Devenish Wines, Portland, ME (2025)

12/15/2025

The cavern on the face of Sveti Nikola, on the island of Hvar

12/15/2025

Langoureau Saint Aubin 1er Cru ‘Les Frionnes’ 2024!

Available at Pulling Corks, Lilly Lupine and Fern, and Aragosta

Les Frionnes is one of the coldest 1er cru vineyards in Saint Aubin. It’s a southeast facing 3 hectare vineyard that makes serious wines with a bit more structure and less dominated by ripe fruit.

I fell in love with Sylvain Langoureau's wines over 20 years ago and I've followed him ever since. These are some of the best white Burgundies I've ever had.

12/13/2025

Zlatan Otok Plavac Hvar 2021!

100% Plavac Mali from the steep vineyards on the side of Sveti Nikolas on Hvar. These are the vines in the pictures here. Small, wind swept, resilient and struggling. The vineyards are rocky, steep, dry, and face south looking towards the dominating sun. Yields are 1/2 a kilo per vine, the farming is natural and very hands off as there’s just no moisture here to worry about. The grapes are hand harvested, destemmed, fermentation is with native yeast in stainless steel temperature controlled fermenters for about 2 weeks and then the fermenting wine spends a third week in large oak fermenters. The wine is taken off the skins and spends a year in 4000-8000L Slavonian and French oak casks. This is a gorgeous Mediterranean red with layers of complexity. It’s mature and delicious and reminds me of aged Tuscan Sangiovese a la Brunello di Montalcino.

Aroma: bright fresh tart red cherry, fresh red raspberry, beautiful dried red cherry, dried rosemary, an oregano. a bit of very ripe fig…It has a lovely floral component of lilac but then also savory aromas of cumin and coriander! It's very pretty, integrated, inviting, and complex. It smells viscerally like the very sunny dry intense environment and aromatic Mediterranean plants that it came from.

Taste: great beautiful fresh red cherry and some raspberry lead off. There's The fruit up front is surprisingly lively with nice acidity here, then the mid palate becomes deeper, bolder, more expansive. There's delicious savory minerality: this tasty subtle saltiness underpinning the mid palate that helps support the fruit. A subtle cocoa kind of flavor comes in that makes me think of a mole sauce, deeper cooked or dried cherry or even chocolate covered cherry!

Zlatan Otok was founded by a humble fisherman on the island of Hvar: Zlatan Plenkovic decided in 1991 to build a winery, restore abandoned terraces on the side of the mountain Sveti Nikolas, and start convincing local farmers to sell him their grapes. That’s right: communism was only a few months gone and a civil war was kicking off, but this guy decides to start building a winery! I wish I’d gotten to meet him.

12/12/2025

Olive oil from my friend Chafic Maalouf!

Available at Sheepscot General, Maine Meat, Great Cranberry General, Rosemont, Vessel and Vine, Blue Hill Wine Shop, and Now You're Cooking

Chafic is from the Koura valley up in the mountains of Lebanon. Long ago he emigrated to the US to get his family away from the civil war, but he still maintains Lebanese citizenship as well, owns his old family vineyards, travels back regularly to tend the trees, and then exports the oil to him self in the US and distributes it. It’s an amazing operation. In addition to oil he brings in other Lebanese products in an attempt to do what he can to support the regular people still in the country just trying to get by despite the sectarian conflict, dysfunctional government, and wars between Israel and Hezbollah.

This is excellent olive oil that’s smooth and creamy. It’s not super citrusy or grassy but it’s very clean and a bit buttery. It’s great for cooking and the volume price for it is a great deal. The trees are naturally farmed and the oil is totally un-adulterated. Chafic is there at every step of the process and this is straight unfiltered real olive oil: something that’s tricky to find at this price.

12/12/2025

Up on the Mountain Sveti Nikola on the Island of Hvar, about to run down through the Zlatan Otok vineyards

12/12/2025

Zlatan Otok White Cuvee 2023! Sunny minerally white blend from the island of Hvar on the Dalmatian coast!

Available at The Blue Hill Wine Shop, Round Pond Cheese Co, Phoenix Fine Wines, Salsbury Organics, Smalls, and Grippy Tannins

Equal parts Bogdanusa, Marastina, Prc, and Posip, this white is a bit denser than the Bilo Idro white. The grapes are still a blend of fruit from Hvar with fruit from Markarska, but the wine ages longer and has a touch more skin contact. It feels a bit more developed and complex with a bit more mineral structure to carry it along. Unlike some of the other wines this is fermented with added neutral yeasts.

12/10/2025

Zlatan Otok Crljenak 2020!

Crljenak is an indigenous grape grown here on the Dalmatian coast that after extensive genetic testing by Professor Carole Meredith was proven to be genetically identical to Zinfandel and Italian Primitivo. Further testing established that the clones in Dalmatia are older and that the grape variety most likely originated here. So here we have Zinfandel from Dalmatia! These are old vines on a steep mountainside vineyard in Markarska. The land is very similar to the vineyards on Hvar: steep south facing slopes dominated by limestone rock that reflects heat at the vines. The grapes are hand harvested, destemmed, ferment with native yeast for about 2 weeks in temperature controlled stainless steel before spending a further week on the skins fermenting in oak casks. Then the wine is removed from the skins and it spends a year aging in a mix of large old oak vats.

12/09/2025

Zlatan Otok Plavac Hvar 2021!

100% Plavac Mali from the steep vineyards on the side of Sveti Nikolas on Hvar. These are the vines in the pictures here. Small, wind swept, resilient and struggling. The vineyards are rocky, steep, dry, and face south looking towards the dominating sun. Yields are 1/2 a kilo per vine, the farming is natural and very hands off as there’s just no moisture here to worry about. The grapes are hand harvested, destemmed, fermentation is with native yeast in stainless steel temperature controlled fermenters for about 2 weeks and then the fermenting wine spends a third week in large oak fermenters. The wine is taken off the skins and spends a year in 4000-8000L Slavonian and French oak casks. This is a gorgeous Mediterranean red with layers of complexity. It’s mature and delicious and reminds me of aged Tuscan Sangiovese a la Brunello di Montalcino.

Aroma: bright fresh tart red cherry, fresh red raspberry, beautiful dried red cherry, dried rosemary, an oregano. a bit of very ripe fig…It has a lovely floral component of lilac but then also savory aromas of cumin and coriander! It's very pretty, integrated, inviting, and complex. It smells viscerally like the very sunny dry intense environment and aromatic Mediterranean plants that it came from.

Taste: great beautiful fresh red cherry and some raspberry lead off. There's The fruit up front is surprisingly lively with nice acidity here, then the mid palate becomes deeper, bolder, more expansive. There's delicious savory minerality: this tasty subtle saltiness underpinning the mid palate that helps support the fruit. A subtle cocoa kind of flavor comes in that makes me think of a mole sauce, deeper cooked or dried cherry or even chocolate covered cherry!

Zlatan Otok was founded by a humble fisherman on the island of Hvar: Zlatan Plenkovic decided in 1991 to build a winery, restore abandoned terraces on the side of the mountain Sveti Nikolas, and start convincing local farmers to sell him their grapes. That’s right: communism was only a few months gone and a civil war was kicking off, but this guy decides to start building a winery! I wish I’d gotten to meet him.

12/09/2025

This June I visited Zlatan Otok on the island of Hvar, explored and ancient Agustine refuge in a cave, and ran down a ridiculously steep mountain! These are some of the most extreme vineyards I've seen!

12/07/2025

La Palazetta 'FlaVino' Toscana Rosso IGT 2024

Available at Bandaloop, Riverside Butcher, New Morning, Vessel & Vine, and Tinder Hearth

Flavino is a fruit driven Sangiovese made from younger 5-15 year old vines on their property. The grapes are hand harvested and then it ferments spontaneously in stainless steel tanks. The wine has about 8 months of barrel aging and then a month in concrete to relax and integrate together. Luca is making this to be fresh and accessible and straightforward Sangiovese.

Luca’s father Flavio (nickname Flavino since his grandfather was also Flavio) inherited the farm in 1984. They were growing grapes but also had cows, sheep, and made cheese. Flavino decided to start phasing out the animals in favor of wine and while they were bottling wine earlier he got certified to produce Brunello in the mid 80s and 1988 was their first official release. They have 16 hectares broken up into 4 different distinct parcels, all within sight of the winery, but facing different directions and with very different soils in each. All the vineyards and the wine it produces is declared and produced as Brunello, but then Luca will make selections of the barrels and decide what to release early as Rosso or IGT.

12/05/2025

Conestabile della Staffa Pino! Yes, Pinot Noir from Umbria and it rocks! Available at Monte's Fine Foods and the Abbey

Back in the 1950s there was a push to plant Pinot Noir in Umbria. So clones were brought in from Burgundy and vineyards were planted… but the world moved on and most vineyards were replanted. Danilo read about this and started looking for some of these old vines. The clones that had been planted have since been mostly abandoned in Burgundy so Danilo was particularly interested. About 5 years ago he found and old farmer who had some of these old vines! The farmer swore up and down that it was “Nero Buono” (good dark grapes). Danilo said ok sir, but may I have some cuttings the next time you prune? Danilo got the cuttings, grafted them at Conestabile della Staffa, and now 5 years later the vines are finally producing enough grapes that he bottled it for the first time! So this is the first ever Pinot Noir from Conestabile della Staffa. 10 cases came into the country! I bought all that was left (81 bottles) as I was tasting it with him because this is delicious!

Aroma: deep red concentrated cherry with a touch of cooked cranberry, a little whiff of spruce tips in the spring, and a bit of concentrated raspberry. This has an attractive and concentrated fruit driven aroma but it's not just a one-trick pony; there are some subtle background heady aromatic herbal aromas too, particularly fresh thyme. The precision and poise of the fruit flavors makes me think of Pinot Noir but some of the actual flavors are very much Central Italy

Taste: vibrant concentrated raspberry, some strawberry, then strawberry candy; the fruit is supple and lovely and Pinot Noir but then there's an underlying structure to the wine that is more focused and rocky than I associate with Pinot. It has a stiffer more mineraly backbone. The finish of the wine has a heady hibiscus pomegranate kind of flavor to it. High toned and ethereal seeming thanks to subtle lingering tannin this is a lovely and expressive wine!

12/04/2025

Paterna Vignanova! This is peak Sangiovese (and Colorino+Canaiolo).

Find this at Solo Italiano, Havana, and the Blue Hill Wine Shop

90% Sangiovese and 10% Canaiolo and Colorino. Only made in the best vintages and they only make 1 barrel. The wine rests in barrel for 24 months.

I visited back in 2017 and it was an incredibly peaceful lovely place that felt like stepping back in time. They grow their own wheat and mill it to make flour and bake their own bread. That’s what this place is about. Wine is the one thing they do that actually makes money and can pay the taxes.

Paterna makes great wines, but the top is called Vignanova. They only make Vignanova in the best vintages and they only ever make 1 barrel. It’s 90% Sangiovese and 10% Canaiolo and Colorino. I can’t ever get much but I always buy what I can because it’s so damn good. Right now Devenish actually has 2019 and 2021 on hand. If you like Tuscan Sangiovese, if you like Brunello and Vino Nobile: you’ll love this.

Devenish Wines

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