PerUs
Wine, family-style.
Napa Valley is an embarrassment of riches. Its winemakers are so good at what they do, so blessed with natural resources, and backed by so much capital, there is more outstanding wine made there than one could possibly drink, much less get to know.
So Napa winemakers have to sell not only quality, but story; they want consumers to feel that the $100 (let’s call that on the cheap side) bottle of wine they’re paying for isn’t just excellent, it’s special; it has a narrative to which they should want to feel connected.
There’s nothing wrong with that. We buy products for lots of different reasons, and one of them is what we think that product says about us. And if we like its story, we might buy a wine we wouldn’t try otherwise—and fall in love with it.
But the power of story does make it challenging for a winemaker who isn’t generations-steeped in Napa history to break through. So with that in mind, I’d like to suggest that you try the wines of PerUs, a young company making wine in Napa started by New York-based businessman and entrepreneur Anmol Bhandari. Wine isn’t where Bhandari made his money—typically, wine is where wealthy people go to spend their money—but it has been a longtime passion of his, largely because of its power in connecting family and friends. Now, all of the wines that come from PerUs are named after the family and friends of the people involved with the company. PerUs doesn’t make a lot of wine, and Bhandari wants its wine to remind people of what is important in their lives, because it does that for him.
The wines, by the way, are outstanding. With the guidance of respected winemaker Russell Bevan, PerUs has made some terrific cabernet sauvignons, several impressive Bordeaux-style reds and a delicious sauvignon blanc. These are ambitious, sophisticated, thoughtful wines that feel like they’re being made for a small group of friends rather than broader consumption. PerUs is a family of wines one would happily be a part of. peruswine.com
