Shipping woes and new arrivals!
By David Keck
Hello and happy Monday from VT Wine Shepherd headquarters! It seems to be the main topic of conversation among importers and distributors (not to mention producers!) that shipping is just royally F**&^ed right now, so we beg your indulgence and patience as we navigate delayed arrivals of wines, etc.! Containers from Europe can’t find docking, some can’t even find containers, shipping in the country is backed up for months… been a super-fun post-pandemic cluster.
That said, we have confirmation from our shipping company that the Revelshine wines discussed last week will be here TOMORROW. Fingers crossed on that and they’re not here, til they’re HERE, but it’s looking good.
To consolidate shipping and get things here at the right temperature and as soon as possible, we have a few other wines coming from California warehouses that are new, awesome, and should hit the dock tomorrow! Limited quantity on everything, so check in with your sales rep. ASAP.
Joseph Swan Valdiguié 2019
This wine is special for many reasons. First is that Swan has been producing Valdiguié since the 1970 vintage. At that time the grape was still known as Napa Gamay, but the 1970 Joseph Swan Gamay is still considered one of the great wines of California’s past (and if it ever becomes available at auction, draws insane prices). It is also a wine that Rod releases earlier than pretty much anything else they make—it is fresh, bright, and when you taste it you understand why it was mistaken for a Gamay clone for so long. Extremely limited production—we happened to be tasting with Rod the day that it was bottled, so….
Kolfok ‘Querschnitt’ Rotburger & Co. 2018
The wines of Kolfok, made by Stefan Wellanschitz, are consistently outstanding. This wine is predominantly Rotburger (created by Fritz Zweigelt in the 1920s, but we’re moving away from the name Zweigelt due to the fact he was a terrible Nazi), with a little bit of Syrah. It undergoes 65 days (!!!) of carbonic maceration without any intervention, followed by 10 months in 500L barrels with zero sulfur. Querschnitt means cross-section, and refers to the different varieties, but also the intersection of different soil types that really only occurs in this part of Austria as the Alps meet the Pannonian plain. The Querschnitt White (Grüner & Co.) has been a bit hit and we’re excited to have the red version in the portfolio!
Joseph Swan Saralee’s Vineyard Gewürztraminer 2018
The Swan Gewürz is DRY, but super floral, rich, and concentrated. All the fruit is from their famous Saralee’s Vineyard in Sonoma, and on a recent visit, as Rod arrived to join us to taste and catch-up, when he saw that we’d been greeted with this wine, said ‘actually, I will grab a glass, I love this wine and we don’t often have it!’ This grape variety has a bad habit of being overblown and unctuous and this bottling contradicts that in a beautiful way. Inexpensive and only here for a bit!
Straka Welschriesling PetNat 2020
We’ve been loving the Straka wines, from the super bright and acid-driven red and white Stratos wines, to the intense and beautiful Blaufränkisch. To that lineup, we’re adding the recently-released PetNat! As always, farmed organically, bottled before finishing fermentation with little intervention, finishing at just 11.5% ABV, the wine is clean, and a beautiful expression of this white grape variety. Welschriesling (its official name could be Graševina as it is most likely from Croatia where it is widely planted) is a famous grape in this part of Austria (Burgenland), and the name means ‘foreigner’ Riesling, indicating that it might have been introduced to the German-speaking countries, but actually has no connection to Riesling. A brand new wine for Straka, we’re excited to try it!