August Wine Club

Bora Tier What better sums up the month of August than a cool-climate white and a warm-climate red?

Nothing. That's right!

August in Louisville is a month with two distinct halves — the part where you need something very cold immediately, and the part after the sun finally chills tf out. So we found two continental corners of Europe, and wines that reflect those climatic differences. We hope you like our picks for the month!

Kvaszinger, Sárgamuskotály "Tokaji" (2024)

Tokaj sits up in northeastern Hungary on the youngest volcano in a 400-volcano chain.

It averages 48–50°F across the year — genuinely chilly — and you can feel that in the wine's spine. Sárgamuskotály is Yellow Muscat, so brace for the whole floral parade: orange blossom, ripe peach, white flowers, that grape-y thing Muscat does that is charming when it's dry and this well-behaved.

The Kvaszinger family has been farming this hillside since 1929, and this is their fun bottle - in the best way.

"They all come to Hungary for dessert wine - they stay for me"— Kvaszinger Sárgamuskotály, 2026

Sottimano, Brachetto "Maté" (2024)

Brachetto is almost always made sweet and fizzy — elsewhere in Piedmont they stop the fermentation partway, keep the sugar and the bubbles, and call it Birbet. Not here!

The Sottimano family takes 40-year-old vines from a single 1.1-hectare plot in Barbaresco country, averaging 55°F on the year — macerates it three weeks on native yeasts, and never fines or filters it. What comes out is crushed rose petals, clove, strawberry, white pepper, a flash of orange peel, and then a completely bone-dry finish. 416 cases produced annually!

'I will be forever grateful for a slight chill and 15 minutes to breathe'

Sottimano Brachetto, 2026 Le Mistral Tier Can Sumoi, "Muntanya"  (2024)

Muntanya means mountain in Catalan. The hill it comes off is called Serra de l'Home — Mountain of the Man. Not subtle, and we respect that.

This is Pepe Raventós's project up in the Massís del Montmell, on a 1645 farmhouse surrounded by a few hundred hectares of oak and pine forest with maybe twenty of vines stuck in the middle of it.

The vines are 50 to 60 years old, ungrafted, sitting between 400 and 700 meters, and they give up roughly a third of what a Champagne vineyard does in a season. Half Macabeu, half Xarel·lo, farmed organically and biodynamically, fermented on native yeasts and left twelve months on the lees. Extra brut, chalky, saline, bone dry — a traditional-method sparkler doing everything Champagne does at that yield level, from a corner of Catalunya nobody was paying attention to. 

Monemvasia Winery, Assyrtiko (2024)

Monemvasia's Assyrtiko is 200 miles away from its home on the island of Santorini.

Southern Laconia is harsh — sunny, dry, and basically a desert — but it sits five miles from the Mediterranean, and the cool northeast meltemi winds do the rest. Yorgos and Elli Tsimbidis started this place in 1997 to resurrect Malvasia in its actual birthplace, and their daughters Marialena and Anastasia are running things now with degrees in agronomy and chemistry between them.

They planted Assyrtiko here because they have a sincere belief it has a native home within Laconia's grape mix, and because it's the variety they expect to matter more and more as things get hotter. Yellow peach, lemon, grapefruit, huge acidity, salt on the finish. A little bleak when you think about the why. Delicious regardless!

Venus La Universal, "Dido" Montsant Tinto (2022)

Montsaint is an appellation that wraps almost the whole way around Priorat, and it only became its own DO in 2001 — before that it was just a subzone of Tarragona. About 1,900 hectares across 17 villages, planted mostly to Garnatxa and Carinyena between 200 and 700 meters, on chalky clay, granitic sand, and slate. It takes its name from the Serra de Montsant, a range topping out at 1,163 meters and called the Holy Mountain because medieval hermits used to live up in it. Wines here lean red-fruited and perfumed rather than brooding. Priorat's neighbor, not Priorat's understudy.

The fruit comes off decomposed granite called sauló around Falset, farmed organically and biodynamically by four local families plus a plot of their own. Mostly Garnatxa with Syrah, aged in neutral vessels, and it's their stated tribute to youth, tenacity, love, and Garnatxa. Strawberry bramble, dried herbs, flowers, spice, and a fine mineral grip underneath. Named for the first queen of Carthage, who fell for Aeneas and then watched him sail off to found Rome. He got an epic poem. She got this.