Vermont wine scribe and friend Todd Trazskos and Montreal wine denizen Remy Cherest visited me in my home in the Hudson Valley last month, and shared with me (and Hudson-Chatham winemaker Stephen Casscles) this exquisite bottle of La Garagista Vinu Jancu Vermont La Crescent 2017. It was a massive treat!
If you're a wine geek, you will love La Garagista. And if you just like wine, you will be very happy too! According to Deirdre Heekin and Caleb Barber, the owners and producers of La Garastista, "Our wines are an expression of the season. Each vintage may herald slightly different bottlings, and even wines that we tend to make every year will show variation from vintage to vintage. This intrigues us. We work in the field and cellar as minimally as possible, as guides and companions. We believe that terroir encompasses geology, geography, microclimate, varietal, culture, and the human hand...Our fruit is handpicked and sorted, foot crushed through pigéage. We employ glass demijohns and old barrels, flex tanks and an anfora. We rely on the wild yeast found on our fruit, the result of a happy marriage of field and fermentation. We use little to no sulphite at bottling. It depends on the wine and the season."
Vin Jancu is the old Scicilian term for white wines made in the orange style. This, this is an orange wine, made from Vermont grown La Crescent. The grapes were picked by hand and sorted. They were then pressed like red grapes and the wine was aged in the skins. The resulting wine had a big, big mouthfeel. It was a big chewy white filled with apricot, Seville oranges and orange blossoms, dried pineapple, and other tropical notes. But there was a great amount of acidity ot this wine, which made it perfectly balanced. The wine was immensely layered, and intricate with it's flavors.
We each the three of us sipped and sipped the wine for some time, exchanging glances, asking each other a thousand questions, and smiling.....until the wine ran out. I am not necessarily a fan of orange wines, but this one was the perfection of what a good orange wine should be.
It was simple....a fantastic bottle of wine....the kind of wine that makes for memorable nights. This one was special.
Thank you Deirdre and Caleb!