Perhaps you caught our little vid this week on the wines of Pedro Parra? If not, glad you’re joining us Brenda! Thought we’d recap the bottles we tasted right here so you could get a little better handle on the wines.
P.S. this is as close as you’re going to get to understanding them without actually drinking them, so by now maybe you’re sensing how to bridge that gap (order the wines, Larry)?
Pedro Parra and the Itata Valley: Pedro is a jazz lover, a musician, and a student of the earth. He spent eighteen years working all over the world in wine and geology, from Barolo to Burgundy to Sicily and Rioja; he worked and learned alongside the greats, and finally felt ready to make his own wines, on the land he considers to be the most incredible terroir in Chile, the Itata Valley. Itata has low hanging clouds and rich granite soil, a prolific history of winemaking dating back to the 1500s with the Spanish grape, Mission. In 1939 an earthquake destroyed the region and in the 1940s in a viticultural investment, the Chilean government brought Cinsault and Muscat to be planted and reinvigorate the wine growing. Pedro’s style of winemaking is hands off and thoughtful, and there’s a delicacy that runs through the core of each of these wines. Think infusion rather than extraction, intuition rather than recipe, the vineyards rather than the cellar. Each of these three wines are made from old vine Cinsault that is dry-farmed; their nuanced differences come from tiny variations in soil, sun, depth and location of the vines themselves; that’s it. They are expressive and beautiful as stand alone experiences, but together, they are the song of this special place and person.
Pedro Parra y Familia “HUB” named after the Jazz trumpet player, Freddie Hubbard; red fruit, high toned, bright, crunchy and electric! This wine might be my favorite but that’d be rude to admit so disregard. The vines here grow in shallow sandy red granite and quartz, and that imparts a minerality and a fine latticework of texture and subtlety, but cheerful and without taking itself too seriously. Less than 600 bottles made!
Pedro Parra y Familia “TRANE” John Coltrane was Parra’s hero, A Love Supreme his favorite album; so this is his tribute to the man himself, and it’s a wine that is somehow bluer, richer in fruit, and less hurried to reveal itself. It dances slower, hand-rolls its marijuana cigarettes, and prefers a notebook and pencil to a laptop. It comes from shallow, pebble-y soil and you can feel that rocky texture in the wine like if you dumped an entire one of those tins of hard cassis candies from France into your mouth at once.
Pedro Parra y Familia “MONK” As in Thelonious Monk. Complex, complicated even; clay soils impart structure and texture and this wine bobs and weaves and doesn’t give it to you for free.. There’s nothing to figure out but you’re still going to be scratching your head. What should be doing instead is cooking a steak and putting on a record. This is one you’ll want to settle in with; all of the wines are Burgundian in their way, but perhaps most so, Monk.
These wines are available on their own or as a set! Once you’re on our online menu, drop down to the RED WINE category. If you have questions email us. If you love a delicate red with soul and energy, Pinot Noir, Burgundy, good music, something handmade, the analogue, a game of chess, a good read, these wines are for you.