From the department of “problems come and go but the sunshine seems to stay”…

You can’t imagine my joy when an old friend from New York, Kevin Russell, wrote me a few weeks ago to let me know that the company he works for, Vine Collective, is importing the wines of Dario Prinčič.

I’m a huge fan of the wines and try to taste them every time I go to Italy (here are some posts on the wines).

As far as I know, the wines had never been available in the U.S. before. Back in 2008, when I asked Dario if he planned to sell the American market, he said that his Japanese importer was already buying up his entire export allocation. I’m not sure why that’s changed but I’m entirely geeked to know that I’ll be able to find them in our country’s more liberal wine markets.

The wines are not available in Texas and, as you know if you follow my blog at the Houston Press, it’s illegal for New York retailers to ship wines to end users in the state where I live.

So Kevin kindly offered to ship me a few sample bottles (along with a few other labels that I’ll review in coming weeks).

I’d never tasted Dario’s Ribolla Gialla and I was thrilled to discover how light in body it was and how low in alcohol (12.5%).

As much as I am fan of the other Oslavia (Oslavje) producers of skin-contact wine, I’ve found that the wines can been intensely tannic and often too muscular in their youth.

This wine was moderately tannic but its lightness and its balance of astringent flavors and ripe stone fruit seemed to capture my mood and the vibrations I was feeling. It made me think of the Gil-Scott Heron song, “A Lovely Day.”

Yesterday was such a lovely, cool day here in Austin and after I finished doing the taxes (an unavoidable and tedious chore that I loathe), Georgia P, Tracie P, and I spent the afternoon playing and just doing silly stuff.

After we put Georgia to bed, we opened the bottle of Ribolla and its balance of fruit, savory, sweetness, and tannin made me think of a line from the song that I love so much… the problems come and go/but the sunshine seems to stay…

It’s such a special time in our lives (Tracie P is about twenty weeks) and whenever those shadows dark and gloomy come a-calling, I can hear the vibrations saying, “Hold on, brother, just you be strong”.

The flowers woke up bloomin’
And put on a color show just for me
The shadows dark and gloomy
I told them all to keep the hell away from me
Because I don’t feel like believin’ everything I do gon’ turn out wrong
When vibrations I’m receiving say
“Hold on, brother, just you be strong”

Yes and all I really wanna say
Is that the problems come and go,
But the sunshine seems to stay

You can read about Dario Prinčič here and here.

Thanks for reading and buona giornata a tutti, happy Monday yall!