Broken Earth continues to do things with white wine that sounds great on paper and translates well into the glass. Their new inert press I was skeptical of at first, thinking old-fashioned-ly wines need a little oxygen. Then I visited some places in Italy and found them to be a lot more commonplace and definitely utilized to preserve delicate fruit structures. A couple of the early wines of this method I tasted from this producer I felt almost awkwardly austere, but this one is far from it.
Almost clear, just a hint of legal pad to confirm you’re not drinking water. Graphite, pitch, and wet chalkboard greet you in the nose, hints of melon, banana, tomato vine and surf mist lie deep in the background–along with slight sulfur. Earthy and loamy, the minerality just GLOWS–and doesn’t really take on any citrus personalities as usual. There’s a roundness to the nose, though: a bulkhead of ripeness tip-toeing on buttery, but more cold honey-butter–with a tarragon twist.
In the mouth, a richness nearly approaching Chardonnay-levels cleanses you of all that steely grate. Tropical fruit indulges you in perceived sweetness even though the wine is bone-dry. Lychee and guava–peachy and round–create a white-grape-juice canned-fruit syrup which cruises sailingly across the palate, deftly avoiding the potholes of acid but clipping a few of them gently. There’s just too many to miss, and it swells up all that minerality, depositing the ridiculous structure all over in ways that would make Riesling blush. In the finish, the lush fruit again makes an argument for RS, and the encroaching cellar-floor turns the whole package surprisingly old-worldy. Didn’t really see that one comin, but it WORKS. And there’s TANNIN. Lots of tannin. This would be a fun wine to *lose* a few bottles for a decade. Bet you a million bucks it would go the distance.
2019 BROKEN EARTH ‘Anonymity’ Torrontes Paso Robles 12.4
Stephen McConnell 