Cool Kids & Porch Pounders
Uncorked club members received their August shipment last week, and club member’s boxes were chock full of cool kid porch pounders – wines with heady aromas, lip-smacking acidity, tons of character and thirst quenching quaffability – all perfect to help beat the summer heat.
The wines:
All club members received
• Cutter Cascadia ‘#1 Grandpa’ Columbia Valley 2021
• Joe Swick ‘The Flood’ American White Wine 2021
In addition to the wines above, four bottle members received:
• Rémi Larroque Pétillant Naturel ‘Gaillacoise’ 2021
• Priorat Natur Vermut
Cutter Cascadia ‘#1 Grandpa’ Columbia Valley 2021
Cutter Cascadia’s #1 Grandpa is a 60/40 blend of Chardonnay and Riesling. The grapes were picked on the same day and co-fermented with a light touch of skin maceration. ‘Grandpa’ then sees four days of un-extracted skin contact to give a little aromatic crackle and plushness on the palate, but without the tannins associated with your garden variety skin contact wine. After pressing and settling, the wine was racked into old barrels and remained on it’s fine lees until spring. It was bottled unfined and unfiltered on with 25 ppm (parts per million) added sulfur.
The wine is heady with late-summer aromatics of floral peach, musky ripe cantaloupe and savory herbs followed by tropical notes from Chardonnay and candied elderflower from the Riesling. This thirst-quenching co-ferment is the perfect summer sipper.
Cutter Cascadia is practicing organic and does not use synthetic herbicides fungicides.
Joe Swick ‘The Flood’ American White Wine 2021
Joe Swick is on a hot streak these days, releasing bottling after bottling of lip smacking quaffers that provide delicious drinkability and huge grin factors. In ‘The Flood,’ Swick vinifies each grape variety separately with 30 days of skin contact. Then, each wine is aged in neutral oak barrels for six months before blending. The final blend is bottled unfined and unfiltered – hence the cloudy appearance – with a small amount of sulfur at bottling.
On the nose, the wine is gushing with stone fruit aromas. On the palate, the wine delivers balance and crisp refreshing acidity. This is day drinking wine or the perfect match for a patio party on a warm summer night.
Rémi Larroque Pétillant Naturel ‘Gaillacoise’ 2021
The Gaillacoise Pétillant Naturel (Pét-Nat) is made in the méthode ancestrale: an ancient, artisanal method of making sparkling wine with a single fermentation. The method predates the Méthode Champenoise.
To make Pét-Nat, the grape must is bottled before it is fully fermented, and as the grapes’ natural yeasts consume the remaining sugars, bubbles are produced and trapped in the bottle. The wine is bottled in November after harvest and is disgorged in March the following year.
Mauzac, the grape used in Rémi Larroque’s Pét-Nat, is a late-budding, late-ripening, and slow-fermenting grape, making it perfect for méthode ancestrale wines. It completes fermentation and rests on its lees over winter, developing its signature notes of dried apple peel – at once rustic and alluring. Drink this one for Sunday brunch, at the beach or on a picnic, or with dinner. It is both simple and elegant at the same time, offers superb drinkability and can hold its own on any occasion and with a variety of fare.
Priorat Natur Vermut
While vermouth is often associated with France and Italy, the Spaniards have been enthusiastic imbibers of this bitter sweet beverage for decades – they even coined the term ‘La hora del vermut.’
Vermut, for the unitiated, is a fortified wine, ‘aromatized,’ or infused with aromatic herbs, roots, barks, and spices. Depending on the type of vermouth, it can be a player in a cocktail or, it can perform as a soloist – served neat or on the rocks.
Origins
Traditionally used for medicinal purposes, vermouth gets its name from the German word, wermut, which translates to wormwood – an old-school bitter component common in vermouth ages ago. In the late 18th century, vermouth made its way into the pre-dinner drink scene as an aperitif in Turin, Italy, where it became a staple in all bars. Contemporary vermouth is produced similarly to traditional methods and enjoyed in a whole manner of ways. First, a base wine is made and a neutral distilled spirit, such as brandy, is added to increase the alcohol content. If it is a sweet vermouth, sugar, caramelized sugar, or honey is added. Then, aromatic botanicals from cardamom to citrus peel to licorice root are infused into the fortified wine. This custom blend of herbs and spices is unique to each label, and the blend defines the final character of the vermouth.
Types of vermouth
Vermouth can range from dry to sweet and can be white, blush, golden, red, or copper in color. Its fragrances and flavor profiles vary depending on the types of botanicals, herbs, and spices used in the aromatizing process. The iconic vermouths are the sweet red vermouth, originating in Italy, the dry white vermouth, originating in France, and the off-dry white vermouth, which is somewhere in between on the sweet scale. The vermut from Priorat Natur is neither white nor red, and instead boasts a beguiling copper color and bitter sweet flavor that lends itself well to its stand-alone drinkability.
How to drink it
Vermouth is incredibly versatile and is a key ingredient in many classic cocktails – the martini, the Manhattan and Negroni to name a few. But vermouth isn't just for mixing; artisanal dry vermouth, such as the Priorat Natur, can be sipped spritz style, neat, or over ice with a lemon twist or orange wedge.
How to store vermouth
Because vermouth is fortified, it lasts longer than an opened bottle of wine. Nevertheless, vermouth is still a wine and will become oxidized over time. Store an opened bottle in the refrigerator and use it within one to two months. Unopened bottles should be stored in a cool, dark place until ready for use.
