Visiting Avi
Thinking of the wines that roller skate you to Autumn
It’s the first days of autumn. Tis the turning of the seasons, something that has been on my mind lately, since I am knee deep into the book Series ‘On the Calculation of Volume’ . The book is about a woman who gets stuck living in November 16th, unable to advance the days or the seasons. In the second book of the series, she so desperately craves the turn of the seasons that she travels to find Winter. It dawned on me how much we as humans need and crave the passing of time, no matter how much we fear the end of the line. Maybe seasons are what lets us know we are advancing, for better or for worse. For me, I know the season has turned when my wine craving does. There’s a nip in the air and my tongue begins asking for something more. This is where Avi’s wines from Absentee Winery come in. In fact when autumn hits, wines from Mendocino come to mind. Cheery sunny fruit, the ability to taste the sun but via wines that are denser, fruit forward, and have more to give. California wines put you on a roller skate, and let you glide from the end of sunny summer days, to that first chill in the air that exists in the first days of Fall.
I want to share the story of my visit to see Avi. Also, he is currently available by the glass at Colonia Verde, if you want to experience this season transition on your palate. I hope you enjoy!
Visiting Avi, the man behind the Absentee Winery project had been on my bucket list for quite some time. I have been buying his very natural wines that drink unapologetically California - Luscious, fruitful and clean. Who was this guy? And how did he get away with making all natural wines that taste so damn fine and elegant? Avi was my last visit in my California wine trip, yet it had been on my mind the entire time. I had a hunch I’d end the journey with a golden stamp. I pulled up to his place of work - A huge basement close to Mendocino area yet, in no mans land. I parked the car and Avi peaked his head out. A huge, dirty leprechaun with the warmest of all smiles. We hugged as if we’d been pals for a while. We stepped inside the basement, where his barrels, his babies piled up in the back, creating a dramatic scene. For Avi, his barrels are a huge part of his story. One of the iconic things you hear about him is the way he treats the wood - Shaving off the inside of the barrels so that they don’t accumulate bacteria. Perhaps the trick to making natural wines with no sulfur. At a picnic table outback, I spotted some characters like myself, who had made the trek to the middle of nowhere to see this wildly bearded individual. On the table were some cheese and charcuterie, unopened. I sat down and right away, he put me to work. ‘Here’s some cheese, can you open it?’. His hands still dirty from the work, perhaps those hands are never not dirty. It added to his Leprechaun-like charm.
For the 2019 vintage, Avi had made the decision to bottle everything in magnums, an incredibly ballsy move. When I asked him why, the response was Avi in a nutshell - ‘Because the vintage was good and because I may not ever make wine again’. He is so fatalistic and hard on himself when it comes to speaking about his wines. Yet, because he’s the real deal when it comes to his wine making, he knows that when it's good, it is good. He began to open all the magnums - Rose, white, red, and we got to eating some cheese and drinking some wine.
All of us wine folks wanted to know more so we tried to track Avi back to the wine conversation - ‘Hey Avi, what’s the varietal here’. He wouldn’t have it, he didn’t care to explain the details. Instead, he was more interested in landing the right music and chomping down on some cheese. For music, he used an old school iPod because his flip phone didn’t have the tech to let him play tracks. Avi is an old soul that feels a lot of things and he is also quite funny. Billy Joel came on. I thought it was an odd choice to be quite honest, but then he began to talk about his New Jersey upbringing and him seeing Billy Joel live. ‘Tamy, you tell Steven (the importer) that more than anything I want to go see Billy Joel live at Madison Square Garden’. ‘Ok Avi, I will’ I said.
More drinking, less straight forward answers about the wine. I was getting tipsy but I was so in the moment and these magnums were everything I have ever wanted to taste in natural wines. We opened a petnat that had a cat on the label and Avi catapulted into an unfortunate story about his cat. ‘I never want to get personal on the labels’ he said, ‘because what if the wine is no good and then there’s this person you know on the label’ he continued. The story went that one thing lead to another and against his will, the drawing of his cat made it on to the label. One late night at home, he heard these weird noises. It was his cat, choking on nothing other than a rat he had killed. Quite a triumphant and scary scene. Apparently the cat made it out alive but was never quite the same after that. We laughed and also felt bad for the cat. Avi was definitely insecure about the way this petnat with the unfortunate cat label was tasting. I thought it was wonderfully wild. He felt it was cursed. The New York market would not see it or get to taste it.
He got up and told me to go with him to find the next wine we would all drink. And as we walked into the basement, there stood his barrels dramatically, poetically and with a kind of intensity that draws you in to see and admire them. Seizing the moment I took the opportunity to ask him if the story was true, if he really did shave the inside of his barrels to protect them from bacteria. His answer shook me. ‘That’s just the story I tell people’ he said. ‘The reason I do it is to stay connected to the wine’. And that is Avi. Avi is his wine, it is the one thing he needs to do and will continue to do, no matter how many times he threatens this will be his last vintage. Making something so personal is hard, it takes a toll and the relationship you have to the “it” that you make is incredibly complicated. Avi is linked to his barrels with an umbilical chord and it is such a personal act that in his eyes, it will always be imperfect. Ironically, for us drinkers, we continue to describe these as quite the perfect California wines that are made completely natural.
Months later, we took a trip to Vermont with friends and I took with me Avi’s Magnum of rose. A deceivingly light pink wine that is packed with strawberry, white pepper, and sunny luscious fruits. I snapped a photo and sent it to my wine rep, who right away replied ‘I am surprised you still have some, you are always drinking these wines’. Not exactly a correct statement but also not a lie because again, you never know, it really might be Avi’s last vintage.
Will we have a new vintage???? Great write up and great wines too!
Great! You really take us with you on a trip to a new winery! Beautiful writing!