My Wine of the Month for August

(Or: the Chardonnay that made coming home bearable)

Aug 01, 2024

For those subscribers who don’t know me in real life, I’m an Amsterdammer. I was one of those Erasmus students who never went home, and for whom home became not the place I was born but the place I felt like I fitted in. For many years out of the last 20 in Amsterdam, it was a love affair. But like in every long-term relationship, boredom and frustrations start to creep in. Post-covid, having been unable to travel for a year, Amsterdam felt stale and I felt stuck. Since then, I’ve become a digital nomad – spending four or five months of each year abroad. In 2024 alone, I’ve lived among the vineyards of the Douro Valley, the Medieval spires of Tallinn and the white sands of Sardinia.

And each year, coming home has gotten harder. As a person whose moods oscillate wildly between creative productivity and anxious OCD list-making, the endless newness of travel has become addictive. The energy that it takes me to navigate unfamiliar streets, read the labels in the grocery store in another language, and research all the local food and wine I plan to consume (and then write about) while I’m there seems to give my overactive brain an outlet. The thrill of the new is what quiets an anxious mind.

I’d known for months that Wednesday 31 July was the day I was due home. And as the date crept closer, I dreaded it more and more. I worried about what kind of state the renters would have left my apartment in (it’s spotless, for the record). I worried about the endless meal planning and household chores that threaten to take over the moment I walk into my own space. I worried about my tiny nomadic dog, who seems to find the noise and the smells and the crowds of tourists about as overwhelming as I do.

But amongst all the worry, there were little things I was looking forward to. My own kitchen, with its full-sized oven and dishwasher (unimaginable after five months in Airbnbs). The luxury of an Egyptian cotton pillow case. And my wine rack, which wasn’t exactly plentifully stacked when I left, but which I knew still held a few special bottles. There was only one problem: it lives right at the back of my storage room. In front of it, there were five moving boxes, a rack full of clothes, a bike and two IKEA bags full of bed linen. All of which needed to be unpacked and moved back into my flat before I could reach the wine.

As my dad would say, “that’ll focus the mind”. And focus I did, for the four hours it took for me to lay hands on a bottle of what (yes, I’m just going to say it) is my absolute favourite Chardonnay. I’d initially tasted it last winter in a bar called Bellini, and tracked it down the next day so I could buy a case. From the first sip, it was the platonic ideal of Chardonnay – the purest expression of this most versatile of grapes.

Which is perhaps why it’s called “Puro” and why it comes in a clear glass bottle rather than the usual olive green. Roberto Sarotto’s Puro Chardonnay comes from Piedmonte in the northwest of Italy, which isn’t somewhere I’d traditionally associate with the grape variety. Then again, the cool climate and mountain fogs are probably what gives the wine its bright acidity, while the relatively late harvesting of the grapes (towards the end of September) ensures its lusciously full body.

Puro’s flavours are on the tropical end of the spectrum – think pineapple, lychee and papaya – although juicy Golden Delicious apples also come through. Six months in oak barrels translates into smooth vanilla and well-browned toast, while there’s a tang of clotted cream. It’s elegant yet approachable, refined but not pretentious. In short: it’s a wine so good it’s worth coming home for.

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This post was a bit more personal in nature (I’m still experimenting over here!) but those I wrote over the last two weeks provided much more practical information about some of Europe’s most famous wines and what you’re actually drinking when you buy them (both in the Archive). As always, I’d love to get your feedback about what you’d like to see in my Substack newsletters!

The Wine Edit by Truffles & Tannins

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