£15, The Daily Drinker
The repository for so many intriguing wines, The Daily Drinker, has come up trumps again with its featured winter wines. I was looking for a white for this week and was torn between this and the Bulgarian Misket Cherven (no relation to any Muscat), but the Pinela is so unusual it's irresistible.
It's an old Slovenian variety that may or may not be the same as neighbouring Friuli's Pinella (with a double 'l') and the wine is biodynamic, fermented spontaneously with natural yeasts, aged for six months on its lees and bottled unfiltered with minimum sulphur. The man behind it is Guerila winery owner Zmago Petric.
It's a dry wine, the colour of straw, with aromas of dried flowers, candied peel, yellow plum, white pepper and ginger. The palate is rich, almost oily in texture, but with a satisfying chewiness, a blade of grapefruity acidity and flavours of apricot and spice as well as echoes of the aromas. It can be enjoyed without food (it's almost a meal in itself), but there's so much to it that it takes food in its stride, including spices such as cumin, cardamom and caraway. I enjoyed it with stuffed capon, roast, spiced potimarron (red kuri squash) and caramelised endive, and a pie made with the leftover capon. It would also be good with other roast vegetables, pork, salmon koulibiac or meaty fish such as swordfish. 13%
Guerila Pinela 2018, Vipavska Dolina, Slovenia
£15, The Daily Drinker