Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Wines to remember in a year to forget
Like many people, I’ve spent most of 2020 sitting at home thinking about what was to have been.
My intent this year was to spend a fair amount of time traipsing through rows of gnarled old vines around the world, tasting new wines from barrels in any number of cold, mold-adorned cellars and meeting new people and fascinating wine cultures.
In an ordinary year, the most exciting moments are often the least predictable: leaning over a farmer’s shoulder as she kneels under a row of vines, showing me something I never knew; swooning over a wine I’d never had in a restaurant recommended by somebody I’d just met in a place I’d never been; drinking a wine I thought I disliked only to find, in that moment, I’d rather be drinking nothing else.
None of these experiences were available in 2020. Neither were the memories built through the usual sort of reporting in the field.
With a few exceptions from early on, my memories are drawn largely from what I drank at home, my thoughts entwined with the pain of the COVID-19 pandemic, the killing of George Floyd, the political discord and all else that will consign 2020 to the annals of infamy.
Here, then, are some of my most memorable wines of 2020. I don’t say the best, just the most memorable, listed from the youngest wine to the oldest.
Ochota Barrels Adelaide Hills“The Price of Silence” Gamay 2019
I met Taras Ochota in 2019 on a trip to the Basket Range wine region outside Adelaide, Australia. He was a surfer and punk rocker turned grower and winemaker, the sort of man who drew people in because he was so much fun to be around. I was shocked to learn that he had died in October at
49, of complications of an autoimmune condition.
My colleague Besha Rodell wrote eloquently of Ochota in November. In remembrance, I drank a 2019 gamay ($55) that, like all his wines, was named after bands or songs.
The wine was like the man I recall — fresh, vibrant, a little spicy. It was pretty and pure, balanced and floral, alive and energetic, and if it was too young to be any more than that, it was enough.
ColleStefano Verdicchio di Matelica 2019
I drank a lot of Italian white wines this year. They are versatile, delicious, great values and go with a lot of what I like to cook.
Many of them I had enjoyed for years, but this verdicchio from Matelica in the Marche region of Italy was new to me. Most verdicchios I see are from
Castelli di Jesi, Matelica’s neighbor on the Adriatic coast, and they can be excellent. But the wines from Matelica, farther inland and higher in elevation, caught my attention, particularly this one from ColleStefano.
It was full of energy and electrifying acidity, yet it was not lean or skeletal. It offered plenty of texture and flavor, floral with a crushed seashell minerality. Not bad at all for an $18 bottle.
Weiser-Künstler Mosel Riesling Trocken Enkircher Steffensberg 2018
I was captivated by this bottle of dry riesling ($46) from the tiny WeiserKünstler estate. The principals, Konstantin Weiser and Alexandra Künstler, are focused on small lots of old vines growing on steep slopes.
They produce fine sweet rieslings and excellent bone-dry ones, like this one from the Steffensberg vineyard near Enkirch. It was delicate, a quality not so easy to achieve in a warm vintage like 2018, and gorgeously pure, as if you could inhale the air and soil of the vineyard in the glass. I decided I would buy a few more bottles to see how they aged.
Pax Sonoma Coast Syrah Armagh Vineyard 2017
Back in February, I flew to Northern California to, among other things, report an article on Pax Mahle Wines in Sebastopol, a winery that is home to six exceptional producers, all sharing space, working similarly in the cellar with no commercial
yeast or other additives, but making very different wines.
By the time I was ready to write it, the coronavirus was in its first fury. The urgent directive to practice physical distancing made me reconsider writing about winemakers working close together, until I realized that how they managed to keep working during a pandemic might make an even better story.
Each of the labels — Martha Stoumen Wines, Jolie-Laide, RAEN, Jaimee Motley Wines and Monte Rio Cellars — makes beautiful wines. But the one that stayed with me was a syrah from Pax Mahle Wines, made by the husband-and-wife team at the center of the group, Pax and Pam Mahle.
It came from the
Armagh Vineyard in the cool, foggy Petaluma Gap area of the Sonoma coast. I have been tracking the sharp improvement of West Coast syrah over the last 20 years as producers learned the best practices for growing and vinifying it. The Pax Armagh captured in a bottle the savory, floral, wild and gamy nature of the grape and place.
Aslina by Ntsiki Biyela South Africa Cabernet Sauvignon 2017
I met Ntsiki Biyela a few years ago in Portugal, where she spoke at a wine conference, describing the challenges and opportunities that came to her as South Africa’s first Black female winemaker. It wasn’t until this year, however, that I was able to taste the wines she makes
under her own label, Aslina.
I had few expectations, as I try to keep an open mind about wines I’ve never tried. But honestly, I don’t find many $20 cabernet sauvignons from anywhere in the world that provoke much of a sense of wonder.
That’s why this wine was so memorable. In a universe of generic inexpensive cabernets, it was lovely: pure, dry and savory, with flavors that encompass the fruit, tobacco and herbal spectrum that can make cabernet so distinctive. This was more than a great value, it was a delight.
La Stoppa Ageno Emilia Bianco IGT 2015
In May, I wrote a piece about the polarizing power of so-called orange wines, white wines made using the techniques for producing reds. Wines have been made this way for centuries, but they have achieved enough of a vogue in the last decade that marketers have seized on the idea.
As a result, many examples are timid or insipid, betraying their origins as business ventures rather than cultural expressions. But this bottle, from La Stoppa, an exceptional producer in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, was uncompromising.
It was made mostly of Malvasia. The juice of the grapes had been macerated with the skins for around four months, giving the wine an almost shockingly deep amber color. On the palate, it was clear, pure and complex, with spicy herbal, floral flavors. It was a dazzling, rewarding bottle.