Dalia, Splet, 2023

Here's a wine that came out of left field for us — and stuck. Dalia is the project of Kristina Lukić, a Serbian winemaker who studied oenology in Udine, worked vintages from Chile to New Zealand to California, and eventually came back home to the Negotin Valley in Serbia's Timok region to make wines on her own terms. "Splet" means "blend," and here it's a juicy, food-loving mix of roughly 80% Gamay and 20% Vranac — one a Beaujolais classic, the other an indigenous Balkan red — co-planted and co-fermented for a wine that lands somewhere between a fresh cru Beaujolais and something distinctly its own. Bright red berries, crushed violet, peppery spice, and a savory streak that keeps you reaching for the next sip. A genuine discovery from a corner of the wine world barely anyone is paying attention to yet.