'Contadino' 2014, Frank Cornellisen

Whenever we can, we take our little grill out to the woods. This sounds idyllic but the exercise is often fraught with problems that have nothing to do with bad weather — which is also a problem — ranging from the time A. threw my keys down a rubbish chute by accident and me and a friend had to lower him in to get them, to the time we thought we’d grabbed a pet nat, popped the crown and saw a cork. I biked home to get an opener while he started the grill, then sat out the sudden storm under a tree while I sat out the hour on the couch.

This time I had his keys.

But it doesn’t always go wrong and sometimes we even grill in summer. This was one of those beautiful July times last year and if you can never say never then you probably can’t say 'always' either, but Frank Cornelissen's Contadino will always remind me of summer grills gone right**. 

"Contadino" ’14 is your ticket to a different, very neon galaxy. To a place where blood orange glitter rains fall on mountain sage and dried carnations and you're inflatable raft floating fast down fiery flows of lemonade lava sipping icy fire water from a watermelon skin cooler through curly straws with an electric storm raging overhead. Equal parts glou glou as an ancient soul. 

Tasting notes:

Looks like jungle punch which, for the record, is always a turbid neon blood-orange colour. Smells like rhubarb left out in the sun and muddled raspberries. The sips start wild with not-quite-finished fermenting flavours and front-loaded acidity and a CO2 spritz on the lips before tuning in to sharply delineated morello cherries balanced by the high-tones of a herby, wild strawberry finish. Who says neon can’t be serious?

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"Contadino" 2014

Frank Cornellisen 

Field-blend of 85% Nerello Mascalese plus local varietals from his old-vine vineyards: Nerello Capuccio, Minella Nera, Alicante Bouschet, Minella Bianco

Mt. Etna north valley, Sicily 

Imported by Wilde Wijnen.

**Update: I stand corrected. The 2015 did not remind me of grilling. 

Ok I'm done now.

'Groll n'Roll' 2015 by Babass rules

It’s March. This means you’ve had about one month to stick to your New Year resolution(s) adjusted for the time it takes to actually start acting with any resolution as well as the time it takes for that resolve to die, bringing us up, as I said, to March. Christians know all about this so invented lent*, and I know all about it because I know that I think I started the year with three, have forgotten two and don’t practice the third. So I’m starting again.

I hereby resolve to give wine more time before I drink it. So it opens. Coughs up the courage to sing. Fuck just singing; let’s make it DANCE hips swinging hair down low to the ground change the track half way through no fade and everyone’s going whaat and dude, what the fuck man but then they’re laughing and grooving and smiling and everything’s back to ok.

Because seriously, it’s too often that I go OH this is getting interesting 'round about the time it’s also getting finished due to the mathematical rules that apply to two people drinking one bottle of wine and by now it’s your last glass and it’s also your best glass and now it’s gone and that’s sad — I get that — but let’s just for a moment come out of the body, open our minds, and try to imagine what life would be where every glass was at its best and by this I mean just ready and you thinking about 15, ok, 10, minutes ahead of the time you know you’re absolutely going to be too thirsty to live.

Tasting notes:

Resolution inspired by drinking Sebastian Dervieux's (so, Babass') "Groll n’Roll" on a roll (so, two): a Grolleau which, when open, smells like dew on grass and violets and reminds you of that micro bubble, fig, wet grass and laurel flavoured, dark-hue kombucha you buy every weekend at the organic-or-die market from the guy with the golden beard and his old Russian kvass cart mainly because you heard it's good for you but to your friends you say it's because you’re hooked on that deep earth / tea / smokey incense kick sensation and how taking a sip takes you back to before you lived in California and somewhere with bramble hedgerows and seasons and the smell of leaves crunching underfoot and blackberry picking blue stained fingernails and somehow, also, watermelon: big sugary bites over the grass spit out the pits and talking about pits, what about DATES or maybe prunes, dry wrinkled withered heads and sticky condensed deep-sweet. (But which, when closed, tastes like green strawberry tops). 

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"Groll n'Roll" 2015

Les Vignes de Babass

Grolleau

St Lambert du Lattay, Loire

*I know, I know, 'not'.

Baptiste Cousin "Marie Rose" 2015

Even on a root day drinking Baptiste Cousin’s wines makes me feel like it’s my birthday. They’re d i s c o wines: fun, foot  l o o s e and fancy free, skip the Kool-Aid and Acid Test these juice b.o.m.b.s best drunk out of cups bikinied or, better: not actually in a bikini because let’s face it; push comes to shove and most people feel better not worrying about what’s wiggling but in XXL shirts and their geography teacher's hiking socks. But you get the vibe I’m going for.

Baptiste works in the Loire and makes this wine with the native Grolleau which is great news as far as someone who pretty much only drinks neon strawberry wines cold from the fridge is concerned. Other good news is he works without sulphites, works with horses like his outlaw dad from whom he bought his vines, has dreads / is handsome and makes a SUPER FUN Grolleau Gris pét nat called "Puppet Nat" that I can personally attest to being perfect to celebrate the first time you’ve skated on natural ice slash ever really skated. And so you see, bikini not always necessary.

Tasting notes: 

Pale rose petal rosé pink in your glass on your eyes but there's also something rosy in the mouth zone too. Like the herby, woody bowls of potpourri mom puts on the window sills to collect dust, or how those raw liquorice bars with pandas on them that look better for you but are still liquorice bars smell. But in a good way. Anyway, by now you’re on your third, fourth sip n' golly gone and changed your mind sir, because why no, sir, this isn’t as ABC a wine as you first thought, sir. It’s light, sure, juicy, sure, but there's nuance and layering and texture and gravity and it coats your tongue like velcro or at any rate a Bourgogne. In a good way. **

** and this was on a root day.

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Baptiste Cousin
"Marie Rose" 2015

Grolleau Gris

Martigné-Briand, Loire

'Les P'tites Vignes' 2015, La Lunotte

Smells milky like salted caramel ice cream melting in a cone. Drinks soft with a plummy finish, like an over-blended blueberry-banana milkshake that’s spoon stand-up thick and air-soft. Bluberry blue but tastes milk chocolate brown and reminds me of flannel sheets: soft and powdery because your mom uses too much laundry softener.

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"Les P'tites Vignes" 2015
La Lunotte, Christophe Foucher
Gamay
Loire