October 2021
- Posted on
Welcome to the latest installment of the Streetcar Monthly Pass. If you’ve already purchased a pass, thank you! If you haven’t, you should check out this page to learn how it works. Below you’ll find some information about each of this month’s six Monthly Pass selections. On to the wines!
2019 Chao Rijo Branco
appellation: Lisboa, Portugal
varieties: malvasia, galego dourado, jampal, and fernão pires
Colares is a short trek northwest of Lisbon in one of Portugal's swankiest of beach resort areas. Coastal towns such as Azenhas do Mar are havens for some of Lisbon’s elites and surfers, and over the past several decades real estate developers have been purchasing the old Colares vineyards only to replace them with condominiums. Today there are only two wineries carrying the torch for the DO: sole remaining private bottler, Antonio Bernardino Paulo da Silva, and the Adega Regional de Colares. Both source fruit from Colares’ mere 55 growers. Between the two of them only 50,000 bottles of Colares wines are produced from the region’s only allowed grapes; the white grape malvasia, and the noble red grape ramisco. Chao Rijo is the Adega's snapshot of the region's local wine culture, featuring four native varieties growing in clay-dominant soils scattered in and around Colares. The aromatic driver is malvasia, whose playful floral/fruity side suggests pairing with exotic spices (coconut curry?). It also works really well with...... TINNED FISH!
Heidi Schröck took over her family winery in 1983, in the historic village of Rust situated in the province of Burgenland about 5 miles from the Hungarian border. As Heidi explains “South-facing vineyards in a softly rolling landscape form an amphitheater around Rust on Lake Neusiedl bringing forth some of the best and most tradition-rich wines in Austria. Yearly hours of sunshine that lie much higher than the Austrian average combined with sandy soils mixed with clay and high calcium content provide the ideal prerequisites for impressive, full-bodied wines.” Heidi is now joined by her twin sons, Johannes and Georg, who, like their mother, continue to produce classic Ruster wines, while experimenting with other varieties and winemaking styles on the side. This wine comes from a block co-planted with a surprising array of red grape varieties that Heidi has been making into a rosé for many years now. It's always a bit of an eccentric rosé that needs a little extra time to come into its own. It's ok to rosé when it's cold outside!
appellation: Rhone, France
varieties: grenache, syrah, mourvedre, counoise, vaccarese
organic/biodynamic
2016 Frascole "Bitornino"
appellation: Toscana, Italy
varieties: sangiovese, canaiolo, colorino, trebbiano, malvasia
organic
2019 Giuliana Vicini "Donna Giuliana" Montepulciano d'Abruzzo
appellation: Abruzzo, Italy
variety: montepulciano
As a woman in patriarchal Abruzzo, Giuliana Ciavolich begrudgingly lived in the shadow of her younger brother, who inherited the family's landholdings as the oldest male heir at the age of 16. When Giuliana died at age 95, Giuliana Ciavolich left her estate in Miglianico to her niece Chiara Ciavolich, with two conditions: the first is that the wine produced in her name was not called Ciavolich but Vicini, in the name of her bond with the only loved one in her life: her beloved grandmother Donna Ernestina Vicini. The second is that the wine in her name had a purpose: to support all women in their process of emancipation and self-affirmation. This young vine montepulciano bears the rebellious streak of its namesake, and its racy acidity, to boot. Try it with eggplant parmesan.