This one’s delicious. And necessary.

It’s the Harvard General Store’s new private label wine: a full flavored Italian red Bonarda, which I think is the same as a Croatina, much like a Dolcetto, from Piedmont, by the tiny winery Martilde.

Black cherries, maybe? Tannins? Chocolate? I’m not great at the flavor decomposition game. It’s a beautiful inky color, and just luscious. The horse on the label is Amy’s friend Toby; all the Martilde labels all feature the vintner’s artwork, usually based on beloved pets in her life. At $16.95, its a terrific buy. I love these big Italian reds, and I'm grateful when I can find one that's affordable.

Seeing Amy’s new horsey wine cheered me up so much today, when I was so mad at the Selectmen and generally down on town governance and its nonsensical sh**-slinging. But there’s nothing to restore my faith in our town like a trip to the General Store. It’s such an optimistic and sunny space, so beautifully restored, and with what I find to be a healing ambiance, packed tight with my favorite treats, smelling of good coffee, with barristas bantering over topics big and small, and the fourth estate battling its dragons up in the garret.

Imprinted on me as it was, by the day's circumstances, I do so declare this to be my Official Wine of Protest and Reassurance, and I nominate it as yours too, if you are currently without a wine serving such a function. When you are fed up with the noise, drink to the horse Toby and all the fine thinking and effective action that put his picture on the bottle, from the transformation of a historic building that deserved it, to the inspiration to paint pet pictures on wine labels, to the good-sense vote to end Harvard’s bad governance practices, such as our recently repealed blue laws. Smart people sometimes do good work. There’s hope!

I’m sorry I dribbled wine on the label before I took the photograph. I’ll have to get another bottle, reshoot, and blog about this one again.