2024 Funaro Nero d'Avola

2024 Funaro Nero d'AvolaNero d'Avola is one of those grapes that can easily go wrong. At its worst, it's gloppy and muddy on the palate, lacking anysense of personality. But when it's done right? Lovingly tended by third generation farmers, from organic vines surrounded by olive orchards, vegetable gardens, and fruit trees? It's textbook Sicily, invitingly fresh, wonderfully food friendly, lively and jovial. As here, with the Nero from the Funaro brothers punchy raspberry

Cabernet and Rhones love that warm and mellow altitude

but we’ve found this to be a kind of vinous miracle all year long

his wines would be doled out in micro-allocations

It was hot

and alive— and they're precisely as delightful to drink as they are hard to get

and this is as great a version as we’ve ever had

and a gentle savory edge

” Kenny Likitprakong of Folk Machine got his hands on some of this rare varietal a while back and took CA by storm

Aurora (which means 'dawn' in Italian) is also the name of a small and graceful native butterfly that's in and among the vines and currently at risk of extinction

to cooler days of chilly salt water plunges in the Pacific

This is their supposedly “entry-level” Rioja

the vegetative growth is as rampant as a cummings poem on the subject of the color green)