Emilia's sparkling reds and an orange wine...

The following is our current wine club offering for May/June. If you're interested in getting these kinds of wines on a regular basis, join the club.

We first discovered delicious sparkling reds served chilled while backpacking through Italy. We didn’t have a lot of money then (some things never change) so we mostly picnicked along the way. Sparkling reds are a natural fit with cured meats & Parmigiano but are also at home around the barbecue. So here are three sparkling reds, two from Colli Piacentini ("Hills of Piacenza"), which is the western edge of Emilia-Romagna, a Lambrusco from the province of Parma--and for good measure a stunning orange wine from Colli Piacentini! 

Croci Gutturnio Vino Frizzante 2010 
This traditional naturally sparkling red wine from Colli Piacentini is typical of the area and is composed of 60% Barbera and 40% Bonarda. The soil here is clayey and sandy. This vino frizzante has good structure, is lightly bubbly, with that trademark good acidity that refreshes and goes hand in hand with the local food. This pairs particularly well with a fritto misto. 

Cantine Ceci Lambrusco “La Luna” NV 
Deeply purple in color, Ceci “La Luna” is a fresh, earthy Lambrusco, with notes of dark berries from the province of Parma. Enjoy it with a big bowl of pasta Bolognese. 

Elena Panteleoni runs La Stoppa with Guilio Armani. They’ve worked their heavy silty clay soils organically since the early 90s and have been certified organic since 2008. A minimal intervention approach is taken in the cellar. The wines ferment naturally with their native yeasts. Nothing is added or subtracted from the juice. Sulfur is never added during vinification and only in small doses at bottling. 

La Stoppa Trebbiolo 2010 
A young sparkling red wine, made up of 60% Barbera and 40% Bonarda. It’s La Stoppa’s take on the typical style of the red sparkling wines of the Colli Piacentini. It’s well balanced with a pleasant, bracing acidity. 

La Stoppa Ageno 2008 
The name is a tribute to the founder of La Stoppa, Gian-Marco Ageno, who first believed in the great potential of the area. This may be our favorite orange wine yet. What is an orange wine? It’s a white wine left to sit and ferment on its skins like a red wine, which gives it a depth and color different from any other white wine. The grapes are: Malvasia di Candia Aromatic 60%, Trebbiano 40% and a splash of Ortrugo. The thick-skinned Malvasia brings intense floral aromas and tannins and a suppleness; the Trebbiano and Ortrugo acidity and nerve. It was first made in 2002 with maceration on the skins for 30 days using only indigenous yeasts and without the addition of sulfur. It’s aged for one year in stainless steel and used barrique and then for an additional two years in the bottle. It is not filtered. 

Elena gave a lot of thought about what would be the best way to make wine in her region. “We were just thinking and trying to understand the potential of our area,” she said. “The farmers who make wines for themselves? They make no difference between red and white grapes. They macerate for maybe 10 days. But this is traditional, typical. It’s not modern winemaking.” Serve it with a grand bollito misto.

Click here to order some.

I think that was the day we discovered rosé

Some time ago we were in Berkeley, California at an outdoor event celebrating a Chez Panisse anniversary. It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon, and the street in front of the restaurant was closed to traffic. The vibe was festive and there was a bounty of good food. Each table featured a specific purveyor. 

The staff was grilling meats and shucking oysters; the farmers that had come down for the day were selling their wares. Two dry rosés from Provence were on offer by the glass: a rather dark cassis-colored Tavel from Château de Trinquevedel and a salmon-colored Bandol from Domaine Tempier. 

  

Some time ago we were in Berkeley, California at an outdoor event celebrating a Chez Panisse anniversary. It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon, and the street in front of the restaurant was closed to traffic. The vibe was festive and there was a bounty of good food. Each table featured a specific purveyor. 

The staff was grilling meats and shucking oysters; the farmers that had come down for the day were selling their wares. Two dry rosés from Provence were on offer by the glass: a rather dark cassis-colored Tavel from Château de Trinquevedel and a salmon-colored Bandol from Domaine Tempier. 

 

  

I think that was the day we really discovered rosé. We drink it year-round. 

  

These are some of the many we stock. 

  

Bernard Baudry Chinon 2012, $20

Domaine de Fontsainte Corbières 2012, $14

Domaine de l'Ausseil "P'tit Piaf" 2012, $14 

Château de Trinquevedel Tavel 2012, $18

Domaine du Gros' Noré Bandol 2012, $33

Henri Milan "Ma Terre" 2012, $22


Montenidoli Canaiuolo 2012, $22

Donkey & Goat "Isabel's Cuvée" 2012, $23


For a limited time we're offering 15% off a mixed case of twelve rosés when you mention this email offer. 

To order click here or call 718-596-7643. To view our full selection come see us at the store.

#WHATWEDO

DID YOU KNOW?

From its founding in 2006 Thirst’s primary mission has been to sell terroirific wines made by small artisan producers who grow their grapes organically or biodynamically and ferment their wines naturally without additives.

Real flavors beat fake flavors every time.

Long before we opened our wine store in 2006 we were constantly on the lookout for interesting, delicious wines that we could drink that tasted like they came from somewhere specific. We soon learned that finding simple, honest wine is not so simple. It was this persistent thirst for a taste of place that finally drove us to open our shop.

The desire to find these kinds of wines went hand-in-hand with the food we wanted to eat. We don’t eat industrially produced overly processed foods so why would we want to drink wines made that way, which most people don’t realize is the norm -- that most wine, like most food, is made with tons of chemicals primarily to satisfy the bottom line.

Like many of you we choose to eat minimally processed food not just because it tastes better and gives us more pleasure, but also because it makes us feel good once having eaten it. It’s the same with wine and the proof is found in the bottles. A real wine has real flavors that occasionally surprise and challenge us to come to terms with it, to struggle to describe it, because it’s not made with fake flavors. Real flavors beat fake flavors every time.

Of course it would take a lot less effort to sell easily recognized brands but that’s not what we want to do. We don’t want to sell brands. We want to work with people we like that we feel make wines that say something unique in small batches without additives or chemicals that consistently delight and sometimes amaze. Wines that go with food, have a sense of place, and are meant for thirst.

Which is why last month we attended RAW – The Artisan Wine Fair in London. RAW was filled with talented artisanal winemakers from around the world who make, in the words of the organizers, “wines that are pure, kind to the planet, very possibly better for your health, and best of all they’re absolutely delicious.” There we saw a lot of familiar faces and many, many new ones. It was a really exciting two-day event and you’ll be seeing many new things in the store reflecting what struck our fancy. The London food and wine scene at the moment is really exciting. 

London Calling

Back from London, which we visited to attend the Raw Wine Fair, a wine expo featuring natural winemakers from around the world. The fair was exciting and the London wine and food scene is vibrant. Some of the things and places that inspire us...

Day 1

The Opposite of Insipid

One of the few things we have in common with Robert Parker is an appreciation for young wines (not usually the same ones). Whether it's the latest vintage of rosé, a brisk, fresh white wine, or a chilled red... the liveliness and fruitiness of a young wine made without chemical additives is captivating.

Which brings us to our take on Burgundy--the most legendary wine region in the world. Often we get more excited about drinking the bottles that don't need to be aged rather than the ones that should be aged for your children's children!

Follow our lead, throw off the caste system, and dive into Bourgogne a la Thirst. To illustrate, we're offering four different stylistic variants for under a hundred dollars altogether!

the Quasi-Structured:

Domaine Robert Chevillon's Nuits-Saint-Georges are justly famous for ageing well, so even their Passetoutgrains has a "structured" bent to its texture on the palate. If you let this Pinot Noir and Gamay blend breathe for half an hour, you'll find a wine that goes with food instead of showing off in front of it, with rhubarb and raspberry underlying the tannic structure that helps it marry so well with meats.

the Ethereal:

Fanny Sabre, acolyte of natural wine maven Philippe Pacalet, makes precise and brilliantly high-res wines in the Cote de Beaune. Her latest Bourgogne Rouge is perhaps the most soif-able (can we patent the term?) wine we've had yet. If you loved her Grand Ordinaire, you're going to become obsessed with the levity and synesthesia--a wine so vivid you can taste the aromas and smell the flavors directly.

the Nervy:

The kind of white Burgundy we look for is one that has tension without oaky interference. Domaine de la Cadette's Bourgogne Blanc is from vineyards just an hour south of Chablis. The higher latitude mixed with clay and limestone soil gives a wine that's got great Burgundian mouthfeel but with the energy of a more Northern wine.

the Classic:

Domaine Valette's natural Macon-Villages is a flashback to the kind of wine monks made centuries ago. The opposite of insipid, this brilliant, unfiltered white has beautiful minerality. Imagine if Marcel Lapierre (RIP) made a white Burgundy.

Chevillon Bourgogne Passetoutgrains 2010, $25
Fanny Sabre Bourgogne Rouge 2011, $23
Cadette Bourgogne Blanc 2011, $18
Valette Macon-Villages 2011, $24

Buy 6 and get 5% off, or mix up a case of 12 and save 10%!

Click here to order.

It's Not The "No Sulfur" Movement

It's not the "no sulfur" movement--we first fell for low-to-no sulfur wines from the Kermit Lynch portfolio when we were drinking them in Berkeley: Jean Foillard, Marcel Lapierre, etc. There's an incredible purity in a wine made without added sulphur. But used in miniscule quantities at bottling, it does little to no damage to the flavor of the wine, and helps to protect it.

When Kermit Lynch first began importing wine, he noticed that some of the wines he was receiving didn't taste the same as they did when he drank them in Europe. The wines were being cooked during transit. His innovation was shipping the wine in temperature-controlled containers and storing them in temperature-controlled warehouses, which now all of the importers we work with do as well. And it's why we keep our store cool year-round.

Which brings us to the delicious un-sulfured wines of Domaine Buronfosse in the Cotes du Jura, next-door neighbors to Jean-Francois Ganevat, and less than half the price. We can't stop drinking their Chardonnays, their Poulsard (their Cremant too, which is now sold out!), as they have a freshness that's really different from the oxidative Juras that many like but few actually drink.

Peggy & Jean-Pascal Buronfosse moved to La Combe de Rotalier in 1999 because they wanted to escape city life. They wanted to live in a bucolic setting where they could grow their own vegetables, raise chickens, rabbits, pigs. At first their dream was to have a mixed farm but viticulture gradually drew them in and they soon realized what they really wanted was to grow, raise and make for themselves what they wanted to eat AND drink. They gradually acquired a number of small parcels of vineyards. They studied on their own and through trial and error, as well as some guidance from Monsieur Ganevat, they found their way.

Come taste the Buronfosse Cotes du Jura wines with us tonight at Thirst as our dear friend Kreso brings it from 6 to 8 pm. You might like them so much you'll have wished you reserved a case of each...

Buronfosse Chardonnay Marcus, $18
Buronfosse Chardonnay Ammonites, $22
Buronfosse Cremant de Jura - already sold out!
Buronfosse Poulsard, $24 - almost sold out!

Click here to order some.

 

stay true, 

the Thirst people