Perched high on a strikingly steep mountain rising above the winding Douro River in northern Portugal…
Several years ago I wrote a piece called “Why the world needs wine in 2018, more than ever”. I’ll struggle to do it justice in a single excerpt, but here we go…
I sat in a wine bar in Prague with an old friend one recent evening. Filament lights hung haphazardly from the ceiling, like the bowed branches of the weeping willow under which I remember playing as a child. They cast their yellowing glow upon an immense map that spanned the bar's entire wall. Few today would recognize the country it depicts, for the eleventh of November this year will mark a full century since Austria-Hungary ceased to exist. But inside those forgotten borders have grown the curious Zweigelt—a hybrid of the red Blaufränkisch and Sankt Laurent grapes—of Austria proper, the intoxicatingly floral whites of Hungary's Tokaj, the dark red Teran of seaside Istria, this earthen Pinot Noir from South Tyrol, and an enchantingly beautiful natural sparkling wine from Moravia.
Some time later I wrote a book called Field Blends (US | UK | Australia | Canada | Germany) that essentially worked backwards from the sentiment above. Indeed, that short piece became much of the story’s penultimate chapter:
Anchoring oneself is terrifically difficult when the currents of technology, politics, and world events seem so determined to unmoor us. The long arc of history is difficult to discern when the days and weeks move so quickly. Yet there in my past I had memories of stones clicking along the ground of a vineyard in Spain, in which was grown the same grapes we found in those grey and green Texas hills. Erik, my childhood best friend, and I had sat there that night in Prague drinking wines celebrated on a map of a country that had not existed in four generations. Grape vines are old creatures that produce new and beautiful things each year.
So as we emerge from 2020—a year in which we needed wine for an entirely different set of terrifying reasons—and the bits of 2021 that the previous year swallowed whole, I thought I’d share some of my favorite bottles that made Field Blends a book for wine lovers everywhere. Think of these questions as good talk amongst friends at your first post-pandemic springtime gathering.
🇨🇿 Who makes the most interesting wine you know?
My friend Lucie in Prague can share with you some of the most brilliantly interesting wine you’ve ever had. The Czechs are incredible wine makers, and the region of Moravia produces some of the best. You’ll find bottles like this at the Bokovka wine bar.
“She poured us glasses of a natural sparkling wine from a place called Jižní, in Moravia. It was unfiltered, making it stylistically very different from sparkling wine made in the French traditional method for which Champagne and most other sparklers were known. That lack of filtration produced a beautiful, cloudy, shimmering gold color in the glass, from whose center a lonely seam of bubbles emanated.”
Try a natural sparkling wine from Moravia, such as the Dobrá vinice Crème de Parc National described above.
🏴 Tell me about a great wine that you weren’t expecting. Where did it come from?
Carole at Lady of the Grapes in London’s Covent Garden area introduced me to English wine a few years back.
“Part of a new generation that cared more for craftsmanship than for esteemed labels from ancient houses, she explained. She was one of us. We four were the future we had always dreamt of. In my head I counted at least five passports amongst us. None of them was British. And there we sat, drinking English sparkling wine.”
Try any of the organic wines from Oxney Estate, though I unsurprisingly have a soft spot for their sparkling.
🇺🇸 Which is the most amazing restaurant, the one(s) to which you most want to return?
I wrote below about “a wine writer friend” whilst thinking of my real-world wine writer friend, Jill Barth (Twitter | Blog).
“A wine writer friend in Bordeaux had once asked her legion of followers to share the most amazing restaurant to which they’d ever been. Interesting reading in the responses listing bistros, taverns, and dives from South Africa to Hungary to Russia and the United Arab Emirates. California, too. Virginia got a mention from an admirer of the Inn at Little Washington. In America, at least, I’d have given the award to a trifecta in the Northeast: Joselito in Washington, Chimichurri Grill in New York, and The Red Inn.”
Try this Etude Pinot Noir as featured by The Red Inn in Provincetown, MA on their wine list last year.
🇩🇰 Of all the cities you’ve visited, which is your favorite for wine?
You’ll find an English sommelier and painter named Billy Ward (Instagram | Website) at Ved Stranden 10 in Copenhagen. Ask him to take you on an adventure.
“Now we were drinking something from Østrig. That’s Austria in Danish. It was a blend of chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, and welschriesling that had been made near the Hungarian border. So the Englishman told us.”
Try a bottle from somewhere in Europe other than France, Spain, or Italy. Look for something from Austria, Hungary, Romania, Moldova, Sweden. Do your best to drink it in the midst of Copenhagen’s spectacular wine scene (whenever you are finally able to make it there).
🇵🇹 Where is the most beautiful winery to which you’ve ever been?
I’ll just let this one speak for itself…
“Perched high on a strikingly steep mountain rising above the winding Douro River in northern Portugal, one of the most stunning sights we had ever seen, terraced rows of vines etched into the hillside led up a winding road to the Quinta do Pôpa winery…
“…Portugal has a tradition of field blends. That is, different grape varietals planted in and amongst one another such that they are harvested and blended together straightaway. There was that one particular winery whose terraced vineyards stretch 550 meters up the mountain from the Douro River, older vines near the bottom, younger further up the bank. Their field blends contain about twenty different grape varietals. This old practice in the Douro produces stunningly unique wines.”
Try a drive out to the wineries of Portugal’s Douro Valley, or barring that, a still wine (as opposed to a Port) from northern Portugal. A Touriga Nacional or a Tinta Roriz (what they call Tempranillo in the north of Portugal) will treat you will.
I’ll leave you as I left both that piece back in 2018 as well as Field Blends Chapter 29:
We need more field blends. We need more maps on walls that remind us of the lands, climates, histories, and people that remain when the fog of fear is lifted and lines in the earth are swept away by time. And, importantly, we need more moments of quiet clarity such that we might step through the stemmed and fluted looking glass long enough to appreciate the majesty of that by which we are surrounded.