Finally! They’re here! Ruth Lewandowski’s pure and precise zero zero wines are some of our favourite natural wines ever ever ever. We’ve been working to get these wines to Ontario for almost 5 years and it’s a dream come true that they’re finally here in tiny volumes. This is the mixed pack: one or two bottles of Cuvée Zero Zero Rosé, Feints, a red-white blend and Boaz, a super old vine complex & savoury red.

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Ruth Lewandowski, ‘Cuvée Zero-Zero Rosé’, Tinta Roriz & Souzao & Touriga Nacional, Fox Hill, CA Rosé wines can sometimes be misperceived as throwaways, less serious and/or complex than their red, white & orange counterparts, but don’t mistake the purity & focus of a great rosé for being overly simplistic or lacking in depth. Well-executed minimalism is a thousand times harder to nail than glamour or opulence, & we can’t think of a rosé that better expresses this concept than Evan Lewandowski’s. Vinified from a blend of three Portuguese red grapes grown in fellow Grapewitch Import Forlorn Hope’s Rorick Heritage Vineyard (Keepin it in the fam! We love to see it!), Tinta Roriz (AKA Tempranillo) grapes are whole cluster bladder-pressed (Wait what? Lol chill a bladder press is a cylindrical press that softly & gently presses grapes to maintain freshness & varietal character), whereas Souzao & Touriga Nacional are foot-trodden (the old-fashioned way! So romantic) prior to pressing. 2 hours of maceration on skins, 5 months of lees contact, no fining, no filtration, no sulphur. There is an uncanny directness to this wine, breathtakingly simple like how a haiku is simple— it’s a Zen rock garden, the platonic ideal of a white t-shirt, a structurally perfect red strawberry. Strawberry is the name of the game here: this rosé is like the purest essence of a strawberry distilled into a wine, more strawberry than a strawberry itself. Naturally thick Touriga skins give it a touch of cat’s tongue tannin & a delicate white tea-like texture. Medium-bodied, with an earthy mineral subplot from sandstone soils. Squeeze of blood orange, sniffing a pale pink rose. No need to overthink this one— it’s perfect fodder for a sunny Sunday, picnic in the park vibes, ideally glugged all in one go.

Ruth Lewandowski, ‘Feints’, Arneis & Dolcetto & Barbera & friends, Mendocino County, CA Feints drinks like a love letter to the Northern Italian wine region of Piemonte, a love letter written on pulpy handmade paper & written in spindly calligraphy, a love letter that the person— or wine region— who it was written for is so utterly moved by that they carry it around in their pocket with them for months— if not years! Though this blend of five Italian wine grapes (Arneis, Dolcetto, Barbera, Nebbiolo & Montepulciano) is vinified from fruit grown entirely in Mendocino, California, it speaks to everything we love best about Italian wine: it’s sprawling, romantic, & complex, with gorgeous grippy structure that transcends the otherwise light-hearted spirit of this light-bodied red. Surprisingly, the largest segment of the blend is the Arneis, which is, if you can believe this, wait for it… a white wine grape! Crisp & floral, Arneis is Piemontese for “little rascal” (cute) & keeps Feints fresh & spry. Further to this, all the grapes are co-fermented before undergoing full carbonic maceration, giving us bright, animated fruit flavours that will make your heart feel like the red balloon emoji. Unfined & unfiltered & undergoing 5 months of lees contact, Feints is very very low in sulphites with a wink of natural wine growliness. Rhubarb snap, rosewater chapstick, green tomato, red fruit granita, dancing a waltz with a ghost. Drink chilled in an extremely Great Expectations-y abandoned manor, but during the day, so it’s more whimsical than spooky. 

Ruth Lewandowski, ‘Boaz’, Carignan & Cab Sauv & Grenache, Mendocino County, CA Boaz is a blend of old vine Carignan, Grenache & Cab Sauv, which were all planted in 1912, which give off big time vibes of wisened ayahuasca cowboy hippie who’s seen it all i.e. this wine would be played by Sam Elliott in a movie. Sturdy, fiery Carignan accounts for the bulk of the three-grape blend, Grenache just kind of pokes its head in to cheer us up with some chipper gummi fruit vibes, whereas Cabernet Sauvignon pulls its classic Cab Sauv move of showing up the party & making the entire thing about itself, imparting a heap of its signature spicy graphite snarl onto Carignan’s blackberry acid dance party. Grapes are co-fermented in whole clusters, then aged in neutral oak barriques. Unfined, unfiltered, no added sulphites. Winemaker Evan Lewandowski describes this wine as being “burly” but still “focused”— that intense, almost transcendant focus is Evan’s signature. There is a lightness of being present in all Evan’s wines, which is particularly remarkable as a quality of this fuller-bodied, loosely Bordeaux-inspired red. Although it is spicy, rich & layered, it never weighs you down. Fruit flavours are dark, baked & stewed: cinnamon-spiked blackberry pie filling, charred & grilled plum. Mineral flavours are smoky & deep, leathery allspice horse saddle, cedar box of dried tobacco. Burning sage, balanced tannin, salted black cherry. Sip after sunset on a late summer evening, a delicate breeze in your hair & a big old scrappy mutt at your feet.