Cerra de Barca
Atlas Vegas, Ancestral
Extramadura, Spain
$17– organic
An organic Xarel-lo, Macabeu and Cabernet Sauvingnan blend with a beautiful, gold-rosé hue from Extremadura, a region bordering Portugal to its west. The four of us who tasted it found ourselves nodding at the importer’s description: “clean and expressive, it tastes like spring at the seashore, all bright and salty, sunny and zesty.”
Certified organic, old vines, methode ancestrale, disgorged by hand, no added sulfur– 300 cases made.
Clos de la Roilette
Fleurie, 2018– $20
I’ve been having a love affair with Gamay lately, so it is no surprise that it came to mind as a Valentine’s Day possibility. Fleurie is a Beaujolais Cru, but this estate borders on Moulin-a-Vent, another cru, with a reputation for fuller, more intense wines, like this one. Hand-harvested fruit, whole cluster fermenting with natural yeasts, aged in old foudres, bottled without filtering.
The Wine Advocate loves the 2018, giving it a 94, and describing it as “revealing an inviting bouquet of ripe cherries and cassis mingled with spices, violets and peonies. On the palate, it’s medium to full-bodied, enveloping and layered, with fine-grained structuring tannins, ripe acids and a fleshy core of fruit.” This is always one of our best value Cru Beaujolais.