Ooooh love a winery with a cheeky name, plus a history that also tastes fabulous and hey! is made by a woman.
In the last few years, my hope for women in the wine industry has grown greatly. In Los Angeles I’m surrounded by amazing women who are bosses at whatever they do in the industry and Get Respect. Despite having felt the need to pen this article about my experiences as a woman in wine, I felt like times they were a-changing. I crave those female-led enterprises.
And then of course I went to a big Pennfold’s tasting on the arm of a male friend, and every single new person we talked to (male and female) was eager to get his attention (he’s the beverage director for a restaurant group) and I got condescending smiles–like they didn’t even think I possibly could be a wine person. Maybe they thought I was the wife? Which I’m not, and even if I was that wouldn’t rule out me being in the industry. Incidentally, his wife is a one of the best tasters I know even thought she doesn’t work in wine. Anyway.
Later that night at another venue, we met the aforementioned super taster he’s lucky enough to be married to, at Wally’s, which employs women…and oh my oh my CAN IT EVER be the breeding ground for toxic vinous masculinity. The three of us were being blind-tasted by our section’s somm (also a friend of my male friend) and I called it a Chablis (aka Chardonnay from Burgundy), and said several times it seemed really reduced, and he ignored the shit out of me. Then mansplained that it was Puligny-Montrachet (ALSO Chardonnay from Burgundy) and that it was “reductive” as if I didn’t at least get the grape and region at large correct. Maybe technically reduced was the wrong way to say it was reductive?
But pretty sure he literally didn’t register that I existed the whole time. So.
GRRRRR.
Anyway. Let’s lighten this up and get to today’s gem: No Girls, which is all about the ladies, and makes this stellar Tempranillo. They have a woman winemaker by the name of Elizabeth Bourcier. The winery got its name for the building the owner bought in Walla Walla which had once been a bordello. At the top of the staircase “NO GIRLS” had been spray painted in the 1960’s, perhaps signifying women finding their power outside the hands of men…at any rate all I can tell you is they make good wine. I had the Grenache on my podcast awhile back, and I saved this bottle for…
OH HEY! It’s Tempranillo Day. Yay again.
Beyond mentioning it is tasty AF FTW here are some tasting notes yay yet again.
No Girls Tempranillo 2018
Deeply hued and murky. Smells of auburn fruit leather and damp earth, plus baking spices, from cloves to nutmeg, with a finish (can a smell have a finish? I say it can) that is saline. Dry dry dry as can be. The silkiest medium tannins you could hope to find partnered with a full but silk-tastic body. Still with prunes/dates/mud palate but augmented by even more potpourri and a certain tartness, like sour cherries that have been dried and rehydrated. yup. And the finish is…Montenegro amaro? Crazy. In my mind it conjured a mincemeat pie that had undergone just a soupçon of smoking, if I am being honest and I am.
I want to wear this wine by a fireside. And also? Fuck the patriarchy.
Yay.
Scrumptious Gruel 