The Parallel 34 list
First pour, first word
New arrivals from the four houses, winemaker dinners, and the nights the flight changes — sent by us, not by anyone else.
A few emails a year. Unsubscribe any time. Renzo's Restaurant Group.
Colchagua, Chile
French in essence, Chilean by birth. Grand Marnier heritage, a winery built six levels down into a granite hillside, and vines that phylloxera never reached.
Alexandra Marnier Lapostolle, heir to the Grand Marnier family, founded the estate in 1994 with Cyril de Bournet. Their son Charles — seventh generation — leads it now. Andrea León is technical director, with Michel Rolland consulting.
Carmenère was thought extinct after phylloxera destroyed it in Bordeaux. Chilean growers spent a century calling it Merlot until it was correctly identified in 1994 — the same year Lapostolle was founded. Phylloxera never reached Chile, so Clos Apalta's oldest blocks are ungrafted vines on their own roots, dating to around 1920.
The Clos Apalta winery is gravity-flow, cut six levels down into a granite hillside so the wine never needs a pump. The estate is certified organic and biodynamic.
Clos Apalta 2005 was Wine Spectator's #1 Wine of the Year in 2008 — the first Chilean wine ever to top that list. Clos Apalta 2021 came in at #6 in the 2025 Top 100.
Bottle prices. The list moves with the season — see the full wine list for everything open tonight.
Lapostolle is one of the four pours in the $34 Flight of the Parallel, which runs all hours, every day — poured last, at the western end of the latitude.
New arrivals from the four houses, winemaker dinners, and the nights the flight changes — sent by us, not by anyone else.
A few emails a year. Unsubscribe any time. Renzo's Restaurant Group.
104 2nd Street South, downtown St. Petersburg. Lapostolle is on the list every night.