I’m here today in defense of a wet January. I know, I know: we’re coming off the annual holiday opulence. We’ve dined and drank our way through the darkest days of the year, and we’re craving balance. There’s a multi-billion dollar industry at work telling us the new year marks a time for change; this year, you will suddenly be different. But let me remind you: you do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. I’m starting to believe the soulless nature of January is arbitrary, propelled by our guilty human consciences desperate to atone for something we never did wrong in the first place.
I wonder how the new year would look if we didn’t feel the need to make up for December’s joy by stealing it from January. What if we still have dinner parties and open bottles of sparkling wine? What if we continue to celebrate oyster season and meet up with friends for mollusks and Loire-grown Sauvignon Blanc? Or special bottles of Jura Chardonnay with whole crab and butter? Imagine the sheer joy of opening a cheeky bottle of red on a Wednesday evening just because the label is fun, or a singular bottle from Mallorca that makes us feel like we’re on vacation. I want to reserve a whole weekend to make pasta by hand, simmer away a ragu, and drink Nebbiolo from its ancestral home in northern Italy. I write these words, and I start to think it’s possible: January can be wonderful.
While the solstice has come and the light is creeping back in, we are still firmly in the dark days. It’s so important to find joy where we can. For me, that’s as easy as a bottle of wine with friends. I’m guessing that brings you joy, too, and I think this month’s wines are especially well-suited for the task.
Cheers,
Dylan
NV Bolet Cava Brut Nature: I’m not ready to tattoo it on my body, but I’m starting to believe that the best bang for your buck in the whole world of sparkling wine exists in Spain. What was formerly a sea of forgettable plonk has become more and more memorable over the last decade. It’s now easy to find organically grown cava from estate vineyards; up-and-coming winemakers making thoughtful, terroir-driven juice; and champenoise method sparklers that spend years en tirage for a fraction of the cost of contemporaries in other countries. When it comes to the sweet spot right between price and palate, well-made cava hits the mark.
The Bolet family has been growing grapes for seven generations in Penedès, the center of cava production in Catalonia. At the beginning of the 20th century, Jaume Bolet Galofré replanted the entire estate as a response to phylloxera—a pest that decimates vineyards—and the family now organically tends to a total of 66 acres. This bottle is a blend of estate-grown Xarel-lo, Macabeo, and Parallada, the three signature cava grapes. It’s marked as brut nature, which means it’s ultra-dry. The whole thing is a dreamy trifecta of orchard fruit, brioche, and citrus. The palate pulses with acid and minerals, a parade of bright bubbles with a touch of elegance.
Bubbly bottles tend to weave their way into our most cherished memories. However, I love integrating them into my daily life, celebrating the mundane as much as the extraordinary. You didn’t get sick this holiday season? Bubbles. You made a good soup? Bubbles. You remembered to register your car? Bubbles. No task is too small to celebrate these days.
2021 Domaine de Reuilly Les Pierre Plates: There’s so much that can be said about Domaine de Reuilly; it’s hard to know where to start. I suppose here: they are the benchmark producer of Reuilly, a small appellation with an ancient winemaking tradition in the eastern Loire Valley that grows Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Gris. Vigneron Denis Jamain is singularly focused on his homeland, driven entirely by Reuilly’s singular terroir. His grandfather, Camille Rousseau, planted the first Domaine de Reuilly vineyards in 1935, and Denis has been adding to the holdings since 1990. The entire estate is certified organic and biodynamic.
White wine makes up roughly 50% of all the wine produced in Reuilly, and it’s all about Sauvignon Blanc. Though one of the most enticing things about Reuilly Sauvy B is that it expresses the region as much as the grape itself. The vineyards here sit on prized Kimmeridgian soil, a geological chain that runs from southern England through Champagne, Burgundy, and the Loire Valley. This limestone, clay, and sea fossil stratification is the most fabled soil type; a whisper of Kimmeridgian is enough to make many a wine professional salivate. Its fame is not without merit. The 150 million-year-old marine and shell fossils found in these soils help produce some of the most pristine white wines in the world. The balance of depth and tension here is certainly a crystalline pathway into the innate pleasure of white wine—if you need more convincing. This is a chiseled bottle full of citrus, orchard fruit, and crushed rocks. It’s a lovely introduction into what makes the individual pockets of the Loire Valley so damn intriguing.
2022 Frederic Lornet Arbois Chardonnay: Somehow, Chardonnay is at once the most popular and unpopular wine in the world. It always feels like a crapshoot to put it in a wine club because inevitably someone hates Chardonnay; leave it out, and you're denying so many their favorite pleasure. Here’s an interesting nugget to think about when you’re deciding what camp you’re in: what so many people like or dislike about Chardonnay isn’t about the grape at all; it’s the winemaking. Chardonnay as a grape is versatile, and it reflects winemaking choices beautifully. That’s why you can find Chardonnay that’s bright, lean, and mineral, and others that are oaky, rich, and unctuous. I’m of the opinion that if you don’t like Chardonnay, you just haven’t had the right one yet.
Which brings us to this beautiful example from the French-Swiss border. Jura has become a darling of the sommelier sect, but it’s still a small wine-growing region with less than 2,000 hectares planted. (For comparison, there are 20,000 hectares planted in Washington State.) Stylistically, Jura’s tradition includes oxidative wines, somewhat akin to sherry, but there’s been a push for modernization. Producers like Frédéric Lornet are at the helm, crafting fresh, terroir expressive bottles that feel true to their corner of eastern France. This Chardonnay melds bright citrus, herbs, stone fruit, and cream together—layers upon layers of lamination—to create a striking winter white. Perhaps it's the suggestion of the region, but it screams après-ski.
2022 Fabien Jouves You F&@k My Wine: Fabien Jouves is a Cahors native. A biodynamic evangelist, he returned to his homeland in 2006 after a career in Bordeaux, where he was known for ruffling the feathers of the old guard. He took over 12 hectares in Trespoux-Rassiels, just southwest of the city of Cahors, between the appellations of Cahors and Quercy. He makes more traditional, terroir-focused bottlings under the name Mas del Périé and easy-drinking vin de soif (wine of thirst) under his own.
I assure you, we never pick wine simply for the label, but that doesn’t mean we don’t love a good one. An ode to Robert De Niro’s famous line in Raging Bull and the continued arguments Fabien gets into with French regulators, You F&@k My Wine is a playful, natural red representative of its home outside Cahors. (And yes, the label is basically a wine bottle Kama Sutra.) This bottle gets labeled as Vin de France because a) it certainly is a juicy, delicious little number, and b) it can’t be labeled under the Cahors AOC due to the use of Jurançon Noir. This is becoming a more common practice—labeling a wine as Vin de France despite the origination of the grapes—allowing winemakers to stray from the stringent rules of their region.
In 2022, the blend is mostly Jurançon Noir with Valdiguié, Merlot, and Malbec. It’s the center of the Venn diagram of rustic and charming, chock-full of berry fruit and spice. There is a touch of tannin, so light and well-integrated it adds finesse and a touch of weight to the lithe, juicy body. I think it would be perfectly consumed in the parking lot of your local Dick’s with a deluxe and a bag of fries.
2020 Ca'n Verdura Binissalem Mallorca: Listen, I know that you know where Mallorca is. You know that I know where Mallorca is. But just in case your friends don’t—those you're reading this to—Mallorca is a Spanish island in the Mediterranean. One of the Balearic Islands, it sits east of Valencia, south of Barcelona, and north of Algiers. Known most for its beaches and vacationers, Mallorca has a wine history that dates back to ancient Rome. Though a favorite region of Pliny the Elder, the wine industry was largely forgotten until the late 20th century when young winemakers made a push for greater recognition. Even still, the production of Mallorcan wine is quite limited, and so much gets snatched up by the fine dining establishments of the island and the rest of Spain. It was thrilling to taste this wine and find out there was enough inventory for the club.
Similar to the wine renaissance of Sicily, young winemakers of Mallorca are focusing their efforts on the rehabilitation of indigenous grapes. Winemaker Tomeu Llabrés is at the forefront of this movement. He started Ca'n Verdura in Binissalem, the first-recognized and highest elevation DO of Mallorca, and exclusively makes wine that features old-vine plantings of the ancient indigenous varieties. He puts a special emphasis on Mantonegro—which is center stage in this bottle. It’s a love letter to the region, sourced entirely from organic vineyards that date back to 1958. I love the unpretentious kick of this wine, the old-vine intensity mixed with plummy, energetic fruit. The nose is wildly fragrant with Mediterranean herbs and sea breeze wrapped around red and black fruit. The palate is bright and balanced, breezy and easy with texture to spare.
2017 Malvira Roero: While Barolo and Barbaresco may be the two most well-known Nebbiolo DOCG—the highest classification in Italian wine—they are not the only ones. Roero DOCG, which sits across the Tanaro River, is a wild, uncharted version of Piedmont. It’s an intricate blend of jagged cliffs, dense forest, and vineyards. Viticulture is just one piece of the complex, biodiversity puzzle here. It’s a hidden value garden when it comes to top tier Italian red wine. And within Roero, Malvirà is a gem.
Malvirà was founded by Giuseppe Damonte in 1950, a time when Roero was very, very much under the radar. Malvirà is now run by his sons and their families. The estate is six individual vineyards, all farmed organically, special in their own way. This wine is sourced mostly from one of their most-prized sites: Trinità. Trinità was once the ocean floor—millions of years ago, of course—and its soils are a blend of sand, clay, and fossilized shells.
I tend to get romantic when I talk about Piedmont, so I’ll try to keep it together. There’s just something so special about Nebbiolo grown in its ancestral home. I feel even more mushy about Nebbiolo from lesser-known regions like Roero. There’s less pressure than Barolo; less finesse than Barbaresco. Roero is allowed to be untamed, but it’s still innately beautiful. It’s the juxtaposition of strawberries and spice, leather and rose petals, iron and violet. The chasm between is bliss.
Make the Most of January Produce: The only cure for the winter blues is embracing them. That means cozy nights by the fire—or let's be honest, television—bundled up in cashmere. It means bringing out the flannel sheets and sleeping late. It means enjoying winter activities, like skiing or making soup as an extreme sport. It means leaning into cooking seasonally, even if it isn’t quite as glamorous as summertime tomatoes. There’s still plenty of great goodies to get in January, from citrus to tubers and plenty in between.