GRAPE: Kadarka APP: Sremska COUNTRY: Serbia AVE PRICE: $39.95

The wine: 2015 Maurer Kadarka 1880

This is another zingy, bright, delicious, and fun slamming juice. Strong acid, soft tannins, cloudy and a pale reddish/brown in color. All natural yeast, fermented in open vats, aged in old ass casks for 12 months. It’s bottled unfiltered with no additional sulfites. Trust me, chill it ever so slightly, give it some air, and tell me the bottle isn’t half empty in 20 minutes. You trendy natty wine fans are gonna love this. And if you tell me you don’t, I call bullshit. It taste most similar to a handful other delicious natural wines I love from both California and even Italy. So similar in fact, if I had been handed this blind I would have guessed it was one of my favorites from California. No point in naming names. But how is it that a wine from the other side of the world taste so similar to a wine from California? I’m not a winemaker or a scientist, but I am curious and I’m someone who loves wine. So you tell me.

Again, while I find this wine absolutely delicious and fun to drink, it does bring pleasure to the palate and soul. But in no way finding it unique, but it does offer the comfort of familiarity.

Some facts: The grape Kadarka came close to extinction under dirty communist rule. The vines in this vineyard were planted in 1880, and is the oldest known Kadarka vineyard in the world. It’s located in Serbia just across the border from Hungary.

VIDEO: Listen to Oszkár Maurer’s natural winemaking philosophy

WEB: Maurer