BUBBLES!!!!

BUBBLES!!!!

But not Champagne

Bubbles (that are not Champagne)

Hot on the heels of the Champagne email that went out yesterday morning, here are some of our other non Champagne bubbly offerings. We have plenty other things in stock but these all felt particularly exciting and deserving of attention.

Anima Mundi "Cami dels Xops" Pet Nat
$17.60/btl
62 btls available
This is a gorgeous racy, uplifting, and focused sparkling wine from the hills outside Barcelona. Agusti Torello Roca founded this winery with his father and aunt in 2013. They had already been making wine, but they left the Cava DO because the rules are geared to industrial scale wine making and they wanted to make wines that really expressed their particular terroir. Augusti apprenticed with an organic producer in Champagne and on his return they joined the newly created Penedes Classic DO. 

The vineyards are in the Costers d’Ordal and have extremely calcareous soils due to the influence of the nearby Garraf Massif. The area is located between Sant Sadurni d’Anoia (where their winery is currently located) and Vilafranca del Penedès. Close to Barcelona but west and on the far side of the Garraf Massif they are sheltered from the sea. Agusti works with no additives, including sulfur, to let the land speak clearly. And he is extremely good at it. I've been blown away by the poise and focus of his sparkling wines as well as his Garnacha from Montsant which was included in the NYTimes best wines under $20 list last year.

Vignale di Cecilia Prosecco
$15.25/btl and $14.50 case price
86 btls available
This is the best Prosecco I have tasted in a long time. Particularly at this price. It's so pretty and refreshing and clean. I love the PetNats but this is so clean and perfect I can't not love it. It will satisfy people who just want something good and bubbly, but it’s so well made it will satisfy serious wine people too. This is a small production wine made for Summer at Hootananny.

Philippe Gonet 2011 Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru

$58/btl

26 btls available
 In Champagne there are 318 classified villages, only 17 are classified as Grand Cru, this wine comes exclusively from two of those Villages, Le Mesnil-sur-Oger and Oger and therefore is a Grand cru Champagne.
 Aroma: very pretty: bread, straw, very ripe peach fresh apple, dates, a hint of vanilla, and lily of the valley

The wine has nice acidity and very fine but persistent bubbles. It's a very focused Champagne. There's fresh tart apple and peach up front then dry toast on the mid palate. This is very energetic thoughtful and to the point. The finish is long and delicious with toast, cooked peach, and a lovely flavor that makes me think of very good French onion soup. This is a great demonstration of how complex Champagne gets when it has this kind of age.

The wine is made from 13 small Grand Cru parcels fermented separately in small tanks and settled for 6 months. Second fermentation happens in bottle with the lees before disgorgement and dosage. It's aged seven years with the lees in bottle before disgorgement. 5 g/l dosage of grape based sugars. The wine goes through a delicate filtering and fining. Sulfur is not added at bottling, only small amounts at the beginning stages of the fermentation process, less than 60 ppm.

Of the thirteen Grand Cru estate parcels, 12 of which lie in Le Mesnil and 1 in Oger. Three parcels are on top of the hill near the forest in “Les Bascossiers,” and several throughout the hillside going down the hill, east, to “Les Hautes Mottes.” The average vine age is nearly 40 years old and they are hand harvested. Less than 1,000 cases are produced in only the best vintages.

Jean Pierre Robinot L'Ange Vin Fetembulles 2022
$25.40/btl
18 bottles available

Jerome Arnoux Cremant Elegance
$24/btl
110 btls available
Jerome started working in the local vineyards helping a neighbor at the age of 17 and spent 20 years working at various wineries in the Arbois. Jerome became assistant wine maker to the famous Stephane Tissot and worked for him until he decided to start his own winery. He already owned vineyards and now works 17 hectares. He uses organic principles and ferments with native yeast for the initial fermentation, then uses Champagne yeast for the fermentation in bottle. This is equal parts Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from vines that average 40 years old.Today Aroma: ripe apple, pear, some white peach, brioche.... it smells rich and ripe like baking pastry and fruit. There’s grapefruit but also a smell like almond croissant. It smells pretty lovely!
Taste: ripe pear and some rich juicy apple followed by super fine but very powerful frothy persistent bubbles that fill your palate and lift the wine up. The finish is rich and creamy. It's actually a flavor kind of like great real vanilla ice cream. Creamy in texture and mouth filling but also kind of creamy in the flavor and then with a hint of toasted vanilla to it. It's really delicious; rich and more powerful and creamier and broader than maybe any Champagne, but the focus and the effervescence are all very Champagne like. This a great value and would be an awesome choice as a pair for more powerful foods.

Bolet Cava Brut Nature Clàssic NV
$13/btl and $12.25 by the case
130 btls Available

Bolet’s Cava Brut is a classic blend of 50% Xarel-lo, 40% Macabeo, and 10% Parellada. These vineyards are located on the Mas Lluet, Can Planes d’En Perull and Les Cunilleres estates, three different locations all in Castellví de la Marca and at different altitudes which helps make a more balanced complete wine. All the vineyards feature dry, gravel-rich soils; the grapes are farmed organically and harvested manually. They undergo a gentle pressing, then first fermentation is at 14ºC for 15 days in stainless steel tanks.
Aroma: The aroma is primarily crisp ripe apple and apple juice flavors but I also smell a little bit of brown sugar, some wildflowers, roasted nuts, a little bit of fresh baked bread. It’s pretty lovely: fresh and vibrant but also savory thoughtful and very Mediterranean Spanish.
Taste: nice fine gentle frothy bubbles. Apple juicy up front, then it gets a little bit creamy and picks up these lovely clearly defined flavors of fresh baked bread. The fruit and savory flavors slowly fade away but the bubbles help it to linger gracefully with some delicate ripe pear and honeycrisp apple. This is classic fresh vibrant Cava with flavors that are incredibly identifiably Mediterranean Spain. I just had to sit down and eat some nuts, olives, and hard salty cheese with this.

Bolet Cava Brut Rosado NV
$15.75/btl and $15 by the case
69 btls Available
The Cava Rosado Reserva comes from 100% Pinot Noir. The grapes are gently pressed and then the first fermentation is at 14ºc for 15 days in stainless steel tanks. The second fermentation takes place in the bottle and is followed by at least 24 months of maturing on racks.
Aroma: delicate dried cherry, some delicate cooked strawberry, a little bit of fresh baked bread, and a hint of sun-dried tomato. It smells very pretty (elegant and dry), but also a little rich: sunny, giving, and ripe
Taste: very pretty! Fresh and clean: a little bit of citrus and some elegant dried cherry at first, then fine frothy fizzy bubbles that are playful and not too sharp. They bring a dimension of fresh bread but also a little bit of cranberry and more dried cherry. The wine gently fades but then on the finish there's a beautiful restrained strawberry flavor that pops in to surprise you. The wine is not sweet at all but it's also not aggressively dry. This is very pretty in a restrained elegant way and the bubbles give it a perfectly balanced and poised playfulness and uplift!

Caneva da Nani el vin col fondo
$14.25 and $13.75 by the case
78 btls available
One of my all time favorites and a wine I’m always looking for an excuse to open!  
Caneva da Nani is a little 15 acre farm in a beautiful natural amphitheater of hills right by the famous Caritzze hill that is the most famous spot in all Prosecco. The Canello family has been here for 5 generations and Massimo is the current wine maker, but still working with his father Nani who the winery is named for.  

This is a Col Fondo, which sort of kind of translates as "on the lees". Here it means a sparkling wine that has completed it's natural primary fermentation in the bottle and has residual sediment. This is an old school style of sparkling wine that the local farmers have always made for themselves. Historically the wine would get to cold to ferment over the winter but then when it was bottled in early spring the bottling process plus warmer temps would wake the yeast back up and the wine would finish fermenting in the bottle. The Canello family pretty much still makes the wine the same way, bottling when there is the right amount of residual sugar left to create the perfect fritz of effervescence. They basically just make this one wine... and it is so good! This is 100% Glera grapes from the family's 50 year old vines trained up on trellises over head to protect them from dampness near the ground in this relatively wetter region. 

Although they're within the Prosecco di Conegliano-Valdobbiadene Superiore zone (highest altitude, most respected terroir) he cannot call his col fondo by its DOC name. The DOC does not allow for the wine to be sold under the Superiore DOC if it has a crown cap. The family has experimented with refermentation under cork and the results aren't as good. They would rather make wine exactly how they want and not be allowed to use the DOC name than compromise and get to use the more prestigious name.  
Aroma: fresh green apple, apple blossom, some white rose, a little bit of fresh white peach. A little bit of fresh grass... It's a super pretty fresh aroma that's floral and lovely and just smells like spring and life!
Taste: oh gosh these bubbles are beautiful. So fine and pretty and frothy and persistent. It's just so elegant and pretty! It's got a little bit of green apple up front, then those frothy textural bubbles. A little bit of pear, a little bit of cooked apple, there's a little bit more citrus- some lemon on the finish. I wouldn't call it zippy but it is very uplifting and thirst quenching. I think this vintage is prettier and more precise than how I remember the 2021 being at this stage of its life. This feels like the best vintage ever but my mind might be playing tricks on me…. I can’t get over how gorgeous and fine this texture is!

Pomalo Debit Pet Nat
$14.25/btl and $13.50 by the case
84 btls available

Tullia Brut Prosecco di Treviso
$12/btl and $11.25 by the case
158 btls available

Henry Varnay Blanc de Blancs Brut NV
$9/btl and $8.25 by the case
141 btls available
Henry Varnay is a fantastic value. This is 100% Ugni Blanc from old vines out side Saumur in the central Loire. It's creamy, fresh, elegant, a little toasty, and really honestly very well made. It drinks much better than it's price. Production is about 10,000 cases per year, so actually on the small side.

Kobal Bajta Pet Nat Rose 2022
$16.25/btl and $15.50 by the case
132 btls available
This is 100% Blaufrankisch from Bojan’s little family vineyards in Štajerska Slovenia, close to the borders with Austria and Hungary. Bojan hand harvests, lets the grapes sit for four hours to leak juice and sort of start fermentation. Bojan watches the fermentation intensely and when the baby wine has the right amount of sugar left he bottles it. No sulfur, filtration, fining, etc because this is real petnat and you can’t add anything in that process. Bojan only makes about 450 cases of this; it’s really delicious and fresh and tastes so alive!

Aroma: cranberry, some dry raspberry, some red rose and a little bit of lilac... it’s beautiful and smells sort of like fruit punch! It's ripe but dry and not too big, not too in your face. The effervescence gives it this little twist of slightly more brambly savory something to the aroma. It smells so fresh and exciting and alive!
Taste: delicious and pretty, some cranberry, some dry raspberry… it has these super fine tiny relaxed bubbles that give the wine a dryness and uplift. The mid palate has pale strawberry and also a savory dimension from a little bit of salt that’s worked in behind it. The bubbles and tannin linger on your palate and give the wine body you can sink your teeth into, but then the finish is clean and uplifting and refreshing! Juicy and fresh wild raspberry, then thanks to the bubbles the texture is so gentle and uplifting: it's a really delicious juxtaposition!

Copyright © 2023 Devenish Wines, All rights reserved.
You are receiving this email because you submitted your email address at one of our wine tastings or dinners.

Our mailing address is:

Devenish Wines
PO Box 11210
Portland, ME 04104

Add us to your address book

Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.