WBW #15, Luddite Abouriou
Today is the day for the international, monthly, blogtastic event of Wine Blogging Wednesday. Fatemah at Gastronomie has selected the theme for today: drink small.
You might think that this was the wine slogan of Tiny Living, the trendy 450 sq ft store in the East Village that caters hip, apartment-dwelling New Yorkers. But no, Fatemah’s assignment was to try a wine with limited production–250 cases or less.
My selection is Luddite Vineyards Abouriou 2002. Find this wine. I’m not sure of the case production actually but I figure it is at least approaching that level of boutique production (c’mon how many acres of Abouriou are planted in Sonoma anyway?). Luddite’s Languid Duck wine only had 190 cases last year and that has Syrah and other more easy to find Rhone varietals so I’m hoping that the Abouriou is similar.
Even if the production volumes aren’t actually low enough, the winemaker’s heart is in the right place for the spirit of this assignment. Luddite, as the name implies, eschews many technological or chemical interventions (this may include email too since an email query about production volume was not returned–see UPDATE below).
The wine itself is a wine geek’s wine. The inky black color is reminiscent of Tannat, another obscure southern French varietal, but the mouthfeel is not as tannic. I would agree with the winemaker who writes that “it has the aromatics and flavors of Malbec but the structure of a Dolcetto.” Consume it yourself with roasted pork or bring this as a present to a wine geek friend and prepare to impress with your knowledge of off-the-beaten path wines. The price of this “small” wine? $19, if you can find it.
***11/5 UPDATE: I just got an email (!) from Steven Canter of Luddite who writes that the production levels of recent vintages of Abouriou are: 2003, 23 cases; 2004, 69 cases. He writes that he has just put an “amazing” 2005 in the barrel which will yield around 95 cases. Alas, I neglected to query him on the 2002, which I tasted but it definitely appears in the range of our assignment.
