CRUSH CLUB

September is a glorious month in Vermont. The final stretch of summer offers up golden, sun-baked days, cooler nights, and a chance to finally enjoy big bountiful harvests from our local farms and home gardens. Something about all the lushness and exuberance before the inevitable decay of autumn makes me want to drink wines that are zesty and full of life, but who bring a touch of warmth and richness to those crisp almost-fall days. Or, in other words, it’s good to drink something that’s kiiiinda like rose but not-quite-rose. It’s time for light-bodied, juicy, crushable, tart, glou-glou wines.

            What’s glou glou? Is it a French phrase (adopted by Americans) to describe the sound, sensation and feeling of chuggable, gluggable, easy-drinkin’ and not-too-serious reds with serious creds. Yes. It is that---but really, it’s so much more. Sometimes when it comes to glou- you just know it when you do.

Broc Cellars 'Got Grapes' 
Carignan blend

This wine certainly has a bunch- and more- going on. Carignan, Mission, Valdiguié, Syrah, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Pfeffer, and Zinfandel grapes, blended to delightful harmony in a bottling that originally began due to a mistake during a hectic harvest. From such chaos is borne beauty- with this year’s iteration featuring a juicy palate of blackberries, currants, umeboshi plum and brambly herbs. Made, of course, with spontaneous fermentation and no added preservatives. Drink with a chill. And some herby chevre, blistered red tomatoes and toasted naan., 

Cantina Furlani
'Altopiano Rosso' 
Pinot Noir

Furlani time! We enjoy so many of the wonderful wines from Matteo Furlani, a winemaker of enormous talent who hyper-focuses on bringing his alpine terroir and the matchless exuberance of the Dolomites to each of his cuvees. No different is his “Altopiano” line of wines. The rosso here is a pinot noir as you’ve never seen it before. A short maceration time and stainless-steel ageing on lees create an uber-light, fresh, precise and focused red with tons of red raspberry and cranberry notes, interlaced with a hint of granitic minerality, culminating in a lip-smacking pour of pure GLOU. Again, enjoy with a slight chill, if you’d like, and a whole mess of olive oil, cured ham and crusty bread.

RAW CLUB

This month the “glou for you” trend continues as we focus on producers’ wines of distinct lightness and juicy-tart brightness, showcasing how “red wine” is a spectrum, the leaner end of which should certainly not be ignored. Transition seamlessly into fall with these remarkable creations from the celebrated winemakers of Vini Sassara and Forlorn Hope.

Vini Sassara

 'Vin de UA’ Corvina blend

Outside of Verona in the land known for romantic reds, especially fruity Valpolicellas and their weighty Ripasso and Amarone variations, come the unexpectedly delightful wines of Vini Sassara. Started by Alessia and Stafano Bertaiola on the Morainic hills near Lake Garda, the couple combines Alessia’s background in viticultural research with Stefano’s tradition and inheritance of 14 hectare of land under vine. Determined to showcase the diversity of native varietals and terroir of their region, Vini Sassara has created unorthodox blends and co-ferments, genre-defying skin contact wines of unparalleled brightness and character, zesty whites and shop-favorite rosatos---but perhaps most interestingly of all, a rosso to celebrate and highlight the Barolino region and its own style of wine. A light red to be enjoyed on the shores of Lake Garda, but equally at home in a glass on the Waterbury Reservoir, this blend of corvina, rondinella and molinara grapes is a beautiful expression of the Bertaiola’s approach to the DOC---rustic but balanced, crushable but complex, lean but generous---THIS is the Veneto, too. We’re not in Amarone season yet, after all.

Forlorn Hope

 'O.D.B’ Trousseau

Let’s check in with our friend Matthew Rorick over in Calaveras County, California. This region in Northern California, known for rolling hills, caverns and old gold mining towns, hosts a range of exceptional vineyards helmed by spirited prospectors and renegades. This is still 49’er land, and Matt Rorick is the king of them off. His granitic, schist-laden soils, at elevations of over 2000’, are planted with sometimes-forgotten, moderately-abandoned grapes from long ago in Cali history. This Trousseau Noir was planted by UC Davis at their agricultural station in nearby Jackson; abandoned during prohibition, Rorick and company brought its cuttings back to their vineyard and grafted with great success the survivors of this 100-year-old project.

Natural yeast open-top tank fermented, with minimal added SO2, this wine sees 14 months in neutral oak before bottling. It is a labor of love, a dedication to history, and a reclamation of what once made California a land for seekers of adventure and exploration. Flavors are lean, stony, wild strawberry-rich but laser-sharp and dry. Roast a whole chicken and some white beans on a cool night, open with contemplation, drink with abandon.