Wine Varieties

• May 7, 2021

• May 7, 2021

  7 minute read

During the dark days of hard lockdown, South Australian winemaker Andrew Nugent found himself searching the internet for land in cool, clean and relatively virus-free Tasmania. Unlike many mainlanders seeking opportunities south of the 40th parallel, the owner of Bird in Hand winery was seeking something particular. One weekend he found it: a 180ha strip on Tasmania’s sunny east coast perfect for the key sparkling wine varieties of chardonnay and pinot noir.

The purchase was “sight unseen”, the Adelaide Hills vigneron confesses. Six months later he and his team are celebrating by the banks of a sweet tree-lined creek running through the company’s new Tasmanian acquisition, with a menu of charcoal-grilled lobster and a variety of Bird in Hand wines.

“I really felt something when I saw it, as in fact I did when we bought the Bird in Hand site 23 years ago at Woodside in the Adelaide Hills,” Nugent explains. “Plenty of Tasmanian sites are well suited to viticulture, but this site has some magic to it. There are the mountains to the west behind us, the creek, the lagoons and the east coast beaches, and the heavy dolerite soils so close to the coast.

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“For winemakers, quality fruit is paramount. Tassie ticks that box more than any of the other mainland states, particularly in sparkling wine. A lot of it’s about feel, and I’ve fallen in love with the east coast in particular and Tasmania as a whole. It’s a remarkable place.”

Nugent stresses the intuitive and sensory inspiration behind his new Tasmanian acquisition – the romance of place – but there’s also a hard-nosed business calculation behind it. “Winemaking regions on the mainland are getting hotter and hotter,” he says with a grim expression. When he first started planting vines in the Adelaide Hills, as he recalls, old hands would shake their heads and warn him it was too cold for winemaking. The wines he makes at Bird in Hand are technically the products of a “cool climate”, but the climatic chill is lessening. “We used to pick our grapes in March or April,” he says. “Now we pick February and March.”

By focusing his Tasmanian venture on chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier (the one white and two black grape varieties used by champagne makers in the classic blend), Nugent is future-proofing his sparkling wine operation. “Tasmanian sparkling wine is superior to anywhere on the mainland,” he says. He will also plant pinot gris – the new sauvignon blanc – as well as riesling and shiraz. He refers to the latter by its French name, syrah, signalling his aspiration to make a lighter northern-Rhone style red: “more white pepper and spice, not so high in alcohol and jammy”.

At the same time, he thinks Australian winemakers should ditch their default benchmarking against European styles. “We’ve got some of the oldest and best soils in the world and great agricultural skill.”

There’s another future-looking feature to Nugent’s calculations: value. Tasmanian grapes are worth considerably more on average than mainland fruit. Tasmania produces 1 per cent of the nation’s wine by volume, and 4 per cent by value. Only 7 per cent of Australian wines are sold above $15 a bottle, but not one Tasmanian brand is sold below that price. And in an industry with a somewhat chequered international reputation for industrial-scale winemaking, Tasmania has established itself as an outpost of nuanced and small-scale cool-climate wine: a vinous sweet spot.

The island’s reputation in global wine circles was undergirded late last year when Tasmania’s House of Arras reeled in Decanter magazine’s top sparkling award, shortly after a 2018 Tasmanian chardonnay by Tolpuddle was awarded champion white at the International Wine Challenge. Michael Hill Smith, joint manager of Tolpuddle in the Coal River Valley north of Hobart, is quick to deflect attention from viticultural wizardry to the blessings of a cool – if not genuinely cold – climate. “Tasmania is cold but can also be quite dry, producing wines that couple a bracing line of acid with amazing fruit and flavour intensity,” he says. “The best wines are both distinctive and exhilarating.”

Tasmanian-born Ricky Evans, owner and winemaker at Two Tonne Tasmania in the Tamar valley outside Launceston, points out that while the Burgundy varieties of chardonnay and pinot noir do well in the Adelaide Hills, the region is only cool in relation to the nearby Barossa Valley. “Tasmania is much further south and we don’t get the heat extremities,” he says. “We’re a small island and have a genuine maritime climate. It allows the fruit to ripen slowly on the vine, and as a result we get very good flavour and freshness.”

Nick Glaetzer, an award-winning producer of mainly pinot noir and riesling, and son of the renowned Barossa vigneron Colin Glaetzer, moved to Tasmania in 2005 fired with a passion for the cool-climate wines he admired in Europe, particularly burgundy. A 2010 Jimmy Watson winner – for a cool-climate shiraz, Mon Père, made in honour of his father – he was recently named one of the wine world’s 50 next-gen stars at a ceremony on London.

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He planned to return to the old world – probably Burgundy – after obtaining his winemaking degree but his plans were upended by a Tasmanian pinot at a blind tasting in 2004. It was made by Andrew Hood of Wellington Wines and was “so spectacular most of us mistook it for a really good premier cru or a grand cru”. Glaetzer moved to Tasmania and started working with Hood in 2006, before setting up his own brand specialising in cool-climate riesling, chardonnay, pinot noir and shiraz. Many Australian rieslings are made with added tartaric acid but in Tasmania Glaetzer can make a wine with “pure natural acidity” reminiscent of Germany’s finest, while the long, slow ripening season allows him to produce a balanced wine with soft ripe tannins.

Sheralee Davies, chief executive officer of Wine Tasmania, observes that in many supposedly cool wine regions on the mainland temperature is tempered by altitude, but in Tasmania the greatest influence is climate. “We are cooled by latitude and the temperature is moderated by oceans and rivers,” she says. “This means our grapes slowly and steadily ripen on the vine, and develop intense, vibrant characteristics and a mouthwatering structure. Our grapes hang on the vines longer as a result, and we harvest from February through to April and May. This brings greater risks as they are exposed to mother nature that much longer than many other wine regions, but it pays off in the great quality of the wine.

“Tasmania also experiences significant diversity of conditions from season to season, which can be tasted through the wines. Our talented growers need to be alert and agile to manage these seasonal variabilities and get the best results each year.”

When talented young Swiss-born winemaker Matthias Utzinger established his eponymous label in 2017 he was struck by the similarities with the wine-growing regions of his homeland. He and his Tasmanian-born wife Lauren – the two met while travelling solo in Iran – have settled on a sloping 18ha Tamar Valley vineyard where they have plantings of pinot noir, chardonnay, sauvignon blanc – and a little syrah.

Utzinger, too, stresses the capacity of long ripening periods to produce balanced and aromatic wines. “Switzerland, Alsace, New Zealand, Germany and some cooler-climate regions in the United States all prove that point and for me are the ones whose wine styles influences me the most,” he says.

New Zealand-born and University of Canterbury-educated Samantha Connew, owner and winemaker at Stargazer, in the Coal River Valley, notes that both Tasmania and New Zealand’s South Island share the influence of a crisp maritime climate. Connew, who has made wine in the NSW Hunter Valley and in McLaren Vale, South Australia, recalls that when she relocated to Tasmania in 2013 it was “like coming home – from both a lifestyle point of view and a grape-growing point of view. Tassie for me is a perfect combination of Australia and New Zealand.” She suspects that a unique quality of Tasmanian geology – an underlay of Jurassic dolerite rock – explains the high calcium levels in the Coal River Valley. “This contributes to grapes with thicker skins and a longer ripening period – like New Zealand.”

Tasmania may not produce typically big, bold Australian reds. But in a warming world, it increasingly seems that the cooler, the climate the brighter the future.

That’s not to say the table wines of Tasmania, particularly the finicky pinot noir, have reached anything like their full potential. It’s a point underlined by Andrew Nugent, who observes that Tassie pinot has plenty of global competition, even among New World winemakers. South Africa, North America, Chile and, of course, New Zealand are making top-flight pinot noir. Even in Australia, the island state’s pinot is arguably outpointed by competitors from the cooler Victorian regions of Gippsland, Geelong and the Mornington Peninsula.

The arrival of Bird in Hand, a big operation with the capacity to produce internationally recognised wines, will help Tasmania’s cool-climate wine quest – even if the grape juice, initially at least, is shipped back to the Adelaide Hills mothership for fermentation, bottling and ageing and, in the case of sparkling wine, disgorging.

The company aims to contribute to the future of an effervescent industry not only by producing quality Tassie wine. In conversation Nugent refers often to the “energy” of his new vineyard site, and to the energy he hopes to create with “landscape art” inspired by the work of Italian Fernando Caruncho, as well as conservation measures to preserve sensitive Tasmanian native flora and fauna. He sees wine as one of the great joys of life, best appreciated with music, natural beauty, architecture, art and good conversation. “We’ve been looking for a magical site,” he says. “And now that we’ve found it we’re looking to create a bit of magic.”

place as it is about the vicissitudes of weather

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The Canberra District is fast becoming a significant wine region in Australia, with more than 140 vineyards producing an exceptional line up of wine varieties.

Many people are aware of the bigger names, but there are a growing number of hidden gems among more than 30 cellar doors in the region. One of them is Yarrh Wines.

Yarrh Wines is located in Murrumbatemen, but it’s off the beaten track, so you have to take a little scenic drive to find it. They have a low intervention winemaking philosophy, use sustainable growing techniques and soil health is a big priority.

They revamped their cellar door, making the most of COVID-19 restrictions towards the end of 2020. I recently visited to try their Autumn Winemaker’s Sail that includes four wine tastings matched with a selection of autumn-inspired food tastings.

The Autumn Winemaker’s Sail is $30, but the price can vary with the seasons, depending on the wines included in the tasting.

(Note to self, you need to make a booking if you want to try the Winemaker’s Sail.)

As I step out of the car, the beauty and peacefulness of the vineyard with the Yass River, valley and rolling hills in the background automatically strike me. I take a moment to soak it up. As I do, I hear the sound of at least four different species of birds softly singing around me.

The sun-filled cellar door has large glass windows surrounding it to make the most of the gorgeous outdoor views. As I enter, the smiling faces of Yarrh Wines co-owner Fiona, and Kimberley, who works at the cellar door and is also a chef, meet me.

Fiona is the incredible winemaker behind Yarrh Wines. She runs the winery with her husband, Neil, who takes care of the vineyard. The pair established Yarrh Wines in 1997, planted a number of grapevines over several years and officially opened the doors to the winery in 2004.

The name itself highlights their winemaking philosophy and their connection to the land. Fiona tells me about it as I sip on the riesling, tasting floral notes and aromas of citrus blossom and apple. It’s matched with a perfectly cooked scallop wrapped in prosciutto that’s served with a garlic and citrus sauce with a crispy pastry puff.

“Yarrh is Aboriginal for running water. When Hamilton Hume and William Hovell came to the area in 1824, they referred to the area around Yass as Yarrh. Hovell recorded it in his journal and the way we spell Yarrh is the way he spelt it.

“The story is that they sent a tracker ahead to see what he could see. He came back and said I can see yarrh (running water), which is the water we take to be the Yass River that flows through our valley. So we were looking for a connection to the area, and we thought Yarrh would be a good name,” she said.

They even invited one of the Ngunnawal elders to do a Welcome to Country when they opened.

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READ ALSO: Canberra entrepreneur acquires Commercial Hotel in Yass

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As I sip on the pinot noir and tuck into the confit duck with chargrilled tomato that sits on a smear of basil sauce and balsamic, Fiona tells me how she looks after her wine through the growth phase to the making process.

“Our wines are estate grown and bottled so we do everything on site. The wines express the place we have here. They’re very easy drinking and very approachable wines.

“We make our own compost and that’s the main way we feed the vines to get the soil as healthy as it can be. The skins and stalks from the winery go back into the compost and back onto the vineyard.

“If the grapes are healthy then they’re able to produce the best wines they can. It makes it easier to make the best wines without having to make many adjustments in the winery,” she said.

Next up is the sangiovese, one of my favourite wine varieties. Fiona tells me that it’s their most popular wine, and as soon as I taste it, I understand why (I purchased a bottle on my way out).

It’s a smooth, medium-bodied wine with sour cherry and savoury notes that work well with the baked brie, caramelised onion and pomegranate coulis. Fiona explains what makes their sangiovese so special.

“We have four different clones in the vineyard. Two of the clones help provide structure and weight to the vine, and the other two clones provide more fruitiness and life to the wine. So together, the wines make a really nice, easy-drinking, fruit-driven wine with some interest and longevity.”

I finish with the hero red of the Canberra District, the shiraz.

It’s elegant and balanced with a little spice that matches nicely with the seared kangaroo fillet with sweet potato and shiraz jus.

The food was served cold and, at first, I was a little surprised, but it didn’t alter the experience and each of the creations matched the wines perfectly.

Get in quick if you want to taste the Autumn Winemaker’s Sail as the winter sail launches in early June. If you’re not up for the full wine flight or forget to book, you can choose from a trio of dips, a cheese board, or the grazing board.

Yarrh Wines is located at 440 Greenwood Rd, Murrumbateman. The cellar door is open from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm Friday to Sunday. You can find their wines online and in select independent bottle shops in Canberra and the region.

Original Article published by Amelia Bidgood on The RiotACT.

This episode of “Wine 101” is sponsored by E.& J. Gallo Winery. At Gallo, we exist to serve enjoyment in moments that matter. The hallmark of our company has always been an unwavering commitment to making quality wine and spirits. Whether it’s getting Barefoot and having a great time, making every day sparkle with La Marca Prosecco, or continuing our legacy with Louis Martini in Napa, we want to welcome new friends to wine and share in all of life’s moments. Cheers, and all the best.

In this episode of “Wine 101,” VinePair tastings director Keith Beavers discusses Portuguese wines. Listeners will learn about four regions that produce the most exciting wines in Portugal: Vinho Verde, Douro, Alentejo, and Lisboa. These regions produce their own unique red and white blends, and even some rosé.

In addition, Beavers lists the history of Portugal’s wine, which goes way beyond Port. Finally, Beavers will explain which wines from Portugal listeners can expect to see on the American market.

Tune in to become an expert on Portugal and its wines.

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Keith Beavers: My name is Keith Beavers, and it’s my first time owning a lawn. Why does grass grow so fast?

What’s going on, wine lovers? Welcome to Episode 16 of VinePair’s “Wine 101” podcast, Season 2. My name is Keith Beavers. I’m the tastings director of VinePair. We are going to get nice with wines from Portugal. Let’s start to get a sense of this stuff, because they’ve been hanging out on our wine shelves for a long time, they have excellent value, and they’re great wines.

OK, so we’re going to talk about Portugal here, wine lovers. But we’re not going to talk about the wine called Port just yet. We’re going to get into that in another episode coming up very soon. When we talk about Portugal, I’m not going to get too far into the insanity of Port or Madeira. I say insanity because the history surrounding those two drinks is ludicrous, and I’m not gonna get into it now. But because of the popularity of these fortified wines, which we’re going to talk about soon, there are all these different styles. It’s crazy. We’re going to get into that at some point.

Today, I want to get you guys nice and comfortable with the wines from Portugal. How do I do this? I want to make a statement. Is that cool? There is something I’ve been saying about wines from Portugal for a very long time. When we owned a wine shop, we bought a lot of Portuguese wine. When I was coming up in the wine industry, learning about wine and everything, what I realized is the most affordable wines in the wine shop that have quality are wines from Portugal. That could be changing soon, but over the past decade or more, the wines of Portugal have existed on shelves. Either they’ve been ignored, or they’ve been bought not knowing where the wine is from or knowing it’s from Portugal. That’s not a fault of Portugal. It’s a fault for not educating people about this wine.

Over the last five years, people are getting more interested in wines from Portugal and more people are actually traveling to Portugal — specifically Lisbon. People would come back and say, “Have you had the wines from Portugal? They are great!” It’s exciting. I’ve even had people reach out to me on Instagram and say, “When are you going to do the Portugal episode?” I’m like what? OK, let’s do this.

Portugal is that small little rectangular country on the Iberian Peninsula, surrounded by Spain. It’s not a big country, obviously. It’s about 630 miles north to south, about 125 miles, give or take, east to west. Portugal might seem small, but it is mighty. Throughout history, this little country was once a county. Then, it was part of three counties. Then, it became its own kingdom and was also ruled by the same monarch that ruled Spain for a while. Other than that, Portugal developed as a civilization, as a country, as governments in isolation even though it’s surrounded by another country. This ability for Portugal to develop in isolation, even though it’s surrounded by all these powers, was a power itself. It was actually a very smart power, maybe smarter than the other powers.

When you’re reading about this time, which is around the mid- to late 14th century, a couple of things stick out. One is when a Spanish king died and there was no apparent heir after his death, there was a big conflict to figure out who was going to be the next on the throne. Portugal was involved and England came through to assist the Portuguese in winning a very important battle, which then resulted in a marriage, a royal marriage between England and Portugal. That sealed the relationship and friendship with these two countries forever, even to this day. This is what brought the popularity of the wine Port to the fore of history. I’ll get into it in the fortified wine episode but Port was considered the Englishman’s wine.

Then, there’s the relationship between Portugal and Spain. How did those borders not blow apart all the time? Well, it’s complicated, of course. Something I read that was very interesting is that as Spain developed itself as a country, it realized that maintaining a coastline was dangerous and very expensive. They were happy to have Portugal maintain a large coastline of the Iberian Peninsula. I’m sure it’s a lot more complicated than that, but that’s an interesting tidbit there. I was obsessed with how this country has developed in isolation because it had to do with the wine as well.

At some point when the bubonic plague was a big deal, a lot of the people in Portugal left the inland part of the country, and there was an exodus to the coast. They wanted to live in these towns and eventually get on ships and go somewhere else because the bubonic plague was killing everybody. This is interesting because this is a country that decided going east and conquering anything over there was not as important to them as getting on ships, getting out into the ocean, and getting away from what was happening in Europe. That began the Portuguese reputation as a seafaring nation. They settled in Brazil, also India, which is a big deal. Christopher Columbus married into a Portuguese noble family. It’s amazing, Filipa, who was a knight of a religious order, commanded soldiers in these religious orders. She came from the household of Prince Henry the Navigator, who at that point had 15 or more maritime discoveries under his belt.

These are some of the factors, I believe, that helped this country develop in isolation, even though it’s surrounded by all these powers. In this little country, to this day, there are 148 identified native varieties to Portugal, and I believe about a hundred of them are approved for winemaking. Douro, which we’ll get to in a second, is famous for Port wine. If you’re making wine there, you’re allowed to use up to 30 of the 100 approved varieties to make wine. Now, they don’t always do that, but that’s just crazy, right? This can add to the confusion trying to understand wines from this region. There was also a time in this country where the leadership was a corporate one-party rule, and this money-making leadership machine decided that cooperatives were the best way to go as far as the wine industry is concerned. This was in the 1930s.

During this time, 100 cooperatives were built in the northern part of Portugal alone in the first 20 years of this leadership. Obviously, the goal here was quantity over quality. The government wasn’t very generous when it came to funding new technology for cooperatives. They stayed the way they were for a long time. I can’t do a Portugal episode without mentioning that in the 1940s, towards the end of World War II, two brands of wine came out of Portugal and hit the United States and were insane successes. You had all these men coming back from World War II, and they had a taste for European wine, but the Americans had a sweet tooth. These two brands out of Portugal, Lancers and Mateus, were fizzy, sweet, sparkling rosé wines, and they hit the American market. They were huge successes through the 1970s into the 1980s. I’m a Gen Xer, I’m 46-years old. I remember my parents talking all about Lancers and Mateus jokingly at times, but they drank it and liked it.

These are all moments that are important in understanding the history of how Portugal came up, especially in wine. However, the date that’s important to you and I in the future of Portuguese wine is 1986. This is when Portugal entered into the European Union. I’ll go into this more during the fortified wine episode, but Portugal has some of the oldest wine laws in the world. That was one of the first areas that had a famous wine region that needed a geographical delimitation, if you will. In 1756, the prime minister at the time demarcated the vineyards in the Douro, where Port is famous, to make sure that everyone knew this is where this wine was coming from. By the ‘70s into the early ‘80s, the controlled appellation system of Portugal had come a long way since 1756. It was developed in a similar fashion to what the French or the Spanish would see.

In 1986, when they came into the European Union, it was absolutely organized and standardized for compliance with the rest of Europe. Also, under the EU, cooperatives, technology, and machinery were updated more often. This is the Portugal we know today. OK, get this. Loureiro, Alvarinho, Bical, Encruzado, Arinto, Añato Vaz, Rabigato, Códega do Larinho, Viosinho, Gouveio. These are the names that I probably butchered of the white wine varieties that are used mostly in Portugal. Now, get this. Touriga Nacional, Aragonez, Tinta Roriz, Tinta Nera, and Alicante Bouschet. These are the red varieties that are used most often in Portugal.

Now, I said the word Tempranillo, then I said the word out of Aragonez, then I said the word Tinta Roriz. They are all the same grape. In Alentejo, which we’ll talk about, they call Tempranillo Aragonez. In the Douro, which we’ll talk about, they call Tempranillo Tinta Roriz. As you can tell, besides Tempranillo, what you’ve heard of especially if you’ve listened to this podcast, these other varieties are native to the Iberian Peninsula and specifically to Portugal. Even though the country is planting varieties like Syrah, Chardonnay, and Sauvignon Blanc, those aren’t important. What’s important about Portugal are the native varieties and the blends they make from these native varieties and what you can enjoy on the American market. The majority of the wines coming from Portugal are going to be blends of some of these varieties.

Although you’ll hear people in the industry, probably sommeliers or representatives of certain areas in Portugal, there’s a lot of talk about the smaller regions, but there’s not enough of it on the American market for everyone to enjoy. What I’m going to do today is talk about four specific areas in Portugal that you’re going to find in the American market to get yourself comfortable with these wines. As the new regions come into our country, onto our market, you’ll be hip to what’s already on the shelves.

I’m going to talk about two regions in the north, Vinho Verde, and briefly on Douro. Then. we’re going to go south and talk about a large region called Alentejo and then a new-ish region called Lisboa. Even though I’ve listed some of the most used or the most well-known varieties, red and white in Portugal, I’m going to mention new ones as we get through these four regions. Each region has its own specific variety that they play around with, in addition to the most popular variety. These are four very exciting regions that make very exciting wine that we can enjoy right now. It’s so cool.

One of the most well-known but misunderstood is a region called Vinho Verde in the absolute northwest part of Portugal in a region called the Minho, which is named after a river that runs through it. This region’s great. You’ll see Vinho Verde all over the American market. If you’ve already had it, you might say, “Oh, my gosh, it’s a little bit fizzy. Why is this white wine a little bit fizzy and it’s not a sparkling wine?” Well, that’s what’s so great about this region. The wines coming out of Vinho Verde reflect the history of the place. Here we have the Loureiro grape, and the Arinto grape but they also have a grape called Trajadura and a grape called Avesso. The sheer amount of varieties that are used in Portugal can be really dizzying, so let’s talk about the style of Vinho Verde.

If you imagine a walk-up apartment building or a brownstone building in New York City, and you were to tear that down, you would have this one urban plot of land. That’s how big a lot of the vineyards are in Vinho Verde. Not all of them but in 2011, over 129,000 of them were. The tradition was to train the vines on pergolas so that the grapevines would go above people’s heads. The idea was two things: Training the vines higher reduced the risk of fungi infecting the vines because it’s such a rainy region, and in addition to that, people could actually grow survival crops in the ground. You would have these vines up on these pergolas and then corn, cereal, or whatever they would use for their daily diet would be down in the actual ground. Traditionally, they’d bottle the wine, let it go through malolactic conversion. I don’t know if they knew what that was at the time, but the result was a crispy, very refreshing, young white wine with a little bit of fizz to it because of that conversion.

These wines are so refreshing. I don’t even know if I can explain how refreshing they are. They’re often very affordable, $8 or $9. They’re mostly white, but some are rosé these days. There are a few reds out there, but they’re all fizzy, they’re all refreshing. Start the evening with a Vinho Verde, and you’re good to go. It’s so good, but I will say they’re not all on that level. Now, this region has really been ramping up the quality. It’s all quality stuff, but they are ramping up the focus. There are nine subregions in Vinho Verde alone, and people are now making either single-variety wines or they’re focusing their blends a little bit more and honing in on the angular side of the wine, getting more structure. These are coming onto the market little by little but what you’re going to see most is good, fresh young Vinho Verde. But get ready for the other stuff because it’s already coming on to the urban markets.

Southeast of the Minho region where Vinho Verde is is the Douro. This is the famous place for Port. This is it: the Douro Valley. I’m going to talk a lot about this in the fortified wine episode. It’s famous. It’s old. This is the place that got the 1756 demarcation from the prime minister at the time. This is actually the largest mountain vineyard in the world. We’ll get into it, but the thing about this area is the red wine grapes that are used for the Port wine: Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz, Touriga Franca, Tinta Barroca, and Tinto Cão (which means red dog) and 90-plus other varieties that are approved in this area. Winemakers can use up to 30 of the 100 approved in this area, as I said before. The ones that I mentioned are the ones that are used the most. There are others, of course, but the list is so long.

The still red wines that come out of the Douro that are not Port are awesome. They’re big, they’re bold, they’re full-body. They have structure. They have deep fruit. The acidity is nice and moderate. It’s heavy, but it’s not going to overwhelm your palate too much. Where it really gets you with these red wines is the tannin. These can be very tannic, but they can also be a little bit lighter. It’s crazy. They’re all over the place. When you’re looking at the Douro in a wine shop and you see still red wine, know that it’s a blend of so many different varieties and the winemaker is blending these varieties to make his or her statement on what type of wine they want to show you from the Douro. The majority is going to be that full-bodied red, but it can change.

In the southeast of Portugal is a very large wine region called Alentejo. The majority of it is a very hot region. It can reach up to 100-plus degrees in the summer. There are also some cooler areas of Alentejo and it has about eight subregions in it. It has eight subregions in it. You may not see that a lot on the American market because winemakers in those subregions don’t always put the subregion on the label, although that’s becoming more popular, which we are going to see in the future. Now, what you’re going to see from Alentejo is very affordable, blended white wine. The cooperative energy in Alentejo is intense.

There are other winemakers around the cooperatives like everywhere else in Portugal, but almost everything we see on the market here is mostly from those cooperatives. The thing is, Alentejo wasn’t always known for wine. This is where the majority of the world gets its cork. You can look out and you see cork trees as far as the eye can see, and that’s what made Alentejo, Alentejo. But now there’s wine there. They blend most of the white wine grapes I mentioned before into their white wines. Antão Vaz, Roupeiro, Arinto, Verdelho, and Alvarinho. They’re also playing with a little bit of Viognier, which is hit or miss. The reds have Tempranillo, but here they call it Aragonez, Trincadeira, and Alicante Bouschet. Alicante Bouschet is really interesting because the flesh of that grape is actually red, and they have a unique variety here called Castelão, which they blend in. You’ll see red from Alentejo, but mostly you’re going to see white and they’re going to be awesome, they’re going to be affordable, and you’re going to love them.

Last but certainly not least is Lisboa over on the coast surrounding the city of Lisbon. There’s a lot to say about Lisboa. There are nine wine regions just in this general wine region. What’s very exciting about Lisboa is there are a lot of cooperatives around here and a lot of the wine that’s coming into Lisbon, into the cafes, are these light, fresh, almost like Vinho Verde, young, refreshing wines that are sold in these 1.3-gallon jugs they call garrafas. That’s what’s happening right now.

As time moves on, this area is going to get more and more focused because of the urban environment around it. Some of the urban environment has messed with some of these smaller regions just up and around Lisbon. In the future, we’re gonna start seeing more wine coming from there. Right now on the American market, you might see a big liter bottle of white or rosé from Lisbon. Grab it. It’s fun. It’s an afternoon.

This will get you started with Portugal and make you comfortable when you’re in a wine shop looking at the Portuguese section, knowing that the majority of the wines there are from these four regions. So enjoy, drink whatever’s there, and try to figure out what grapes are in it. Maybe they don’t tell you, but it’s OK. Just enjoy the wines. If you dig it, @VinePairKeith is my Insta. Hashtag me #Wine 101. Let’s check it out.

@VinePairKeith is my Insta. Rate and review this podcast wherever you get your podcast from. It really helps get the word out there. And now for some totally awesome credits.

“Wine 101” was produced, recorded, and edited by yours truly, Keith Beavers, at the VinePair headquarters in New York City. I want to give a big ol’ shout-out to co-founders Adam Teeter and Josh Malin for creating VinePair. And I mean, a big shout-out to Danielle Grinberg, the art director of VinePair, for creating the most awesome logo for this podcast. Also, Darbi Cicci for the theme song. Listen to this. And I want to thank the entire VinePair staff for helping me learn something new everyday. See you next week.

Ed note: This episode has been updated for length and clarity.

Published: May 13, 2021

Stift Klosterneuburg Zierfandler-Rotgipfler 2016

Thermenregion, Austria, $25

The oldest wine estate in Austria, the Klosterneuburg Monastery grows native white grapes zierfandler and rotgipfler in vineyards just south of Vienna. Some say if you like Austrian grape grüner veltliner, you’ll like rotgipfler, but one has to have tried grüner veltliner to know this.

Equal contributions from zierfandler and rotgipfler are blended together in an off-dry version of this traditional wine. The lemon-yellow wine announces itself with an audible release of carbon dioxide upon unscrewing its cap. Peach and lime dominate the delicately creamy palate, where a hint of fizz can be detected. The finish exhibits almond and spicy white pepper notes and ends with a salty smack.

Don’t let the tongue-twisting name prevent you from enjoying this little gem, which is capable of aging in your cellar long enough to learn how to pronounce it.

Pair it with: dumplings in cream sauce, medium-spicy Asian dishes, and Viennese fish fillets.

Jonathan Edwards Primitivo Rosé 2019

Lodi, California, $25

With cool temperatures and a short growing season, Connecticut’s climate presents some challenges to winegrowing. Known for their bicoastal approach to winemaking, Jonathan Edwards Winery hedges its bets by fermenting grapes for some of its wines on the West Coast before bringing the wine to North Stonington for aging and bottling.

This rosé’s primitivo grapes (genetic relatives of zinfandel) produce a wine of stunning luminescent copper with peach-fuzz pink highlights. The nose is an explosion of ripe, red fruits with a subtle undercurrent of macchia. The fruit becomes predominantly cranberry on the palate, where primitivo’s trademark bitterness combines with just the right amount of tartness. Juicy, lingering finish.

Big, juicy and with a bit of grip, this flavorful wine is “summer water” on steroids.

Pair it with: creamy burrata cheese with tomatoes and basil, stuffed mussels, or chicken rillette with crusty bread.

Elena Walch Lagrein 2019

Trentino-Alto Adige, Italy, $18

When architect Elena Walch married into a venerable Alto Adige wine family, she brought her modern philosophy with her. Fifth-generation daughters now share responsibility for this family winery. The ancient Lagrein grape, the most significant red in a white-dominated area, flourishes here in the cool Northeast Italy climate, producing intensely hued, food-friendly wines.

This bold wine is a deeply saturated, tongue-coating (literally!) violet purple. Dark red berries abound on the nose, peppered with hints of spice-laden chocolate. Notes of black cherry and plum bob on a sea of subtle sandalwood. Crisp acid, tannins that emerge from the background for a brief solo on the finish, and a full body make this an excellent candidate for pairing. Ample yet approachable. 

This wine has the heft of a cabernet with the quaffability of a merlot.

Pair it with: pappardelle with veal ragù, cheese-topped bison burgers, or creamy polenta with roasted mushrooms.

Renée B. Allen, CSW, FWS, CSS, is a wine and spirits expert and the director of the award-winning Wine Institute of New England, which offers wine and spirits education and events. Allen is a professor at the University of New Haven, a wine competition director and judge, and can be seen on WFSB’s Better Connecticut.

This article appears in the May 2021 issue of Connecticut Magazine. You can subscribe to Connecticut Magazine here, or find the current issue on sale here. Sign up for our newsletter to get our latest and greatest content delivered right to your inbox. Have a question or comment? Email editor@connecticutmag.com. And follow us on Facebook and Instagram @connecticutmagazine and Twitter @connecticutmag.

A wine cellar is a storage room, which is full of barrels or bottles of wine that is stored for years to improve its quality and taste. Several factors such as temperature, humidity, pressure, and sunlight are maintained to protect wine from harmful external factors. When wines are properly stored, they are not only maintained in terms of quality but also their aroma, flavor, and complexity are improved. The best wine cellars are designed in such a way that it provides easy access and label visibility. The purpose of wine cellars are to find bottle quickly and without any difficulty. To make the label clear is the main intent of wine cellars.

Due to changing lifestyle and rising income level, drinking wine is being considered as a way of attaining high social status. This is expected to augment the demand for wines across the globe. This, in turn, would drive the wine cellar market during the forecast period. Wine stored in wine cellars has improved flavor. This factor is also expected to fuel the demand for wine cellar from 2018 to 2026. Advancements in technology and increasing availability of products are expected to fuel the market between 2018 and 2026. Movie theaters, bookstores, bars, and pubs along with grocers such as Kroger and Wegmans are promoting the consumption of wine.

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Increasing demand for wines of superior value has prompted vendors to adopt the strategy of premiumization, which leads to increase in the number of wine cellars across the globe. Growing knowledge of consumers about different wine varieties is making them shift toward more expensive wines. These factors are expected to propel the wine cellar market during the forecast period. Manufacturers are investing in research and development such as in 2015 La Sommelière company will provide effective protection against UV light by way of solid double doors or anti-UV treated glazed doors.

Wines are expensive in nature and they are consumed by only a section of the society, as all sections cannot afford wine. High amount of investments is required for installation of wine cellars. Wine cellars add cost to the production of wines, in terms of various overhead expenses, such as rent of storage rooms, electricity bills, and refrigerator expenditures. This is expected to hamper the wine cellar market between 2018 and 2026, as manufacturers cannot recover these costs, due to lower consumption of wine. Rising number of government rules and regulations and imposition of taxation systems regarding wine and wine cellar are hindering the wine cellar market. Availability of substitutes, such as cabinet home bars, is expected to restrict the wine cellar market from 2018 to 2026.

The wine cellar market can be segmented based on product and application. In terms of product, the market can be categorized into single-zone wine coolers, dual-zone wine coolers, built-in wine coolers, and big wine coolers. Based on application, the market can be classified into bars, restaurants, and residential.

The global wine cellar market can be segmented into five regions: North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa, and South America. North America is projected to dominate the global market in the near future, due to modernized processing methods used in the region. The market in Asia Pacific, is likely to expand rapidly during the forecast period, due to the rising number of retail wine companies in the region.

Major players operating in the global wine cellar market are Living Direct, Inc., La Sommeliere, Viking Range Corporation, The Liebherr Group, Avintage, Climadiff S.A., Sunpentown Inc., Dometic Group, Electrolux AB, and Avanti Products.

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The study strives to evaluate the current and future growth prospects, untapped avenues, factors shaping their revenue potential, and demand and consumption patterns in the global market by breaking it into region-wise assessment.

The following regional segments are covered comprehensively:

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The Canberra District is fast becoming a significant wine region in Australia, with more than 140 vineyards producing an exceptional line up of wine varieties.

Many people are aware of the bigger names, but there are a growing number of hidden gems among more than 30 cellar doors in the region. One of them is Yarrh Wines.

Yarrh Wines is located in Murrumbatemen, but it’s off the beaten track, so you have to take a little scenic drive to find it. They have a low intervention winemaking philosophy, use sustainable growing techniques and soil health is a big priority.

They revamped their cellar door, making the most of COVID-19 restrictions towards the end of 2020. I recently visited to try their Autumn Winemaker’s Sail that includes four wine tastings matched with a selection of autumn-inspired food tastings.

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READ ALSO: Five minutes with Yanina Ferreyra, Project Origin

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The Autumn Winemaker’s Sail is $30, but the price can vary with the seasons, depending on the wines included in the tasting.

(Note to self, you need to make a booking if you want to try the Winemaker’s Sail.)

As I step out of the car, the beauty and peacefulness of the vineyard with the Yass River, valley and rolling hills in the background automatically strike me. I take a moment to soak it up. As I do, I hear the sound of at least four different species of birds softly singing around me.

The sun-filled cellar door has large glass windows surrounding it to make the most of the gorgeous outdoor views. As I enter, the smiling faces of Yarrh Wines co-owner Fiona, and Kimberley, who works at the cellar door and is also a chef, meet me.

Fiona is the incredible winemaker behind Yarrh Wines. She runs the winery with her husband, Neil, who takes care of the vineyard. The pair established Yarrh Wines in 1997, planted a number of grapevines over several years and officially opened the doors to the winery in 2004.

The name itself highlights their winemaking philosophy and their connection to the land. Fiona tells me about it as I sip on the riesling, tasting floral notes and aromas of citrus blossom and apple. It’s matched with a perfectly cooked scallop wrapped in prosciutto that’s served with a garlic and citrus sauce with a crispy pastry puff.

“Yarrh is Aboriginal for running water. When Hamilton Hume and William Hovell came to the area in 1824, they referred to the area around Yass as Yarrh. Hovell recorded it in his journal and the way we spell Yarrh is the way he spelt it.

“The story is that they sent a tracker ahead to see what he could see. He came back and said I can see yarrh (running water), which is the water we take to be the Yass River that flows through our valley. So we were looking for a connection to the area, and we thought Yarrh would be a good name,” she said.

They even invited one of the Ngunnawal elders to do a Welcome to Country when they opened.

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READ ALSO: Canberra entrepreneur acquires Commercial Hotel in Yass

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As I sip on the pinot noir and tuck into the confit duck with chargrilled tomato that sits on a smear of basil sauce and balsamic, Fiona tells me how she looks after her wine through the growth phase to the making process.

“Our wines are estate grown and bottled so we do everything on site. The wines express the place we have here. They’re very easy drinking and very approachable wines.

“We make our own compost and that’s the main way we feed the vines to get the soil as healthy as it can be. The skins and stalks from the winery go back into the compost and back onto the vineyard.

“If the grapes are healthy then they’re able to produce the best wines they can. It makes it easier to make the best wines without having to make many adjustments in the winery,” she said.

Next up is the sangiovese, one of my favourite wine varieties. Fiona tells me that it’s their most popular wine, and as soon as I taste it, I understand why (I purchased a bottle on my way out).

It’s a smooth, medium-bodied wine with sour cherry and savoury notes that work well with the baked brie, caramelised onion and pomegranate coulis. Fiona explains what makes their sangiovese so special.

“We have four different clones in the vineyard. Two of the clones help provide structure and weight to the vine, and the other two clones provide more fruitiness and life to the wine. So together, the wines make a really nice, easy-drinking, fruit-driven wine with some interest and longevity.”

I finish with the hero red of the Canberra District, the shiraz.

It’s elegant and balanced with a little spice that matches nicely with the seared kangaroo fillet with sweet potato and shiraz jus.

The food was served cold and, at first, I was a little surprised, but it didn’t alter the experience and each of the creations matched the wines perfectly.

Get in quick if you want to taste the Autumn Winemaker’s Sail as the winter sail launches in early June. If you’re not up for the full wine flight or forget to book, you can choose from a trio of dips, a cheese board, or the grazing board.

Yarrh Wines is located at 440 Greenwood Rd, Murrumbateman. The cellar door is open from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm Friday to Sunday. You can find their wines online and in select independent bottle shops in Canberra and the region.

Spend enough time with a winemaker and they will inevitably let slip that winemaking is an art. This isn’t necessarily false, but it is kind of a half-truth; in reality, winemaking is the art of mathematics. This is particularly handy when building a video game based around crafting the perfect drop.

Balancing the dozens of factors that go into the creation of any given vintage—even those completely out of the winemaker’s control—takes time, knowledge, and more than a little luck. That’s why every bottle you taste, even from the same vineyard, is slightly different.

Balancing these equations is Hundred Days’—the new winemaking management game from Broken Arms Games—greatest strength. Unfortunately, it is also its greatest weakness.

Hundred Days bills itself as a winemaking simulator, an escapist fantasy in line with the tone of Stardew Valley. Opening up in a drab, cubicle laden office space, a letter from a long lost relative bestows upon you a life changing inheritance. You’re whisked off to a small Italian town, a dilapidated vineyard and a tidy sum of cash waiting for you to begin your viniculture adventure. 

You may expect to spend your time managing rows of vines and balancing tank space, but Hundred Days abstracts play out to a more approachable format. In the center of your land lies an expandable 3×3 board, while in your hand sits a variety of cards that can be played in this area. Each card rests in this area for a set number of turns before completing the required task. An in-game year is measured by 20 turns, or 5 per season. 

Take the card for fermentation, the process of converting grape sugar to alcohol, as an example. The fermentation card appears in your hand after you have completed the pressing process (squeezing the juice from the grapes). Fermentation takes time to complete—say, 2 or 3 turns depending on the variety and ABV of the wine you’re about to produce. Place the fermentation card down on the board, wait a few turns, then viola – you’ve created wine.

Of course there’s many more steps on the road from grape to bottle, so balancing out work needing to be done and when – alongside placement of cards on the board so they fit together nicely – forms the basis of your strategy. The abstraction with this mechanic helps keep things simple without forcing you to fully understand every minor detail behind wine creation, giving you time to absorb the finer points without hitting a fail state. 

It’s an elegant solution that works incredibly well. It’s a soft approach, designed as a relaxing rather than tense experience. In a pre-release interview over on Eurogamer, lead designer Yves Hohler speaks on how he didn’t just want to create a game about making wine, but aimed to also teach players about the process at the same time.

The learning curve is incredibly gentle, intuitive and rewarding all at once. It isn’t necessary to learn the optimal acid/pH balance of the soil or the ideal amount of sugar to leave unfermented in your wine. If you are interested in that detail however, it is all there in the raw numbers—alongside easier to parse translations of information, such as a 10-point scale measuring each major contributing factor that forms the basis of each variety.

It takes a ton of work creating even the most terrible wine, let alone something people want to drink! I’ve spent the better part of almost 15 years in the wine industry and even still, I was pretty vague on the steps between “blank slate of land” and “grapes sent to the crusher” before booting up Hundred Days. Within the first hour or two, thanks to the handful of characters helping you start your winemaking journey in the game’s Story Mode, that blank space was filled in better than any explanation from my manager ever was.

As far as story modes go in management games, Hundred Days’ isn’t necessarily going to win any prestigious narrative awards. Characters are more thin stereotypes than people with real motivations, whose sole purpose is to teach you the ways of the trade. The entire story arc boils down to a narrative wrap over a tutorial, a function to ease you through the basics of creating and selling your first few vintages of Barbera and Chardonnay. Still, it has its charm, while simultaneously setting a homely, welcoming tone.

It’s an achingly familiar story. Protagonist Emma is the newcomer to these parts—fresh from the city, barely knowing the difference between a white and a red. She’s brash and snarky, quick to sarcastically snap back at the genuinely wholesome Teo and the curmudgeonly oenologist Gianni. She’s from the city, and she’s going to make sure you know that.

Rapport is quickly built however, each of the characters lovable in their own ways. The villain of the story is revealed, and the game is set: the established traditionalists don’t like you – the audacity you have at the idea that you can just come from nowhere and start making wine! – and they’re willing to slander you to get what they want. It falls to you and your ragtag collection of newfound idealist friends to prove you can be just as good as them, if not better, by caring about the wine. Not like those suits who only lust after money and power.

That might come off as a little facetious, but I mean it earnestly. Who among us doesn’t derive joy from anti-corporate sentiment? It’s simple, but it adds a little low-stakes drama to the proceedings. A nudge toward caring less about the incoming and outgoing of cash, and more about creating a good bottle of wine that people can genuinely enjoy.

These initial hours spent learning the ropes are easily Hundred Days’ strongest. Aligning with the coziness of the banter and small town intrigue, the little animations of the cards you place down never fail to delight, as upbeat strings play jubilantly in the background. Even the menus are a joy to navigate—clicks have a satisfying pop to them, with a pleasing flutter accompanying every page turn of your journal.

The detail in the finer points won’t mean much to most players, but it’s impressive the lengths Broken Arm Games go to provide an accurate portrayal of the realities of winemaking. Even having spent many a shift as a literal label watcher on a wine production line—not the most glamorous job, but hey, it paid the bills—I still caught myself mesmerized by the tiny bottles making their way through the filler, corker, and labeller in Hundred Days.

The little centrifugal pumps set up next to the tanks during malolactic fermentation (wines undergoing this process need to be mixed periodically via pumping the liquid out and around the tank, ensuring an even ferment) were a personal favorite.

Once your first vintage is complete and you’ve bottled, capped and labeled your 2021 Barbera, you’ll need to spend a little time each turn selling your baby to eager customers through the wine orders menu.

They only appear as portraits next to the number of bottles they wish to buy, but I quickly became accustomed to those who returned for more of my beloved first drop. The disinterested red-head man who’d pick up over two dozen bottles every purchase; the dark haired lady with a slight smirk, who would only buy a bottle or two at a time. Unfortunately, making wine costs money—cash needs to roll back in somehow. These customers keep your business afloat. With a bit of luck and business acumen on your part, they’ll also help you expand it.

A treasure trove of upgrade trees abounds for various technologies, centered around your winery, warehouse and tool shed. By the time you finish up the story mode, you’ll barely have scratched the surface of what’s available. With maybe two of nine vineyards, a few board extensions and a few basic upgrades under your belt, there’s a wealth of expansion yet to be had.

Six different grape varieties. Different tractors built for different purposes. Various yeast strains, casks, tanks. A commercial office and shopfront, opening up new marketing opportunities, alternative income streams and, importantly, new customer bases.

Without giving away too many finer plot points, a body known as The Consortium sits as the power of the region. The head of this collective, Filippo, is far from a lover of viniculture. No, he is a businessman through and through—solely concerned with cornering the market, maintaining a tight grip over profit margins and will happily bend the rules to stay ahead.

During my career within the Australian industry, I worked across a spectrum of different companies—a business with multiple facilities all under one brand, a contract bottler, a local winery with a small cellar door for wine tasting. Each came with lessons about business, what it means to be a part of a larger industry, and what matters most to those with varying degrees of influence.

Being the budding young up-and-comer that I once was at one place of employment, I had negotiated my way into a good position with a decent salary, particularly for my age. Doing the thing that’s expected, I went to a superior and tried to talk about career advancement—I’d pushed to prove I was a model worker, management worthy.

Around the same time, I’d unknowingly committed a cardinal sin of business—pushed for underpaid workers to be compensated fairly. If you guessed I was essentially laughed out of the room when discussing my long term prospects at the company, you hit the nail on the head. Proper wages means less for the bottom line—not the type of person you want having any kind of managerial power in your ranks. 

Much like the rest of the characters in Hundred Days’ too short story mode, Filippo is somewhat of a caricature – the boogeyman of Big Business Interests in the industry, diametrically opposed to the idea of making good wine. It’s all profit, zero heart. Yes, it might be stereotypical, but in this case and from my experience, that idea doesn’t come from nowhere.

Once large enough, profit drives business strategy, while the idea of creating the best product withers. We already know this to be true of all sorts of businesses worldwide; the wine industry is most definitely not immune. And while the initial hours of Hundred Days promote a healthier alternative… neither are you.

Post-story, you’re unleashed upon the world with your basic knowledge, free to make wine as you see fit. This is a video game; the systems are there, now is the time to explore them in full.

In typical management game fashion, a few of the upgrades help smooth over some of the busywork you’ve spent a lot of time doing thus far. The aforementioned shop handles the sale of wine to customers for you; employees can be hired to take care of the vineyards. This is particularly handy when you’re juggling a few more plots with multiple wine varieties—you are here to make wine, after all. The before and after are simply less important.

The thing about growth, however, is that the higher-up your perspective and scale gets, the less the details seem to matter. You can micromanage your employees, but you’re much more likely to set and forget, resulting in less-than-stellar harvests. You’ll compensate for this with new technologies—terracing the land for a better slope, or installing an automatic irrigation system to deter the effects of drought. 

But those upgrades… there’s a lot of them. And they cost a lot of money. If you’re ever going to get there, you need to start optimizing. Producing award winning wines? Why do that when you could maximize yield at the cost of quality, which you can offset using technology, in order to create a minimum viable product (all while increasing profit margins year on year)? 

By the later stages, the loop of wine creation, raking in profit, then purchasing upgrades to make more wine had begun to feel tiresome. I’d lost track of the sales tab, so took a break to check in. 

Instead of the return customers I’d come to recognize from the early game, what I found in their place was a long list of faceless brokers—middlemen purchasing in bulk from me in order to make their own tidy profits. At the volume of wine I’d been producing, it made more sense to sell to them—I needed to sell through my stock to keep the cash flowing in.

It was then that I realized I had stopped paying attention to the wonderful animations. The lovely music was muted. I was expanding for the sake of expansion. It felt… lackluster. Like the soul of the game had been left on the vine; its heart and mine long forgotten to barrels of history.

I glanced up at the in-game date, surprised to find that it read “2042”. Several decades had passed since I’d spoken to any of the people who were there with me in the beginning. I’d focused so much on the business that I’d forgotten why I wanted to make wine in the first place.

In the final stages of my time with Hundred Days, I begin encountering the odd bug here and there. Nothing too game breaking, things I could mostly work around. Until I hit one particular snag.

My latest batches of Arneis and Barbera were ready for fermentation, but when I placed the tiles down on my board, the customization menu for how long they were to spend fermenting never materialized. As a result, instead of being on the board for 2 or 3 turns, the tiles simply read, “Turn Variable”.

Saving and reloading my game, I jumped back in to see if the glitch was fixed. In one way, it had. It would now be 2,147,483,646 turns before my wines would be ready. It was entirely unintentional, but it truly felt like the game was screaming at me for so distinctly losing my way.

I’m sure it isn’t deliberate, but it’s impossible to ignore the dichotomy between the joy of the early game versus the monotony of the latter. It’s the age old warning: learn to be better, lest you become one of us. The numbers mattered insofar as using them to create the best wine I could—abusing them left me fatigued, desensitized and alone.

As an accidental commentary on the joyless existence of big business, it turns out Hundred Days has a good acidity.