Dark opaque ruby. THE most brilliant barnyard you’ve ever smelled is crammed into the glass. If you’re like me and love the funkiest, earthiest, stained concrete and horse-stall beauty in an old-world wine, this thing is your jam. Chamomile and houseplant and oranges going fuzzy–it’s a gorgeous blend of all the best base nuances wrapped into rich fruit.

I will now write on the board 100 times:
I DO NOT BUY WINE FOR THE LABEL.
I DO NOT BUY WINE FOR THE LABEL.
I DO NOT BUY WINE FOR THE LABEL.
I DO NOT BUY WINE FOR THE LABEL.
I DO NOT BUY WINE FOR THE LABEL ALMOST ALL THE TIME.

Totally biologique, this little farm produces these wines in a sustainable and relatively *un-processed* way. Loyal readers KNOW I will not use the “Natural Wine” moniker, but this smacks of most of the values. This is straight Merlot!! You have NEVER in your LIFE tasted Merlot like this, I guarantee it. It’s like Chinon meets Rioja. It’s like Carneros meets weingut. It’s mind-bogglingly good, round and curvy on some planes and desert-plane on others, and through it all that crazy farm-stead funk plows on, bringing all the natural ideals which ARE wine to mingle with pretty fruit.

In the mouth, all the pretty things you were hoping and begging for after seeing the label and smelling the wine come tumbling down all over your mouth like salt-sprinkles on a tomato slice. The beauty about a wine like this is the inability to ignore the nose as you are tasting it. Dark plum and boysenberry fruit mingle with the funk and the middle goes ice-cold mountain stream brilliant–acid searing in from the sidelines, the whole mélange progressively becoming more and more tannic until the pomegranate is almost buried in the incredible dry rasp this little thing becomes.

I ADORE this wine.

2016 INSERRATA “Insieme” Merlot IGT Toscano Italy 13.5

inserrata.com