Charity Mix
A ten-bottle charity mix - almost all donated by pan Andrii - poured to raise money for drones for pan Oleksandr.
By Boris · Hosted by Boris Buliga
Ten bottles and one reason to open them all: this evening was a fundraiser. We poured for donations, and everything collected goes to drones for pan Oleksandr. Almost the entire lineup was donated by pan Andrii - the kind of gesture that makes a wine table feel much bigger than wine.
The mix itself refused any theme: an inaugural-release Bramaterra, a 93-month VSQ rebel from Cellatica, qvevri Burgundy, a numbered 2007 rosado built for cellaring, and a run of Loire, Douro and Langhe in between, all poured blind. Charity nights get the good stuff.
| Wine | WAVG | SD | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 La Palazzina | #4 | 4.14 | 0.17 | 1 |
 Cà del Vént | 🥉 | 4.15 | 0.13 | 2 |
 Domaine de la Taille Aux Loups | #10 | 3.99 | 0.08 | – |
 Reserva Branco2020 Poças | #7 | 4.09 | 0.14 | – |
 Cuvée Marguerite2022 Matassa | #8 | 4.03 | 0.37 | 2 |
 Domaine de Chassorney | #8 | 4.03 | 0.27 | 2 |
 Chivite | #5 | 4.13 | 0.17 | – |
 Langhe Nebbiolo2022 Piercarlo Culasso | 🥈 | 4.16 | 0.10 | 3 |
 Corinto2017 Tenuta di Castellaro | 🥇 | 4.21 | 0.10 | 2 |
 Domaine de la Butte | #5 | 4.13 | 0.16 | 1 |
La Palazzina Balmi Bioti Bramaterra 2015
La Palazzina is a tiny Alto Piemonte estate in Roasio - about 4 ha in the Biellese hills, in the Montà family since 1929, first commercial bottling 1999. Balmi Bioti is its single-vineyard Bramaterra from the Casa del Bosco hillside in Sostegno, where volcanic soil runs through with veins of iron-rich red clay. The 2015 is the inaugural release - Paolo Montà kept the fruit separate instead of folding it into the estate Bramaterra. Destemmed, spontaneous fermentation in lined concrete for about three weeks, two years in Slavonian botti, unfiltered. The warm, dry 2015 put a ripe frame on the cuvée's ferrous, savoury core. 12.5%.
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Cà del Vént farms micro-zoned slopes in the Campiani di Cellatica at the eastern edge of the Franciacorta zone - and left the DOCG after the 2015 tasting commission rejected six of its wines. Everything sparkling is now VSQ under the house Pas Operé protocol. Revolution 2012 is 77% Chardonnay macerated one night on skins and 23% direct-pressed Pinot Nero - per the producer, the twelve most mineral base wines of its crus - raised 7 months in barrique, then 93 months on the lattes. Disgorged 12.01.2021 and topped with same-lot wine, no liqueur d'expédition: 1,030 bottles of a 4,583-bottle lot. The rainless 2012 summer left it with total acidity of 7 g/l at pH 3.2. 12.5%.
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Join to read it and the restDomaine de la Taille Aux Loups Montlouis sur Loire Les Hauts de Husseau 2023
The estate Jacky Blot founded in 1988 to pull Montlouis out of Vouvray's shadow, run since his death in May 2023 by his son Jean-Philippe. Les Hauts de Husseau blends five parcels around the Husseau hamlet - the appellation's highest ground - with vines mostly 70 to 90 years old on flinty clay over shallow tuffeau. Barrel-fermented on indigenous yeasts with 20% new oak and no malolactic, the Blot signature. 2023 was a sorting-table vintage: rot pressure, an early-September heat spike, and low alcohols - this one at 12%.
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Poças, founded 1918 and still wholly family-owned, was among the first Port houses to go DOC Douro, back in 1990. The Reserva Branco comes from Quinta de Vale de Cavalos in Numão, Douro Superior - 440-510 m, on a transition between schist and granite: Arinto with an old-vine field blend the producer declines to itemize (the labels shorthand it as "Códega"), fermented in barrel and aged in new 300 l oak with bâtonnage. The 2020 grew in the opposite conditions to the cool 2021 - an exceptionally hot, dry Douro year with a compressed harvest from late August and yields well down. 13%.
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Tom Lubbe's Calce project, certified organic, no added sulfur in any wine since 2015. Marguerite is named after his wife Nathalie's grandmother, one of the area's last first-language Catalan speakers; its heart is the Muscat de Max monastery parcel on limestone, vines past ninety years. The 2022 splits 34% Macabeu and 33% each of the two Muscats, whole-cluster co-fermented in concrete and rested on lees in 2,500 l foudres. From the record-drought Roussillon summer: 11%, bone dry.
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Frédéric Cossard's domaine take on his signature Saint-Romain climat: steep Chardonnay on marl and limestone. After a 2017 Georgia trip he buried ten 10-12 hl qvevris in the cellar; here the juice is pressed directly, ferments on native yeasts and spends about a year inside - no fining, no filtration, no added sulfur, and still AOC Saint-Romain. 2020 brought one of the earliest harvests Burgundy has recorded, and its whites kept surprising acidity. Cossard called it an awesome vintage in the register of 2017. 13.5%.
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Join to read it and the restChivite Coleccion 125 Rosado 2007
Chivite counts eleven generations of Navarra wine from a 1647 deed; Colección 125, launched 1985, is the flagship line from the Dubourdieu consulting era. The Rosado was Spain's argument that rosé can be a cellar wine: gravity saignée from hand-picked Aberin and Villatuerta fruit, fermented in French oak, at least six months on lees with weekly bâtonnage. Bottled 30 September 2009 as 5,575 numbered bottles plus 80 magnums - ours is No. 004928; the import sticker gives 60% Tempranillo, 30% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Sauvignon. At almost nineteen years, exactly the test it was built for. 13.5%.
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The Culasso family has farmed the Faset hill in Barbaresco for generations, selling the grapes until Piercarlo started bottling in 2017 with his children. About 3 ha in seven parcels, all inside the Faset cru. The Langhe Nebbiolo is the deliberate no-wood wine: stainless fermentation for 15-20 days, six months more in steel, from southwest-facing parcels at 250-270 m on Sant'Agata marls. First made 2020 - this drought-year 2022, picked early yet fresh in the "hot vintage paradox" mold, is the third release. 14%.
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Jacky Blot's other estate, bought in 2002 on the Butte de Bourgueil and farmed organically, now in Jean-Philippe's hands. Perrières is a full-south lieu-dit where clay covers Turonian tuffeau - under a hectare of old Cabernet Franc. The 2021: destemmed, native yeasts, five weeks in wooden vats, malolactic in vat, then barriques, unfined and unfiltered at 25 hl/ha. The frost-year Loire vintage in its classic register - bright, moderate, 13%.
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Tenuta di Castellaro is the winery that put the Aeolian Islands back on the wine map: Massimo Lentsch and Stefania Frattolillo, entrepreneurs from Bergamo, fell for Lipari and built the estate from 2005 on the archipelago's volcanic slopes. Corinto is their eno-archeology piece - 100% Corinto Nero, a rare grape of Greek origin, from vines at 350 m on deep sandy volcanic soils. Hand-picked, destemmed, fermented in French oak with about ten days of maceration, then malolactic and at least a year in 500 l casks. 13%.
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Join to read it and the restThat closes the report. The bottles were the excuse; the point was the jar that filled up over the evening. Thank you, pan Andrii, for the cellar raid, and everyone at the table for digging deep. The jar is still open, by the way: chip in here.