Remember that arctic blast we had two winter ago across Long Island? That was one of the colder winters I remember here, for sure. Lots of shoveling. Lots of checking the oil so we weren’t without heat. Fun stuff.
Regan Meador, co-owner and winemaker at Southold Farm + Cellar worried about those and other things – including the health of his recently planted estate vines.
He’s in a good spot, so there wasn’t a lot of damage, but there was some, mostly centered in his syrah and goldmuskateller blocks. “Having to re-grow trunks, we let the plants regenerate and hold on to some fruit in order to keep vegetative growth in check,” Meador says on the winery’s website.
There wasn’t enough of either grape to make separate bottlings, so he did something that perhaps only he’d do: picked and fermented them together, bottling the wine before it hadn’t quite completed fermentation, capturing some carbonation in the bottle. He made petillant naturel – or pet nat for short.
He named it “You Pretty Things” and the frothy dark pink wine is a beauty.
There are floral and tropical notes here (likely from the goldmuskateller – and Italian variety you may know as Moscato Giallo or Yellow Muscat) with the type of berried fruit and slight spice you’d expect from a syrah-based wine. It’s more frothy than fully carbonated (at least now – it will change over time) and its way too easy to drink. I opened a bottle intending to enjoy it with my wife with a casual dinner of grilled fare – but it was gone before we were even done cooking.
Southold Farm + Cellar’s tasting room won’t open this summer, but you can order this wine at southoldfarmandcellar.com and buy it at the Friday farmer’s market at North Fork Table & Inn. It retails for $25.
