MCF Rare Wine
Back to the Future:
Summer Blockbuster Bottles
As the calendar turns to September, I invite you to step into my DeLorean and do some light time traveling with me. While I admittedly don't have a functioning flux capacitor, plutonium or the capabilities to harness that lightning strike above (ok, I don't really have a DeLeorean either...), I do possess the ability to send us back in time to revisit some of the best wines we have offered this summer. And luckily we can bring those wines back here to our present so that we may collectively alter our immediate future to delicious effect.
Without even having to disrupt the space-time continuum, I've also managed to secure one highly sought after crowd favorite wine from summers past to add to today's time-bending offer, the spicy, mineral, smoky, volcanic Los Bermejos Lanzarote Rosado (this time in the form of the 2019 vintage), which may feature enough energy of its own to generate the necessary 1.21 jigawatts (!?!?) for time travel. It also happens to be the perfect Labor Day weekend/late Summer/early Fall rosé! Additionally, we now have a limited number of Trediberri Barbera d'Alba and Langhe Nebbiolo magnums available on pre-arrival at prices straight out of 1955, or at least 1985...
And with that, we must make like a tree and get outta here. Please buckle your seatbelts. Keep your hands, arms and legs inside the vehicle. Join me as we venture into the past so that we may bring some great wines back to the future before they forever fade from the picture...
You might be saying to yourself at this point that we don't have enough road to get up to 88 miles per hour.
To that I say, "Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads..."
SUMMER CLASSIC
LOS BERMEJOS
Lanzarote Rosado 2019 $22/btl
The nervy, spicy, volcanic classic from the Canaries is back in all its smoky, mineral, pink glory. Get some while you can!!
BEST OF SUMMER 2020
LE ORMERE
Greco di Tufo 2016 $26/btl
A deeply-colored, structured white wine with an intensely-focused, mineral backbone, adorned with a fragrant, delicately smoky and decidedly briny yellow fruit. The subtly oily texture offers great counterpoint to the bracing, citric acidity on the finish. It is, at once, evolved and savory, yet racy and refreshingly nuanced.
DOMAINE SAINT PIERRE
Arbois Rouge Les Gaudrettes 2018 $52/btl
The Gaudrettes is carbonic maceration Pinot Noir that's aged entirely in stainless. Its super fresh, delicate red fruits are racy, balanced and fragrant, finishing with spicy, earthy nuance and great acidity. It's the perfect all-day Jura red.
Arbois Rouge Cuvée Saint Pierre 2018 $52/btl
The St P is Fabrice's top Pinot Noir and this '18 might be the best version of it yet. Whole-cluster fermentation in stainless is followed by ageing in a large Foudre. Compared to the Gaudrettes, the Saint Pierre is slightly denser, but we're still talking about a wonderfully delicate, ethereal expression of Arbois Pinot here. The earth-tinged red fruits have a deeper pitch to them, but they're still bright and airy in nature, while the texture that's built into it adds a nice mouthfeel. The subtle structure on the back'll allow this to develop nicely in the cellar, too.
STEIN
Rosé Trocken 2019 $21/btl
Here we have a wine with a very focused nose of delicate-yet-serious, darker-pink fruits that unlock their nuance nicely on the finely textured palate. From here, it all picks up speed as the racy acidity (this is a wine of acidity) delivers you to a finish that seems like the liquefied version of a polished slate - so refined, so sleek, but so...solid.
Rosé Secco 2019 $23/btl
A charmingly refreshing pink bubbly made mostly of Pinot Noir with about 20% of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, of all things. The fresh, pink fruit flavors offer plenty of juicy, quenching character and all of that lovely, refreshing fruit funnels towards the back of your palate and coalesces into a broad, stony finish.
COLLE TROTTA
Montepulciano d'Abruzzo Riserva 'Q500' 2008 $42/btl
A substantial, complex, developed and still vibrant, well aged wine, the 2008 Montepulciano Riserva from Colle Trotta is impossible not to love. Burly, dark, intensely mineral, iron-y and leathery, but also precise and elegant with a sense of aromatic freshness to it. One of our favorite Montepulcianos we've ever tasted!
TREDIBERRI
Barbera d'Alba 2019 $19/btl
Barbera d'Alba 2019 1.5L $40/btl (net, very limited availability)
Dark, highly perfumed, focused, taut, mineral and super lively. This Barbera from Trediberri has that energetic zip that the very best examples from Alba have in their youth - we'll refrain from naming names, but we're talking about the very best ones. You know, the ones whose Barbera is even harder to get than their Baroli are...
Langhe Nebbiolo 2019 $22/btl
Langhe Nebbiolo 2019 1.5L $45/btl (net, very limited availablity)
When it comes to the Langhe Nebbiolo 2019, we're talking about the same kind of lively, precocious personality, except, well, from a Nebbiolo. It's brimming with red, rosy fruit, fantastic balance and incredible focus. The fine tannin on the finish allow teases of future glory to peak out from time to time. This one also had us thinking of some of the great Nebbiolo bottlings from those same producers...so...
PAOLO BEA
Umbria Rosso San Valentino 2015 $48/btl (net, REG $56)
2015 is a very 'Bea' vintage, in that his wines always excel when the fruit is dense - nobody handles 'density' with as much dexterity as does Bea. The Valentino (70% Sangiovese, 15% Montepulciano, 15% Sagrantino) is gorgeous and, as always, leans a bit more toward the slightly-red end of the spectrum.
Montefalco Rosso Riserva Pipparello 2015 $74/btl (net, REG $85)
The muscular Pipparello (60% Sangiovese, 25% Montepulciano, 15% Sagrantino) is big, dark, mineral and brawny as ever in 2015.
Montefalco Sagrantino Cerrete 2012 $148/btl (net, REG $169, limited availability)
The Cerrete (100% Sagrantino) is a profound, fragrant and more elegant expression of Sagrantino, perhaps the most nuanced bottling of this massive grape on the market. From the also-warm 2012 vintage, the coolness of this high-altitude site has produced a stunning wine of finesse and grace...though one that still registers plenty high on the flavor scale.
10% case discounts apply on all bottles not marked "net."
You may order by emailing chris@mcf-rarewine.com or calling 732.675.4623 or 212.255.8870 .
Chris Conway
MCF Rare Wine, Ltd
249 West 13th Street NYC 10014
732.675.4623
