Grifone | Sangiovese

Variety/Blend: Sangiovese
Vintage: 2015
Alcohol: 12.5%
Region: Puglia, Italy
Recommended Pairing: 20-year-old flannel with an alcohol stain

One time when I was a kid, I fell out of my grandma’s crabapple tree, and I landed in a layer of crabapple mush. This wine is what my hands smelled like after that for about a week.

In terms of actual tasting notes, this wine has an almost dusty quality to it, like you’re walking through a forest in Georgia and some Spanish moss gently brushes your face. You panic at first because you know that popular Southern mythology says Spanish moss is where the spirits of the dead live. A ghost basically just molested your face. In the chaos, you accidentally get some on your tongue, and you know what? It’s not that bad.

You take a step back and glance up, only to make another realization: it wasn’t Spanish moss at all. It was the unusually long beard of a homeless man who lives in the trees. He apologizes. Maybe he uses a beard wax that just smells really good. Yeah, that has to be it.

You’re glad that it wasn’t a ghost, but this is somehow worse.