"Tai Rosso" Rezzadore, 2007

Spring. No other time of year is as confusing as spring. First the air warms up, flowers bud, birds get territorial, jeans become shorts, jackets are flung into closets... and then it all gets rewound by the somehow-always-freezing Sundays of April and May. This past weekend was like that, beautiful Friday, cold Sunday. Everybody became confused and hostile, in need of something reliably comforting, something to pair with grilled Italian sausages or drink on its own.

Enter the 2007 "Tai Rosso," an Italian Grenache from the Veneto region, produced by Rezzadore and imported by a small company out of New Jersey (great guys, met them at a local tasting last spring, when it was too cold to be outside... interesting). A wine with gusto. A wine with spark. A wine with a nice red ruby color in the glass, hinting at tangerine, and then a veritable A-Team of aromas: tart cherries, cranberries, fresh-picked strawberries, hints of orange peel, loam... each time I open a bottle, I get a different set. These wonderfully rich aromas are followed by a bright mouthfeel, with acidity doing its two-step on the tongue while the fruit lingers with some soft tannins at the medium finish. $12. That is right, friends. $12. Buy a case.