August 2025
There are a lot of perks to being the wine buyer at an independent wine shop. Obviously there’s the chicks, but you also develop a worldliness that, say, a “doctor” lacks. Not a value judgment, we both have our uses.
To illustrate, this month we’re featuring a Txakolina (pronounced chacoli (let’s see a doctor guess that)) from Basque Country just west of the Pyrenees in northern Spain. This is a very dry, light style of semi-sparkling white grown on hillside vineyards roughly as far from the Atlantic as you are to the now defunct newsstand. The sea breeze lends the wine salinity and notes of green apple and citrus. In Basque, the wine is traditionally poured from high above the glass, where it cascades downward to keep the bubbles intact. I tried this at home and spilled it all over my coffee table. My roommate’s perturbed but that’s how we do things in Basque. If anyone’s got a coffee table they’re willing to part with come talk to me. The living room aesthetic is “cowboy intellectual”. Vintage pieces only. |
|
