Bitter Pops® Birichino Malvasia Bianca Monterey California 750ml – 8761313427700

Alex Krause and John Locke founded Birichino in Santa Cruz in 2008. Drawing on a combined four decades making wine in California, France, Italy, and beyond, they are focused on attaining the perfect balance of perfume, poise, and puckishness. Sourcing from a number of carefully farmed, family-owned, own-rooted 19th and early 20th century vineyards (and a few from the late disco era) planted by and large in more moderate, marine-influenced climates, their preoccupation is to safeguard the quality and vibrance of their raw materials. They prefer minimal intervention in the cellar, employing native fermentations, stainless or neutral barrels, minimal racking and fining, and avoiding filtration altogether when possible so that the distinctive qualities of the sites with which they are lucky to work is highlighted. But most critically, their aim is to make delicious wines that give pleasure, revitalize, and revive. 

“Rounded aromas of pear, bright citrus and jasmine make for a floral nose on this bottling. The palate dries up very quickly, with orange blossom and plumeria flavors that persist as the moisture wicks away. Serve with ceviche, raw scallops and all sorts of sushi.” — Matt Kettmann

Among the myriad wines which constitute BirichinoLand,
few are as consistent year to year as Malvasia Bianca for the
simple reason that the wine’s character is dominated by its own
badass, baroque Malvasianess, rather than dramatic variations
in vintage conditions. That being said, a distinctly Alsatian
quality swirls about the 2022, recalling the fine, elegant qualities
we might associate with Riesling more so than the rococo,
Muscatini stylings of most vintages. And this, without a single
change in our proprietary, some might say, Goldbergian vinification,
the elements of which may or may not include: night
harvesting by machine (in most vintages) at our express direction,
a dozen hours skin-contact prior to pressing to allow for
maximum aromatic potential; a bifurcated pressing regime
which yields elegant light press, and psychedelic hard press
fractions; our only employment of cultured yeast from an isolate
first sourced in a Burgundian vineyard whose particular magic
charm is that through natural enzymatic activity it unbinds otherwise
bound terpenes, rendering them aromatically available;
and a low and slow fermentation lasting roughly three months in
steel. These factors combine to allow Malvasia to take off like a
rocket ship from launch pad 11, slip the surly bonds of Natural
Wine, and touch the face of God.

https://www.birichino.com/