly. It is the second largest state producer in the country, but they only had 10 wineries in 1975, and now they have over 1,000. Just to show that growth and the interest, you had a lot of California money moving up to Washington state. That was a point of contention with everybody in the Seattle area in the mid-90s. When we moved there in 94, the first question the neighbors asked was, where did you move from California? Because they just like, beat it. Oh, there was this tangible hatred for people from California for coming up and clogging the place up. Yeah. Well, and back in that time, the dominant grape varieties were likely Merlot and Riesling. Yeah. Things have changed a lot. There's still a lot of Merlot and Riesling grown up there, but it's not the way it used to be. Walla Walla. Cucamonga, Seattle. Words that sound dirty that aren't. Oh, okay. Or funny sounding words. It's a Krusty the Clown Clown College thing. Jim's going to love it. Anyway, Chris, what is this on the shelf for? $39.99 for this. What did you say? $39.99? Yeah. It's a lot of wine for that if you're into this style. It's legit. I think that's fair. I think that's fair price. I like this wine, but I get what you're saying with the butterscotch. It is kind of a one note on the palate. All right, knowing the answer to this, is that it? No. Uh-oh, there's more. But wait, there's more. Just when you thought you escaped the tannins. It slices, it dices, it even makes julienne fries. Of all of these wines, this, the Syrah, is the least foreign to me. We've experienced something like this before. What the hell is this that you have, this tiny bottle? 500 milliliters? It is an adorable bottle. 375. It's red. Yeah. It's brown. Look how it pours. It pours like this weird brown color. So, this is a Pacito version of Sagrentino di Montefalco. Well, of course. These are willfully obscure wines, okay? Is Sagrentino the one that comes in the melted bottle? What is that? You're thinking of Travolini. You're right. I'm sorry. Thank you. From the Piedmont. Yeah, you're right. This is from Sagrentino. Very different place. Totally different. It ends in a vowel, is the thing. Both grape varieties are notarized. It's Italian. Everything ends in a vowel. Yeah. Just to kind of locate us on a map, guys, we're in Umbria, just south of Tuscany, landlocked region. You might know it for the Orvieto DOC with the white grape Criquetto and some Trebbiano is grown there, but the Montefalco di Sagrentino DOCG is where we're at right now. But very cool that you picked a Posito wine. This is brand new. We just got this. It is. This is made by Scaccia di Abolli. Scaccia di Abolli. I'm completely in the dark into everything. Which means- I have no idea what's going on. I'm guessing Posito means something dessert, something- It means that the grapes were dried before they were made into wine, like you would find in Amarone or various other places. So the producer's name here, Scaccia di Abolli, means to cast out the devils, and it takes its name from a 19th century exorcist who lived in this small village bordering the vineyard. He was known to use the wines while performing his exorcist ritual of ridding poor souls of demons. The power of Scaccia di Abolli compels you. So interestingly, what most people in the American market know Sagrantino for is very tannic dry wines, but this is actually the traditional style and it was a sacramental wine. So all of that makes sense. So sweet. Yeah. So it's well, when they drive the grapes, it really makes them extracted and and and yeah, heavier and sweet. But Amarone is not sweet. It can be really. Amarone is dry to off dry. Oh, but it's still tannic in the finish. This is such a weird wine. I've never tasted wine like this before. Never tasted anything like this. But there's something called Recierto di Amarone, which is sweet like this. So it's a subcategory of Amarone that's not fermented dry. It's a whole journey. It's a whole journey. You're like, exactly what Pat just said. You're like, why is it so sweet? Wait a minute. Why is it so tannic? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Just crazy town. It's one of those jerky old wooden roller coasters. You don't even know what's coming up next, bouncing around. Well, for a long time, they didn't think they could make dry wines out of this stuff. No, seriously, because it's so aggressively tannic, and that is what really explodes unless you manage those tannins very carefully. And you can do that in the modern world, but it was harder back in the day to make a dry wine that was palatable. So most of them were sweet to balance that strong tannic profile. This is fun. So they picked this stuff in mid-September. They dry out the grapes. Like on a rack, like they do in the Amarone? On racks, yeah. They call them grittacci. Grittacci. Grittacci. Yeah, it means rack or mat or. They dry out these racks. Their name for all of them is rack. Well, it sounds better in Italian. Grittacci. So they do that until about mid-December. So quite a long time to concentrate all those flavors and acids and tannins as that water kind of evaporates out of the dairy. No animals come by and eat them? Well, the racks will be inside. Yeah, it's Italy. There's animals everywhere. Despite being founded in the 50s, this winery is quite modern. Everything's gravity, flow. Well, one of the cool things they have going on is they're making a sparkling wine out of sauerkraut. Oh, yes. That sounds disjointed and strange. Then after fermentation, it'll go into new barrels for 24 months, then in bottle for another year before getting out onto the market. So if you like the previous wine we had, and you have a dinner party with those people that do like the denser, more tannic wines, it is so tannic. This is your dessert pairing for that group. Does the tannin intensity increase with the drying just like the sugars do? Well, yeah. Yeah. Well, there you go. It's like wine concentrate. Well, of course. Mega purple. Yeah. Guess what it does? It increases the percentage of drying. Dry extract. Full circle. Isn't it beautiful? Dry extract the show. Dry extract the show. And so, you know, basically what you're mostly losing is water, of course. So everything, sugar, acid, tannin, is all elevated. Hmm. OK. What's the price on this? The price on this is $39.99. For the split? For a hay bottle. What's a hay bottle? A half bottle. Halb bottle. A halb bottle. Great. A hay penny. For your thoughts, because it's not worth a penny. Chris, awesome line up. Guess what? But wait. But wait. There's more. Do you have a surprise? You didn't tell me about this. Well, you wouldn't have agreed to do it if you did. Yeah, there's more. Yeah, get it. So we're gonna try it as is, and then we're gonna make something out of it. I'm very intrigued. About this? Cease to be intrigued. Yeah, no, it's... Is it sharing? Stop. You're just... You're getting excited. Just turn to work. This could be really fun. You never know. Oh, are we making this tawny and ginger? We are. Okay, so I am looking at a very stout battle of Cockburn's Port. You don't know what that's supposed to look like? It's a cocktail shaker, yo. Oh, okay. Cocktail shaker shape. We're mixing. All right. I mean, the fortified category is, to their credit, doing their best to come up with new and exciting ways to enjoy these wines. Sales have been stagnant for a while, so I get that. I just held a class on fortified wine and we started with Madeira. Sorry, Roger, that you weren't there. I will save. I'll pour you some when you're back. We started with a rainwater spritz. They're being pushed with rainwater. Madeira now is some rainwater, little 7Up, a lemon slice and this is quite pleasant. White Port has been a good thing to mix with anything bubbly for a while. That's not bad. I never do that. Yeah, I don't either. You have to drink a whole bottle's worth of cocktails within a couple of weeks. Actually, that doesn't sound that hard. I'm sorry. Have you met yourself? You know, I forget a lot of them. Am I pouring a little bit? So, let's try it on its own, I think. In a glass? In my wine glass? Yeah. You know, you might have to rinse out that last one. So, what makes this different than a normal port, though? Is it just a normal port in cocktail shape marketing? Yeah. Oh. Well, this is a basic tawny port, so Asian wood. Yeah, this port sucks. I look forward to seeing what it's like with ginger beer. It's a spicy kind of fruity port. It's kind of more dry than you would expect. It's fine. And I don't mean dry, like not sweet. I mean dry, like, I don't know, it's acidic short finish. Because it's basic tawny, it's not going to be very exciting. It's nothing on Greg's pick of the year port, that's for sure. Basically. Oh, yeah. Oh, my gosh. All right, let's do this with- And you can't buy it. You know, I've been using Noval Turriganassi now to make cocktails. With your tonic water. Okay. So I'm pouring, I'm not going to waste this. I'm pouring this in here. So we're basically shooting for two parts ginger beer to one part. So by the way, I don't know if we said this, but this is new product from Coburn's- Spelled Cockburn's. Yeah. Port house that is called Tawny Eyes. I have a strong feeling that this whole thing, this whole segment is not making it in, and that we only had nine wines on the show, because this is terrible. This is lousy. Oh, how do you sleep at night? We need the bitters. It's right there. It's supposed to have bitters. As a floater? Yeah, just right on top. Really? That's what it says. It's a brand new bottle of bitters, so he really has to shake it hard. Like a Polaroid picture. Come on, man. Way to open the- That doesn't know how to open a bitters bottle. This is apparent. The ring didn't separate from the cap. Cock and Bull Ginger Beer, Coburn's Tawny Eyes, and some good old Angostura aromatic bitters. Well, I think it smells delightful mostly because of the Angostura. Yeah. Yeah, because that's right now what happened to mix in this glass. Exactly. I will say- It's nice. It's nice. It's nice. It's much better than drinking it on its own. I think that. I'll finish this. It's a spicy little guy. Yeah. Yeah. Well, have you had cock and bull before? It kind of tastes like Christmas. It's good. Yeah, it's Angostura. It's the Angostura that kind of tastes like Christmas. Yeah. Ginger and then all those brown spices and the Angostura. Yeah. If you do buy a bottle of Tawny Port and perhaps after a couple of weeks, you are tired of just having it on its own. This actually is a nice variation to introduce to that wine. Can I see the bitters? I agree. It's a low alcohol cocktail that you could enjoy a couple of if you wanted to. Yeah. Yeah. You can serve this more of a digestif, but you could serve it upon entry as an aperitif too. I think so. Right? I think this would be a nice aperitif. I think it's great for the holidays. I was worried that I had a housewarming party like a decade ago, and Dark and Stormy's was our drink, and nobody drank it. Big fan. So I had to drink a whole lot of ginger beer and dark rum, and boy did I get sick of it, and I still don't want ginger beer. I love ginger beer. I think the fruit gives it something else that's not like the molasses, you see dark rum, and it gives it life in a way that like your Dark and Stormy doesn't necessarily have. And Roger will tell you that although it's probably pretty sugary with the ginger beer, if you're going low alcohol, this is low alcohol. The little alcohol, what's the alcohol that is 20% or so, 17? Probably like 19 or so, I don't know. 19. So yeah, you're starting with, instead of a rum that's like 35 or 40%, you're half that, and you're mixing it down with ginger beer too, so it could be reasonable for a while. Right. And I love the idea of this being a holiday cocktail, because it does have those Christmassy spice aromas and flavors, it would be perfect. Yep. This product sure is saved by adding a bunch of other flavors to it. Throw a few cranberries in it to make it festive. Maybe a sprig of rosemary and an orange slice. A big punch bowl full of it and a ring of frozen fruit punch. I'm glad you didn't tell me about it, but I probably would have left, but. Yep. Okie doke. Cool. There's also in this line, there's a ruby called Ruby Soho. Destination of Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, Ruby Soho. Chris, you knew they would do that. Yeah, he did. That's not the first time I've done that. No. What's the other one? The other one is called White Heights. White Heights. You're as cold as ice. That's all they got. You're willing to sacrifice your white board to tonic. You know that one, do you? Has anybody ever downloaded the free Angostura cocktail app? No, shut up. We ought to do that. Really? Is it foreigner? I don't know, is it foreigner? Cold as ice. Foreigner. Yeah, particular vintage. Wow. Really staying hip there. She's a big Lou Graham fan. Well, okay. Comes into work one day. You guys heard foreigner? Really slaps. Damn. Let's wrap this. I get made fun of no matter what. This cocktail would be nothing without the bitters though. That's honestly. I agree. We're at pace to make over 4,000 new wines in 2022 at Binny's Beverage Depot. Too much. And I didn't think that that meant that I would have heard of almost none of it. So this was weird. Yeah. Thank you, Chris. It's the whole point. You're welcome. Thanks for sharing that Falkenschlagen. You're welcome. I traffic in Esoterica. Yeah. That's what happens when we get a Chris episode. But there are people out here who will love these wines. Yeah. And most of them are relatively limited. Some are readily available, but seek them out if they peak your interest. And also, if you're not sure what is new, we have plenty of wine consultants that do geek out over this. So just go and ask them like, hey, what's new in Esoterica that you want to introduce me to? They'll know what's come in and they've only had like one six-pack of it, and good luck finding that needle and haystack on the shelf. Another thing that I found really helpful when picking these wines out was the actual little new sign that is right on the shelf. If your jam store is doing a very good job of pointing that out, that is remarkably helpful even for a man like me. Chris, thanks for putting in the footwork on this one. Fun. Always cool to see all of the amazing new stuff that's coming in. Yeah. It's an endless flow. All right. Never had a tannic sweet wine before. Really? I don't think so. What about a vintage port? I was going to say vintage port. Okay. But now I guess. It's not that tannic though. It's pretty tannic. You need to try a young vintage port. Oh, well. Those are below me. I wait on my ports, sir. Any port in a storm is what I say. Until next time. Until next time. But don't wait on leaving us a review. Gross. Thanks for listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle. Until next time, I'm Alisha. I'm Greg. I'm Pat. And I'm Chris. Keep tasting weird stuff. I'm bored. You're boring me, guys.