It is scalding. The car is hot; we search for a shade spot to park while we crawl into the next account to proffer our selection. Today, being a wine merchant is just downright miserable. The last thing I am thinking about opening is a bottle of Barolo or Burgundy or Syrah….just not possible…worlds will collide.I’m in the desert and there is a mirage. Three sirens call. “This
will quench your thirst.” And there I am back in the arms of the Italian, the Spaniard and the Portuguese. I’m rescued for a time.The Italian we call Costalupo and this young Abruzzese, the newborn white blend of Trebbiano, Passerina and Riesling makes me long for the langosto of the Adriatic’s San Benedetto del Tronto. Here we must be content to sip and dream. But don’t dream the summer without this one at your side…
The Spaniard is a bit exotic, Spain being the place these days for experimentation in architecture, in food, why not in wine? I’ll never remember the name of this wine, Oroya, but the flavor will save me through the second month of the inferno here. Also a ménage of three grapes , Airen , Macabeo and Muscat of Alexandria, ready for the characters from Lawrence Durrell’s “Quartet” to raise a glass and drink through the night. Designed for sushi (or carpaccio di pescespada) and anything Ferran Adria, Grant Achatz or Katsuya Fukushima can... in their wildest imaginings.
A Portuguese man went blind at sea and for six years while on board the vessel circled the globe. Upon arriving home in Porto, within a month his sight returned. But his lament was for the world he discovered in those years, a world without war, a world with life and endless vistas. For the remainder of his life he wrote down all that he experienced in those six years..It took him twenty years to finish.The wine? Oh yes, a simple dry vinho verde, called Famega. Absolutely quenching, even when one is trying to regain their lost years those lives lived.
Costalupo (appx $11.00), Oroya (appx $12.00) and Famega (appx $7.00).