4-PACK Mundo Revés Criolla, Le Petit Voyage | 2023

Last Monday, in the middle of World Cup extravaganza, a supplier friend shot me a text: “Hey, available for Wednesday’s match, I have "x" bottles of delicious Mundo Revés Criolla Pét-Nat. Not reductive, fruit-forward, almost like sparkling Beaujolais.” He had me at Beaujolais. Still, I was skeptical. I'm not the biggest Criolla fan (yawn), nor a Pét-Nat follower. So, I asked him to send over a sample and let the wine speak for itself. A few days late for the match, I finally opened a bottle yesterday. My friend was on-the-path to right. It didn't quite have the lovable, decadent juiciness of sparkling Gamay, but it delivered plenty of sassy red fruit without any of that awkward, feral funk. Made by the ancestral method, where fermentation begins in a vat and finishes naturally in bottle, this Pét-Nat is surprisingly polished — clear rather than cloudy, neatly dry (12%), tucked-in, and pretty. High taste. Low funk. ~Allegra Angelo