New Releases from Climate Change Cellars!

We’re well into veraison here at Climate Change Cellars, so it must be Spring! And that means new releases, just in time for mosquito season. There’s something about those cute little disease-ridden bloodsuckers that makes me think of wine bloggers visiting Climate Change Cellars and asking for free samples. Yet another sign of Spring! I’m old enough to remember songbirds, and how their music used to fill the Spring air. Remember them? Sure you do, they were just like pigeons and crows, which are all that’s left now, but tinier, and they ate a lot of insects. Luckily, because Mother Nature is resourceful, now we have the beautiful buzz of mosquitoes to let us know it’s time for the release of our newest vintages of Climate Change Cellars’ Zika Red, and Zika White. It’s Spring, and time for a case of Zika!

I think you’ll really like our new vintage of Zika White. It’s a very versatile wine, made to accompany both food and famine! Let’s face it, not everyone has enough food these days, yet you still might like a nice glass of something affordable to accompany your empty dinner table. Our Climate Change Cellars Zika White is perfect! I’ve been drinking it on a regular basis, and I find I like it better on an empty stomach. In the old days, the common wisdom was that fine wines were meant to accompany a meal. But regular meals just aren’t possible for a lot of people in our new world, so at Climate Change Cellars we decided to make a fine wine that goes great with starvation diets. The 2125 Zika White is 100% Malnutria Bianca, and would also be great with seafood. Were there any.

The 2124 Zika Red might be my favorite vintage ever. 2124 was a classic Climate Change year. Winter rains were virtually non-existent here on the Arctic tundra, but melting glaciers provided more than enough water. (As an aside, I felt blessed that winter to witness the annual migration of the reindeer—his name is Sven.) We had bud break right around Valentine’s Day, a lovely Spring marred only by the usual plague of locusts, though, thank God, they mostly only ate the wheat crop, and a leisurely harvest around the end of July. So, in a word, perfect! The Zika Red is a blend of Petite Sirah and Tannat—a great match for your scavenged meal of tree bark. Buy it by the case, and we’ll throw in an exclusive Climate Change Denier’s T-Shirt—like their arguments, it's full of holes!

Before I talk about our highly allocated wines, I want to talk a bit about our sustainable, Earth-friendly, natural farming practices here at Climate Change Cellars. First of all, it would be impossible to grow grapes in these dramatic environmental conditions were it not for the array of herbicides and pesticides we rely on to keep our plants alive. But we’re very proud that here at Climate Change Cellars, all of that herbicide and pesticide residue runs off into our local streams and rivers, which are, of course, completely devoid of life. Our ancestors made sure of that, and we honor them for their legacy of truly clean, lifeless water into which we can dump our chemicals. We do no harm to any living thing by emptying our chemicals into the river. Just ask my son Johnny, who loves swimming in the river—though it’s a big advantage that he was born with flippers instead of arms, and a blowhole on top of his head (called a “Bill O’Reilly,” though why is something of a mystery).

Our vineyards are Certified Biohaznamic®. We follow the Biohaznamic Calendar, which tells us what days are best for planting, harvesting, and even tasting. Our winemaker only tastes on extinction days, when every taste might be your last, so the wines taste especially good. And if the Brix are just right, we only pick on greenhouse gas days, so that our mechanical harvesters work to their greatest potential. There was a time when we used migratory workers to harvest the grapes, but they were mostly rapists and murderers. And we don’t need rapists and murderers, we have world leaders for that.

Climate Change Cellars has also been a leader in finding replacements for French oak barrels. Now that the oak forests of the world are being devastated by beetles, we’ve taken to aging our best wines in barrels made from yucca. We prefer neutral barrels so that our wines don’t taste too yucky. No one wants an overyucked Chardonnay.

Being Certified Biohaznamic®, we never add sulfites to our wines. We treat our wines as living expressions of the earth, living beings that need to be protected, not altered. So we don’t add sulfites, or any of the other 320 chemicals currently allowed to be added to wine. Though, in the spirit of protection, we do spray sunblock on the grapes. SPF 35. Kinda smells like coconut. In a good way.

We also have a couple of special wines to offer with this newsletter. Quantities are tiny, so it’s first come, first served—just like natural resources!

2123 Fossil Fuel Reserve
There wouldn’t be a Climate Change Cellars but for fossil fuels! We honor them with our best red wine. Each vintage sports a different label, and the 2123 is a lovely rendition of a classic Ford F-150, the bestselling truck at a time when burning fossil fuel was a lively First World tradition. What a honey! And with the F-150's size and height, why you could see everything in front of you but, apparently, the obvious effects of greenhouse gases. We think it’s a sweet tribute, and worthy of the great 2123 Fossil Fuel Reserve. This great red wine should last 25 years—drink it when the last elephant dies! Hey, the F-150’s didn’t have any trunks either.

2122 Way Too Late Harvest Red
Made in small quantities, our Way Too Late Harvest Red is our Desertification wine. Made from grapes carefully dried on straw mats just out of the reach of hungry locals, the wine is fermented until just the right sweetness, and then fortified, like our Southern borders. We think you’ll love it. At Climate Change Cellars, we strive to leave you with one final bittersweet taste in your mouth.