2018 Birichino Pétulant Naturel

Region: USA, California
Farming: Sustainable
Grape Variety: Malvasia Bianca

Dry, light bodied sparkling white; fun, fun, fun! | Keropok

Pétulant naturel is Birichino's querulous answer as to how to produce complex and delicious wines from simple methods. Without relying on the homogenising practices of disgorgement, dosage or luxe marketing budgets, their low-fi traditional méthode instead imbues each bottle with its own slightly different character-an echo writ small of the nuanced variety of expression they welcome from one vintage to the next. 

This Malvasia Bianca planted 30 years ago on a bench on the Santa Lucia side of the Salinas Valley, produces a subtly refreshing, soft and fragrant wine. It was hand bottled as it finished fermentation, allowing the fine lees to contribute richness and length to snappy floral flashes of frangipani, honeysuckle and nectarine blossom. 

Birichino was set up in 2008 by Alex Krause and John Locke. Both have years of experience in wineries across California, France and Italy. The self-declared mission of the winery is to craft minimal intervention wines that strike "perfect balance of perfume, poise, and puckishness". We feel this hits the nail on the head, as Birichino (meaning cheeky, or mischievous in Italian) certainly lives up to its name. Their wines toy with our expectations by finding expression for Italian grape varieties under the Californian sunshine.