Colombard & Aramon, Languedoc, France

A zero-zero herb-drenched & red-toned orange wine to drink at the grungy 90s rave. Winemaker Antony Tortul runs a cult natural winery in the Languedoc AND he was founded equally culty-cool Bar Brutal in Barcelona. Originally a conventional oenologist from Ariège, Antony changed tack after witnessing a devastating fertilizer factory explosion that killed 31 and injured thousands in nearby Toulouse. He moved away from the chemical industry and towards wines that were connected to the land and place, negociant project in 2008 from his dad’s garage before eventually farming grapes of his own. His wines always tend to be super expressive and more raw-edged than a story by Kathy Acker. Made from unusually animalistic colombard (82%) & aramon (12%), ‘Ouroboros’ spent 40 days on its skins in an amphora for body-body-body and now it’s nothing if not a bit of fast-finger magic! It smells like a floral red wine YET with bright acid and all sorts of stony, salty, steely minerality it would fool even the most advanced tasters for a zippy white wine. Give it a whiff and get budding berries, dramatic peonies, cruel n’ thorny roses, sumac & sorrel, barn boots, twin snakes hissing in the language only they know & a room snapping instead of clapping after the visceral poetry reading. Drink it with some soy-soaked fried rice!