Strekov 1075 Vavrinec
Varietal: Svätovavrinecké (St.Laurent)
Region: Slovakia
Year: 2014
Price: ~$25
Importer: Jenny & François Selections
I first met the Vavrinec in May, and it was love at first pour. And I poured, and I poured, and I poured. What was meant to be a wine review turned into a whirlwind romance; fast, lusty, effortless. It was everything I loved in a wine-- light and bright with crunchy, tart red fruit, floral wisps, and dashes of salt. Gamay who? This Svätovavrinecké was a most delicious wine, and I devoured it passionately without a thought of consequence. I watched the bottle slowly empty like watching the sun inevitably rise from the depths of a night you never want to end. But those nights, those bottles, those romances always end as swiftly as they started.
And the next day I was left without Vavrinec, and without a review.
It's not uncommon for me to finish a bottle before I finish writing about it. Often I'm sharing the bottle with Ben, or I simply need more time to think about it. This usually isn't a problem because usually I can just go buy another bottle. Except this was a huge problem. Those consequences I ignored while blissfully glugging the Vavrinec? They were that the wine was gone and no one fucking carried Strekov 1075 in Los Angeles. And it was a 2014 vintage. I was madly in love, and totally fucked.
BUT I HAD TO WRITE ABOUT THIS WINE. HAD TO. After calling everyone I knew trying to track it down, I finally broke and shamelessly begged my friend Phil Sareil of Jenny & François Selections,* who gifted me the bottle, for another. There was only one case left, and Phil, sensing my deep thirst (on so many levels), generously sent me another bottle from New York.
After a month & a half, tonight I pulled that bottle out of my fridge. I was nervous. What if things weren't the same? What if it was weird? What if I wasn't really in love? What if it was only meant to be one magical night between me and the Vavrinec, never to be had again?
I poured it slowly, brought it to my lips, and took a small, deliberate sip.
And it tasted as though we had never parted.
It was like hearing a favorite song; familiar but just as moving as the first time time you heard it. The acidity is like an electric guitar pumped through a twangy pedal, both strikingly energetic and dreamy. It keeps the wine moving as idyllic, sour summer berries and perfumed flowers softly float along as the melody.
The difference was I knew the song was going to end this time, for good. No rewinds, no repeats. This would be my last dance with Strekov 1075's 2014 Vavrinec. And while it tasted just as beautiful as I remembered, it broke my heart knowing I would never have this wine again.
The magic of wine is also its misery. The variations from vintage to vintage are what keeps it interesting and endlessly enchanting. But they are fleeting; it's that one night, it's that one cologne mixed with the oils on that one neck, it's that one year of grapes in a bottle.
But as they say,
It's better to have drunk and lost than never drunk at all.
Or something like that.
Who the fuck knows,
I hate the participles of "drink,"
and am just drunk enough not to care.
Tasting Notes: Looks like unpolished garnets in the sun. Sour blackberries, cherry blossoms and almonds on the nose. Tastes like salted raspberry fireworks over a farm on the Fourth of July, exploding with acidity, and glittering with rhubarb, cherry, and barely budding, super green, red roses. So juicy and fresh, with a pleasantly tart and herbaceous finish. It is fun and flirty, but also a balancing act of grit and grace. One of the true loves of my wine life.
Ross Test: Like something I dreamed into life [weeps].
*Full Transparency: Yes, this wine was gifted to me from Phil from Jenny & François Selections, but was not in trade for a review. Just wine buds sharing wine!
