Weingut knauss ‘La Boutanche’ 2021

Drink for the weather you want, not the weather you have. Thus, in early May, amidst a hailstorm, I was jonesing for sangria.

Keeping in theme of willful defiance, I popped on a blue sundress before layering myself with a mille-feuille of scarves and stepping down the block to Mexican oasis El Cid. El Cid, however, did not share my dissent and had closed itself due to bad weather. I Morris-danced a short half-block to Webster’s Wine Bar, the oldest and most notable nature wine bar in Chicago. Bartender Jesse heard my saga and poured me a glass of Weingut Knauss’s La Boutanche.

If a sangria needn’t the extras beyond wine, you would have La Boutanche. The red trollinger grape (schiava, or vernatsch) is like eating a strawberry straight from the bush, white shoulders and green collar included. A mini-bitterness takes the place of orange rinds, and a sichuan-pepper-likeness echoes the boozy heat of sangria. Eyes closed, I could have been drinking an herbaceous, fruit-muddled cocktail.

Eyes closed, I enjoyed a brilliantly sunny day.

Imported by: Selection Massale

Region: Württemberg, Germany

Grapes: 100% Trollinger