Held The Bible, Lost The Mountain
TASTING NOTES: “Medium-bodied and approachable with juicy red fruit flavors, a well-defined structure, and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.” (AbV 12.5%)
VARIETALS: Pinot Noir
BARRELS: Not specified.
PAIRS WITH: Poached or grilled salmon; Mushroom risotto; Charcuterie and cured meats; Duck or roasted chicken
THAT REMINDS ME OF: Mount Fitz Roy — the peak this wine is named after, straddling the border of Chile and Argentina in Patagonia.
Robert FitzRoy, the man the mountain is named after, captained the HMS Beagle on the famous voyage that gave Charles Darwin the raw material for On the Origin of Species. Which is a genuinely wild thing to have on your résumé: “Inadvertently enabled the most consequential scientific theory of the 19th century. Also: excellent sailor.” FitzRoy’s original job on that trip wasn’t even to do science — he was there to survey the South American coastline and, separately, to have a gentleman companion at the captain’s table, because long voyages got lonely and officers didn’t fraternize with the crew. Darwin was essentially hired as a dinner guest who turned out to be good at beetles.
FitzRoy himself did not take the resulting theory well. He became a vocal critic of evolution and allegedly showed up to the 1860 Oxford debate — the one where Thomas Huxley famously dismantled Bishop Wilberforce — holding a Bible aloft and begging the audience to trust the Book over the man. It’s the kind of detail that makes history feel almost too on the nose. The guy who gave Darwin the Beagle voyage, the data, and the years of uninterrupted thinking time, then spent the rest of his life publicly opposed to the conclusions. History has a real sense of humor about these things. The mountain, at least, kept his name.
ICYMI, you have two choices:
Worried Summer heat might get to your wine before your wine gets to you? Order from this sale, the page you’re on right now, and we’ll get it to you at a cooler time of year (October)!
Want Protected Summer Shipping and don’t think heat will be a problem? Order from the sale linked here! We’ll still try to get them to you with as little travel time as we can.
Some places get absurdly hot during the Summer, and in particularly unpleasant circumstances, it can damage a wine. Most people get theirs no problem, but there are a couple each Summer that fall victim to the sun no matter how fast we get them to you. If you’ve experienced that before or are afraid it’ll happen to you, we’ll hold your order for you until October, if you order from the Summer Hold sale. We are reasonably sure things will be cooler then.
