Field Blend, Alto Adige, Italy 

Kissing the Austrian border in the tiny town of Bolzano, Weingut Nusserhof has been making moving alpine wines since 1788. The current generation Heinrich and Elda Mayr organically farm the 2.4 hectares of prized local grapes around their home. Speaking of local grapes, meet one of our forever favourite Italian light reds, Schiava. Schiava tastes like Timothée Chalamet’s plunging-back red number (if you can’t instantly picture, google): lean, sassy and impossible to forget. Think all the red fruit (check), but also complex and savoury (especially in wines made for aging, like this one!). ’Elda’ is 85% Schiava & 15% OTHER! From a steep, certified-organic hillside plot of 90 year old (!) vines on mineral-imparting, crystal-rich volcanic soils. There are other vines mixed here, some lagrein (another fave regional Italian red) and merlot, with the rest (including white and red), not identified at all ~ sign us up and call us Watson! *but Lucy Liu’s ‘Watson’ circa 2012*. The fruit is manually harvested together, destemmed and co-fermented with local yeasts. So often the most thrilling wines have this mystery element and we’re all for it. Maceration lasts from 4-6 weeks to extract meaningful tannins before aging in French oak for 20 months, and then left for up to two more years in bottle before release! Simply a perfect glass. Flowering bramble, black currant jam, chewed leather, cedar wood smoke, blonde roast coffee, binding tannins & teeny tiny wild strawberries. Pour alongside a beetroot salad avec Quebec goat cheese.