The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

In keeping with this month's autumn theme, this time of year has me looking forward to the release of one of the great relatively new trends of the wine world. In France the production of Beaujolais Nouveau (made exclusively from the Gamay Noir grape) is in full swing in the southern Burgundy region while in Italy they've decided not to limit the production of this style of wine to just one region or grape but the whole place is crazily awash in Vino Novello made out of everything from Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Corvina, Nero d'Avola, Sangiovese and a whole host of ancient indigenous grapes up and down the countryside with Sardinia and Sicily to boot.

Scrap that vision of black, brooding wine thieved from oaken barrels lined up in dank candle-lit caves curtained with cobwebs, dusty like a pharaohs tomb with grizzled old men, grape-stained hands and tarnished silver tastevins hanging from a cord around their neck - these are NOT those wines. These wines are vibrant, alive, full of fruit, exploding with fresh strawberry and raspberry aromas, and did I mention they're fun? Fresh, young and delicious indeed!

Unlike the traditional crush, ferment, press and age method of wine-making there is a different process at work with no­vello/ nouveau wines. It's called Carbonic Maceration. Yeah - that's a mouthful, I agree. So here's the scoop to explain this strange alternative process. Rather than breaking up the grapes for fermentation, the whole bunches are placed in a tank or something else that can be effectively sealed - sometimes under vacume if the vintner has the resources for specialized equipment. Because grapes carry their own yeast buddies with them (indigenous yeasts already live on the skins of the grapes and are a part of the natural biota of the vineyard) these critters go into tank along with the grapes. Once the tanks are sealed, the weight of the upper layers of grapes crush the clusters at the bottom of the tank and the yeasts start to party hearty. As things reach a fevered pitch the yeast migrate upwards in search of more food and penetrate the skins of the grapes up above - fer­menting the grapes intracellularly - exploding them and adding more fresh juice to the mix. It is this interesting process that created a different style of wine - one that shows more fruiti­ness in the nose and mouth than the traditional method.

One of the wonderful attributes of these wine is that they are not expensive. In keeping with the carnival atmosphere of the release these wines are prices extremely reasonably - in the US you can find Nouveau for under $10 a bottle every year - yes - we get the Nouveau released on the same date here too.

A little closer to home here in the Touchey one producer in particular has been working on his own Nouveau-styled wine. Reggie Mace at Mace Mead Works also makes fantastic red wines under his Mortal Vintner label in Dayton. The mortal vintner makes an annual delicious Barbera Nouveau that while not a carbonic maceration wine (he uses a different method known as whole cluster fermentation) still delivers somewhat similar results that sells out quicker than you can blink! The reason why? It's fun! Not only because these wines are lighter in style. With these lighter styles of celebratory wine, you don't feel like you just drank a porterhouse steak with potato and Yorkshire pudding. They are more like drinking a light summer tomato and feta salad with a kick. It leaves you wanting more!

So what's not to like? Throw your own harvest party and celebrate with our vintners for another successful year under their collective belts but if you're gonna do it you better call Reggie soon and find out when his nouveau is going to ready - otherwise you'll miss out on our own local version and have to settle for that international stuff! Fresh, light, aromatic, easy to drink? How perfect for this time of year before we settle into an armchair and sip our black brooding cave aged wines to stave off the chill of winter! Cheers!