(Ed. Note: Wine and Food Editor recently moved to Los Angeles, taking a brief hiatus from Embury. We are delighted to have him back in the mix.) The Santa Anas are blowing here in Los Angeles, where the wine landscape looks a bit different than it did in New York. I feel somewhat obliged, not to mention aesthetically curious, to drink what is now the 'local' wine. But proportionally speaking, I meet fewer New World wines that I like. On the whole they just don't seem to be as dirty as the bottles from the Old World. Candidus, a North Coast white from Malm Cellars in Healdsburg, is one of the exceptions that proves the rule. Apparently Mr. Malm distributes the wine himself, selling the wine out of his truck to stores.
This unknown blend of white grapes is big and burly and dirty, and it's sealed with red wax. The wax crumbles and gets all over the place, but maybe it adds to the dirtiness I like so much. At just shy of 15% alcohol, Candidus is a bruiser; the people at Colorado Wine Company, where I first bought it, described it as 'off-dry.' I don't know that I'd go that far, but it's certainly not your crisp, zingy sipper. That said, I've found that Candidus goes quite well with a wide range of food. Plus, it gets you drunk about 25% percent faster than your average nimble muscadet. Its slightly sweet front allows it to accommodate spicy food––there's a lot of that in Los Angeles. But it's the intriguingly dirty, almost muddy, character beneath the sweetness that makes this stuff compelling. $15 at Colorado Wine Company and Silverlake Wine. Stuart Krimko.
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