Collection: Wine Share Picks

Well, here we are – the final share of 2024! In keeping with the season we of course wanted to make the boxes a touch celebratory. Starting, of course, with some bubbles. One of our perennial favorites to pop is the impossible-not-to-love Vin de Soda from Weingut Scheuermann. Perhaps the greatest price-performing, natural sparkler in the world (in our opinion) – the cuvée was born from the desire to have something just as refreshing as sparkling water to cleanse the palates at regional trade tastings in Bad Durkheim where the Brothers Scheuermann live… but have it be wine instead. How does it taste? It’s in the name! Next we have some more staples of longtime natural winemaking in the French south -- Benjamin Taillander & Nicolas Lebrun. Working, respectively, between the Minervois and Gaillac, these are distinct beauties which trade rigor for lift in fascinating ways. “Viti Vini Bibi” from Taillandier carries some of the more mineral, herbaceous, ‘rocky’ for lack of a better term aspects of the Minervois – it’s an angular delight of medium-full body with scrub and sunshine for days. Lebrun’s “Tombe du Ciel Rouge” is a particularly old-school combination of Prunelart and Braucol (aka Fer Servadou when grown in the Aveyron) that is a touch more plush in terms of fruit character & simultaneously peppery – it feels moreso grown in a forest than between rocky massifs. For something a touch lighter but still properly wintry in its own lane, we have Il Vinco’s fascinating monovarietal “Solounanotte,” which is composed entirely of Canaiolo (long a blending grape with Sangiovese in Chianti). Working on the volcanic southern shores of Lake Bolsena in northern Lazio, this wine bears some of that savory chew of its soil’s provenance – it is a lower acid, plummy, tomato-and-herb delight that we would put a big chill on and then decant. Perfect with anything particularly charred. Rounding out the share this month we have, first, the dreamy parcellaire Grillo from Criante, a small family farm found on the northwestern coast of Sicily, just upland from the ancient city of Alcamo. The wine feels like there might be a touch of maceration but it is simply the nature of these salty, seafaring whites to carry a kind of hearty texture beneath the gorgeously floral aromatics typical of the legendary Mediterranean whites of yore. Finally, we come to Rémi Poujol’s “Les Temps fait Tout Blanc,” a decidedly ‘funky’ and thrilling wine composed of common southern French white varieties, principal among them Viognier which sees some maceration. Lower acid and plush, it is a luscious & properly indulgent white for a year’s end meal with family & friends.