Search Results for: Arnaud Lambert chenin

The first time I stood on the hill, I didn’t think much of it.  It’s a quiet place just outside of the famous French wine town, Saumur.  To tell you the truth, there wasn’t much to admire besides a quaint, but lifeless, chateau sitting on top of it. This insipid wonder attracts droves of tourists every year to snap photos and walk away with a lousy souvenir wine from the chateau.  Indeed, the recent history of this chateau is one of making downright terrible wines. This hill, however, has a glorious history that has been almost completely forgotten –until now… My addiction to this hill began about four years ago. During my debut as a wine importer, I spent six months chatting it up with various people in the business about producers that could be interesting for me before I pulled the trigger on my maiden voyage in search of the holy grail.  Amongst my group of “sources”, was a friend back in Virginia who also runs an import company.  Although he was only 26 when I met him, this guy had developed a remarkable and enviable palate for wine.  He told me that he drank many great wines throughout his life because his father was a serious wine collector.  It must have been nice…  My first taste of wine was not one of privilege.  I grew up in a small town in Montana, called Kalispell.  Most people thought I said “cow’s bell”, or “cattle smell”, when they asked what the name of the town was.  I suppose both names could make sense after meeting a hick like me.  Because Montana wasn't exactly a mecca for wine lovers, my first contact with wine was an unforgettable bottle of Manaschewitz.  It was one of the worst things I can remember putting in my mouth as a kid, and believe me, I put a lot of disgusting things in my mouth back then.  After I snuck a taste, I couldn’t understand why my parents would drink this thing that seems like it should have been poured over our salad.  Given my first encounter with “wine”, it’s a miracle that I ever drank another glass of the stuff.  I must admit, however, that I’ve never had another sip of Manaschewitz.  Maybe I should give it another go, just to be fair; after all, it was probably open for at least two months, and I think I was about eight years old at the time.  Anyway, my buddy back east told me about a few producers; one in particular caught my attention.  He said that they were somewhat of a newcomer to Saumur, which is an area that specializes in two grapes: Chenin Blanc and Cabernet Franc.  He seemed pretty surprised that no major importer had picked them up yet in the States.  It was a good lead, so I put an email together and sent it off to Domaine de St. Just, fingers crossed. You’d be surprised at how fast people sometimes respond to this sort of inquiry; most of the time, if you ask to buy their wines on the spot, they put it together and send it to you without much ado.  Of course, you have to pay in advance, but that’s about it.  At any rate, the owner of the domaine, Arnaud Lambert, wrote back immediately and invited me to visit the estate.  I asked if it was fine with him to send samples to my friend’s house, in Provence, as I wasn’t planning on going to the Loire on this trip (even if the wines from this place were top notch).  This was the only producer in this region that I had the beat on, and it was pretty far out of my way.  Believe me, a thousand kilometers out of the way is a long distance to go only to find disappointment. By the end of 2010, I set off for France with proper financing to start importing wines to California.  My first stop, whenever I travel to France, is at Pierre and Sonya’s house in Provence, called La Fabrique.   Before I arrived, I made sure that it wasn’t a problem for them to receive samples sent for me –little did they know how much was on the way. Before my arrival, they sent me a message saying that, over the last couple of weeks, they had amassed about 11 boxes of wine.  Admittedly, I also was a little surprised by how much wine showed up.  I was going to be there for only two nights, so I proposed that La Fabrique throw a party.  They thought I was insane when I told them that I was going to open all the bottles at the party because they only had gathered 15 people for it.  It was a lot of wine, but in the end, only about a dozen bottles were worth drinking and most of them had been made by the hand of the same vigneron.  The truth is, most of what we importers taste is pure junk; the good wines ones are only good, and the great ones are rare. A couple of hours before the party started, I began pulling corks to taste them all before everyone arrived.  There were many that weren’t even fit for an outfit like Cost Plus.  Then, I put my nose in the first white wine from St. Just, and I knew, straight away, that if the rest followed suit, I would have to reconsider making the journey to Saumur.  I slowly worked through the entire range of his wines, looking for reasons not to go, but from top to bottom, they were all seamless.  My friend was dead on and I was sure that I had found my first producer.  I’ve been a fan of this area of France forever and these were some of the best wines I’ve tasted from there, period.  The Chenins were clean, expressive and straightforward –and they weren’t too Chenin-y, if you know what I mean.  Their Cabernet Franc wines from Saumur-Champigny were perfectly on par with what I wanted out of this grape: pure, clean, terroir-driven with charming bright red fruits.  Honestly, I was more excited about the reds than the whites because I feel that, not only is Cabernet Franc from the Loire Valley one of the most authentic terroir wines in all of France, but it is also, in commercial terms, a little easier to sell than Chenin Blanc. The problem I have with this area, however, is that a lot of the highly revered producers make wines that can be a little funky, and that’s not the type of horse that I want to get behind. Arnaud sent another box of samples from a different estate, which was also from Saumur.  He put a note in the box telling me that he just started to work with this estate and that he’d like me to consider them as well, but because I was already sold on Arnaud’s wine, they sat in the box until the end of the tasting. In addtion, some of their labels were lousy and only served to further my lack of interest.  Without expecting much, I arranged these other wines for a quick tasting.  I didn’t expect to care much about them after I tasted the little gems from Domaine de St. Just –boy, was I in for a real shocker. I pulled the cork on the first white, and took a sniff that was loaded with minerals and high-strung citrus fruits.  I had no idea of what was about to hit my mouth.  When my brother Jon and I were kids, we dismantled a power cord and decided that it could be fun to stick the metal prongs into a wall outlet, with our bare hands.  We weren’t the smartest kids, and perhaps that moment in my life explains a few glitches in my system.  Anyway, this wine brought me back to that moment as it unleashed some serious liquid wattage into my mouth.  This little wine was more than an attack on the palate –it was an assault.  I was all puckered up and my head went sideways.  It felt like I just brushed my teeth and rinsed my mouth out with a glass of Chablis.  After a few more tastes, however, it became clear that there was something magic inside this angry little wine.  I’ve always been a sucker for abuse, so this was right up my alley. I opened the second Saumur white, Clos David –it was like Meursault on crack.  The first wine was all tension; this second wine was also intense, but it was endowed with more body and finesse. It was a more tamed beast, but a beast, nonetheless.  Like the first wine, it tweaked my mouth in every direction, but that didn’t stop me from coming back for more.  Every sip felt like I was getting smacked in the face by a furious, but sublime, French girl –I loved it!  As I continued to taste, I kept thinking: “Are these wines just freaky good, or picked way too early?”  I didn’t know because I’d never tasted anything like them before.  They were somehow regal and barbaric at the same time; yet, it seemed like they came from a noble terroir.  The rest of the wines followed suit with overwhelming tension.  The reds had bright red fruit and flowers in aroma with an acidic backbone enviable even for a fine red Burgundy from a classic year.  Every one of them was intensely acidic and penetrating, but once you made it through the pain, they were deep and pure. Although it is hard to believe, it’s still possible to find nearly abandoned or chemically destroyed vineyards all over Europe that were once owned by the elite classes of the past. Many of these precious grounds have been passed down generation after generation, only to fall from grace at the hands of a few misguided, or opportunistic, bean counters who put profit at the top of their agenda.  They are the ones who manufacture cheap and industrialized imposters that are sold to tourists who think that they are walking away with a wine that, based on historical merit, was once suitable for a king.  These wines, in reality, are only paupers dressed in a king’s clothes.  There is a quiet hill and chateau with this story of abuse that has now lasted for over a half-century.  It could be the greatest forgotten hill of our time; the hill is know as, Brézé. I saw the name “Brézé” for the first time on a bottle of white wine made from a well-respected, but underground, producer best-known for their red wines from Saumur-Champigny, the wine is called Clos Rougeard.  I never paid their white wine much attention because it’s a rare bird and it's not usually hanging out at your local wine shop.  I remember having it once before, but it didn’t catch my attention, so I never took the time to taste it again.  The truth is, I visited Arnaud, not for the Brézé wines he had sent me, but for his Saumur-Champigny reds and his entry-level whites, which were much less physically taxing than the Brézé wines. The first time I visited Arnaud was January of 2011.  He first took me to his vineyards in Saint-Cyr-en-Bourg.  Nothing makes me happier than visiting vineyards.  He was proud to show me that, unlike his neighbors, his land was full of natural grasses and herbs that grew freely between his vines. Moreover, his soils were thriving because he treated them respectfully and spared them synthetic chemical treatments that kill most of the bad (and good) micro-organisms.  As we stood on this limestone hill, called Saint-Cyr, I remembered the energy I felt it in his wines the first time I tasted them.  We spoke at length about the appellation and he pointed out that, historically, these vineyards have soils that are more suitable for white wines but had been planted to Cabernet Franc before he and his dad bought them back in 1996.  Before their time, red wines were more profitable, so it became an economical choice to make the switch.  As we finished our tour of Saint-Cyr, he mentioned this “Brézé” wine again as he pointed south and insisted that we go there to look at the vines before we head back to the cellar to taste. We drove to this unsuspecting hill about three kilometers across the way from Saint-Cyr.  There was only a gently sloping alluvial valley that separated the hills of Saint-Cyr and Brézé, but I can assure you that the taste of their wines gives the impression that they are miles apart.  Our first stop was at the Clos David –the Meursault on crack.  Arnaud walked me into what appeared to be a clos; it had old broken down walls that I could easily jump over from a stand still.  It wasn’t an impressive vineyard to look at.  The vines were tired and seemingly unattended.  The vineyard seemed to be held together by a thread and it looked like a cemetery of old vines. Arnaud plunged his hands in Clos David's soil and pulled a pile of chalky white and brown soil full of small limestone fragments.  He put his hands full of soil close to my face for inspection.  He gave me a faint smile, and, quite embarrassed, he said: “I brought you here to show you what damage has been done to these vineyard over the last century.  Look at this topsoil… it’s dead, completely dead…”  He told me that it was going to take years for any noticeable changes to take place in the topsoil.  The underlying limestone, which holds the magic of these terroirs, had been penetrated long ago by these abused vines, and that’s what keeps them in the game. He pointed out, however, that through the years of abuse with chemical treatments, most of the development of the root systems had stayed close to the surface and didn’t have the power to dig much further than what they had done half a century ago.  We went to another special parcel called Clos de la Rue, where he told me stories about the trading of bottles between Chateau de Brézé and other estates like Chateau d’Yquem, bottle for bottle.  Each of these special parcels were, in the past, owned by France’s elite society and they were sent throughout the royal courts of Europe.  At the time, they were known as “Chenin de Brézé”, and they were considered to be of the best white wines in all of France. While on the hill, Arnaud emphasized the importance of a concept that I seemed to have overlooked; the uniqueness of old walled vineyards, called "clos."  Over centuries, vineyards change through erosion that result in a loss of soil.  With the case of a vineyard surrounded by a wall, however, the historic soil structure remains while the rest of the vineyards around them, through centuries of erosion, can lose a significant amount of their ancient topsoil.  That simple concept hit me like a ton of bricks.  These enclosed vineyards are a geological and historical time capsule.  They preserve the impression the wines had when they were regarded centuries ago as an important site. I was dumbfounded and saddened by Arnaud's story of Brézé.  I could sense his animosity towards the more recent owners of this once great land.  After the Second World War, they destroyed the life of their once magnificent terroirs.  As we stood in the vineyard, my mind went back to the wines I had tasted in Provence and it started to make sense.  The wines were taking only what they could find with the root systems developed as young vines over 60 years ago.  They mostly expressed the structure of their deepest, stark-white chalky limestone soils, and not much more.  The soil on top – mostly sand and clay – which usually feeds the wine with body, breadth and generosity had little to give.  They were on a fast-food diet, yet, somehow, the terroir still fought through.  As I walked between rows, looking at the damage, I began to recollect the staggering power my mouth felt a week before in Provence. I realized that what I had tasted were skeletons of what the wines used to be.  The vineyards seemed like they were on their way out as many vines were missing and the remaining survivors were fighting a tough fight.  I had only tasted their skin and bones –but what powerful skin and bones they were.  I looked at Arnaud with disbelief and disappointment.  A smile began to grow on his face.  He looked at me and declared with a contemptuous tone: “Now, with the children out of the way, we’ll see how great this hill is back in the hands of men.” That moment will stay with me forever and writing down Arnaud’s exact words sends a chill through my body. Hearing stories about the former glory of Brézé was exciting.  Arnaud explained that he had signed a 20-year lease on the vineyards.  He let a few more kittens out of the bag when he told me that this historic wine hill was once considered one of the greatest wine producing communes in the entire north of France, and one of the two best of the Loire Valley –the other being Savennieres.  He added that there were only three other producers bottling estate wines from the hill: Clos Rougeard, Domaine du Collier and France’s newest darling, Romain Guiberteau.  Arnaud is originally from Normandy, so these guys had to fill him in on the legend of Brézé.  He told me that there are records at the Chateau de Brézé of the historical affairs of the hill which likely give insights on the production of its wines throughout the centuries.  Arnaud and others have asked to see them, but the owner of the Chateau dismissed their request, likely out of spite for Arnaud’s growing success with the vineyards that their incompetence let go to pasture.  The history is there, but he won’t let anyone have a look at it. To add to this incredible story, Arnaud told me that the rest of the farmers who own quality parcels on the hill sell their grapes to the local co-op because they have no reason, let alone means, to produce commercial wines.  What goes on with this hill is unbelievable and Arnaud, at times, he had to stop his account to laugh with me about how absurd it all was.  Brézé had been neglected for so long that even the locals, who own a piece of this unique place, throw their grapes into a collective wine that is probably sold down the street at Super U for three euros.  What is this madness?!  Don’t they know what they have?  Clearly, they don’t.  The good news, however, that the story of this once glorious hill now rests in the capable hands of a man determined to resurrect this hill of historical vineyards.  Once the Chateau de Brézé rises again, so will the rest of the hill. After we finished our tour of some of the clos, we went back for a taste.  At this point, I was chomping at the bit to get some of these wines back in my mouth.  As soon as we got there, we tasted the St. Just wines, which I was already set on importing.  Then we started the Brézé bottlings.  On my first smell and taste, I better understood the electrical current that flowed through my mouth.  All that these unstoppable terroirs had to give once again began screaming in my face, calling attention their glorious past.  After 65 years of punishment and neglect, the wines made in these suppressed vineyards still shined.  I was all in. Not surprisingly, on my last year on my visit to Brézé, Arnaud had more things up his sleeve.  He told me that the fruit for both of the “entry-level” cuvées, that were simply labeled "Saumur," come from individual historical clos, the Clos du Midi for the white, and the Clos Mazurique for the red.  You’ve got to be kidding me!  He finally decided to reveal this to me on my third year of selling the wines?!  I almost flipped out at him.  I was beside myself that he didn’t put the name of the clos on the label!  Here, we are talking about this hill and it’s glorious collection of clos, and he’s got this cheap entry-level wine made from a historical site with historical pedigree that he puts into a generic bottling?!  I was flabbergasted.  “Arnaud, what else are you not telling me?” I demanded.  I felt like a death row lawyer dealing with a man who was keeping secrets that could exonerate him.  He explained that he had just acquired over 20 hectares of land that he did not have a market for.  He had to choose which vineyards to put in the most energy and money.  He simply chose to use the two largest crus as the entry-level wines.  Crazy…  Don’t get used to the cheap prices, they won’t last.  I promise you.   In 2009, Arnaud and his father Yves signed a deal with the Comte de Colbert for the rights to the vineyards of the Chateau de Brézé.  They knew what was needed to nurse the vines back to health.  The first trip to the vineyards with Arnaud felt like the sad beginning of an epic movie in which our hero would inevitably triumph as he humbly stood upon the hill after reinstating her glory.   Since the day they gained control, they started the process of converting to organic farming with the idea to eventually move into a biodynamic practice.  When I asked why he didn’t go straight to biodynamics, he explained that moving the vines into a real biodynamic culture within three years was simply impossible.  He pointed out that because the topsoils of all the vineyards were desolate and void of almost all microbial life, making such a bold move at an early stage wasn’t the right way.  He further explained that he didn’t want to fabricate the soils by introducing a bunch of foreign microbes to supercharge the healing process.  He believes in the terroir and feels that nature needs to find her way again into the vineyards.  He estimated that, in ten years, he would be able to assert with confidence that his vineyards were performing at the level of a healthy biodynamic environment.  Last year, six years after they started farming organically, he expected to finally see some natural grass growing again.  Each time Arnaud tells me something disturbing like that, he looks at me out of the side of his eyes, with a smirk, and his head pointed down as though he felt responsible for what took place before him.  Indeed, what happened here is embarrassing; sadly, it’s not uncommon. What makes it especially disheartening, in this case, is the negligence with vineyards that possesses such a rich history. Last year, I had dinner with Romain Guiberteau and Arnaud Lambert, both of whom I import to California.  We went down to Arnaud’s cave, below his house, to taste his 2012 single-vineyard wines from both hills.  After four years of organic farming, the whites were simply off the charts.  After we tasted, Romain needed a smoke, so he and I went outside and started to chat while Arnaud stayed in the cave to organize a few more wines to taste.  Romain took a long draw of his cigarette and leaned into me as though he was going to tell me a secret.  He quietly said in French: “Yes, I have ONE (Clos des Carmes) of the greatest vineyards on the hill…  He has the other EIGHT…”  He stared at me as he pointed his finger towards the cellar where Arnaud was and continued: “He’s a great winemaker and he’s just getting started.  My vineyards have been in organic culture already for over ten years and he’s just converting them now.  Just wait, he’s the one to watch.  He has them all…”  Hearing this confession from one of the hottest young vignerons in France was unreal.  It was a wonderful insight into the character of Romain Guiberteau.  He’s a selfless, passionate man interested in the success of his friend Arnaud, as are the other vignerons on the hill, Antoine Foucoult and his father and uncle from the Clos Rougeard.  I haven’t met anyone from the Foucoult family, but Arnaud told me that he feels like they are all in it together with him; like a band of brothers.  It’s impressive. Two weeks ago, I was in Saumur to pay another visit to Arnaud and Romain.  We further discussed the nature of the wines produced on this hill and my purchase of the 2010 basic Saumur white and red from Chateau de Brézé a few years ago.  I revealed to them that I only started to find success with the Brézé wines at the start of 2013 and that I hardly sold a single case the first 18 months as they sat in my warehouse.  I was a little afraid to show the wines at first because they were taut for so long, but when we unleashed Guiberteau into the California market last year, it helped prime the market’s palate for the wines of Chateau de Brézé.  The wines from Romain shocked (literally) everyone and, by that time, the Brézé wines finally relaxed and started to put their cards on the table.  They were a perfect follow after Guiberteau floored the market and were welcomed with the same enthusiasm.  That night, we all agreed that the wines from Brézé need much more time in the bottle before being sold.  That’s why Romain already sells his high-end cuvées three or four years after the vintage date.  The next morning, I could see anguish on Arnaud’s face.  He told me that, because of our conversation last night, he decided that he was going to ask the bank for more money in order to make the wines age longer before releasing them.  It’s this kind of stuff that makes Arnaud special.  He never ceases to impress me as his commitment to the success of this hill is inspiring. Two weeks ago – almost four years after my first visit – Arnaud and I walked the vineyards again.  I wanted to spend more time in the vineyards to get a better understanding of each clos.  As we walked through, the vineyards were showing signs of new life.  We reminisced what has happened over the last years that led up to this point.  As we bent over to admire new life emerging after a lifetime of abuse, we smiled and grabbed piles of dirt and rock from each sight to inspect its renewing quality. The natural grasses were popping and the life of the soil was being nursed back to health.  The vineyards are changing, so is Arnaud.  He is a different man than when I met him four years ago.  Since then, he’s had a rough patch with the tragic early passing of his wife and his father just a year after my first visit with him.  It's a hard story to hear from such a wonderful guy.  As we carried on, I realized that the dark cloud, cast over Brézé and Arnaud, is lifting more and more with the passing of each year. Four years ago, I stood with Arnaud at the Clos du Chateau vineyard on the very top of the hill without realizing that this place would become one of my most unexpected love affairs with wine.  It's heartwarming to see that the other great producers from the hill, rather than competing with Arnaud, act as his strongest supporting cast.  They all know of this almost forgotten history that has been silenced for decades inside this mysterious hill.  They are all anxiously waiting to see what Arnaud unearths as he nurses her back to health.  There is something stirring on this little hill, and soon, the wine world will remember her name; she is Brézé, the greatest forgotten hill.

Navelli, Abruzzo. Home to CantinArte’s high altitude white wines. (Download complete pdf here) Two months at a time was how I used to do the rounds with our growers. Winter and spring. Summer was too expensive and a fight for good lodging. Fall is too unpredictable with harvest to plan far in advance with most growers waiting for the right time, nerves on alert, hopes high but wearing a stoic face in case of disaster. That was all back before almost every year was hot and early. I arrived home to Portugal in time for Thanksgiving week, obviously not a thing here. During fifteen days on the road I passed through the Loire Valley Cabernet Franc and Chenin Blanc country (skipping Sauvignon zones–no time this trip), Chablis, Champagne, and added more belly weight and a constant redness to my eyes in Piemonte, as the vines were strangely still green in most of the Langhe toward the end of November. Milan to Porto, an easy direct flight home, I thought, started in Monforte d’Alba at seven in the morning on a crisp, clear, Alp-majestic Sunday morning. Thirteen hours later I descended into a deluge in northern Portugal that started a month ago and hasn’t let up since. I thought I’d have half a Sunday to prepare myself for the coming catchup week, but airports and planes and the unusually extensive delays when you’re tired don’t make for great recovery. Photo from Monforte d’Alba, November 2022 I can’t sleep on planes. Other than one time on the way to Chile it hasn’t happened again for more than ten minutes. I used to fly to Europe three times a year for a month each time when we first started our company. I figured that since I struggle with jet lag as much as I do that I may as well make it worth it by staying longer. Los Angeles (starting in Santa Barbara) to any EU destination is a real slog, a big disadvantage compared to East Coasters. Eventually I extended to two two-month trips in the last three years before I suggested to my wife and my business partner and co-owner and cofounder of The Source, Donny, that I move to Europe full time. Everyone was for it, surprisingly, and during a two-week vacation in Amalfi Coast’s perfect fishing village, Cetara, my wife opened the door with, “I could live here.” We landed on the first of September in 2018, a precise date our visa required of us, but after three months in Salerno, the major port town to the east of the Amalfi Coast, I knew Italy wasn’t our final European destination. Now I prefer to travel in the summer, but this fall trip was a necessity because I’ve done so much scouting and bringing on new producers. I also need to keep up with everyone already on our roster. Last year, having packed a foam roller and nicely padded yoga mat (both necessities now to keep me loose while my body atrophies along the way), I took a six-week solo road trip from Portugal and on through northern Spain, southern France, northern Italy, into Austria, then boomeranging back to Germany, across into Champagne, then directly south through France, a right at Barcelona and back home by the first week of July. It was quite a loop and one of my most memorable trips to date. Despite higher costs, summers are the best time for my work on the road. Long days to grab as much visual candy as possible, nicer weather, light packing, and happier moods thanks to lighter summer fare, an all-you-can-soak-up supply of Vitamin D, and heightened spirits in hopes of a successful coming harvest. 2021 has a lot to offer. While difficult in some places, it put the “classic” back in many wines, despite the losses, though I guess losses are classic too. 2022 was the opposite of 2021. Brutally hot by European standards. However, the upside was that in many places the grape yield was very high, a good offset for what could’ve been a gargantuanly alcoholic vintage turned out not so extreme, though many producers, including Dave Fletcher, said he’d never seen such perfect fruit—no rot, no disease, clean and pretty. The balance of wines in each region is far from determined, but at least for the most part there’s wine to sell after the shortages of 2021. Vincent Bergeron, one of our new producers in Montlouis, explained that he had too much fruit and it was even more stressful as a short vintage because he wasn’t prepared to receive such an overload. 2021 was exactly the opposite. Everyone wants a “normal” harvest each year but we all know that the new normal is that everything is unpredictable. Feast or famine. After two weeks with a party of four (one very light drinker that understandably didn’t pull her weight!), seven meals back-to-back with at least two bottles of Nebbiolo on each table (three the majority of the time), plus cantina visits before and after lunch, five different orders of Vitello Tonnato (top honors to Osteria La Libera, though La Torri and Bovio were a close second, all with different styles), seven orders of Plin in many forms (we couldn’t resist it during every meal, and top spot goes to La Libera again, though all were delicious), and six orders of Tajarin (top spot a tie between La Libera and Osteria Unione with only a slight textural difference in the pasta as the deciding factor), and without a doubt the best steak tartare at L’Eremo della Gasparina. It’s now Tuesday morning, and I’m still hurting a bit but craving a little Nebbiolo. I’ve not written since last month’s newsletter and I’m happy to finally be stationary. As usual, there are so many things to talk and think about re: all that’s happened this year. It’s Thanksgiving week and I have a lot to be thankful for, though I don’t really get to that complete gratitude moment until the week between Christmas and New Year’s when I really feel like I’m left alone to focus on cooking and non-business talk with my wife. But like summer’s promise and the anticipation of the coming harvest and the mystery of opening nature’s unpredictable gift box for the growers, I can’t help but look toward 2023 and what’s coming our way with our new producers. In January, I will share with you a little teaser for what is on the horizon for the first half of the year. There are about fifteen new producers, almost all of whom have never been imported to the US before. You know, wine importers either continue to grow or they get poached to death, so I gotta shed this plin and tajarin weight (and the weight gained on the stop in France beforehand) and get back in the office to prepare for next year. There’s always a new fire-breathing dragon on our heels and promising new winegrowers to be found. I love this job, and though it’s a privileged and fortunate métier, it’s rarely a carefree party. Well, not until Saturday dinner. California Events Friday, December 9th, San Francisco retailer DECANT sf’s 4th Annual Winter Fête from 5pm – 9pm. Join shop owners Cara and Simi along with The Source’s Hadley Kemp for this Champagne and caviar pure drinking-and-eating event. Among many other fabulous bubbles, Hadley will pour some from us, including Charlot-Tanneux, Pascal Ponson and Thierry Richoux. Call for a seat at (415) 913-7256 Saturday, December 17th, Pico at The Los Alamos General Store Bubble Bash- Champagne & Sparkling Wine Tasting from 2pm – 5pm. The Source’s Santa Barbara representative, Leigh Readey, will be pouring at their outdoor tasting event in the Pico Garden and chef Cameron is splurging on caviar and oysters. $40 per person, tickets available for purchase at  https://www. exploretock.com/picolosalamos/event/377637/bubble-bash New Arrivals The short list of arrivals not covered here in depth are the new releases from Wasenhaus and a reload on Artuke’s entry level ARTUKE Rioja and their insane value for such a serious Rioja, Pies Negros. Further along I go deep on two new producers, Champagne’s Pascal Mazet, and Abruzzo’s CantinArte. And included is an overview of Arnaud Lambert’s newest arrivals (too many good things there, so it’s a little lengthy), along with Dave Fletcher’s non-Nebbiolos. New Producer Pascal Mazet, Champagne Thirty hours in Champagne is not enough time. I made stops exactly one week ago to Elise Dechannes in Les Riceys, and a new project in Les Riceys we’ll be starting with in the spring, Taisne-Riocour (a true linguistic challenge to pronounce properly in French), as well as Pascal Mazet in Montagne de Reims, before I jotted off to my hotel at Charles de Gaulle. I am as completely smitten with the Pascal Mazet wines as I was with Elise Dechannes’ the first time I tasted them, though the style is very different from Elise’s Pinot Noir-based Champagnes. Mazet's is the land where Pinot Meunier leads the pack. The lovely and humble Catherine and constantly smiling Pascal Mazet established their domaine in 1981 with 2.5 hectares from her side of the family—enviable holdings in premier cru land on the Montagne de Reims communes Chigny-les-Roses and Ludes, and a grand cru parcel in Ambonnay. Even with such scant vineyard land, Pascal and his third son, Olivier, keep it interesting with six very different wines, soon to be only five. Most of the vineyards are gentle slopes facing southeast at 150m altitude with chalk bedrock alternating with calcareous sands and clay topsoil. They’re easy to spot: green jungle patches amid neighboring vineyards growing on desolate soil. Little by little the Mazets improved their work. The purchase of a Willmes press in the 1990s gently increased the juice yield while reducing gross lees extraction at half the pressure of other presses. Organic conversion started in 2009 and was certified in 2012. Defining elements of their style are fermenting and aging in 225-liter barrels (of at least 15 years old) for eleven to fifteen months and their NV cuvées blended with wine from their 5000-liter “solera” foudre (continuously topped each year with new wine since 1981), followed by extensive lees aging in bottle—a minimum of six years, but often eight. The blends with the solera, Nature and Unique, are bottled only in particular vintages. If the wine needs dosage (to their taste), it is labeled as Unique, if no dosage, it’s Nature—each vintage is one cuvée only, and not the other; for example, 2013 and 2015 are Nature, 2014 is Unique. Dosage of all the wines is decided on taste and wine profile of the vintage. “Scraping,” rather than tilling, is done with a very small tractor (lighter than one ton) to manage superficial grasses and weeds rather than deep gouging that can destroy deeply embedded flora and fauna habitats. While not interested in fully pursuing biodynamic practice, some similar concepts and treatments are employed, like plant infusions for vineyard treatments made from nettle, horsetail, yarrow, dandelion and consoude (known as Symphytum in English), a flower with a multitude of medical uses for animals (including humans!) as well as plants. Pascal (left) and Olivier Mazet At age of twenty-seven, Olivier Mazet took full control in 2018 after completing his university studies in 2014 with an engineering degree specialized in viticulture and enology from the Ecole Supérieur d’Agriculture, in Angers. Olivier’s long view is focused on agroforestry to improve biodiversity in and around the vineyards to help their resilience against disease, improve soil structures by letting nature do a lot of the work—with its billions of years of experience and knowledge—and to try to better cover their viticultural carbon footprint. Olivier’s older brother, Baptiste, also joined the team in 2020. The vineyard collection is about 1.3 hectares (3.2 acres) of Pinot Meunier, 46 ares (0.46 hectare) of Chardonnay, and 23 ares of Pinot Noir, all with an average age of forty years (2022), and 22 of sixty-year-old Pinot Blanc. The yield from their 8000-10000 vines per hectare (similar to Burgundy) in a normal year is around 55hl/ha. Mazet’s solera foudre is a singular experience. I asked Olivier for a taste of it during our first visit together. He looked to Pascal, who seemed surprised by the request, but he agreed to fill a small bottle to taste. When out of the room, Olivier raised his eyebrows, smiled, and said “It’s very unusual that he lets anyone taste from the foudre.” Over the years I’ve often thrown out the descriptor for extremely minerally wines that, “they taste like liquid rock!” This wine was a recalibration of that description in that I would say it was equally rock and metal. It truly was like tasting liquid rock and metal, almost no fruit at all—purely elemental. Never in my entire career have I had a wine so specific as that. What surprised me the most was how unoxidized it was and the purity of color, like looking through the prism of a diamond, the flickering reflection of the sun off the glistening sea. Its taste I will never forget and will always recognize in the mix of Nature, Unique and Originel, the wines to get dosed with this vinous nitrous oxide. The foudre “Nature” comes from all of their parcels and is a blend of 45% Pinot Meunier, 30% Chardonnay and 25% Pinot Noir. 60% is 2013 vintage wine while the remainder is from their single 50hl “solera” foudre, with zero dosage. “Unique” mirrors “Nature,” though it comes from an entirely different vintage base wine, as mentioned earlier. The grape mix is the same, as is the amount of vintage wine, this case from 2014, while the remainder is from their single 50hl “solera” foudre, with 4g/L dosage. “Originel” is composed of 35% Chardonnay, 35% Pinot Blanc, and 15% each of Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, all from two different plots: Chardonnay from “Les Sentiers” on chalk and clay, and Pinot Blanc from chalk and sand (with correspondingly earlier ripening) of “La Pruches d’en Haut,” an originel plot that was listed as a terroir of Champagne before the 1800s. 60% of this wine is from 2013 and 40% from the “solera” foudre, with 3g/L dosage. “Millésime,” as the name suggests, is Mazet’s vintage Champagne. The 2015 is a blend of all the different parcels with a mix of 45% Pinot Meunier, 30% Chardonnay and 25% Pinot Noir. It’s aged exclusively in 225-liter French oak casks of at least 15 years old, with zero dosage. CantinArte, Abruzzo I will be the first to admit I am not an expert in Italian wines, despite working in and visiting Italian producers regularly since 2004 and a one-year residence in Campania; it’s a country hard to master if it’s not your main focus. I improve every year but the depth of this peninsula and its islands and mountains can be overwhelming. Abruzzo, for one, is a region I haven’t even tried to wrap my head around (though I don’t have the time yet to dig in like I’d like to) because of its vast expanse and my lack of I’ve been to Abruzzo twice, and other Italian wine regions like Piemonte thirty, if not forty times. I have a grip but still feel like an advanced amateur in Piemonte, so you can imagine how I feel about Abruzzo. I can talk about a few of the big names in Abruzzo and their unique styles (and complain about their strangely high prices), but I can’t speak about the appellation as a whole—maybe only on a flashcard level. For this reason I’m glad that our new Abruzzo producer CantinArte (which I competitively tasted among other wines in the region to figure out if they truly were a stylistic match for us in taste and philosophy, before opting in) has their own small section of Montepulciano grapes in Bucchianico, in the Province of Chieti. It’s about ten kilometers from the Adriatic on a soft sloping southeast exposition (a preferential direction for freshness!) on deep clay topsoil, which is helpful to mitigate arid weather through good water retention. Plus, it’s in the middle of nowhere high up in the mountains with mainland Italy’s most consistently clean air (a unique fact), with no one else nearby. While Francesca Di Nosio’s husband Diego Gasbarri developed his career as an engineer with a degree in Environmental Engineering (an expertise quite useful for their organic vineyards and olive tree groves) and built his small company from scratch in Civil engineering, she was bitten by the wine bug in her teenage years. Her first inspiration was her grandparents, who made wine only for the family’s consumption. Her studies in university were initially focused on Latin and Ancient Greek, and later Marketing and Communication, but a trip in her teenage years to UC Davis in 1988 with her father sparked an interest in winegrowing that eventually grew into a spiritual and cultural bonfire. Eventually she went to France to work in vineyards around Lyon and then a year at the biodynamic Chianti Classico cantina, Querciabella. During her time in Greve in Chianti, she became convinced of her future in wine and went home to start CantinArte with the Montepulciano vineyards her grandparents planted in the 1970s. Francesca Di Nosio, CantinArte Curious about all things, Francesca loves most her connection with people, the talks about culture and wine and food. A mother of two, she remains a complete romantic overflowing with hospitality and kindness and gushing with an eagerness to please. (Anyone would laugh if they heard some of the enthusiastic and fun voice messages I’ve received from her over the last two years.) When asked what she would like for people to feel about her wines, the take away after mentions of mineral freshness and uniqueness was that she wants people to feel their joy. What else? CantinArte’s 740m white wine vineyards The vineyard project high up in the mountains where they’ve planted Pecorino and Pinot Grigio are in Diego’s familial neighborhood, Navelli, a gorgeous old rock village in the Provincia dell’Aquila, an hour drive up into the mountains from the Adriatic to a completely different setting from their Montepulciano vineyards. These new vineyards (first vintages bottled 2021 for both varieties) are at an unusually high altitude for Abruzzo viticulture at 740m (~2,400ft). At first, they thought maybe it was a gamble to go so high, but the results are beyond promising. This place is perfectly suited for these white varieties with a bedrock and topsoil that have an uncanny resemblance to those of the Côte d’Or (a place I’ve dug around in for years): fractured, stark white limestone rocks from a different geological age mixed with reddish-brown clay atop limestone bedrock. They are some of the most striking examples of both varieties I’ve had, and not surprisingly unique with their tense, mountain acidity and even some petillance in the 2021 Pinot Grigio IGT Terre Aquilane “Colori” that gives it extra charge. I remain perplexed by this Pinot Grigio (not only for its bubbles) with its vinous capture of clean mountain air, sweet green herbs, sweet lime and green melon fruit. I’m constantly surprised when I think about this wine (often) and what they did differently than others, outside of spontaneous ferments, low total SO2 (less than 60ppm), and organic farming at super high altitude. I know, Ted Vance, the perpetual wine sales guy, now waxing lyrically about Pinot Grigio? Don’t write it off so easily. This stuff is different, and I guess one shouldn’t summarily dismiss any grapes from the Pinot family when they are done in a serious way! Though the Pinot Grigio is captivating, most will likely go for the 2021 Pecorino IGT Terre Aquilane “Colori,” not only because it is a more classical variety from these parts, but also because it is likely viewed as more complex. High altitude Pecorino works, and the biotypes Diego selected for the plantation originate from northern Abruzzo at very high altitudes— mostly in territories without much commercial production but rather from families who produce for themselves. Here, the brine of the sea in the wine is exchanged for a cold mountain, herb-filled aromatic breeze. This variety seems to have a natural salinity anyway, so you won’t miss much there. The difference between here and 400m down and closer to the sea is that the mountain wines will have a little less oxidation, higher pH levels (3.10-3.15 for both Pinot Grigio and Pecorino), more angles than curves, pungent rocky mineral impressions due to the rockier soil with little topsoil, and the effects of a massive diurnal shift at the high altitude—summer days around 35C (95°F) drop to 16°C (60°F) at night—and without the big spice rack imposed by more heat and solar power closer to the sea at lower altitudes. This white wine project seems to be Diego’s thing more than Francesca’s—it’s his home turf while closer to the sea is hers—and his new Pecorino experiment out of amphora I tasted a little over a month ago caught me with my jaw on the floor, yet again. I can’t wait to see if that one gets into bottle in the same shape it is in amphora! Diego Gasbarri, CantinArte  CantinArte’s two parcels of Montepulciano in Bucchianico sit around 300m (~1000ft) and were planted in the mid-seventies, with another part in the early 2010s by Francesca and Diego. The younger vines are used for the Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo and the Montepulciano d’Abruzzo “Ode” and the older vines for their Montepulciano d’Abruzzo Rosso Puro. I admit that my greater initial personal interest in Abruzzo was to find a mesmerizing Cerasuolo rather than an Abruzzo red or white. I’ve had a few Cerasuolo from names that most in the trade know well but can rarely find—let alone afford—that give me a stir while others can be a lot of fun to drink, but most are innocuous wines. I find that the most compelling reds and whites of Abruzzo are so often crafted in such an individual way at very specific cantinas under the direction of uniquely special people that it was hard to imagine finding another inspiring standalone superstar in a sea of Trebbiano and Montepulciano. My interactions with CantinArte’s Cerasuolos, like the 2020 Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo, and the 2019 before it, hit the mark. I also found that in classical style for this category with high quality producers that they are quiet and tucked in upon opening (the best often need decanting to get past too much gas, and, well, we don’t have all day when we’re ready to drink rosé, right?) which is further exacerbated by a cold serving temperature straight out of the fridge. But with some time open, the structure of this twenty-four-hour skin maceration concedes its authority in CantinArte’s Cerasuolo to fresh red spring fruits and the joy Francesca wants us to experience. It’s a wonderful wine when it hits its stride (half an hour after opening) and maintains a very focused direction. A perfect Sunday lunch wine served at a red wine temperature, it will bloom with the promise of spring into a leafless autumn afternoon meal with good company. Today being Thanksgiving (at least as I write this segment on a dreary, rain-filled Portuguese morning), my mind screams, “Everyone knows that Beaujolais is a fabulous match for today’s traditional fare, but bring on the Cerasuolo!” It’s made in a straightforward way in steel tanks and with grapes organically farmed close to the sea at 300m on clay, facing southeast. The 2019 was a very good but the 2020 Montepulciano d’Abruzzo “Ode” may even be better. My first interaction with these fully destemmed reds on day one was very good but the second day was always another level for both—first day expected, the second a good surprise for a variety that often seems to put all the cards on the table in short order. Its freshness afterburner (even more so than the first day) demonstrates how picking is prioritized on the earlier side in the season along with rigorous sorting. For these reasons, they show little to no sense of desiccation or brown notes in the spectrum of fruit (a concern for me with young wines from these sunny parts), just a minerally, cool and refreshing palate texture, and ethereal aromatic qualities on top of its natural savory earthiness. Ode is more of a straightforward approach with stainless steel fermenting (10-12 days) and aging (12 months) and is void of tweaks that make it feel heavy-handed, using unique techniques rather than relying on excellent and conscious organic farming with an environmental engineer’s eye for detail. And of course, the joy of the family behind it. The 2010 Montepulciano d’Abruzzo “Rosso Puro” comes from the vineyard of Francesca’s grandparents planted in the 1970s. Since the beginning, even prior to the organic certification in 2014, only copper and sulfur were sprayed in the vines when she first started. Francesca says that the main difference in the vineyard is the evolution of the yeasts from the vineyards without any synthetic treatments. As mentioned, this wine is grown on clay on a southeast face, and was destemmed during its three-week fermentation/maceration and raised for three years in no new oak, instead with some first year and mostly older used French oak barrels. This southeast face is key for the freshness of both reds and their Cerasuolo. Though Rosso Puro is one year short of being a teenager, it’s in its middle age, its prime, and perfect now. It’s a good introduction to southern-Italian wine style—even though it’s from the center of Italy—with reminiscent notes similar to aged Aglianico in Taurasi, minus the thick-boned structure. There is very little of this wine available and we expect the 2013 to arrive with our next order. Arnaud Lambert, Loire Valley There are few who candidly share their process with me as much as Arnaud Lambert does, and I had yet another great visit with him a few weeks ago. Perpetually on the move, he always has something new to share about his progress. We had lunch in Saumur at Bistro de la Place in the center of town. It was cold and drizzly. Perfect for a lunch of foie gras and trotters—my usual “light” fare in France; it really is hard for me to stick with “clean” eating in that country. Arnaud asked me to pick the wine and I was pleasantly surprised to see a bottle of 2018 Domaine de la Vallée Moray’s Montlouis “Aubépin,” a wine and producer unfamiliar to Arnaud, furthermore quite unfamiliar in the world as of now, though that won’t last. The sommelier perked up when I named the wine. He came back and poured. I said nothing, just waited. Arnaud took his time, eyes in contemplation, swirling the glass, then sloshing the wine around in his mouth. It was a very impressive first glass (which means the second will be even better!) and I knew he was taken long before he said anything. He commented how remarkable it was for 2018, a difficult vintage with depth and stuffing, which this wine has in spades. During my previous visit with Arnaud, Romain Guiberteau and Brendan Stater-West, I talked about the new producers I’m starting to work with in Montlouis, including Vallée Moray. I was happy to share this bottle. Hopefully Arnaud will come with me to Montlouis on my next trip to meet Hervé Grenier, the humble master who crafted this gorgeously deep Chenin Blanc, among other unexpectedly fabulous and authentic vinous creations. Hervé’s wines will be on offer in January, though the quantities are painfully small. Chenin Blanc Everyone’s lucky to have access to this bigtime lineup from Arnaud. It’s serious juice from recent vintages that he feels have moved well into the direction he’s pursued since his start, tweaking and experimenting along the way to find this specific line. Oak decisions on Chenin Blanc are milder than the recent years—a conversation we’ve had regularly. The previous years were good, and often great, but sometimes time is needed to punch through the oak when the wines are young. Eventually they make it through but perhaps at a cost of some delicate nuances. One thing I’ve noticed with the Saumur wines we work with is that there is often a lot of intensity and vibration rather than rhythmic melody. Arnaud has doggedly sought and seemingly found his tune, a taming of the shivering intensity of this area of Saumur, highlighting the vinous quality often left behind or beat down by the wood in its youth. The innocence of Midi always stood as the north star to his range of Chenin for me, with its crystalline purity, captured joy, and echoes of Arnaud’s deeply hued and thoughtful Belgian bluestone eyes. There are a few goodies arriving from Arnaud’s entry-level Chenin spectrum. 2021 Clos de Midi is more than just a good opener for the range. This year is second to none compared to every young wine I’ve had from this vineyard in the middle (midi) of the slope. I asked Arnaud for more entry-level white, and while it’s almost impossible to increase the quantity of Clos de Midi, he proposed his 2021 St. Cyr en Bourg Chenin Blanc. This all comes from his organic parcels in St. Cyr en Bourg (home to Coulee de St. Cyr and Les Perrieres, just across the way from Brézé), and is made the same as Clos de Midi, in stainless steel. You can’t go wrong with any of Arnaud’s 2021s. The triumphant trio of Chenin Blanc starts at the blocks with 2020 Clos David, a straight shooter and in all ways minerally and rocky, followed by the powerful and usually slow to evolve (though this year is a little more extroverted than years past) 2019 Brézé grown in deeper clay soils atop tuffeau bedrock, all anchored by the 2019 Clos de la Rue. Each is worthy of any serious wine program, though the Brézé is extremely limited. 2019 is likely the best bottling of this wine I’ve had (when young), but Clos de la Rue remains king for me year in and year out after tasting these wines since the 2009 vintage—the Brézé cuvée first bottling was 2014. Seemingly without limits in evolution and a constant rediscovery from one glass to the next, Clos de la Rue is poised with balance and deep core strength. Though Clos David is the bargain cru at the price, and Brézé the muscular unicorn with only two barrels made, Clos de la Rue is the must-have in the lineup. Cabernet Franc Arnaud is in perpetual internal war over his reds. I’ve often pushed for Clos Mazurique to be the guiding light: matter over mind, and hand. Over the years Arnaud reduced his extractions, starting in 2012 with fewer than one movement each day down from three during fermentation—a good decision and still upheld though with even fewer now, only around three vigorous movements for the entire length of fermentation and extended maceration. Next was zero sulfiting until after malolactic fermentation, which turned out to be far less risky than expected. (All one must do is go into his freezing barrel room to know that almost nothing will grow in those wines, only the most resilient of cellar molds on the outside of barrels and the tuffeau rock walls and ceiling.) Eventually that evolved into a solitary addition only at bottling with not a milligram before. The total sulfite levels today are around 25ppm (25mg/L). Both steps were crucial in his evolution. Most recently, however, is the approach on new wood with less is more. This step is more recent, but if there were ever a vintage to digest the new oak entirely, it would be 2019. It also helps that the top red wines, Clos Moleton and Clos de l’Etoile, with about 30% new oak, were in those same barrels for thirty months to eventually shed most of the undesired wood nuances and wood tannins. Considering the pH levels of these wines, they will never flaunt the wood as other higher pH varieties. I don’t really know why that is, but I’ve observed it, as have many other winegrowers. Newer wood tames, manicures, and sculpts. All good things with Bordeaux and Burgundy, I guess, but not for me with Cabernet Franc from the Loire Valley. In some ways, newer wood forces manners and etiquette, though I find the nature of Cabernet Franc to be earth-led, with sunlight, spring flowers and spring fruits, a little bit of untamed beast, and maybe even a little solemnity. It’s not at all a confectionary variety with a party personality, so I don’t find that it melds well with sweet, vanilla, toasty, resiny, smoky new wood on it. New wood often neuters Cabernet Franc’s most alluring attributes (as it does other wines), trading out the wild forest, underbrush, and wild animal for stately statue gardens and their regularly trimmed shrubbery. The style works anyway with Cabernet Franc caught somewhere between Burgundy, Bordeaux and the overly polished and utterly boring (again, neutered!) versions of new-wood Côte-Rôtie and Hermitage. Indeed, Saumur rouge and Saumur-Champigny are not the Northern Rhône Valley’s rustic, burly, salty, meaty, bloody, metal, minerally type—though that is what I often want it to lean more toward, though only toward, without succumbing entirely. I think most of us have a good idea of what would happen if one goes full Tarzan with Cabernet Franc. And this variety isn’t Red Burgundy: celebrated, predictable, still exciting (sometimes when young, but mostly with older wines from cooler years), but rarely unexpected, even when the very best show their might, excluding producers like Mugnier, and Leroy (may she live forever, though I can no longer afford or justify the cost to drink anything adorned with her name and crown.) Can these overly crafted wines be a little too good? Like Tom Brady-too-good? So much so that you don’t want it anymore? That you should root for someone else? An underdog such as a Cabernet Franc? I find that Saumur and Saumur-Champigny are often a reflection of its residents, their good manners, happiness and generosity, their contained, clean and well-dressed but slightly casual presentation and warmth; it’s only the weather that brings the chill here, not usually the people. I almost moved to Saumur. I love the place; its gorgeous tuffeau off-white castles and even its simplest tuffeau structures and barns. It’s easy to navigate in the city, much of which was rebuilt after World War II, though not as badly damaged as other Loire Valley cities like Tours. I always feel safe in greater Anjou and Touraine. I don’t mean only from a physical safety perspective but rather that I never feel rushed, like I’m not going to get run over, harassed, or impatiently talked to when my French isn’t on point. Maybe the soft rolling hills and the serenity of the river soften them. Maybe it’s that they lost too many people and things during WWII, which forced a lot of familial and city reconstruction that made them humbler than some other French wine regions? I feel Arnaud continues to move closer to embracing the earthen, well-dressed beast Cabernet Franc can be, despite his reference points and training in Beaune and seeming desire to be closer to a Burgundy wine in overall effect. It’s not a bad objective to want to walk beside Burgundy, though I’m still confused even when I use the term “Burgundian” to try to bring understanding to the style of a non-Burgundy wine. I think I used to know better what I meant by it. Cabernet Franc from Saumur and Saumur-Champigny somehow expresses its dark clay and rocky limestone topsoil and tuffeau bedrock. In the best examples it seems like they drop the clusters on the vineyard ground, toss in some aromatic brush and herbs, wild berries, mash it up a little and then throw them into fermentation bins with the grapes, thereby collecting all that earthy and wilderness nuance. That’s where I see Arnaud going in overall profile, and I do hope that’s where he ends up. Cabernet Franc is an easy grape in many ways when good table wine is what’s wanted, but despite its agreeability its inspiring renditions only come from top sites grown by top minds and hard workers. Farming is crucial and the wines need to be left alone in the cellar to sort themselves out and be put to bottle without much of a mark of ego, neglect, bad taste, or indecision. Intention with Cabernet Franc is crucial. Epic never happens here by accident. Leading off the red range are Arnaud’s two impossible not to like wines (if you have taste for Loire Valley Cabernet Franc!): the 2021 Saumur-Champigny Les Terres Rouges and 2021 Saumur Clos Mazurique. Here you will find Arnaud’s best red wines that have ever borne these labels, no doubt about it. I said it while tasting with Arnaud a few weeks ago, and he agreed. He explained that he found a new way! (As he always does every single year.) They are gorgeous and follow a line of truth for this variety expressing the purity of their terroirs through simple, more-thought-and-less-action winemaking, all a concession to the organic farming (started in 2010) and the need to work with the vine’s nature instead of against it. I shouldn’t spend so much time on them because despite a good number of cases of each arriving, all of them already have a devout following in our supply chain and they’re all expecting their usual share. Perhaps these two reds, like Clos de Midi, are now out of most by-the-glass ranges, but for the price sensitive section of the wine list’s bottle selection, they will be stars for those who are still concerned about the tally on the bill in the face of an increasingly more expensive world. Comparing the hills of Brézé and Saint-Cyr through the lens of Arnaud’s wines is a testament to the validity of terroir. The hills more or less look the same in shape, though Brézé is far more attractive with its forest cap and the famous Chateau de Brézé’s ancient tuffeau limestone walls encircling it like a crown, compared to Saint-Cyr’s slope capped off with the industrial Saumur winery co-op on top, which Arnaud’s grandfather helped establish. The big difference between them is that Saint-Cyr could be described as more homogenous in soil structure with a lot of clay topsoil on most vineyards, while Brézé is a patchwork of many different topsoil structures ranging from almost pure calcareous sand (Clos David), sandy loam (Clos Mazurique, Clos Tue Loup, top section of Clos de l’Etoile), clayey loam (Clos de la Rue), and clay (Brézé cuvée, and bottom section of Clos de l’Etoile). Both hills have tuffeau bedrock and most of the Cabernet Franc parcels have deeper clay topsoil atop the roche-mère. Think of clay-rich sites as a George Foreman-like wine, clay-loam as Muhammad Ali, and sand as Oscar de la Hoya. The pity of this lineup of reds is the missing comparative between Brézé’s Clos du Tue Loup and Saint-Cyr’s Montée des Roches (gravelly loam), the latter of which is not on this boat. Arnaud’s 2020 Saumur “Clos Tue Loup” was raised in only older barrels for a little over a year. I’ve always loved this wine for its higher tones, deep red fruit and cool mineral palate. It embodies what I love the most from this hill and the balance of power. The big hitters, 2019 Saumur-Champigny “Clos Moleton” (Saint-Cyr) and 2019 Saumur “Clos de l’Etoile” (Brézé) are clear demonstrations of somewhat subtle terroir differences that make quite an impact on the final wines. Same bedrock but different topsoil. As mentioned, Clos de l’Etoile has two different soil structures. The upper section is sandy loam and the lower section, clay. This combo makes a wine with great structure but also a little more lift than its near twin on the other hill. By contrast, Clos Moleton is atop a big slab of clay. Like Foreman, it’s formidable, methodical, powerful, intense, with a little chub and a fun personality, especially with more age. L’Etoile is a heavyweight, no doubt, but much faster hand and foot speed and equipped with a silver tongue: Ali. 2019 is one of Arnaud’s greatest achievements in red which makes the miniscule quantities of these two powerhouse reds unfortunate. When you pull the cork do it for a table of two (for sommeliers) or at home with a good friend and a nice long conversation, rather than at a party. Evolution is key here and these heavyweights need twelve rounds in the glass to put on the full show. Fletcher, Barbaresco (Non-Barbaresco wines) Holding up the rear of this newsletter (the caboose, if you will) is the Aussie expat living in what was once the Barbaresco train station, Dave Fletcher. The difference between Dave and many other foreigners making wine in Langhe is that he works a tiny, one- man operation with a little help only when he really needs it, unlike the millionaires buying all vineyards that are on the market for double the previous year’s going rate. His day job since 2009 has been at Ceretto, working as a cellar hand where he eventually became their full time winemaker, pushing organic and then biodynamic farming on them, with great success as they are now under both cultures. I finally visited Ceretto on this last trip in mid-November and I cannot believe the style change he helped instill. The wines now are crystalline, bright, aromatic, almost no new wood (around 50% new when he started but now less than 10%), and graceful, like Vietti’s new style. Dave’s renditions of Barbaresco under the Fletcher label are the real deal. They’re not from big botte because he doesn’t have the volume from any Barbaresco cru to fill one because there are only about fifty or so cases of each made. He’s a real garagiste, or I guess I could say stationiste because he lives in and ages his Barbarescos (in the underground cellar) in the train station he and his wife, Elenora, bought and renovated. I love being in that building, where they did their best to preserve the layout on the first floor, ticket window and all. It’s easy to imagine it filled with Italians traveling away from their home in these hills to Turin for work, after having abandoned their multi-generational vineyards to enter manufacturing jobs just to survive. It was a sad time then and the Langhe was the poorest area in all of Italy after WWII. Things have changed. Despite its current overflow of riches, the vast majority of the Piemontese still carry on many generations of humility, warmth and comradery. It remains for me my spiritual Italian homeland. Dave has pushed his Chardonnay on me for years. They were always good and often I didn’t let him know it because even though I liked them I thought our customer base would think, “Aussie Langhe Chardonnay? Wtf, Ted?”, when Aussie Barbaresco was a tough sell to begin with. I was convinced that Chardonnay might turn the Piemontese traditionalist buyers off from his Nebbiolo wines. I’ve come to realize that that was just me standing in the way, with good intentions of course, to protect and help build Dave’s traditional Piemontese style wines in the market first before letting in his irrepressible Down Under. Dave’s 2021 Chardonnay C21 exemplifies what he’s capable of and his New World versatility and open mind. He’s proud of this wine, and he should be. He loves Burgundy, and he’s followed its stylistic line with his vineyard planted on extremely high pH limestone soils (though here its sandy topsoil compared to Burgundy’s clay), his early picks to preserve tension (this vintage August 21, but he says this is the new norm) and prefers grapes without much direct sun contact—more green than golden. It’s Burgundian in style in that its 30% new oak and the rest in older oak casks. If one were to serve it blind—things we only do with non-Burgundy Chardonnays to try to fool each other into thinking its a Burgundy—especially after it was open for thirty minutes with a little bit of aeration in the glass before my first sniff and taste, I may have a hard time going away from Burgundy, though probably not within the Côte de Beaune. It’s not really New Worldy (mostly because of the similar calcium carbonate influence as Burgundy) but rather somewhere between the style of PYCM–though a little tighter and not fluffed up–and JC Ramonet, but less toasty and lactic. Perhaps its softer textural grip would give it away and take you right back to the Langhe, but I doubt it, unless you know well Langhe Chardonnay. It’s a good wine indeed, especially at its fair price for this category and quality. Definitely worth a look for those craving that fairy dust that’s so hard to find outside of Burgundy’s Chardonnay wines. Orange wine is in, and Dave’s 2021 Arcato is a dandy. He prides himself on craft and he’s sharp on technical tastings, so you kind of know what you’re getting here when you mix early picked 75% Arneis destemmed and crushed, and 25% Moscato whole cluster fermented and macerated, and a final alcohol of 11.8%, labeled 12. It’s a very technically sound wine from a classical point of view, but it’s also delicious and intriguing, a joy to drink. I like it a lot. Not so quirky, just well done and with a lot of personality from these two grapes, one on the neutral and understated side and the other more flamboyant and abundantly aromatic as a still wine. He also nailed the label for this fun wine category—a retailer’s dream etichetta for this category. I’ve been a fan since my first taste of Dave’s Barbera d’Alba made with partial whole clusters. His new rendition, the 2021 Barbera d’Alba comes from a vineyard in Alba with sixty-year- old vines. He said he had to do a lot of sorting because of Barbera’s soft skins, which tend to shrivel a little more than other regional red grapes. The 2021 shows a little bit more mature development on the red fruit due to the heat spike, and he intends to do two picks in the future because of the variability of maturity on the vines. This is delicious stuff and a fun reboot for this ubiquitous Piemontese grape with southern Italian origins.

(Download complete pdf here) Amalfi Coast in the Summer of ‘22 Last month I finished a new Audible favorite, easily in my top three best experiences of all time on this app, though it should be noted that I only began my subscription last year. The Book Thief just tied A Gentleman in Moscow, and as soon as I finished it I got it on Kindle too and read it cover to cover in short order (of course after relistening to the last chapter three or four times; in addition to rewinding to many more chapters that had nuggets I might’ve missed). Another is Surrender, narrated by the author, Bono, which is full of bedtime stories told by what sounds like a leprechaun drinking beer in a Dublin pub, his voice scratchy, and almost completely worn out. It includes tales from before the start of U2 and follows a lifetime of incredible stories that would defy belief if they were about a rock band of any other caliber. From doggedly getting themselves signed by a record company (after delivering their demos by bicycle) to meetings in the Oval Office, reluctantly suckered into a charity concert by Pavarotti, and with every accent attempted by Bono himself, all woven into the story of a young man and his brother and father who never got over the unexpected early passing of his beloved mother, Iris. (Do any of us ever get over our mother’s passing?) Aside from the obvious advantage Bono has with his one-in-a-billion talent for entertainment, the narrator of the audio version of The Book Thief, the lively actor, Allan Corduner, was second to none. Or maybe he tied Bono. There are few audible books I recommend more than The Book Thief. I didn’t know they released a film adaptation in 2013 starring Geoffrey Rush until I was halfway through it and beaming with enthusiasm to share it with my wife. Andrea is a voracious reader and a sucker for romantic war stories and historical fiction. As a Portuguese language student, she decided to read the bible-sized Portuguese novel, Diz-Me Quem Sou, with its 1,104 pages, in small print. She lugged this five-pound tome everywhere for almost a year and her eyes are getting rapidly worse, as are mine. I finally bought my first reading glasses at the end of June, but not until I completely wore out the frame of one of her two pairs over the last year. Since it was published in 2005, I thought it possible she had already read it, but when I asked her she said, “No, but I watched the movie,” popping my balloon and then moving on to some pressing detail about the renovation of our endless Portuguese countryside rebuild that will likely be ready for us just before we die. “You must listen to this book on Audible!” I insisted, and she still seemed uninterested… “But mi amor, there is no way that movie can possibly stand up to the actual words of such a great book, and the narration is the best. You’ve listened to Bono and Prince Harry, you have to listen to this one!” One day she will thank me for pushing her so hard. If Allan Corduner narrated a thousand books, I’d listen to them all. He told with great impact Markus Zusack’s story about the intense grief, stress, and brutality of war, and balanced it all with moments of much-needed hilarity when the main character, Liesel, is out of the direct line of fire. His comedic handle on the sometimes sharp and jolting quality of exaggerated German accents often gave me a solid ab workout between free-weight sets while I was surrounded by a bunch of solemn Spanish and Catalan bodybuilders who shot confused looks at the American guy who was giggling and sometimes wiping away tears of laughter as I lifted. But I hit pause out of caution during heavy sets for fear that Allan might pierce my focus underneath too much weight, as it did while I was benching (almost dropping it on my chest) as Pfiffikus was introduced: “Geh‘ scheiße!” Salnés area of Rías Baixas with the Parque Nacional Marítimo-Terrestre de las Islas Atlánticas de Galicia in the background Speaking of Spain, we finally have a new boatload arriving from the peninsula with a lot of goodies, only maybe too many all at once. We will stagger their release, but you can expect to soon be tempted by Prádio and Augalevada’s long-awaited new releases, Portugal’s Arribas Wine Company and a Mateus Nicolão de Almeida restock, and more surprises that will be covered in September. But first, we will begin with perhaps our biggest Spanish superstar, and then we’ll follow that with one of the Loire Valley’s greatest talents. I know of very few European winegrowers outside of Ernst Loosen who taste as much European wine outside of their home country as Manuel Moldes, though Ernie’s access to epic wines with age seems unparalleled. I rarely mention a wine to him that he doesn’t already know. And the ones he doesn’t know, are often unknown outside of the village in which they’re made. After more than a dozen years making wine, Manuel is no longer only tinkering with ideas, he’s mastering his craft, especially with Albariño. In my book, he has matched the likes of growers like Arnaud Lambert and Peter Veyder-Malberg, the latter of whom I sent some of Manuel’s bottles, and he’s a big fan now too, as is Arnaud after meeting him in Saumur some summers ago while on tour with me. We are lucky to have such talents in our collection of US growers and even luckier to have Manuel as a close friend—the same with Peter and Arnaud! On my last visit with him two months ago at his brother’s restaurant, Tinta Negra, I left frustrated by my level of Spanish comprehension. I’ve studied at least four days a week for more than two years now, but I totally bombed. Even if he is one of the most difficult to follow out of all those with whom I speak Spanish, it seemed like my mind was out to lunch. However, I understood him perfectly well when he smiled and turned to Andrea and said in Spanish, “What happened? He lost his Spanish…” I was relieved when my wife told me on the drive home that Manuel speaks Galego half the time and she too has a hard time understanding him sometimes. And she’s a native Spanish speaker! We’re going to kick off Moldes’ lineup Burgundy style with reds first and then dig into the whites. Manuel Moldes, 2020 2021 was the season across Europe for continental/Mediterranean climate zones that have been missing the tension in their wines over the last decade; it was mostly cold all summer—perfect for fresher fruit qualities, low pH levels, and vibrant acidity. Rieslings across all countries are at their best, with impeccable balance. Burgundy and Chablis delivered wines from what seems like a long-gone era, though many had to chaptalize (at least in Chablis)—historically a very common adjustment for vintages with less sugar. (No one wants to talk about that kind of thing anymore, but let’s be honest about it, eh?) The Loire Valley hasn’t seen such a perfect Chenin year (at least qualitatively) for a long time. 2021 is a vintage I’m definitely going to stock up on. Even if Côte d’Or prices are almost entirely outside of my budget now, there is a wealth of great wines out there outside of Burgundy to drink early and to cellar long too. It was a perfect season for the 2021 Bierzo “Lentura.” This far western area of Castille y León is a geological transition zone at the foothills of the Galician Massif and the expansive high desert of northern Spain. Geologically it is both, though perhaps a little more associated with the Galician Massif from its mostly slate-derived soils in rock and powder form: slate rock up on the steep hills, and a lot of slate-derived clay, silt, and sand pulverized by quartzite cobbles on the valley floor below. Here, summer daytime temperatures can reach 40°C (104°F) on any given day while the nights can drop by a full 20°C (35°F). The oceanic influence is blocked from Bierzo by the Galician mountains toward the west and the Cantabrians toward the north, making it much drier compared to the neighboring Galician appellations like Monterrei, Valdeorras, and the eastern portion of Ribeira Sacra. Winters are freezing and go as low as -10°C, but with little snow because it’s not such a particularly precipitous area. It’s perfect for viticulture, but the wines can often be very strong, and may similarly be described the way Hemingway wrote about Corsican reds in A Moveable Feast, “you could dilute it by half with water and still receive its message.” Surely he meant those Corsican reds with the likes of Nielluciu rather than Sciaccarellu, or however it is you want to spell those two grapes. “Lentura” is much fresher tasting than the fuller vintage wines that came before. It’s composed of 60% Garnacha Tintorera/Alicante Bouschet, a grape not related to Garnacha/Grenache, and, sadly, only occupies 2% of Bierzo’s surface area. I’ve come to like this variety a lot for its high acidity and tannin, inky color, and virile nature. We’re in an age of elegance (which I love) but with that pendulum having swung so hard in the direction of gentle wine, perhaps one day it will swing back to favor grapes like Garnacha Tintorera, which gives varieties like Syrah a run for the money on wildness and surely on bigger natural acidity. It’s a great balance for the remaining 40% Mencía in the blend, which is naturally more suave but with far less acidity. If I’m being honest, I’ve had just a few experiences with Bierzo wines that got me excited about the appellation, but if more were made with a predominance of Garnacha Tintorera like Manuel’s, that would probably change. But since it covers only 2% of the surface area of vines, it ain’t enough for a full-scale revolution. The first vineyard is in Valtuille at the bottom of the valley on fully exposed gentle hills at around 500 meters on red clay and quartzite cobbles. The other is from the famous Corullón, one of the most impressive wine hills in all of Europe. This legendary local vineyard faces east at 750m, applying a g-force weight to your face as you try to balance and look up at what tops out near 1000m, quickly. One needs to be mountain goat-surefooted with every move in all directions—up, down, sideways—with its precariously slippery, paper-like slate shards and greasy clay that keeps the rock stuck to the hill. With an average vine age of over seventy years and the extremity of the terroir and Manuel’s mind hard at work in these organically certified vines, the value here for such a wine is tough to top. The 2020 Acios Mouros is different in structural style than Lentura and benefits greatly from its extra aging before release. 2020 is another great year for Rías Baixas red and white wines, which is not always the case because the reds benefit from a warmer season to soften the piercing high-tone vibration. A masterfully blended, harmonious ensemble of red grapes with distinctive personalities, it leads with the highly acidic and gorgeously aromatic and softly balsamic red Caiño Redondo (70%) and the other 30% split between the tannic, acidic, ink-black beast, Loureiro Tinto, and the suave, rustic, floral and lightly reddish-orange colored Espadeiro. Grown on granite and schist bedrock within view of the Atlantic, their naturally intense varietal characteristics are amplified by their spare metal and mineral-heavy soils and the natural saltiness that seems to be imposed by this oceanic climate. While Lentura is more generous with a little chalkier tannin chub that softens its structure and minerally body, Acios Mouros can be tough love at first taste for those not calibrated to this red wine of the highest tones. Neil Young-level feedback upon opening, it evolves into a long, hypnotic Gilmour finish. I love Acios Mouros, but my wife has to gear up and strap in to prepare for its first strike. She wants to relax and sit back at the end of her day, but this wine makes everyone sit up straight and pay attention. These 45-55-year-old vineyards sit between 20-80m altitude and are purely Atlantic in climate—two more notable differences from the continental climate and high altitude of Lentura in Bierzo. It’s no secret that Manuel’s big ticket is his Albariño range. He’s simply reached a new level for this grape variety and few from the area match his wines’ value, and almost no one can touch them on intellect and craft. (They’re also dangerously easy to gulp down.) I believe the quality of his work must now be counted among those of the world’s great, rarified-genius white wine producers, luminaries like Olivier Lamy, Peter Veyder-Malberg, and Klaus-Peter Keller, to name just a few. Manuel’s starting Albariño, Afelio, has made solid jumps from one vintage to the next and offers a value rarely matched for elegance and substance, though Arnaud Lambert’s Clos de Midi from our portfolio comes to mind. Afelio is a blend of dozens of parcels with an average age of over fifty years (2023). The parcels face in all directions at 15-90m on a mix of expansive terraces and flat plots on granite bedrock and topsoil. Over the years he gradually moved toward more aging in older barrels to polish its framing and lend greater depth and more subtle nuance to the wines compared to when they were raised exclusively in steel vats. Manuel has made a habit of snatching up as many agreements with landowners whose vineyards are on schist as he can; it’s an extremely rare soil type for this part of Galicia where most of the land is granitic. Now, schist single-plot are the only Albariños he bottles as single-site wines while almost every other producer is bottling only granite-based wines. The original schist site in Manuel’s range goes into A Capela de Aios, which put Manuel on the map under his other label, Bodegas Fulcro, where it’s labeled as “Fulcro O Equilibrio.” Tasted next to Afelio, one might think it was a different variety if it wasn’t for the consistent high citrus notes and ripping acidity that few white wines maintain while remaining completely balanced and delicious. It’s fuller in body than Afelio (and most of the range) and more deeply salty, more metal than mineral, and slightly more amber in color. One could say they almost are as different as Loire Valley Chenin Blanc grown on schist and those grown on limestone. It comes from a south-southwest facing terraced vineyard at 80-90m planted in the 1940s and 1980s on fine-grained pure-schist topsoil and bedrock. As with all the wines, it goes through natural fermentation, and like the other “parcela” wines, it’s aged in old 500-700L French oak for 9-11 months. Schist The newest vino de parcela is Peai, pronounced the P.I., as in Magnum P.I.—a TV reference that may be lost on some of our younger colleagues in the wine business—sorrynotsorry. Made similarly in the cellar to A Capela de Aios, Peai comes from a west-facing terraced vineyard at 65-70m with 40-45-year-old vines on rocky and coarse schist topsoil and harder schist bedrock, while the bedrock of A Capela de Aios, by contrast, is severely eroded and softer. Peai is notably more structured and broader-shouldered compared to the other wines in the range; referencing white wines, think of Tegernseerhof’s burly Kellerberg compared to the gentler Loibenberg, or Veyder-Malberg’s beefier Buschenberg compared to the fully structured but finer Brandstadtt. Peai’s first year bottled alone was with the stellar 2020, and this 2021 is only an inch up in quality because there was only an inch of daylight to start with from the inaugural vintage. As Dunas On the subject of the rarest soil types in Rías Baixas, As Dunas is perhaps the most unique of all. Comprised of a few adjacent parcels that are less than a kilometer from the beaches west of Sanxenxo and Portonovo on pure schist sand, it’s like a beachfront dune—fine-grained, as much desert as a beach. On a soft slope, it was acquired only recently (first bottle vintage 2019) and the grapes were split between Manuel, Rodrigo Méndez, and Raúl Pérez. I believe these are now the three most expensive white wines in Rías Baixas, with Manuel’s maintaining the best price of the bunch; however, it isn’t the third rung in quality—that’s for each taster to decide, if bottles of each of these rarities can be found in order to make the comparison. The parcels are on that gentle slope, facing south-southwest at around 50m, originally planted in the 1940s and 1990s. As Dunas is deep, and showcases a broad range of delicate aromas, with some of the more distinguished veering slightly toward sweet balsamic notes, sweet mint, and exotic spices, on a surprisingly structured frame for a sand terroir. Perhaps the original cornerstone of our company is Arnaud Lambert. He remains one of the three growers still left from the original roster of French wines imported in our first year; the other two being La Roubine and Jean Collet. There are also fewer growers we’ve written about more often than Arnaud Lambert, so I will try to keep this portion of the newsletter short. New Crémant label Always in high demand are Arnaud’s Crémant Blanc and Crémant Rosé. They are a great value and deliver on quality and price, like all of Arnaud’s wines. Due to the chalky, sandy soil and cold climate, Saumur has always had the potential to deliver high-quality bubbles, but the financial incentive to compete with Champagne never materialized. The cost of production for serious wines would be more or less the same, and Saumur could never compete on price, though it can also be said that the cost of land is much more expensive in Champagne. Compared to Champagne, Arnaud’s Crémants have a gentle and inviting rawness and simplicity because they’re aged in steel for six months then bottled, dosed between 4-8g/L, and aged for a short time prior to release. Like most Crémants across France, they are typically relegated to by-the-glass programs, and there are few (I don’t know of any, really) that maintain a useful place on a bubble list in the middle price range. Believe me, we’ve tried to sell Crémant bubbles between Champagne prices and those that fit the by-the-glass price range and they move at a glacier’s pace, which is still slow despite climate change. Due to the smaller allocations of the past, the wines have mostly been on lockdown with many accounts. This year we have more, so if you want a piece of the action, tell us sooner than later. After asking for a by-the-glass option for those who are priced out of Clos de Midi (or are short on allocation), Arnaud offered us the 2022 “Les Parcelles.” This 100% Chenin Blanc is labeled as a Vin de France because Arnaud supplemented the cuvée with some Chenin outside of Saumur due to all the frost damage in 2022. However, it’s still composed of 85% of the young vines from his top parcels and is aged in steel for six months prior to bottling. Given the pedigree of that 85% (and you can be sure that Arnaud is buying top-quality fruit if he has to buy), this wine is another steal. Formerly known as Clos de Midi, the 2022 Midi has also arrived. The authorities in France have begun to enforce a new rule that limits the labeling of wines with a clos, most likely to protect the concept of the word from overuse. Surely there’s a lot more to this story, but in any case, all of the vineyards labeled as a clos chez Lambert were all historic walled vineyards. We could sell a thousand cases or more of Midi every year, but we don’t have nearly that quantity; it has become one of our most pursued wines because of its quality for the price. It’s always tense and ethereal, and, like Manuel Moldes’ Albariño “Afelio,” it simply over-delivers on expectations and shines in terroir expression. It also doesn’t hurt that it is one of the region’s most celebrated crus and drinks far too easily. Montsoreau is a special wine Arnaud makes exclusively for us. Initially, we committed to only a couple of barrels each season but recently asked if we could have more to make up for our reduced allocations of Clos de Midi, and this increase should come about in a couple of years. The newly arrived 2018 was somehow overlooked along the way and we were finally able to bring it over. This parcel comes from a specific plot in the Saumur-Champigny commune Montsoreau, just next to the Loire River about 500 meters from the limestone bluff overlooking the Château de Montsoreau. While much of this plateau has a deep clay topsoil before the white tuffeau limestone bedrock, this small plot is almost pure white with a thin tuffeau sand and rocky topsoil with tuffeau bedrock, which makes it perfect for Chenin Blanc. Because I’m a big fan of Chenin aged in neutral barrels and for a shorter period after finishing primary fermentation, this wine was aged for one year in old French oak barrels prior to bottling. Montsoreau is usually more powerful than Midi and closer to his Les Perrières bottling from the Saint-Cyr-en-Bourg hill. I wouldn’t wait long to try to claim a case or two of this wine, since he makes only 48. Like Midi, Mazurique is one of Arnaud’s most coveted wines because it’s a red that delivers well beyond what’s expected of its price. The coldest of Arnaud’s red crus, it stylistically lands somewhere between a low-alcohol, high-altitude Beaujolais, and a Hautes-Cotes de Nuits Pinot Noir, minus any oak—only steel here. Mazurique’s varietal characteristics are more subtly delivered than many young, high-pedigree Loire Valley Cabernet Franc, and its shallow rocky topsoil of sand and clay on tuffeau limestone bedrock renders an expansive but finely textured palate in full harmony with its spirituous nature. To have Arnaud’s Mazurique and Les Terres Rouges in a tasting together is to witness a clear demonstration of the merit of soil terroir in wine. Both are made the same in the cellar and are harvested from vines with an average age of about 45 years and raised only in steel with almost a full hands-off practice on extractions during fermentation. They are almost within view of each other, with most of the parcels of Les Terres Rouges on the Saumur-Champigny hill, Saint-Cyr-en-Bourg, facing Brézé across the way, where lies Mazurique. Even though Les Terres Rouges has no red soil (as the name might suggest it does) it’s a light-brown clay and sandy topsoil on tuffeau limestone bedrock. While Mazurique can be found in the clouds, Les Terres Rouges is more earthy and richly fruited. For some reason, perhaps the greater clay content(?), all of Arnaud’s Saumur-Champigny wines from Saint-Cyr-en-Bourg are darker, rounder, fruitier, and more accessible when young than those from Brézé only a kilometer or two across the way. Brézé wines (the reds labeled only as Saumur) are almost always redder hued than black, though with plenty of darker shades. They’re more vertical than horizontal, in need of more time in the bottle, and more time to express themselves when first opened, compared to the Saumur-Champigny wines. Hailing from Brézé on a mix of orange clay and coarse, microscopic shell-filled sand on tuffeau limestone bedrock, Clos de l’Étoile is indeed the star of Arnaud’s Cabernet Franc range; that is if one is in search of his fullest and most age-worthy wines. Its complement from Saint-Cyr-en-Bourg across the way, Saumur-Champigny “Clos Moleton,” is vinified and aged the same with 30 months in barrels and then another six in bottle before release. Moleton, as previously explained about the differences between Brézé and Saint-Cyr-en-Bourg, is fuller and rounder than l’Étoile, but not by much. Perhaps a regular note of difference between them is the tension and slightly wilder notes and x-factor in l’Étoile. Based on tasting old wines from Arnaud and his father, Yves, before they had as great a level of craft as Arnaud has now, this is a wine that may age better than you and me, but will also deliver an enlightening experience upon opening now.

Before the 2014 vintage, I suggested Arnaud begin to isolate the most interesting parcels of Chenin Blanc that haven’t yet been made into single cru wines to explore for new and previously overlooked talented parcels. The plan was to make two barrels from each site, observe and taste them through their élevage, and if we were both pleased with the results, I guaranteed that I’d buy and sell them in California. There are four in total: the first was in 2014 and bottled under Domaine de St. Just, simply labeled Brézé, followed by a barrel-aged Clos du Midi bottled only in magnums, and finally we have today's Bonne Nouvelle and Montsoreau which in 2016, their first vintage, were a great success. There are only two barrels of each of these wines made for the entire world and all the wines are in California. The Wines Lambert’s vineyard area in Montsoreau is largely planted up on a plateau that sits above the Loire River on flatter sites with deeper clay composition—often between sixty centimeters to a couple meters deep, preferential topsoil depth and composition for Cabernet Franc. There is also a special, nearly pure tuffeau limestone site within his familial Montsoreau vineyards with almost no topsoil from which he makes this superb Chenin Blanc. While inside the Saumur-Champigny appellation, to bear the appellation name “Saumur-Champigny” a wine must be made exclusively from Cabernet Franc, and it’s for this reason that this wine is labeled as a Saumur appellation wine. Arnaud’s Montsoreau Chenin Blanc is a wine with more opulence and flash than usual. Balanced out by a dense core and somewhat gently polished square edges, when compared to Lambert's white wines from further south of the appellation in the colder zones, like Brézé and Saint-Cyr, the Montsoreau is more upfront and rich in body. Aged similarly to Bonne Nouvelle, in order to preserve the voice of the vineyard terroir, it’s aged one year, in two 228-liter old French oak barrels. Like the Bonne Nouvelle in quantity, there are only roughly five hundred bottles produced for the entire world. Rarities? Indeed. Bonne Nouvelle comes from the now famous Saumur commune, Brézé. The topsoil here in this commune varies greatly, even within sections of the same clos (enclosed vineyard), but the bedrock is tuffeau limestone, a sandy, very porous white rock. Generally speaking, Arnaud’s Chenin Blanc sites on Brézé have a larger mixture of sand and clay than the Cabernet Franc sites, which prosper more from deeper clay topsoil with less sand. The sandy soils of Brézé render white wines with more high tones and the wines tend to demonstrate a strong lead of polished and straightforward mineral impressions with less quirky characteristics than many other Chenin Blanc grown in the Loire Valley. In French, Bonne Nouvelle means good news—a suitable name for this wine. Originally this single clos on Brézé was used for sweet wines, and in 2016 Arnaud committed to our experiment of making a still wine from the vineyard, and we’re so glad he did! The vineyard is just next to Arnaud’s top Cabernet Franc vineyard, Clos de L’Etoile, and is on a uniquely coarse, rich, deep orangish-tan limestone sand derived mostly from small seashell fragments and the underlying tuffeau; interestingly, it looks a lot like the topsoil composition of Château Rayas. The result is a white wine of aromatic lift, deep texture and savory characteristics. As with Montsoreau, there were only two barrels made (roughly forty-five cases) and all are sold exclusively to The Source.

(Download complete pdf here) Forteresse de Berrye, Saumur The French leg of my December trip with Remy would start with cassoulet, and it would end with cassoulet. At Sonya’s Provençal farmhouse, Mas la Fabrique, where I have for decades taken refuge during my European gallivants, I began writing this newsletter mid-February as she and I started our three-day cassoulet marathon. Sonya specializes in rustic French classics, sometimes with a Turkish twist—her family moved from Istanbul to Lyon when she was two, and her mother was dangerously good in the kitchen.  She and I struck a deal in December at the end of my two-week French tour with Remy as I pulled a well-seasoned traditional clay cassoulet pot from my car. Remy and I were about to boomerang through northwest Italy and I needed room to bring back wine. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “Leave it. But come back soon and we’ll use it to make the real cassoulet.” I’d planned to return soon anyway, but this would quicken the process. I’ve dreamed of making cassoulet. That’s to say, I do make it regularly, and I’ve had actual dreams about making it—or something like it. I adore anything with white beans—stews, soups, ragouts, salads. Duck products? Addictive. Foie gras, rillette, dry salted and roasted whole duck, pan-fried breast with its epic fatty, salty crispy skin contrasting with the cool, sushi-like texture and gamey but clean flavor of the meat; the rich skin a fair trade-off for another five minutes of running. Confit? Soul food. I enter meditation mode with salted and seasoned duck legs and wings in front of me ready to undergo the confit process. The salty, fatty, collagen-infused air harmonized with thyme and garlic energizes me. Yet, I struggle with most French versions. Often salted to the marrow, like the chef expects to be six months under siege (as one story goes), they’re often dry and fibrous, like overcooked corned beef, or a rushed Portuguese bacalhão. I need to secure a large carafe d’eau in advance. Carcassonne, photo courtesy @ travellingcat11 Not a minute past eight and two weeks before our arrival to La Fabrique and Remy and I blistered out of Catalonia for our ambitious twelve-thirty rendezvous north to Cahors with Le Vent des Jours’ biodynamic winegrower, Laurent Maure. The low mountain pass of Le Perthus between Catalonia and France, with the 17th-century military fortification, Fort de Bellegarde, overlooking the goings-on below, seemed a perfectly suitable imaginary line from one nation to another. When I cross borders, I sometimes get a hollow, sinking feeling, like I’m guilty of something (indeed, always of something) and they will nab me somewhere down the road, and this was the first time in years since heavily armed guards were nowhere to be found at the first péage. But two months later, upon returning to the same gate in February on my way back to La Fabrique, I found that that new way of doing things had reverted. A full shakedown from machinegun-wielding but polite children in police uniforms, which included a rummage through my cooler of fresh Tuesday morning Costa Brava mackerel, castaña-fed Galego chuletones de cerdo, and a bottle of Stéphane Othéguy Côte-Rôtie. Sonya is crazy about Côte-Rôtie but prefers them rustic, minerally, sans barrique neuve—a journey to her Lyonnaise roots. At Narbonne Remy and I took a left on the endlessly long tease of the A61. It seems like the highway design engineers intentionally hid all the best parts along the road: the majestic snow-packed north face of the Alpine-era Pyrenees, the Haut-Languedoc National Park, and a clear view of Disney-like Carcassonne, with everyone nearly swerving off into oblivion as they try to steal a glance. But I’ll take this side over the Spanish side on the highway from Catalonia to Portugal any day, and the long drives on either side of the Pyrenees provide lots of time to talk. When you have a travel companion with a shared love of cooking and food culture and an equally weak resistance to the wine trail’s many once-in-a-lifetime dishes, time passes quickly and the conversations always build the appetite. Just east of Carcassonne, the historical argument starts. Remy and I were headed into the hallowed ground of cassoulet, where an ancient and hotly contested debate continues about which is the birthplace of the real version: Carcassonne, Castelnaudary, and Toulouse, each claim ownership of the medieval prototype, though I’ve seen Castelnaudary cited the most frequently. Two months later, before Sonya and I would begin our cassoulet, I would ask, “So which of the three makes the best cassoulet?” “Toulouse,” she quipped. To prompt more explanation, I asked, “What about Castelnaudary?” “Have you ever had a cassoulet in Castelnaudary?” “No.” “They’re awful …” The cassoulet controversy mirrors Spain’s paella dispute. Where does paella come from? Valencia? Catalonia? Andalusia? It seems universally known to have originated in Valencia. But like cassoulet, paella is more about what you want it to be. Though cassoulet needs the beans, and paella needs the rice, the basic ingredients and technique are the most crucial elements. In cassoulet, some use lamb, some don’t; some use breadcrumbs, while others are offended by the very concept. For paella, it depends on regional production—there are more from shells and fins by the sea and the once feathered and furry in the mountains. The texture of the rice? Another argument altogether … Cassoulet is one of the world’s great communal feasts. If I want my wife to join me for my cassoulet experience, it must be skimmed of fat (sacrilegious to the French). I wouldn’t dare sneak in pigs’ feet or skin, and leave to chance anything slightly firm and gelatinous; any ambiguous floating piece is met with subtle indignation on her part, skeptical inquisition as to my judgment, and an inevitable transfer of it from her plate onto mine. The result at Mas la Fabrique While standing in line for a sandwich at one of those French roadside feed lots, attractive single-portion-sized cassoulets in traditional clay pots caught our eyes. We were tired and hungry, and it was cold—around 2°C. We wondered if either of us would go for it. In the rainy and cold weather, cassoulet would be epic and would undoubtedly warm our spirits and prime us for our first visit. But a question on the other side of the Pyrenees would be if we saw a paella in a roadside stop that looked worthy of consideration would we have gone for it? We ordered sandwiches … Before the center of Cahors and the wildly meandering Lot, we took a left and began our gradual ascent toward Villesèque to Laurent (Lolo) Maure and his biodynamic domaine, Le Vent des Jours.  Winding through untamed forest and carved limestone passages with layered lithified sea creatures immortalized 150 million years ago, the sky was gray, the cold wind biting and the drizzle stinging, the limestone also ashen, wet, and uninviting, we arrived two minutes early after our four-and-a-half hour drive. Inside, their party hall was filled with duck products, countless hanging glasses, cigarette smoke (expected), wood smoke, the sound of Bowie on vinyl, and that salty, fatty, and familiar collagen-infused air, we were warmly greeted at the door by Pollux, a wiry-haired black and tan mutt with the same tight frame and graying beard as his manager, who followed with a smile. Cold and ready for our blood to circulate again, Lolo ushered us to the woodburning stove to unveil his days-long work: piping hot cassoulet (f… yeah!), bubbling in a porcelain-lined cast iron pot. Overjoyed for this perfect lunch, we were quickly led like bulls, pulled to the cellar by the nose as he lamented that he hadn’t prepared the cassoulet for us in a traditional clay pot. “How does it cook differently?” I asked. Without answering, he deflected with, “You don’t have one?” And I thought, I do mine in porcelain-lined cast iron pots too … (I learned later that aside from the cultural experience, clay pots better distribute the heat more consistently than cast iron.) Lolo walked me to an empty backroom hallway under renovation. He rummaged and pulled out a beautiful rustic clay pot, glazed inside, raw baked clay on the outside, and held it out. “For me?” I asked. “Yes!” Laurent (Lolo) Maure Few objects could mean as much to me as an authentic traditional cassoulet pot with scars of experience, especially a gift from a winemaker I admire. I can only imagine the magic produced in that pot, and I marched straight it to the car to make sure I wouldn’t forget it. This pot was about to leave its cozy comfort zone, travel all over France, and wait with Sonya for my imminent baptism in her version of real cassoulet. Too wet and cold to fool around in the vineyards, we stayed in the cellar to taste the promising 2024s. We started with C’Juste, a 90% Gros Manseng and 10% Ugni Blanc grown in amphora, destined to be without a milligram of added sulfites. It’s a testament to what can be achieved with no added sulfites in white wines; in fact, no sulfites are added to any wines at this domaine. Some in the natural wine world seem to have figured it out on whites, and they can be raw, charged, and clean. We ran through the various plots of Malbec for the fabulously balanced and charming Les Calades, and finally to Les Moutons, only made in the best years from the top of the hill on the rockiest parcel, groomed and fertilized by a group of miniature pudgy sheep with stringy black and white hair. Once again closer to the prize, we sat and tasted a series of Cahors vintages dating back to 2018, the first year after he bought the vineyards from celebrated naturalist and biodynamist, Fabien Jouves. Each year was distinct, and because of Laurent’s soft hand with the use of barrels ten years old or older, along with Tava amphoras, concrete and steel, each with varying degrees of micro-oxygenation (or none at all), the wines perfectly reflect each season’s particularities. Laurent Maure, photo credit Remy Giannico Laurent describes it as a “shit year.” I take this to mean, “Everything was hard.” On the horizon for the States is the 2021 Les Calades, a wine that shows its wet and cold season and the extensive care it took to preserve the good health of its few grapes. He’s quite proud of the result, and rightfully so; surrounded by fuller, riper wines, it’s an outlier. 2021 is for those who want less embellishment of this exuberant variety from the sunny years and more sting and verticality. It’s a direct extension of the high altitude, rocky terrain and spare topsoil without the concentrating and sweetening effect of the sun. 2020 and 2022 are fuller, juicier, and easier for anyone to love, and while they’re no-brainers, 2021 is a brainer. We know the difficult years separate the true talents from the fair-weathered geniuses. It’s the toil of the 2021 that made it a success. Laurent builds on each year’s strengths rather than overcompensating for its weaknesses. The only difficulty during the tasting was the distracting and inviting smell of the cassoulet behind us on the stove. When we finally dug in, it was so tasty and collagen-rich that my lips got chapped from so much licking off the rich and starchy glycerol broth between bites. Any of the world’s greatest wines could’ve been in front of me and it would’ve been just as hard to focus until my plate was clean and I was stuffed. I wanted to finish off the whole pot and Pollux it clean. Matthieu and Bénédicte, from Sadon-Huguet A solid food coma set in as we began our westward journey. Remy drifted in and out of consciousness, and I was charged with keeping us alive for the three-hour country drive in the dark. We finally arrived in Bordeaux and were stuck in traffic in the rain and the chaos of the city’s seemingly endless, non-stop road construction. We were an hour late for our dinner with Matthieu and Bénédicte, the makers of our no-added-sulfite, organic and biodynamic certified, non-AOC Bordeaux, Sadon-Huguet. This husband-and-wife team responsible for overseeing production at nearly twenty châteaux under organic and biodynamic practices started their own project in 2018, their red a blend of 60% Cabernet Franc from the limestone-heavy section of Saint-Émilion with the remainder Merlot. It’s an hour’s drive to the northwest in Blaye, on what they describe as an identical geological setting to their parcel in Saint-Émilion. Because they are both firsts in their family in the wine business, buying established vineyard land in Bordeaux isn’t a realistic option, so the parcels are rented from two of their biodynamic growers. “It wasn’t always about the quality of the terroir,” Bénédicte said when asked about why a good vineyard parcel such as the one they’ve isolated in Blaye has the same guts as Saint-Émilion but just across the river from Saint-Julien and Margaux is without a higher classification. It’s a familiar story commonly heard in Europe’s new generation of growers scouring the lost, forgotten, or perhaps never-explored areas. Blaye is massive compared to the appellations across the river. It wasn’t necessarily that Blaye (and even Pomerol, a historically a small-grower appellation without much of a tie to aristocracy, and Saint-Émilion, which was spurred into greater production by monastic orders to produce for local consumption rather than global commerce) was incapable of producing high-quality wine back then. It was the historical class division, the trade advantages and the focus of the aristocracy whose economic power developed the left bank. This shaped Bordeaux's reputation and ultimately a series of classifications that began a centuries-long self-reinforcing cycle of success, much like that of New York’s financial infrastructure, Silicon Valley tech, and Hollywood’s film industry. Mathieu and Bénédicte followed the vein of limestone and created one red wine from Bordeaux called “Expression Calcaire.” Like many of the world’s great reds, it walks a calculated line on volatility, bringing up the x-factor and highlighting the tucked-in fruit of this fully formed, broadly and deeply complex, no-sulfite-added Bordeaux. Their interpretation through biodynamics, organics and no additions is singular and exciting. It’s full of life and expression with a tightness they attribute to the limestone. With some fabulously unique and noble qualities, I can’t ever remember tasting before, Remy and I were treated to an impromptu cellar blending trial for their new white made from Semillon. It was recently bottled and will hopefully make it to our shores in 2025. This wine needs to go straight to the Michelin tasting menus. Yet another long haul ahead, we left our morning vineyard visit and cellar tasting with Mathieu and Bénédicte, for Muscadet. Our stop was in Mouzillon-Tillières with Alexandre Déramé, the nearly one-man show at Domaine de la Morandière. Morandière is a special site on the extremely hard igneous rock, gabbro, with varying depths of topsoil. Usually released six years after its vintage date, the old-vine bottling, Les Roches Gaudinières, grown on gabbro, is structured and expansive but tight and impenetrable when young. He also runs another domaine in Saint-Fiacre-sur-Maine on granite, called Domaine du Moulin. The wines from each domaine are made in the same way (usually in underground glass-lined concrete vats) and they support the argument for the influence bedrock has on wine. Those on granite are much gentler than those grown on gabbro, which are more robust and sturdy. Alexandre has been with us since we started our company and has been nudged into organic conversion with some of his top parcels. He began to test it out a few years ago, and you couldn’t pick a series of more difficult years than 2021 through 2024 to keep a new convert’s confidence in the organic process. Though still on board, 2024’s destructive mildew pressure tested his faith, as with almost every non-conventional grower in France. It was an extremely difficult year and many of our longtime organic growers lost nearly all their crops. 2025 needs to be fruitful (no pun intended), otherwise we may see the collapse of some of organic farming’s most faithful. When we extended our reach beyond the California border, it seemed that every tuffeau fragment of Loire Valley had already been overturned. It wasn’t only picked over by other importers, but sommeliers were also posting unknown growers on social media long before they found representation in the US. This prompted many importers to follow those with wide reach and sprint to nab the grower. After the growers in Brézé attracted more interest in Saumur’s dry Chenin game, a mad dash of importers to the area was in full swing. We were once at the front of the line, but by the time we branched out, we found ourselves holding up the rear. The beginning of Chenin’s most recent dry wine renaissance took shape a decade and a half ago in Brézé. In 2011, Arnaud Lambert’s Brézé wines were on our company’s first container. Buyers couldn’t reconcile the electrical charge of Arnaud’s entry-level Saumur white under the Château de Brézé label, which was composed entirely of the historic Clos du Midi fruit at the time but not noted on the label. We had a hard time selling them, but two years later, with Guiberteau’s wines on one of our boats to California, people took another look at Arnaud’s wines, and we were off to the races. Even if our relationship remains good, our collaboration with Romain ended a few years ago. But Arnaud, the quiet and largely uncredited spark that contributed to the explosion of Brézé, remains a cornerstone of our California identity. So, where to go after Brézé? If terroir is one’s guide, Puy-Notre-Dame could be one of the next hot spots. Further south of Brézé, there are a lot of different hills just like it: tuffeau limestone outcrops that survived flood erosion and are spread apart by vast lowlands used for other crops along with vineyards. The areas of Puy-Notre-Dame are visually unimpressive, but so is Brézé and Saumur-Champigny. Forteresse de Berrye, Berrie At the risk of sounding naïve, my original notion of being an importer was to seek out these nearly forgotten terroirs, and the quiet, hidden talents tucked away in corners. Success stories like Arnaud Lambert can also be found in what may seem like unlikely places; places that, in truth, may be the most capable and thrilling of all. That spark may be hidden within an imperfect, seemingly mundane wine that leads you in an unexpected direction. What first appears average may hold just a glimmer of brilliance, or the faint, familiar scent of a gifted terroir, of something remarkable, that’s somehow and miraculously been overlooked. There is no greater satisfaction for me as an importer than contributing to the success of humble and curious people. Sometimes their open minds only need a well-timed nudge. For better or worse, I’m a nudger. Most average bottles lead to a dead end, but occasionally I find some sparks too bright to ignore. Excellent cellar skills and how to farm well can be learned, but if humility and curiosity aren’t ingrained in one’s youth? A lifetime of therapy is in the cards … Four new growers around Saumur signed on with us in the last two years and each holds promise in their unique way. Our first visit during this trip to Saumur was the historic Puy-Notre-Dame domaine, Forteresse de Berrye. Purchased in 2019 by Gilles Collinet, a botanist who owned several organic nurseries, it was immediately converted to organic viticulture. After I saw the potential in the vineyards and Gilles’ seriousness in elevating his new property to a world-class level, I suggested he connect with Arnaud Lambert’s consulting enologist, Olivier Barbou. Olivier joined him immediately, and the following year Gilles also signed Loïc Yven as their new Chef du Culture (vineyards manager), who was at the time with the Nady Foucault consulted project, Domaine des Closier. Gilles lucked out with this historic property, whose ancient military base and vineyards are perched above the expansive territory and have a great view of the surroundings. While the lower areas are a mix of unsorted alluvium and capable of rendering good wines, their complexity has limits. The key to all the exceptional wines in the region is that magic sandy tuffeau limestone rock preserved above these ancient flood plains and in contact with the vine roots. Their new 2022s (with new labels) have just arrived, the first season under the gentle guidance of Olivier. After more than fifteen years of exploration with Arnaud, Olivier’s experience and touch is evident. He also understands Gilles’ predilection for wine, which is aligned with mine: pure, raw and focused without artifice and over-stylizing. With lesser terroirs this approach is perhaps less interesting, but like the highest quality fish in the hands of a sushi master, wines from fabulous terroirs need to be let alone and served unadorned to highlight their quality. Gilles cleverly explores his vineyard’s potential through this more naked state to better understand where the most promising plots are and how to bring out their best. The racy, chalky, citrusy 2022 Crémant, made entirely from Chenin Blanc with a dosage of 5g/L is the first in line for the newly arrived wines; the first batch of bubbles from the domaine blistered out of stock and into the market in a heartbeat. The 2022 Saumur Blanc “Les Bourgeres” is classic Chenin Blanc that echoes many celebrated white wine regions of northern Europe. It comes from vines planted in 1993 on tuffeau limestone bedrock with relatively thin topsoil of calcareous silt, sand and clay. It’s raised in only concrete and old barrels of 225-400 liters, and is deeply green, like exotic moss, chlorophyll, reposado tequila, lime and salt with a light honeyed finish. I’ve said since my first tastes of earlier wines even before Gilles took over, they reminded me much more of Vouvray than Saumur, or Riesling with the softness of Sonnenuhr, or Domprobst, with the limestone force of a Keller Von Der Fels. Their 2022 Saumur Rouge “Clos de Berrie” comes from vines planted in 2012. It’s vigorous, high-energy Cabernet Franc with a sturdy and wiry frame, perhaps credited to its tuffeau bedrock below a shallow loamy topsoil rich in calcareous sands. This year is also dark-fruited (perhaps because of the warm summer) and shows some nice curves, though it’s still tightly framed. Tannins are fine but sharp, with balanced green characteristics to compliment the cool and refreshing limestone tension. The red and white wines showed even better on the second day they were open than on the first. I was going to give them a few tastes and then open other samples on my list to taste, but I couldn’t quite break away. They ceaselessly continued to rise and fascinate even more, especially the white, which, even in this very simple and straightforward crafting, already shows the pedigree of this hill and these historic vineyards. He finally let me show the world his wonderful face: Fréderic Haus, Domaine Les Infiltrés, Puy-Notre-Dame Another smaller-scale head turner in Puy-Notre-Dame is Frédéric Haus and his Domaine Les Infiltrés. All his vineyards are in the village of Puy-Notre-Dame and are under organic culture. “I left a comfortable situation as a senior technician in the cinema in Lille, a city of heart, to take care of a piece of land with organic farming, and for 20 years I was a committed and enraged social and environmental activist. To speak from agriculture and out of phenomenological concern and to save the environment, I decided, like many, to occupy it …” 2022s 2023s Fred’s initial wines were unusually successful initial endeavors. It was 2021, also his first year involved in any viticultural activity. It was also the first year of Chenin Blanc and Cabernet Franc I tried from him before we signed on, eventually importing his 2022s. Fred’s background in craftsmanship and art is felt in his wines. But more than the aesthetic of craft, he’s looking for emotion, and his wines find it. On our day with him, his new wines had just been bottled and were hard to read. But with the bottles shipped to me in Spain in January and tasted in February, I’m even more convinced of this guy’s talent. The 2022s have just made their way to New York for their first showing. Heads will turn, even in markets that have heard every pitch under the sun: some things are still uniquely beautiful enough to grab our attention. Hiding in Brézé under everyone’s nose was Fabrice Esnault’s Domaine la Giraudiere. Most of Fabrice’s viticultural life was spent building business for the negociants by selling from his production of twenty hectares and only a little in-house production to sell at his tasting room. All that was needed was a label change and a little nudging from us (and our mutual friend, Arnaud Lambert), and he would walk through the door with us. Fabrice Esnault, Domaine la Giraudière, Brézé Our visit with Fabrice was another moment of confidence for us and this investment on both sides. The new 2023 wines out of vat were promising in the spring, and when I tasted them with Remy in December they had found solid footing. What I like most about his wines is their directness and simplicity in the way they’re styled. The whites taste as much Brézé as any from the hill because the grower hasn’t overthought or overwrought them in the cellar. During our cellar tasting, Remy asked about a mostly spent unlabeled green bottle with a white wax top. It was a Chenin from Brézé made by his father in the 1990s. Remy asked if we could try it, and Fabrice grabbed another one. It had a perfect platinum hue like it hadn’t aged more than a few years and still had a full tank of gas, simply spectacular. The taste in that bottle was what everyone should be pursuing: unadulterated purity! My spring nudging (the second or third attempt, I’ve forgotten) about conversion to organic farming with Fabrice took root. He already has a parcel under organic generically bottled as “Brézé,” but there will now be many more to come in time with Ardillon the headliner. His stable of reds comes from Saumur-Champigny in the communes of Montsoreau and Turquant. Like the whites, they are also crafted to express their distinct terroirs rather than bamboozle with the sleight of hand in the cellar. For a classic style approach, Fabrice is one to watch. Those gorgeous old Brézé wines crafted long ago by Fabrice’s father The scene was set early on in Portugal. It would be my second visit to Carole Kohler, and Remy’s first. I pulled her 2022s out for dinner before we flew from Porto to Barcelona. It was as convincing as I’d hoped, and Remy was excited to see this place and this person I’d already mythologized before a single drop of her wine had ever been poured in the US. Sometimes you know instantly when you’ve gotten lucky, again. Like my first Lambert Chenin from Brézé in 2010. Thierry Richoux’s 2006 Irancy with the Collet family over dinner in Chablis. Veyder-Malberg’s first Wachau wines at his house in 2010. My first Dutraive Fleurie in New York, in 2013, poured blind by my friend–a true sommelier, Eduardo Porto Carreiro. Cume do Avia’s 2017 Ribeiro reds over lunch in Sanxenxo. My drop-in visit with the unknown Daniele Marengo was at his family’s cantina in Barolo. My first two wines from Carole are part of this list. When I first tasted her enchanted forest, biodynamic, baby-vine 2022 “Source” Chenin Blanc and 2022 “Jardin” Cabernet Franc, I thought, “These are too good.” I yelled to my wife from the kitchen while preparing dinner, “It’s impossible that no one works with her in the US … You won’t believe them. They’re crazy!” My tasting notes were filled with exhausted references to the great producers in every other sentence. I’ll spare you what would seem like hyperbole and all-to-often exaggerated comparisons to the world’s elite everyone uses as context to sell their new wines these days, but let’s just say that Carole’s are aligned with the world’s best raw wines—no direct references needed. After drinking her wine for the first time, I tried to maintain a poker face for our call. I distracted her with inquiries of how she made them, about the vineyards (“schist, silex and limestone all in three different plots only hundreds of meters away from one another? Really?), and finished with, “How much sulfur did you add?” “None,” she responded without explanation. Then she asked what I thought. I let her have it. “They’re just incredible … How are importers not swooning by the dozen? Have you never sent your wines to a US importer before? No sulfites, at all?” (In 2023 with a few of her wines, she added a mere 10 mg/L to mitigate some risks for what she describes as a challenging vintage. None of the 2022s have added sulfites.) So why hasn’t anyone snatched the place? First, it’s new—well, kinda. Fleury does have history, though it might’ve been forgotten for a while. Carole’s viticultural renaissance of Fleury, an estate documented back to 1458, and then again in 1753 as a fiefdom (land grant from a lord) of the Dukes of Trémouille, began in 2016 with its first vines rooted since at least the 1960s. Registers kept in the Municipal Archives of Thouars demonstrate that vines were cultivated in Fleury long ago, with the oldest registered in 1930. But many European registers for various things were only started sometime in the 1900s, to make sure people planted with American rootstock, and to fall in line with incoming appellation laws, among other things, but most importantly the desire to have a greater tax regulation on wine. We’ve seen this a time or two with old vines in certain areas, like Spain’s Jimenez de Jamuz, whose register says that all the old vines there were planted in 1930, but the locals know they’re much older—some pre-phylloxera. Secondly, it’s located in the greater Anjou AOC and almost nobody is poking around on the edges away from the most celebrated areas of Anjou, like Coteaux du Layon, or Savennières. This generations-long family home of her husband, Brice Kohler, is a dull 35 minutes south of Saumur center, 30 from Brézé, and 22 minutes from Puy-Notre-Dame. It seems to be the last area to discover on the frontier of the appellation for quality wine. The vineyards are in the former Vins de Pays Thouarsais, an appellation discarded decades ago during the EU’s consolidation of appellation regulations, along with most of the interest in this once-important wine region before phylloxera. Today, it’s lumped into the generic “Anjou” appellation, and the Kohlers forgo the appellation altogether in favor of an even more generic Val de Loire appellation, to be even a little more self-exiled. Many vineyards in Thouars were destroyed in 1964-65. The government paid owners to uproot because they were at the gates of an expanding city, with many pre-empted to build the city’s bypass and large commercial and residential areas. This all seems like such a blasphemous offense to Dionysus, and they were surely punished for it as the wine trade basically disappeared. The financial incentives of the time were too low, the same as in most of Saumur’s generic appellation until the last ten years. If you hadn’t recovered twenty years after WWII ended, maybe it’s time to move on. History shouldn’t be forgotten, and at Fleury, it wasn’t; it was recorded quite well. It only needed the right people to dig up the records. Fleury was established in the 15th Century around its constantly flowing spring between the front gate and the house. Joined at its western hip to the ancient city of Thouars, the 16th Century house is quaint, well-kept, remodeled timelessly and full of artifacts, and beautiful art that hardly leaves an open space on the walls of this idyllic storybook countryside manor in France’s north. There’s a maze of cellar underneath, a small, freestanding winery installed in one of their old storerooms and animal shelters, a beautiful, long greenhouse dating back to 1870-1900, 19th Century gardens and a sizeable amount of ancient indigenous forest (suggested by Carole as perfect for Shinrin Yoku—Japanese “forest bathing” to clean the mind). Some exotic trees were planted through Brice’s family of five resident generations (including a sequoia in 1877), an untamed and undeveloped riverfront property, and an extensive horse pasture where Finley and Léon spend their days grazing. It’s almost too perfect with its separation from all other agricultural fields by trees, and without another vineyard even close. Its four separate vineyards gain a unique and lively biodiversity without neighborly intrusions from possible conventional farming activities disrupting her organic and biodynamic practices. It’s hard to imagine that when people figure out how good her wines are some of them won’t also consider planting around Thouars. Perhaps a third reason she was overlooked was that 2018 was Carole’s first year, ever. The 2020 and 2021 wines they opened to taste along with the 2022s and 2023s were well beyond just that “glimmer of misdirected brilliance and the faint, familiar scent of a gifted terroir somehow overlooked” that was mentioned above. But I didn’t find the same level of clarity as the 2022 Jardin and 2022 Source. Something else clicked in 2022, perhaps they just needed five years to find that line. And then there is Carole Kohler, the subject of a Klimt painting who slipped her frame. In constant reflection of light in motion, seemingly unaware of the energy with which she fills every room and every vineyard she enters, she leans in, listens like it matters, and smiles easily. There’s no distance with her, no pretense, no guarded elegance. She cooks with inspiration. There’s so much art and sculpture in their house that everything seems to be alive and moving. She’s an avid reader, skier, runner, swimmer, and yogi. “I also like meditation, sewing, decorating my house, and taking care of my flowers and my family.” After her university studies where she attained a Master’s degree in Chemistry followed by fifteen years in the agri-food industry, Carole felt it was time to “Reconnect with the living and give meaning to life ... to live with the rhythm of the seasons, immerse myself in nature, produce a local and shared wine and work to guarantee the sustainability of the Domaine de Fleury, owned by my husband’s family for five generations.” She added, “I can’t really explain why it was like a little voice telling me that I will be happy doing that…” Committed to her newfound idea (and giving in to the voices in her head), she went back to school, attaining a diploma in Viticulture at Montreuil Bellay, just twenty minutes north on the way to Saumur. During this time, they also had their selected plots analyzed through pits and generated detailed geological maps and bedrock and topsoil compositions of what they stood on before they began to plant. A working architect by trade, Brice met Carole through his sister when they were teenagers and is the other half of the dream to revitalize cet endroit extraordinaire. His desk overflows with a collection of ancient, illustrated maps and today’s geological research of the area that supports its rich heritage as a transitional center of the Massif Armorican and the Paris Basin, copies of vineyard registers, documents of Fleury’s history as a fiefdom and declarations of harvest from the 1930s. Together, they shared the same curiosity and belief that this was indeed a place! Wall at Carole Kohler’s Jardins de Fleury demonstrating their vineyard’s geological convergence of the Massif Armorican and Paris Basin A walk inside Fleury’s vineyards is a walk in what seems like virgin green land flowing uninhibited with yellow, purple, pink, and red indigenous flowers and a multitude of competing grasses that make it hard to walk through the fields before their annual plowing. These flowers are usually only around during the months one would expect, but as mentioned in last month’s newsletter where we covered the portion of our trip in Spain, there were also spring flowers in bloom in the Loire Valley mid-December! Carole notes that when the vines are young, they need more plowing to ensure the root systems head downward instead of sideways. Tree groves abut each plot, bringing an orchestra of fresh wind and foresty smells with the constant rustling of leaves and the buzz of bees and bugs.   After Jardin was planted in 2016, Source was planted in 2017 entirely to Chenin Blanc on a single 0.7-hectare parcel at 70 meters altitude. It sits across the little one-car road, Rue de la Mare aux Canards (Duck Pond Street), which marks a clear separation of the acidic rock of the ancient, Pangean-era Massif Armorican from the alkaline limestone rocks of the Paris Basin. On the south side is the 570-million-year-old Precambrian quartz-rich schist and micaschist outcrop above the Thouet River, and on the other side, the white limestone. This is evident on the road’s walls, cleverly distinguished by its builders, who built the southwest wall with the dark gray and green schist from that side and white limestone (an occasional dark blue schist for accenting) on the northeast wall. Named after the spring that led generations to inhabit the space around it now known as Fleury, Source is dynamic and quite distinguished from the other Chenin Blanc on the property, Séquoia. Its topsoil is rich in quartz and grey schist with clay on a green and black schist bedrock. This is an explosive white with more muscular, mineral-heavy lines. The 2022 was fully matured to 13% potential alcohol before picking and is a must-try from this domaine as it represents what is possible with this extremely talented site. By contrast, the 2023 was picked very early because of vineyard challenges from botrytis in September. Carole explained that with its proximity to the river, only 50 meters away, and the thick forest in between, she couldn’t wait another day for fear of losing too much crop to rot. It was picked, not chaptalized (as so many would do without a second thought), and bottled with 10.5% alcohol. Even with this low degree of alcohol, it offers extremely fine lines but without the same explosive solar-powered energy of the 2022 version. Just a hundred meters east of Source are the two parcels planted in 2019 that constitute the 1.5-hectare plot of Chenin Blanc for Séquoia. Once again, we are in the Pangean remnants of the Massif Armorican with a topsoil of clay and decomposed schist and quartz on very hard green mica schist bedrock. With only a few vintages to draw from, Séquoia appears to be more linear and finer than Source, in general. It’s not as explosive but offers a distinct contrast, indeed worthy of bottling separately. The 2022 Source was whole-cluster pressed and naturally fermented in 30-hectoliter steel tanks for four days at a maximum of 23°C and completed malolactic fermentation. It was bottled with no added sulfites and was not fined nor filtered. The 2023 Source and 2023 Séquoia went through the same processes as the 2022 Source, except that they were aged in 12-hectoliter clay Vin et Terre amphora and old 225 L French oak for eight months before bottling with 10 mg/L of total added sulfites. Neither were fined or filtered.   As good as Carole’s Chenin Blanc wines are, her Cabernet Franc hooks you immediately. Incredibly alive and full of energy, its red and black fruit profile has a lean fleshiness snugged up and narrowed by a garrigue-like floral bouquet of lavender and flowering wild thyme and a core of deep earth and virility. It’s complex and hard to square that it comes from a half-hectare of baby vines planted in 2016. This is the fruit for Jardin, whose vines sit on a mild slope facing west on the Paris Basin side of this geological convergence. While there are both Jurassic and Cretaceous limestones in the greater Anjou area, the bedrock here is what geologists call, Toarcian (named after Thouars!), from the Early Jurassic dating to around 180-million-years ago. This hard clayey limestone doesn’t share much in common beyond its dense calcareous materials with the Loire Valley’s much softer sandy tuffeau limestone, though it does have some sandstone interbedding. It’s less pure in calcium carbonate, and more relatable to the limestones of the Côte d’Or, though it predates the Côte d’Or’s predominant limestones by around ten million years. It’s like Bathonian, Bajocian, and Oxfordian, among others, though Toarcian limestone may be found in some appellations—and Chablis’ Kimmeridgian marls are about thirty million years younger, while Portlandian limestones predate it by about forty million years. The upper section of Jardin sits at 90 meters with shallower rocky topsoil of silex, limestone, clay and sand before striking a hard and fairly siliceous limestone bedrock (in this case, with black flint/chert) at 30 cm below. The topsoil deepens lower on the slope reaching down to below 80 cm where some influence of the river is apparent with deeper alluvial topsoil, making it a longer but easier journey in search of limestone bedrock. All this is to say that Jardin is complex, and some of that complexity could be attributed to its geological diversity inside this small parcel. Jardin is destemmed and naturally fermented in 50hl stainless steel tanks for 15 days with no extraction movements (infusion method) at 25°C maximum. It’s then aged eight months in old 225 L French oak and concrete eggs and bottled with no added sulfites and without fining or filtration.     “You don’t want to taste my rosé?” Carole asked. My first thought was: The world needs Cabernet Franc rosé like a vigneron needs late spring frost. When the 2023s were finally in bottle, I asked her to send me samples of the 2023 Source, Séquoia and Jardin. The bottles of Source were missing from the box. In its place were two clear glass bottles filled with a hazy, faintly rusty, warm, amber-colored wine inside, with labels of a cartoon Carole, red-headed and her face pastel shades of golden yellow, soft coral pink, deep orange and red, with one big eye peering through a marigold wine glass. “Carole, you sent me the rosé.” “Well, lucky for you. I’ll send Source next week.” I didn’t want to spoil my impression of Carole’s great range of wines with a Cabernet Franc rosé, so the bottles sat unattended for three months before Remy arrived. “What’s this?” He asked, emerging from the parking garage after rummaging through my wine storage there. “Cabernet Franc rosé.” “Oh …” We pulled the cork anyway. Before I took my first sniff and sip, I saw a light go on in Remy after he’d tasted his and I knew I’d made yet another incorrect assumption. Carole’s rosé is bottled summer sun. I never thought a Cabernet Franc could render such a dainty, attractive beauty. It’s soft and pretty, lifted with pink rose petal and taut stone fruit skin, just the right touch of amare from the light extraction and thrust from Cabernet and Chenin picked just a touch earlier than grapes for her other wines—an equal mix of both varieties. Whole-cluster pressed, naturally fermented at a maximum of 18°C for a good balanced fruit and savory notes, and aged for six months in 12-hectoliter fiberglass. It undergoes full malolactic and has no added sulfites, finings or filtration. The Cabernet Franc portion comes from a single 0.3-hectare parcel planted in 2020 at 75-80 meters altitude, just across the Rue de la Mare aux Canards and slightly uphill from Source (where it takes the Chenin Blanc of the blend) it’s on a mild slope facing southwest. Across this one-car street, from the first Chenin vine to the first Cabernet vine, the mica schist soil of Source changes to Toarcian limestone bedrock and clay topsoil—Precambrian Massif Armorican to Jurassic Paris Basin, a 360-million-year geological swing in less than ten meters.

We again found ourselves at Les Trois Bourgeons for dinner, at a table further away from the constant, freezing draft coming from the front door. Ted sat at the head of the table between Andrea and Sébastien Christophe, looking forward to the arrival of Arnaud Lambert, another one of his favorite producers, who was on his way over from his domaine in the Loire Valley. Ted had been wanting to introduce him to Sébastien for a long time; he thought they had a lot in common in how they do things, and it gives him great pleasure to bring vignerons together. Arnaud appeared in the courtyard outside the restaurant, and Ted said, “Yup, there he is in one of his signature pink sweaters.” He came in with his wife, Géraldine, a tall brunette who looks like a model. Ted made introductions all around, and Arnaud offered us a shy smile. Then, much to Ted’s chagrin, he and Géraldine took seats at the other end of the table. Ted ordered another bottle of Rousset’s St. Joseph. The one we had the night before was totally different. He said, “last night it was perfect. Tonight it’s all over the place. Sometimes this stuff smells like gold, sometimes it smells like dog. But when a wine is alive, it can be like that!” He ordered a couple of others and didn’t bother to send the off bottle back, as he continued to make an effort to be as unobtrusive as possible at that restaurant. After a few minutes, Ted leaned over and spoke softly with Andrea, who then went to the other end of the table and asked Arnaud if he’d like to switch places. She took his seat so she could catch up with Géraldine, and so Ted could make proper introductions between Arnaud and Sébastien. With the two vignerons finally across from each other, Ted waited for a connection to be made, and there were a few moments of them looking elsewhere, like they had just been set up on a date. Finally, after a couple glasses of wine had warmed everyone, a serious conversation ignited between the two men, and they leaned forward and hashed something out in rapid French. Ted smirked and nodded in my direction, quite pleased with himself. I got the œuf en meurette that I had passed on the night before and had ordered at that day for lunch in Le Soufflot. It was a simpler and more traditional style, the eggs visibly poached in the bourguignonne sauce, without the tangle of wild mushrooms and frisée on top. It was less vegetal and earthy, but hearty and delicious, nonetheless. Sébastien maintained a mischievous look in his eyes at all times, mostly making jokes about himself and always at the ready for Ted to rip on him for something, playing into each attack with feigned martyrdom. He would get increasingly animated as he told a story in fast French, then would start to hunch down and get quiet, cover his mouth in a stage whisper, then pop up with a punchline that set everyone to laughing. It was yet another time when I found myself laughing at one of the characters in Ted’s world, even though I only understood every other word. He was bleary-eyed from sleeping only two hours the night before, after tending to the frost-fighting fires. He knew he would probably be doing it again that night and had showed up to dinner anyway, cracking everybody up with his antics. But underneath all the joviality, the tension of the threat to his premier crus, and to everyone throughout the region, was palpable. Arnaud broke away from conversation with Sébastien to chat with me a bit. He has a mop of straight salt and pepper hair with bangs that constantly fall into his eyes, a boyish face with matching scruff and a polite and humble affect. He told me how he had met Ted in 2010, at a time when everyone held a negative opinion of wines from Brézé. But, he said, for some reason when Ted tried them, he saw something, their true potential. Arnaud never thought he’d be making the wines he’s making now, but Ted seemed to know he would, he had believed in him completely, and now his business has taken off. As of April, 2017, he had forty organic parcels and twenty-five traditional. Back when he first met Ted he had forty traditional and eight organic, and is continuing to switch everything over to organic farming. Things are going so well that he has fifteen employees and spends less time in the vineyards than he'd like. The subject of frost came up and when I asked how he dealt with it, he offered another surprising answer: he blows the cold air away with giant fans. When I asked if it worked, he shrugged and said, “it’s hard to tell.” After dinner broke up and we all ventured outside, nobody wanted to spend another moment in the cold, and the temperature was dropping fast, which clearly didn’t bode well for any of the makers. So we quickly said our goodbyes and see you soons, and jumped into our cars as fast as possible. Ted, Andrea and I made our way back on the darkest of country roads and crashed hard in the funny little modern townhouse with the heater that didn’t work nearly well enough for my liking.

The May edition of the Inside Source Club, featured bottles from one of our true heroes of wine, Arnaud Lambert. It’s difficult to write about Arnaud without eliciting chuckles, because after just a few words one begins to sound ridiculous. He’s young. He’s talented. He’s hardworking. Thoughtful. Focused. Studious. Committed. Charming. You get the picture. Seriously, the guy is a dream, and we at The Source feel incredibly fortunate to be working with him. Oh, and, as you’ll taste, his wines are knockouts too. Though all the wines in May’s shipment come from the hand of Arnaud, the theme wasn't to showcase the hand of the winemaker. It was to talk about terroir, specifically how limestone expression is mediated by the presence of sand and clay. Indeed, we can approach Arnaud’s winemaking here as a control factor, an element we can now remove from the equation to better examine the differences in terroir between a handful of sites. But first, let’s complete the portrait of Arnaud, because he’s someone you should know. In 1996 Arnaud’s father Yves, a banker, began Domaine de Saint-Just in the Saumur region of the Loire (more on this below). Freshly returned from winemaking studies in Bordeaux, Arnaud joined him in 2005. They also made a deal with the Comte of the nearby (and spectacular) Château de Brézé to farm his vineyards and market the wine. Hence the two labels you see today, Domaine de Saint-Just and Château de Brézé (one day we hope both labels may be consolidated under one brand). Yves died unexpectedly and tragically in 2011, leaving the estate under the control of Arnaud. Arnaud had already begun the conversion of their vineyards to organic farming in 2009, work he continues today. It’s a long and assiduous process, as the soils in this region had been decimated by fifty years of chemical farming. Only in the last few years has Arnaud begun to see the reappearance of real verve in his soils. Where is Saumur? It’s in the middle Loire, as opposed to the upper Loire to the east (featuring Sancerre) and the lower Loire to the west (featuring Muscadet). While technically attached to the subregion of Anjou, Saumur perhaps has more in common with the nearby western Touraine, whose villages Chinon and Bourgeuil are also famous for red wines, as well as whites. The reds come from Cabernet Franc, the whites from Chenin Blanc. All Arnaud’s wines are grown just a few miles apart, on a vast and massive chalky limestone subsoil, known here as tuffeau. It’s just the top layers that differ. Before we get to the wines specifically, a quick shout out to the vintage. Three brutally difficult years in a row (hail, frost, deluge) and a bad start to 2014 was taking a psychological toll on the region. As importer Jon David Headrick observed in a note: “By the end of this stretch of vintages you could see the stress and strain on the faces of many growers. Many of their neighbors were going out of business. Money was tight. Vacations were cancelled. Prices were raised. The summer of their discontent, to bastardize Shakespeare, was in full swing.” In the 2014 summer, sunny days alternated with rainy ones—a recipe for disaster. Humid, warm weather invites rot, which began to grip the vineyards during July and August. Thankfully, September brought redemption, ushering six weeks of sublime sun that banished the rot, dried the vineyards, and ripened the clusters. The result is a vintage that luxuriates in sun-bathed ripeness, but retains snap thanks to elevated acidities. It drinks well right now, but will even harmonize more over the next several years. Saumur Blanc 2014 Château de Brézé “Clos du Midi” 2014 Domaine de Saint-Just “Les Perrieres” The Loire is lovely region, bucolic and calm, verdant with vineyards, forests, and farmland. It lacks the towering, steep spectacles of places like the Northern Rhone. Indeed, what passes for high altitude in this region are the low-lying hills (which could also be called mounds or hillocks) of Brézé and Saint-Cyr. Just a few miles apart these elevations face each other. Both have been sites of excellent Chenin Blanc and Cabernet Franc since at least the Middle Ages and probably much longer. Brézé is the more famous and slightly higher of the two in no small part because of the palatial Château that guards one side of it. Both are undergirded with that deep layer of tuffeau. And both feature a wash of different soils that vary between heavier clays and lighter sands deposited via millennia of the Loire floodplains. In the case of these two wines, we wish to demonstrate what difference the amount of clay or sand makes in a limestone-based wine. The Clos du Midi sits high on Brézé as one of the colder sites on the hill. With nearly ten acres in production, it’s a pretty big vineyard, so there is some soil variance, mainly with some clay holding down the bottom of the slope, while the upper slope is mostly sandy in nature. Lurking not far beneath it all is that soft, but dense limestone. You’ll notice the Clos du Midi’s electric acidity and wiry, lean body. Indeed, as Ted wrote in his original note, “When I first tasted this wine, it was like sticking my finger in a light socket!” Sandy terroirs tend to offer great ripeness, but not always much roundness, as the water drains quickly from the ground, leaving little chance for the roots to take it up and feed off the minerals in the soil. In (slight) contrast, check out the Saint-Just “Les Perrieres.” The flavors, which run between dried herbs, tea, apples, and lemons, are not entirely different, but the wine has more body and roundness due to the heavier clay and silt of this vineyard, which also has less slope. The wine is just as delicious, just has a slightly more rounded profile. Both are absolutely delicious and share the common thread of that densely chalky core. The other beautiful thing about both is their amazing versatility with food. Yes, fish and seafood are obvious and excellent matches. But the zippy acidity and sharp flavors will also pair beautifully with the bounty of spring and summer vegetables at your local farmers’ markets right now. Saumur Rouge 2014 Château de Brézé “Clos Tue-Loup” 2014 Domaine de Saint-Just “Montee des Roches” Again, we find ourselves comparing two hills with wines that are almost like siblings, sharing that powerful limestone signature, which in red wine allows for a powerful flavor stamp on top of a structure that’s elegant and complex without being too fleshy. The Cabernet Franc from Brézé is amazing. Raised only in old oak, it shows the large limestone rocks that lurk under the layer of clay at the vineyard. The clay provides the flesh, while the tuffeau gives that ethereal structure which somehow supports that riot of red and blacks fruit flavors. We love the complexity that follows, which range from notes of sweet spring flowers to heavier sensations of wet earth, gravel, and iodine. The terroir of Saint-Cyr’s Montée des Roches is a little different, with less than 20 inches of limestone-derived sand and a little clay before the tuffeau substrate begins. Arnaud works these soils very carefully, removing the superficial roots and encouraging the rest to dig deeper into the limestone, which for this wine they clearly do. It’s like drinking straight from the limestone. We can’t say it better than what Ted wrote, “The wine matches clearly its terroir with an immediately full mouthfeel brought on by the clay soils, followed by a straight, slightly tangy acidic finish from its rocky underbelly. The wine starts with rich dark earth and forest floor, spare in fruit and evolves into a perfectly supple and finely textured Cabernet Franc.” Please enjoy these delicious wines from the magical hills of Saumur and the charmed hand of Arnaud Lambert. Happy drinking! Don't miss next month's Inside Source edition. Join our Wine Club today and receive a 10% off all website purchases for the membership duration.

(Download complete pdf here) Etna, east Sicily’s great mother, Mother’s Day 2024. After a ten-day trip with our LA tastemaker, JD Plotnick, we were joined in Sicily by the Canary Islands superstar from Bien de Altura, Carmelo Peña Santana. Aside from our growers on Etna, we also squeezed in a moment with the volcano’s renaissance man, Salvo Foti. We don’t work with Salvo, but he opened his door to give us more perspective on Etna. We also attended the annual Contrada tasting with many big names present where many growers showed solid progress. Even the most dogmatic of naturalists have come around in recent years, particularly on sulfites. The quality of 2021s and 2022s is high, with the 2021 winning on elegance and ’22 on juicy pleasure. But the weather in 2023 was a disaster for many, with our two new growers losing almost 90%. Volcanic minds: Canary Islands luminary, Carmelo Peña Santana (Bien de Altura), meet Etna’s modern-day OG, Salvo Foti We visited again with the gents at Barrus, a dream project started on southeast Etna decades ago by Salvo and Toti that had been put on hold for a while after a deal with an overpromising Italian distributor went south. The experience scared them away from the commercial wine trail until they partnered up with their younger friend, Giuseppe, in 2017. Though they produce a mere five hundred cases of wine each season (with aspirations to grow more with two new hectares added this year), they are perhaps Etna’s most unbeatable Etna Rossos in quality and price. Grown on Monte Gorna’s ancient lava flows now eroded into sand up at 550-600m, their organically farmed wines are full of life, vibrant, raw, and pristinely crafted by Salvo, with help from the well-respected Sicilian enologist, Andrea Marletta. We renewed our vows with them during a flood of interest from other US importers and look forward to the newly arriving wines this fall. Monte Gorna with Etna’s peak looming, site of Etna Barrus’ vineyards Our first morning was spent with the high-energy Carmelo Sofia, at Azienda Agricola Sofia. After more than a decade in the cellar of Vini Franchetti’s Passopisciaro, Carmelo and his sister, Valentina, began to bottle wine from the organic-certified vineyards owned by their father, Giocchino (on the left). Sofia’s entry-level red, “Giocchino,” is a light-colored (like Gio’s sun-kissed checks!), fresh, and fun Nerello Mascalese grown mostly on volcanic soil with 10-15% on the siliceous clay soils. The other imported Etna Rosso, “Piano dei Daini,” is more substantial and has deep volcanic textures and lifted aromas. We’ll dig in more in next month’s newsletter. (Usually laughing and keeping it light at all times, the picture of Carmelo below on the right is as serious as you’ll ever see him look. Giocchino is the opposite: quiet and calm, though he smiles a lot, too.) A name you will see much more of among the highest level of Etna producers (and Italy in general) in the foreseeable future is Federico Graziani. This is where we started our Etna tour in May and found that he is a hard act to follow. Voted Italy’s “Best Sommelier” in 1998 at age 23, author of numerous Italian wine books, and protege of Etna’s oracle and renaissance man, Salvo Foti, Fede’s wines hit marks high enough to match some of the world’s greats. Because it was the night before the Contrada tasting, we shared time (at least before our dinner together) with journalists filming him and droning his vineyards (which I’ve also done!). Half a dozen Italian sommeliers, some recent recipients of Italy’s “Best Sommelier,” crowded around his massive, round, and beautiful violet-tinted, ash-grey basalt table centered in the shade of three immense, ancient olive trees, the youngest of which are 600 years old and the oldest, 850. Quiet and with a gentle demeanor, he seemed amused by the attention but also exhausted after a long day of entertaining. Eventually, the groups went to their dinner spots, and we lit a fire in his home away from home (most of the time he’s with his family in Marche). Fede prepared a delicious impromptu broccolini pasta (and we were stunned by how delicious it was despite being so made on the fly), along with some slow-roasted clay-pot chicken and numerous great bottles of vino. Federico is one of the most talented growers we’ve picked up recently. With more new additions like the well-known Bien de Altura and Martin Muthenthaler along with others that will be mentioned later in this newsletter, it’s been an extraordinary year already with more to come. Let’s start with Fede’s unique blend of international and local white grapes harvested from vines grown at a frosty 1200 meters. Mareneve is sublime and seems destined to perform at its peak potential in slightly formal, relaxed, and quiet environments, perhaps even best suited for Michelin star-style restaurants—an environment familiar to Fede, the former lead sommelier in a Michelin three-star, among others. Mareneve is an unusual blend of 15-20-year-old Carricante (30%), Gewürztraminer (25%), Riesling (25%), Chenin Blanc (15%), and Grecanico (5%). To borrow from his website, Fede calls it “crystalline alchemy.” He says, “Mareneve is the result of an idea as simple as it is bold, that of planting a vineyard at extreme altitude [on the northwest side of Etna!] to ascertain how the vines react to cold climates and volcanic soil at high altitude. Mareneve is a wine that defies time, overcoming the contradictions of an extreme terrain. It is sinew, skin and bone, with a biting acidity, a persistent salinity and a strong-but-measured personality.” It’s fascinating, and from grapes most of us would never imagine on Etna. Fede explained that he thought the Gewürztraminer would bring the wine down, and it may initially cause hesitation for some with an aversion to the grape. “I don’t like this variety very much,” he said but then explained that it’s sort of the unifier of these different worlds (Germanic, French, Sicilian) and may be the most crucial grape in the mix. It’s noble in aroma and taste, versatile, and unexpectedly harmonious. It’s a must-try and another example of how blended grapes can express a terroir’s personality just as well as a single-varietal wine. I’ve had about four bottles of the 2021 Mareneve so far, and it’s consistently slow to start, especially if it’s too cold, but quickly stacks one layer on top of the other in time. It’s naturally fermented in steel at a maximum of 23°C (a good temperature to curb fruit and focus more on other typically secondary and tertiary characteristics), then aged 20 months in steel on the lees with a light filtration before bottling. It’s usually decked out with soft white fruits of pear, skinless green apple, leechee, gentle spice, slight petrol, vinyl, delicate fresh chive and lime leaf. It tastes like all the fine points of these varieties forged into one flowing current. Other notes that develop are acacia honey aroma (rather than taste, which is often aggressive), dried fennel flower and fresh orange blossom. Gewürztraminer adds more flesh after some time but remains tightened by the Riesling aromas. The local varieties have their voice but seem more dominant in the texture and ashy reductive elements. Fede’s three Etna Rosso wines are fabulous, a stylistic marriage of Salvo Foti’s Vinupetra and the best of Vini Franchetti’s Rampante and Guardiola. But Fede’s also speak the language of the most soulful, classically-styled reds: harmoniously spherical, full yet light, direct, complete, and seamless—in the palate line of those like Collier la Ripaille, Bize Aux Guettes, B. Mascarello & G. Rinaldi, Castell’in Villa. But each rosso has a singular expression relatable to other greats you may know. Fede’s starter Etna Rosso is gorgeously polished. Raised for twenty months primarily in steel with a small portion in 500L old oak and is racked three to four times. Each of his reds are fermented with up to the low 30s Celsius, which tends to alchemize tense and lifted fresh fruit to richer, deeper, slightly steeped and perhaps less precise fruits alloyed with savory, earthy notes. It comes from 15-year-old Nerello Mascalese (90%) and Nerello Cappuccio (10%) in one parcel of Montelaguardia and two in Passopisciaro on north-facing gentle volcanic slopes between 600-800m with shallow sandy and rocky topsoil. It starts with a bit of reduction (the attractive Fourrier-style) but quickly blossoms to lifted red and dark red fruit, strong mineral textures and greater length to its elegant finish. Young Etna Rosso vineyard at 800m altitude inside Contrada Montelaguardia Rosso di mezzo, the second Etna Rosso up is harvested from 35-year-old Nerello Mascalese (80%) and Nerello Cappuccio (20%) vines in the Contrada Feudo di Mezzo in Passopisciaro. Facing north on a gentle slope at 600m, the volcanic bedrock is covered with medium-deep sand and rock topsoil. It’s vinified in steel with the majority continuing for 20 months, also in steel, and a smaller portion in 500L French oak. When I first tasted the 2021s in November, I preferred the entry-level Etna Rosso (if you can call it that) over the Rosso di Mezzo, but after a few more months in the bottle, the Rosso di Mezzo surpasses it and stuns with purity. The Etna Rosso is beautiful, but last month the bottle of Rosso di Mezzo I had was fully unlocked from the get-go and pulled away through time when tasted next to the Etna Rosso. It was hard to move on from Rosso di Mezzo, even if Profumo di Vulcano was next in line. Rosso di Mezzo is the first wine in the range that takes one to the stratosphere with echoes of the most compelling examples from growers like Rougeard (clean versions), Fourrier, and Rousseau (more of a 1er Cru Les Cazetiers than Grand Cru, but after two hours open when free of their commonly oaky start). Overused winegrower clichés are certainly not in the spirit of these wines and their emotional currency. Take your time with this one. Profumo di Vulcano’s 800m altitude ancient vineyard in Passopisciaro “Garden wine” is what Federico calls his Profumo di Vulcano, his top wine. Mostly because it’s a mix of many different varieties in a garden-like arrangement (see the picture). But the world’s best wine grapes do indeed come from a garden-like treatment, hand-tended and respected one vine at a time rather than mass-farmed rows managed by people with no connection to the final wine. (Even here in Portugal’s Lima Valley, the local co-op makes honest and unusually inexpensive wines for the price made from local farmers’ grapes grown surrounding their gardens. The Lima Valley’s mouth-staining beastly red, Vinhão, is rough for first-timers but beautifully rustic. The local co-op’s version from Adega de Ponte de Lima is basically free compared to other authentic wines, worldwide. Isabelle, the woman who sometimes cleans our apartment, grows Vinhão and makes wine, too—she collects all of our used bottles to bottle her wines. She once brought me Loureiro Tinto and Vinhão clusters and a bottle of the previous year’s wine. I asked if she uses any synthetic treatments. Her face flushed and tilted, perhaps in disgust, and then with a chiding tone she said she would never use such “stupid things” in her garden. Maybe it escaped her that I have to continually remind her to stop cleaning the oven or any part of the kitchen with chemical cleaners other than soap and water. A reasonable ask, no?) What vineyard not hand-worked like a garden could produce a wine of extraordinary quality? Very few. A dense population of non-human living residents is required to arrive at the highest potential. There are those like Vinhão that are inspiring for nearly the cost of the glass bottle alone—at least for some people. And those with big price tags for which we find more excuses than justifications for time and money spent. But Profumo di Vulcano is a no-foolin’, well-worth-the-price wine. It’s a moving experience. I recommend sharing it with fewer people to experience its extensive offering over some hours. It’s never static, and one short moment isn’t enough. My latest bottle was in June on a balmy, wet, electrically stormy, romantic night and the wine surprised us when it immediately bolted from the glass. The bottle had sat upright and unmoved for two months at cellar temperature—the right pre-game stillness and degrees for this kind of wine to be served. Other bottles were calmer out of the gates or rather less resolved in the first moments of resurrection after bottling, but this blossomed in time-lapse speed with fiery and effusive perfumes of fresh-picked, sun-warmed strawberries, sun-wilted but still living red and orange flowers; the crescendo, a pure and divinely pungent Grenache-like monologue of the Châteauneuf-du-Pape of old: tempered on alcohol, refined yet forceful; the type of wine that may have raised the eyebrows from the likes of the late Jacques Reynaud. Further in, the structure builds. The first act of fruit and flowers recedes, and the deep, savory notes of wild, high desert-blooming thyme, austere mint, cistus, saffron, and darker-tinted fruits take center stage. For the third act, ferrous volcanic palate-staining petrichor that sharply refreshes and tightens the ever-expanding nose evolved to dry allspice berry, Kashmiri chili, green and dry smoking tinder with gamey wild meats along with lightly burned vegetables to sweeten the ensemble. Act four, regret: 750s are too small for wines this good. Act five, winesearcher.com, or hit us up for more. On the second day, it’s equally attractive but with a juicier palate. Impressive all the way around, it gets even closer to the greatest of the greats. Think a volcanic wine touched with the spirit (and quality) of the Rousseaus, Abattuccis, and Salvo Fotis of the world, and you’ll already mostly know this wine without yet having your first taste. Profumo di Vulcano comes from 70-130-year-old vines with an average of 100 years (some pre-phylloxera) grown in shallow sandy and rocky volcanic topsoil. The blend, Nerello Mascalese (75%), Nerello Cappuccio (15%), and 10% of Alicante, Francisi, and about forty plants of Carricante, Grecanico, and Minnella, rests on a north-facing gentle slope at 600-650m. When picked, it’s completely destemmed and naturally fermented without temperature control (which may play a part in the red-orange fruit and flower profile as opposed to fresher berry fruits, the latter often a result of lower temperatures) for two weeks. There aren’t deliberate extractions that may be sensed in its absence of a single bit of slack. It’s then aged twenty months in old, 500L French oak. Finally, the title card tech notes typical of the most full-of-life red wines: no fining, no filtration. 100 points. I jest … 20/20, probably. Like many others, Austria’s wine regions are going through regular climate dilemmas. It’s well beyond just hot weather these days as they were also hammered with frost in 2023, and again this year, 2024, some growers lost nearly everything. This year’s big frost happened in mid-April while the shoots were very short, so there’s hope for some recovery. Weszeli and Malat were hit hard while for the Wachau team, it was less severe but still noteworthy. 2022 Riesling and Grüner Veltliner are solid, a little fuller and more broad-shouldered than 2021 and 2023. The 2022s seem more universally appealing. 2021 and 2023 Austrian Riesling and Grüner Veltliner may be more appealing for some of us in the trade because of the tension, while 2022 is likely more what the general wine consumer wants because they’re more robust, perhaps with the feeling that there’s more wine in the glass. 2022s next to 2023s are a difficult juxtaposition for high-toned aroma and mineral hounds. However, many 2023s tasted at this time were just bottled which always brings lift and increases intensity while also hollowing them out a bit for the first few months. I don’t think 2023 is at the same high level as 2021, but it’s still clearly successful and with perhaps greater immediate appeal. That said, 2022s inside the Spitzer Graben, off the main path of the Danube wear their acidic freshness like a cooler vintage. Davis Weszeli set in motion some brilliant moves, starting with hiring Thomas Ganser in 2015, followed by organic certification achieved by 2019, and Demeter in 2023. You can taste these practices in wines expanding and overflowing with hundreds of subtle nuances trickling out over time. All the cru wines are aged a remarkable three years in large oak barrels, making the winery unique, with a big investment in piquing our curiosity and pleasure as much as theirs. Martin Mittelbach from Tegernseerhof shows no signs of slowing down on his ascent in the ranks of the Wachau. We tasted the ‘22s and ‘23s side by side with the always-energetic Martin and everything was exquisite. We are nearing our fifteenth season working together and there are few growers I know with greater consistency, whether in so-called great or average years. And now that he’s working organically, the wines have improved overall complexity and breadth. We are in talks to have him return to the California market early next year to show the 2023s. Fingers crossed! Michael Malat moves so quickly in the cellar that he also looks blurry to the naked eye Michael Malat has produced yet another beautiful set of wines in 2022 and 2023, in line with earlier comments about the deep and shouldery ‘22s and lifted, flirty ‘23s. It’s difficult for me to find other growers’ wines as complex as his and that I also want to gulp down like they’re water from the fountain of youth. They’re different from other Kremstal wines, with their charming exotic and tropical yellow fruits (that uniquely match the yellow of the label and foil), spice, and refreshing minerally palate dosed with plenty of acidity, and I theorize that it has to do with their ancient cellar, which is over three hundred years old and tightly packed with heavily patinaed 40-60-hectoliter fuders with more than half a century of wines having passed through them, all seasoned from its ancient yeasts and good bacteria. I love the line and continue to feel that few in Austria make such charming wines as these. So much can be said about Peter Veyder-Malberg and his wines, as it was in last month’s newsletter (and many times before)! During our visit, we tasted a few 2022s from bottle (though I had already experienced the entire range some months before) and 2023s out of vat over a welcome light dinner, post Sicily, on his perch overlooking the terraces of Schön and Bruck. His 2022s are more open and lifted than the 2021s. The 2023s were hard to assess in their unfinished state fully but are sure to be in line with the success across Austrian Riesling and Grüner Veltliner territory. Peter’s 2023s seem to be a stylistic cross between the ethereal and minerally 2021s and the fuller but open and complex 2017s. I didn’t know Peter’s now making beer and apricot jam, too. You have to go for a visit for those. They’re both wonderful, which isn’t surprising coming from the hands of this wizard. Epic beer and jam now, too? How much can we get? Sorry, not for sale … (Peter on the left, JD on the right. Our new grower and a protegee of Peter Veyder-Malberg, Martin Muthenthaler, will soon finally have a solid presence in California. (His wines have mostly sold in New York over the last decade.) We’ve landed him for the country as our only national-exclusive Austrian grower, and what a grower to have! His 2022s were truly second to none, and they taste more like other top grower’s 2021s. All his wines come from Spitzer Graben vineyards, the coldest area of the Wachau. The range is extraordinary and his commitment to quality and full-time hand work in his vines and cellar is unlike any other top grower I know in the Wachau. Nearly a one-man team, he was only recently joined by his new Bavarian wife, Melanie, who now works in the vines and helps on the commercial side. Muthenthaler’s range is serious and undoubtedly in the company of Austria’s elite. The Loire remains a center for not only low alcohol, fresh wines with great value, but it’s also an epicenter for the natural wine movement and home to some of the most compelling wines in France. However, I remain perplexed by the continued attention on so many Instagram-anointed, minuscule production natural wines from these parts, and elsewhere, that all too often fall shorter on expectations than supply. Many globally overhyped and overpriced new winegrowers have done a stage, or two, or a two-week harvest at some famous winery (often in Burgundy) and are then touted to be the next “big thing” in their region, regardless of experience with their own vineyards. There are many less well-known natural winegrowers outside of the Insta-wine world as natural as those guaranteed to triple the like count on a post but are made with more astute technical precision (and guaranteed to get you half your normal likes, or fewer). I know, shiny new things everyone else is excited about are exciting. Quirk is cool, too. Especially the noble quirk of Jura. (Did I just coin that?) But there were already many competent Quirk Lords outside of Comté country before the natural wine movement hit the mainstream. When they deliver, unicorns are even cooler, especially when they’re not marked up twenty times the ex-works price in the secondary market. Even if these famous cult natural wines stink (figuratively, and literally), people may still at least want their money’s worth when they post them for the status of having had them, often without an honest take, thus continuing the cycle of undeserving overhyped wines. Are we brave enough to start to tell it like it is when a cult-famous wine is no bueno, and give more soundly crafted but less famous diamonds credit for being diamonds, regardless of their likes count? But what’s even way cooler is schtick-free, skillfully crafted wines made naturally and with intention but without the dogma doodoo. I appreciate abstraction and quirk in wine, but serious winemaking and other artistic endeavors should have a coherent delivery. Don’t get me wrong. I believe natural wine is the most important movement since wine began to redefine my life twenty-nine years ago. The natural wine movement didn’t start as a rebel-without-a-cause insurrection but a logical pursuit to rediscover more natural ways of releasing a terroir’s entire voice while consciously respecting the land’s health and life in all forms. The natural wine movement is different from organic and biodynamic movements in that it was able to shuck the tight seal of the historical hierarchy in the style of the wines, many of which were a break from classical structures. However, when natural wine arrived in the mainstream, craftsmanship was neglected by some snake-oil natural-wine evangelists and less skilled dogmatic winegrowers throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what stuck and standing by their misfires no matter how awful the result with: “This is the way it’s supposed to be. It’s natural wine.” A resonant line in Sol Stein’s Stein on Writing is, “The biggest difference between a writer and a would-be writer is their attitude toward rewriting. (…) Many a would-be writer thinks whatever he puts down on paper is by that act somehow indelible,” which is categorically false. The same could be said for a would-be winegrower, natural or not. Admit when you’ve made mistakes, learn to do better and then apply it. The concept of natural wine done by hand (and even more, with regenerative farming) is the most logically sustainable ecological approach to making wine (except that there’s nothing about selling that natural wine that’s sustainably ecological, especially if it’s shipped across the globe). For our health, as natural as possible seems an obvious non-argument, too; except perhaps the unfair mob villainization of added sulfites in wine. How did added sulfites become the main evil, natural or not, with organic and biodynamic growers often spraying two to four times as much copper and sulfur in their vineyards, often administered by fossil fuel-powered tractors? But I would ask why anyone wouldn’t want wine to be as free from unnatural (and natural) inputs as possible. (Natural inputs can unnaturally distort wine, too.) Like any terroir idealist, and naturalist, I want the influence of nearby forests with its indigenous wild herbs, brush, undergrowth, and trees and their inhabitants, the bug-transported wild yeasts, soil bacteria, mushrooms, etc., along with a wine’s architecture imparted by the topsoil, bedrock, weather, and healthy vines well adapted to the specific conditions of the place and cultivated responsibly. Just the good ones, please. The end of May closed off a very rainy start to the year in the Loire Valley. The growers continued to struggle through the last week of May and early June as the rain slowed but it remained cold. Only a few days were above 23°C, at least in the central Loire. But this could shape-up to be a great season if the weather stays cool and less damp. This four-day Chenin Blanc and Cabernet Franc adventure was one of the top short legs I’ve been on in this part of France. It gave me the emotional uplift I needed in the face of these less certain times. I hope it gave JD, my travel partner, the same. The birth of 2024 in Vincent Bergeron’s Montlouis-sur-Loire Chenin Blanc site, “Maison Marchandelle.” Since the beginning of our importing life, we’ve had a decent foothold in the Loire Valley, which started with our remaining Loire flagbearer, Arnaud Lambert. We started with Arnaud and then visited a series of growers in their second year with us, like our natural wine Montlouis team of Hervé Grenier (Vallée Moray), Vincent Bergeron, and Nicolas Renard. We also nabbed a new one over there by Montlouis, working organically since 2019, just over thirty years old and making inexpensive, solid by-the-glass wines on silex, limestone and clay, Thomas Frissant. More on him in the fall! We also stopped by Domaine de la Lande to confirm our suspicion that François and his organic Bourgueil (certified since 2013) are the real deal. As mentioned in last month’s newsletter I bought four mixed cases of old wines and have since tried every vintage he sent. I tasted most with winegrowers, who all asked me to fetch as many old bottles from François as possible—names like Constantino Ramos, Manuel Moldes, and two other high-caliber growers in Rías Baixas, Eulogio Pomares (Zarate), and one of Forjas del Salnés’ cellar masters, Angel Camiña Seren. Our tasting in the cellar was a masterclass of wines made from different terroirs that all get blended into the single appellation bottling in the by-the-glass price range. Bourgueil is undervalued, and François’ wines are far too impressive for the prices. The old ones must be tasted to believe. Forteresse de Berrye continues its rise. Gilles Colinet, the new owner since 2019, is committed and the new wines are a solid uptick from our first imported wines. On his team now is Arnaud Lambert’s long-time enologist, Olivier Barbou, and in the vineyard, Loïc Yven, the former chef de culture for the new Nady Foucault-consulted project, Domaine les Closiers. The vineyards are gorgeous and the potential is as big as it gets in Saumur, if terroir is a guide. And, after all the ranting above, we have three “natural-ish” Loire winegrowers—all are new to the US market and mega-doozies, though two of them will arrive much later. Arriving this month is Domaine Les Infiltrés, created and run by the timid but wonderfully enthusiastic and charming Frédéric Hauss, a former cinematographer who worked extensively behind the camera for the big screen and TV. Fréd is near my age (30, take 16; I’m on 30, take 18), but wanted a change of life into something equally artistic but more connected to nature. (Relatable?) Given that 2021 is his first vintage growing grapes and making wine, what he’s put to bottle is flabbergasting. He may have little experience in winegrowing so far, but it doesn’t show. I wouldn’t call his first vintage beginner’s luck either. The 2022s are even better, and you would surely know it wasn’t luck if you’ve tasted his unfinished wines in the cellar. Some people are quick to understand fundamentals, perhaps those who already mastered them in another craft are advantaged. But it’s clear that Fréd already understands artistic composition and how to craft a wine to capture emotion, discreetly. Fréderic is based out of Saumur Puy-Notre-Dame, which will be a new focal point for Chenin Blanc and Cabernet Franc in the face of climate change; it’s colder down there. It’s also prime vineyard real estate whose grapes are mostly sent off to the cooperative—à la Brézé before we shouted from the rooftops of this hill’s potential with the simply made but potent wines of a young Arnaud Lambert, in 2010, followed by Guiberteau in 2012. What’s important in this emerging Saumur area is to find those sites on the top of hills or in the upper-middle areas where vine roots are in close contact with the tuffeau limestone bedrock, like the wines Les Infiltrés, and Forteresse de Berrye. I enjoyed what Fréd wrote about his project, about himself. It’s in French, so I asked a friend for help translating it, then tidied it up. We also checked with Fréd to see that he approves of the translation. He’s very particular, and thankfully he did. A picture of Fréd’s face is notably absent from our website and this newsletter. You will better understand when you finish his text. “Believe what we feel. Act accordingly.” - “Maintenant,” by comité invisible. My name is Frédéric HAUSS Since 2021, I have been guiding three hectares of vines whose fruits I transform into wines, between Doué in Anjou and Le-Puy-Notre-Dame in Maine et Loire (49), in the extreme south-west of the Saumur and Saumur-Puy-Notre-Dame. I grow Chenin, Chardonnay, Cabernet (Franc and Sauvignon) and Grolleau. But in reality, I had branched off… I left a comfortable situation as a senior technician in the cinema in Lille, a city of heart, to take care of a piece of land with organic farming, and for 20 years I was a committed and enraged social and environmental activist. By evolving in these environments, I learned to identify models of the past that seriously compromise our future. These include agro-industry and the pressure it imposes on agricultural income, the race for equipment, expansion and debt, land pressure, the monopolization of resources, the disappearance of the peasant world, synthetic pesticides, and the death of the soil. To speak from agriculture and out of phenomenological concern and to save the environment, I decided, like many, to occupy it… I spent my childhood and adolescence between Orléans and Angers. A true child of the Loire, joining its banks seemed obvious to me; memories of hide-and-seek with my brother in the small Gamay plot owned by my grandfather, an amateur winegrower in Chalonnes-sur-Loire. Later, sweet emotions during tastings in Burgundy near Auxerre (Chloé Maltoff in Coulanges la Vineuse, Domaine Richoux in Irancy, Domaine de la Cadette in Vezelay, the Chablis geniuses De Moor and Patte-loup, especially the meeting with what is known as a bifurqueur (young graduates from major schools who radically change paths) before the time: Pierre Hervé, a former schoolteacher who converted to winegrowing in the hills of Tannay directed me towards vines and wine. A duo of former colleagues who went to make wine in Ardèche (Domaine les Bois Perdus), also greatly inspired me. Wine and cinema have many points in common: the clever balance between technique and emotion, two artisanal rather than industrial professions, two areas in which our country excels and where two fundamentally opposed forms of economy coexist but are not exclusive. They are also two arts of circumstances: Just as a film can be a reflection of the mood and logistics of its filming, a wine is marked by our harvest environments, the flashes of ingenuity with the breakdowns of the press, instincts sharp as the unavailability of a racking rod, the radical decisions as much as the compromises. To paraphrase Baptiste Morizot in his book “Manières d'être Vivant,” grapes transformed into wine seem to me the perfect playground for forging alliances with the plant kingdom, for practicing diplomacy with non-humans. Finally, as Antonin Iommi-Amunategui (creator and host of the blog “No Wine Is Innocent”) underlines in his ‘manifesto for natural wine,’ those who, courageously, at the margins, develop wines without artifice and provide “the clear key to other battles.” So I wanted to be … Besides, Jean-Luc Godard claimed that “it’s the margins that hold the pages together.” So much for the mind. Concretely: Harvests at the Grange Aux Belles in 2019, a professional baccalaureate in 2020, an internship at Mélaric, the flagship of organic wine in the south of Saumur and great meetings at the right time made me settle in 2021 in the middle of unique personalities (and always ready to be of service) who revolve around the Saumur-Puy-Notre-Dame appellation (Mélaric, L'Austral, Manu Haget, Thibaut Stephan, Thibault Masse, La Folle Berthe, Jonathan Maunoury, …). It was a smooth transition and installation, step by step; as the rapper Oxmo Puccino says, “From prestige to burlesque, I manage, with what life suggests to me.” I rent the vines and benefit from a library of C.U.M.A. material (Coopérative d’Utilisation des Matériel Agricole). But above all, I share a tractor, van, pump and press, grape harvesters, doubts and certainties, joys and setbacks with a winegrower who settled at the same time as I did in the same area: Charlotte Savary Fulda (Vins les Coquilles). Compared to what I call “my sister vineyard,” our farms are distinct and our wines are very different. But you'll often see us stuffed together. Our relationships link common logistics, mutual aid, Adelphia, care and philosophy. Finally, between two green jobs, I perpetuate my activism against agro-industry within the Confédération Paysanne or Les Soulèvements de la Terre. The neighboring Deux-Sèvres department has been the scene of struggles over water usage, which I consider historically significant for the world. This commitment along with many others is a salutary collective counterpoint to the solitude of our professions. It also requires me to exercise a form of discretion. I shun social networks and avoid photos. I aim to make wine like Daft Punk made music: without ever investing in my image. As one of my colleagues says, “Everything must be in the bottle.” The estate is called “Les Infiltrés” [The Departed] like the film by Martin Scorsese, a work at once nervous, tense and elegant: a horizon for the wines that I try to develop, literally without filters, without artifice–it is also a nod to my previous job and to an environment that I infiltrated three years ago [2021] when I knew nothing about it at all. I wish the word “Infiltrés” was feminized, to pay tribute to all the women who help me daily. From my lover to the seasonal people who help to select young shoots from the vine, from my participatory financiers to the harvesters, from the winegrowers allied to the wine merchants who trust me. In the vineyard, I’m certified in organic farming and work as carefully as possible on yield management (pruning, de-budding and shoot selection in two passes, sometimes three, as in 2023 … difficult!!!) and I plow only according to the vigor and other signals sent by the plant. No systematism. Climate change forces us to be on permanent alert. I already combine copper with herbal tea sprays (nettle and horsetail). Yarrow and valerian for periods of stress (frost, drought). Manual harvest, obviously. And perennial. Every September I like to be the accountant of the life brackets we arrange with our buckets and secateurs. In the cellar, I work with native yeasts, my nose and mouth as compasses, the microscope as a crutch. If, in the cinema, a few tutelary figures have always intimidated me, in the world of wine, my ingenuity and my relative ignorance of the codes to master or the “100 vintages that you must have tasted” afford me great freedom. “Act like so-and-so…” isn’t really part of my vocabulary. Nevertheless, I seek to make fine, delicate, digestible wines. With bubbles and whites, I look for purity, clarity and radicality, even if it means getting close to the vegetal (should we really forget that wine comes from a vine?!). On the reds, delicious fruit, freshness: short macerations, sometimes whole bunches. I shy away from sophistication a little but recognize in the wood of old barrels its quiet and centuries-old way of magnifying certain choices. Sometimes I sulfur in homeopathic quantities to correct a deviation or an air intake during bottling. That said, my wines do not display more than 25mg/l of total SO2 when the regulations allow 100 to 150. This sulfur story is complicated: I admire those who make no compromise but I have decided to put my radicalism elsewhere. On the pins, each label has a distinct illustration to mark the uniqueness of the vintages. The quotes that accompany them guide me every day, as horizons of revolutionary lives that I modestly try to transmit to my drinkers. They adapt well to work in the vineyard and the cellar, evoking serious, determined paths, always questioning … Raging Bulles comes from a 0.3ha Chenin Blanc plot planted in 1962 at 70m facing north-south on a gentle hill of limestone bedrock with shallow silty clay topsoil. Its natural fermentation is in fiberglass for 15 days then bottled on lees with a bit of residual sugar to create natural CO2 and aged for five months. It doesn’t go through malolactic and is neither filtered nor fined. Sulfites are added (15mg/L) at disgorgement. No dosage. According to Frédéric, this wine should be seen as functional and refreshing, to be consumed with or without moderation, with friends after a long day of working in the heat. For both white and sparkling wines, he likes his to bring a side punch, an uppercut, with balance around the tension. The 2022 vintage offers a full mouthfeel linked to the few grams of residual sugar but the tasting ends with a liveliness partly brought back by the absence of malolactic fermentation. Its aromatic palate focuses on citrus fruits as well as notes of pear. An ideal drink as an aperitif or a transition between two wines or dishes.” In a region now better known for cuttingly intense dry wines, the 2022 Saumur Blanc “Une Histoire Vraie” is the most delicate and intricate of all Chenin Blanc wines we import from Saumur. 2022 was a warm year (well, it was hot …) and all the wines are a bit softer. Fréd picked early and worked gently to capture the essence and tension of this small organically farmed 20-are Chenin Blanc plot planted in 1990 on a slight east tilt of Turonian green chalk bedrock, and deep silt and sand topsoil. After its 60-day natural fermentation in fiberglass at 20°C maximum (similar to his Chardonnay vinification, a temperature that imparts nearly equal voice to fruit and savory characteristics), it’s aged on lees for six months in old 228L French oak and then six months in bottle. It passes through malolactic fermentation and is neither filtered nor fined. The 20mg/L of total sulfites added only at bottling renders this wine even more fine. Over a few hours, a bottle in June started on the wider side and slowly became more vertical, lifting its freshness even higher. It’s wonderful alone but would be dangerously good with sea fare like cuttlefish and calamari on a plancha, and fatty fish, like turbot or sea bass, left with the skin on—sweet and crunchy brown, finished with a touch of sizzled almond brown butter, a squeeze of lemon juice and dusted with the zest. Rarely would I think about dry wines with dessert, but with its yeasty, pastry, soft spice notes, it may also go well with a mildly sweet one such as apfelstrudel. After about four hours open, it keeps getting better, tightening more, and releasing floral notes and high-toned spice. Stylistically, think of a marriage between the wines of Anjou’s Patrick Baudouin and Montlouis-sur-Loire’s Vincent Bergeron. The next day, it was tighter and almost completely vertical. It’s a journey but hard to leave alone long enough to see those wonderfully tight-knit floral aromas. Chardonnay “Itinéraire Bis” comes from a flat plot planted in 1992 on a Cretaceous limestone bedrock with a deep silty clay topsoil. It passes through a 20-day natural fermentation in fiberglass at 20°C maximum, the medium temperature making for a Chardonnay with a balance of fruitiness and savory qualities. It’s then aged on lees for six months in 60% sandstone amphora and 40% old 228L French oak and passes through malolactic fermentation. It’s filtered but not fined. The total sulfites are 20mg/L and all are added at bottling. My first tastes of it just after bottling were full of iodine (one of my favorite white wine aromas) and ripe lemon with a little wildness. It needs only a few minutes open to find its footing. What is going on with Saumur Cabernet Franc? If it continues at its current upward trajectory, in ten, twenty years they will even further combine the noblest traits of Côte d’Or reds and left-bank Bordeaux, and will be the most balanced and beautiful red wines of France. Fréd’s whites are very good, but the red … Damn! This 2022 Saumur Rouge Puy-Notre-Dame, one of the most compelling and stunning wines I’ve had in 2024, is no accident, as that would be impossible. It’s only his second vintage, ever, but if I hit this level of mark on my second try, I’d be scared for the rest of my life that I’d never get close to it again. The constant heat spikes of the 2022 season made for some serious bullet-sized vigneron night sweats, but for Saumur reds in this moment of climate change, if one listens to nature and rides its wave the results can be this! Pick the right spot (hilltop tuffeau limestone and sandy loam), pick early and fresh with some sting still in ‘em and ripe enough to let the stems play their part, let only the right ones in the vat, guide don’t push, think more, react less, and when the time is right, lure it into the bottle at the peak of its powers. That’s what happened here. This slightly turbid deep red rose-colored Saumur foreshadows the absurd pleasure of what’s to come. We’ve imported some gorgeous Saumur Cabernet Franc, but this kind of wine seems only possible from an outsider looking in; someone led by emotion and intuition that realizes (rather, doesn’t care to know) that at all times they are in the middle of a frozen lake during spring on the thinnest of ice. Fréd explained that even though he’s new to winemaking he doesn’t want the influence of more experienced winegrowers. Well, ok … it’s working. But what will you do next, Fréd? On this day in June, this wine has already led me to the tuffeau hilltop of my Cabernet Franc dreams, and there’s only one direction to go: further up. This wine won’t apex on a mountaintop; it will do so in the clouds above. Planted in 1990 on an east-facing gentle hill of Turonian green chalk bedrock with a deep silt and sand topsoil, the grapes were 50% whole cluster and fermented/macerated with a single pumpover during its nine-day fermentation. It was then aged ten months in five to ten-year-old 228L French oak. It passes through malolactic fermentation and is neither filtered nor fined. 10mg/L total SO2 added only at bottling. You will believe me when you try it. And then there was Carole. Sometimes you know instantly when you get lucky, again. Like my first Lambert wines from Brézé. Thierry Richoux’s 2006 Irancy with the Collets over dinner in Chablis. Veyder-Malberg’s first Wachau releases at his house in 2010. My first Dutraive in New York poured blind by my friend–a true sommelier, Eduardo Porto Carreiro. Cume do Avia’s 2017 red wines over lunch in Sanxenxo. Les Infiltrés’ 2021 Saumur Puy-Notre-Dame wines, a stunning first vintage from a complete rookie. My first two wines from Carole Kohler are part of this list. When I first tasted Carole’s enchanted forest, biodynamic “Source” Chenin Blanc and “Jardin” Cabernet Franc, I thought, “These are too good.” I yelled to my wife from the kitchen, “It’s impossible that no one works with her in the US! … You won’t believe them. They’re crazy!” We’re talking about the hottest category in France right now, especially for value, and they were complete insanity for an unknown—another Fréd! My tasting notes were filled with exhausted references to the great producers in every other sentence. I’ll spare you what would seem like hyperbole, but let’s just say that Carole’s wines are aligned with the world’s best raw wines. Name them. These are on par. Carole was our last visit before flying from Nantes back to Barcelona and it was as inspiring as I hoped. On our call after drinking the wines for the first time, I tried to maintain a poker face—she always calls with video. I distracted her with inquiries of how she made them, about the vineyards (“slate, schist, silex and limestone all in three different plots only hundreds of meters away from one another? Really, all that in that small area?”), and finished with, “How much sulfur did you use?” “None,” she responded without explanation. Then she asked what I thought. I let her have it. “They’re just incredible … How are importers not swooning by the dozen? You never sent your wines to a US importer before me? Really? No sulfites, at all?” Her 2022 Source and 2022 Jardin are spectacular. After my first set of two sample bottles, I bought three more of each from her, and my wife and I finished them in short order, then had another set in the company of Constantino Ramos, our talented grower and great friend in Vinho Verde. Each bottle was perfect, and the mystique of the unassuming and extremely humble Carole Kohler began to grow. The walls tell the truth about the rocks in the ground: limestone, slate/schist, sandstone, silex—in one spot … Three days before our first rendezvous with Carole, Arnaud Lambert asked who else we were planning to see, as he always does. I went through the list, but with Carole Kohler’s name, his eyes lit up, and he instantly corroborated all the fantastical stories about her wines. Arnaud is not one to charge into vouching for new growers, but there was no hesitation. He knows she’s special, but why didn’t he ever tell me about her? I have no doubts about Carole Kohler and her magical forests and vineyards just outside of Thouars. Inside of the greater Anjou AOC, this long-time family home of her husband, Brice, is just 30 kilometers directly south of Brézé, the first place we struck the motherload. It’s also in the former Vins de Pays Thouarsais, an appellation discarded decades ago during the consolidation of EU regulations, along with most of the interest in this once-important wine region before phylloxera. There will be so much more on Carole to come, but I’m still digesting our visit and our opportunity to work with such a kind soul churning out extraordinary wines from an unexpected place. There was another superstar we visited on our trip—one that will have to remain a secret, for now … I had my first bottle of his wine about two years ago and was told he had nothing to sell. It was true. This time he opened the door for us, but because his production is so small (though he is not) and won’t have wine for us until 2026 we will tuck this one away until the time is right. Bubbles. Incredible bubbles. JD and I began our trip with a meeting in Barcelona before our flight to Catania, and it closed in the same city after a short one back from Nantes. I’ve dined at many of the recommended Barcelona spots, but too often they’ve fallen short. Gresca has been the most consistently good spot for me, even if this time it wasn’t the same level as the last half dozen times. While Gresca is a pretty sure bet, there’s now a new place that delivers perhaps the most personalized but casual service experience with a tapas family-style menu: Suru Bar is often described as a sort of “speakeasy,” but it’s right on the street with a sign in clear view. The list is well curated and the food is tight, clean, flavorful, and easier on the pocketbook than expected. The owners, not surprisingly offshoots of Gresca, are true hospitalitarians. It feels you’re in their direct care, and you are. It’s a must.

Prádio vineyard in Ribeira Sacra It seems that just about everyone I know who didn’t get Covid prior to the recent holiday season has done so since, but somehow my wife and I have successfully evaded it despite an extensive pre-holiday tour around California to say hello to as many of our friends and customers (many of whom were also very good friends, along with some I hope will be falling into that category). We again wish all of you the best of luck with your health from our homebase of Portugal. Keep drinking good wine! I think it helps… We have a lot to talk about this month, so let’s dive in! New Arrivals Spain Fazenda Prádio, Ribeira Sacra First on our list of arriving producers is the new darling of Wine Advocate critic Luis Gutierrez:  Fazenda Prádio, from Ribera Sacra, run by former professional Spanish fútboler, Xabi Soeanes. We did a very quiet opening with his top red wine from 2018, Pacio, but with only 20 cases to spread around it was hard to justify a big promotion; we’ve been waiting for the 2019s to arrive, because we’re getting a lot more of them and we’re really excited about it! We’ll start with a snapshot of what’s done in the cellar because it’s the same for all the reds, and it’s very straightforward. Fermentations are natural and take place in granite lagars (rock vats) with varying capacities for about seven to ten days. Most of the barrels used for aging are 500L, old French oak and the élevage usually runs about eight months, simple production methods that showcase this architecturally terraced granite and schist terroir that overlooks the Río Miño. The first wine in the range is made of Mencía, the most famous grape in Ribeira Sacra. It’s this grape’s approachable nature that makes it broadly appealing and Prádio’s rendition has a great deal more layering and complexity than the typical Mencía due to its very shallow topsoil composed entirely of the granite and schist just centimeters below the surface. Prádio has just a few hectares and they’re shooting for the highest quality with this wine, which makes its modest price quite a deal. Right now they only have nine hundred vines of Merenzao, which produces a very sensual, aromatic wine with a fine mouthfeel of good natural acidity and little in the way of tannins. In France’s Jura, Merenzao is known as Trousseau. Elsewhere in Northwest Iberia it seems to have a hundred synonyms and turns up in many unexpected places. This wine is delicious and perhaps the most aromatic of the range. The only challenge is that my wife is so fond of it, which makes it hard to keep around the house when they produce so little of it. In the Jura, this grape is grown mostly on limestone terroirs which bring a broad palate feel and roundness compared to the finely etched lines of striking mineral textures imposed by these acidic soil terroirs. Once you taste it you’ll agree that the world would be a better and kinder place if everyone drank more Merenzao. Another fabulous grape that is seemingly only found in Northwest Iberia is one of my latest obsessions, Brancellao. Xabi has three thousand vines but this variety produces a much smaller yield than most, perhaps due to its open cluster shape and wider node spacing on the shoots. Its skin color is very pale and the wines take on very little color and tannin. Its winning attributes are its fresh acidity and beguiling-but-delicate aromas of fresh red fruits and soft spice notes. Xabi believes that this is one of the most important grapes for the area, and I totally agree. One of Galicia’s most untamed and perhaps most promising red varieties (in my opinion) is Caíño Longo. Prádio’s version of the variety combines all the elements of this truly great grape: good structure with its exuberant acidity and medium tannins, a wide range of aromatic and palate complexities, and that sort of inexplicable nobility and extra aromatic and palate dimensions shared by the greatest wine grapes of the world. The challenge for each grower is to break Caíño Longo’s acidity/phenolic ripeness code. The acidity can be monstrous if not picked perfectly, and if picked a little late, much of its high-toned red fruit and floral characteristics can quickly go to a more rustic side—a true asset when in balance with other fresher characteristics. Xabi believes that his Pacio Tinto, a calculated blend of all the red grapes, is the most complete wine in the range, and I might agree. While they have some single-varietal wines, his strong belief (shared by almost every winegrower in Ribeira Sacra) is that the sum of multiple parts make a better wine than single varietal bottlings. This is also a regional historical perspective, and it is due to the variability of the indigenous grapes in Galicia that seem to be exceedingly influenced by each season and furthermore by the great diversity of bedrock and soil types, aspects, altitudes, etc, of each individual vineyard. When one grape on the farm struggles, there are others that thrive. This is surely part of the reason the grapes of Galicia (and in much of Portugal) are so commonly blended. Indeed, they are fascinating on their own, but when blended together the dimensions are perhaps more subtle while the entire breadth of the wine is magnified. Pacio has it all and nails all the facets of palate and aroma. If you have each of the single-varietal wines before drinking this one, you will see how they harmonize together. New Arrivals France Arriving this month are wines from regions and producers that everybody wants. We can never seem to get enough to keep up with demand in these categories without momentary holes in continuity along the way. And while we usually have very solid allocations from each of these producers, don’t wait to get ahead of the game on these because they tend to disappear relatively quickly. Maxime Ponson, the mind behind Champagne Ponson Pascal Ponson, Champagne There was such a massive shortage of Champagne over the holidays! I was in California for a visit and you couldn’t even find the usually ubiquitous Veuve-Clicquot Yellow Label, even at Ralphs! (Not that any of us were looking to buy that…) But it wasn’t because Champagne’s stocks have run dry; it’s because those darn freight delays just won’t go away. But we cut a deal with the marvelous and young Maxime Ponson to bring in a massive shipment that was dispatched in August in hopes that it would make it to California for the holidays. Yes, you read that right: we ordered it in August, thinking that was enough time to receive it before Thanksgiving… It didn’t end up arriving, but it’s doing so now!  The new arrival of Maxime Ponson’s Extra Brut “Premier Cru” Champagne (dosage 7g/L) comes from his family’s organically farmed vineyards in La Petite Montagne, a subregion of Champagne’s Montagne de Reims, located west of Reims, the region’s capital. La Petite Montagne is home to some regional luminaries and top talents, like Prévost, Brochet, Savart, and Egly-Ouriet. They tend to seven different communes and only on premier cru (1er Cru) sites where they have seventy parcels that make up 13.5 hectares, the oldest of which being seventy years old and the youngest just recently planted. The bedrock here is chalk which Maxime says is softer than the chalk found further south on the Côte des Blancs because it’s more of a tuffeau, an extremely porous, sand-rich, calcium carbonate rock, similar to what is found in Saumur and other wine regions of the middle Loire Valley. The wine is a blend of 70% Pinot Meunier and the rest equal parts Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Best to get on the train soon because the shipping delays continue… François Crochet in "Le Petit Chemarin" François Crochet, Sancerre Another wine that has been in very short supply due to freight challenges and is always in a high demand is Sancerre. François Crochet’s 2019 single cru whites are finally arriving, and despite the overall riper character of the vintage (a perfect year for those of you who like a little less green in your Sauvignon Blanc), we can always count on François to be the one who still finds the freshness with his very early picking—something he’s put into practice since he took over from his father. Crochet's "Les Exils" vineyard composed entirely of silex From most elegant to most powerful of Crochet’s range, we start with Le Petit Chemarin. This wine has quickly moved to the top of the range for me based solely on its bright mineral characteristics and elevated aromas—a profile that has yet to be exhausted within my general view of wine. It’s substantial but flies high and always maintains a dainty but ornate frame. Next is Le Chêne Marchands, the flagship of the winery and the grandest cru in Bué, Crochet’s hometown. My challenge with this wine is that it’s always at the top of the range and sometimes I want his other wines to finally pull ahead of it, the way it’s fun to sometimes see an underdog beat the champion. Le Chêne Marchands is perhaps the most well-rounded in the range and has big mineral characteristics, medium-to-full structure and an endless well of fine nuances and broad complexities. Le Grand Chemarin is often marked with more stone fruits along with sweeter citrus notes than the others in the range. It has a more expansive body and bigger shoulders than many of the rockier limestone sites, like Le Petit Chemarin and Le Chêne Marchands. It’s perhaps equally as full as the next wine, but maybe with more fruitiness. It might share the title of most powerful in the range limestone terroirs with Les Amoureuses, but in a denser and stonier way. Les Exils is the outsider in François’ range of Sancerre single-site wines. It’s grown on silex (flint, chert) on a more northerly facing slope, while the others are all on variations of limestone, with more sun exposure. Les Exils is perhaps the most minerally concentrated of all, with mineral impressions that are heavy and dominant in the overall profile; perhaps flintier than the others (a seemingly natural characteristic influenced by its soils) and with less fruit presence and a grittier mineral texture than what the limestone vineyards impart to their wines. Les Exils is always a favorite because it’s a bit of a marvel of minerality in itself, especially when tasted with the rest of François’ exciting range. Les Amoureuses is perhaps the most upfront and powerfully expressive wine in the range. It has the biggest shoulders of all, and this is most likely due to its numerous clay-rich topsoil and limestone bedrock parcels. Each of its dimensions are strong and seem to tuck any subtleties further into the wine. It’s a perfect Sancerre for four or more people who want to break the ice at lunch or dinner with a nice refreshing glass that never stutters after the cork is pulled. The Chablis premier cru vineyard, Fourchaume Christophe et Fils, Chablis Sebastien Christophe’s 2019 premier crus are finally docking. We thought we’d get them a lot faster after a small batch arrived some months ago, but we decided to hold them to wait for the rest in order to make a proper offer. Sebastien’s Fourchaume vines planted by his uncle in 1981 are located in Côte de Fontenay, a lieu-dit situated on a perfect south face toward the bottom of the hill and next to the property’s dirt road at about 120-130 meters in altitude. This is by far the most muscular premier cru in the range, with an abundance of classic and complex Chablis characteristics. Montée de Tonnerre is directly ahead with Mont de Milieu on the next hill over Located south of the grand crus and the noblest of premier crus, Montée de Tonnerre, is Mont de Milieu, one of the most versatile premier crus in Chablis. Although it’s not much talked about, on that side of the river the slopes clearly have a tremendous amount of the Portlandian limestone that have made their way down the hills and are set in place by the sticky marne (calcium-rich clay) on Kimmeridgian marl bedrock. These soil elements and the south-to-southwest aspects on this side of the Serein River often have greater palate weight and roundness, and fewer intense mineral components than many of those across the river on the left bank, depending on each vineyard. Mont de Milieu has a great range of characteristics that put it in the stylistic center between the right and left bank. Finesse is its main game, but it has plenty of thrust that drives home its complex range of subtleties. Montée de Tonnerre is the flagship wine of Sebastien’s range (the grand crus, Blanchots and Preuses, are on their way soon as well), partly because it’s the most famous premier cru in Chablis, and for good reason. It demonstrates class and balance in every dimension from the acidity, fruit, mineral, seriousness, and pleasure. Sebastien’s parcel is located in the lieu-dit Côte de Bréchains, within the Fyé Valley. Its western aspect and deep marne mixed with Portlandian scree and Kimmeridgian marlstones contribute to its broad range of complexity and appeal. It shares nearly the same south-southwest aspect as most of the grand crus and largely the same soil structure as Les Clos; however, it’s topsoil is not as deep above the bedrock as in Les Clos, though it’s still deeper in most parts than the closest premier cru, Mont de Milieu. (Keep in mind we’re speaking in terms of mere centimeters in difference vis-a-vis topsoil depth.) While this could be mistaken for a photo of U2, it's Arnaud Lambert (left), Romain Guiberteau, Peter Veyder-Malberg (Austrian luminary with the glasses), and Brendan Stater-West (far right) Arnaud Lambert, Saumur Everybody wants Arnaud Lambert’s wines now, but there was a time not too long ago when no one had heard of him, when Brézé was just an obscure name on bottles produced by Clos Rougeard, which were readily available and collecting dust in many wine shops prior to around 2012. Arnaud and I talk a lot about wine and life. Normally I spend two to four days with him each year in Saumur—sometimes twice a year—and we meet up elsewhere as well. Arnaud is one of our company’s cornerstones. It could even be said that he is our company’s most O.G. producer. Our first contact was in 2010 when we first started The Source, soon after we tasted a few of his wines that he had shipped to our friend’s house in Provence. It was my first “sourcing” trip before I’d purchased a single bottle of wine to import, and I was there with the well-known, former sommelier Tony Cha. I went to France on that first trip with an empty portfolio and came home with thirteen, and Lambert was one of them. I would’ve never guessed that my interest in finding a “clean” Cabernet Franc to import from the Saumur area would lead me to the relatively unknown hill of Brézé and to what seems like the beginning of the redefinition of modern-day, dry Chenin Blanc. Clos Rougeard had their “Brézé” white but it was very rare (and hard as a nail in its youth…), and the rest of the hill had been almost lost to history. There is so much to tell about this chronology, but Arnaud’s entrance into our California market predated Guiberteau by almost two years. Somehow Arnaud and The Source have been on the same trajectory since our first meeting and we frequently talk about those times. My most vivid memory was of us standing in Clos de la Rue on a very cold day, when for the first time he told me the story of Brézé and the historical crus to which he’d been handed the keys. It was at that moment that I knew I did the right thing by leaving wine production (or at least delaying it for a couple of decades) to become a wine importer. I was so excited by the story that I could hardly contain myself. I wanted to fly home immediately and tell everyone about Brézé’s history, and I did. Of course, it took a few years before we jumped from Arnaud’s basic Saumur white and red into the single-cru wines, starting with the 2012 Clos David and 2012 Clos de la Rue. By the time those cru wines arrived, Guiberteau had already made his mark in the States, I believe his biggest initial splash was in California. And prior to Romain lighting our world on fire with his 2009 Clos des Carmes and 2010 Brézé, no one really gave Saumur white wines much attention; oh, how quickly things can change… On this container we will finally have our restock of Lambert’s Cremant Rosé and Cremant Blanc. Make sure to lock in what you need because while we have a good chunk to start, it gets dispersed very quickly. The same could be said for the arrival of his entry-level reds, 2020 Saumur-Brézé “Clos Mazurique” (no, Saumur-Brézé is not an official appellation, but it has a nice ring to it, no?) and the 2020 Saumur-Champigny “Les Terres Rouges”. On the Chenin Blanc front (always an exciting one!), we have some of our “exclusive” bottlings arriving. These are the result of many discussions I’ve had with Arnaud about exploring special plots inside his vineyards to see if there is a notable difference in quality. The deal was that we would taste the wines together each year and decide if they should be bottled or blended into other wines. In any case, I committed to the purchase of these fun and adventurous experiments and now we have four different small production bottlings: Montsoreau, Bonne Nouvelle, Brézé, and a Clos du Midi aged in old French oak casks and bottled in magnum. Two of those special bottlings have arrived. 2018 Saumur-Brézé “Bonne Nouvelle” and the 2020 Saumur-Brézé Clos du Midi “Special Bottling”, both of which only have two barrels in production—roughly 40 cases of each wine made in total. Our challenge with this bottling of Clos du Midi is that it’s normally bottled in magnums to differentiate it from the normal bottling, but this year he put it in 750mls and put the same label on it, which makes things a little complicated… It comes from further up on the hill inside the Clos du Midi where Arnaud says this section generates more power in its wines. The normal bottling is aged in stainless steel for eight months while this version is raised in neutral barrels for eight months and bottled and stored for six months before release; the difference is striking. The regular Clos du Midi is a fabulous wine with its straight lines, gorgeous mineral nose and easy accessibility, but this version of Clos du Midi has more thrust, slightly softer edges and a deeper core strength. Clos David dirt, a sandy mix of tuffeau limestone and tiny shell fragments 2019 Saumur-Brézé Clos David is arriving and that should prove to be another knockout for this vineyard. There is also a small reload of the fabulous 2016 Saumur-Brézé Clos de la Rue, which sold out pretty quickly once it was put on the market. Bruno Clair, Burgundy The 2017 Bruno Clair wines are finally arriving after their two-year delay. How fun it is to receive wines from this fabulous estate and this wonderfully fun vintage! It’s good timing for everyone who’s maintained their allocations over the years because the press finally pushed Clair into the upper tier in the recent 2017 vintage blind tasting. “Back to Burgfest: 2017 Reds – Blind” written by Vinous’ Neal Martin, posted on January 18th, and in it, Clair seems to have really stood out among many important producers (around 250 different wines tasted over five days), including the likes of Jean-Marie Fourrier and Armand Rousseau. A happy place: Estournelles St.-Jacques and Lavaux St.-Jacques (left of the long wall), Clos St.-Jacques in the center, and Les Cazetiers on the other side of Clos St.-Jacques. Clair’s Clos St.-Jacques received 97 points (and according to Martin, was the top between the five producers—for the second year in a row—who have parcels from this very special vineyard), Bonnes Mares 96 points, and Chambertin Clos-de-Bèze 98 points. Not a bad haul for a blind tasting! While blind tasting has its merits, for me it’s not an end-all be-all judgment. But what can be ascertained from this kind of tasting at this moment is that the wines are showing great now—not surprising for this vintage and not surprising for Clair either: we’ve been beating his drum for years. Most of it has already been allocated, but if you feel you missed the boat, please let us know. We’ll do our best to find some strays. Simon Bize Our minuscule quantity of 2018 Simon Bize wines is also arriving. These wines are in great shortage for us and will be allocated to those who have a history of following them. Bize did very well in 2018, a vintage that matches this winery’s historical style under the hand and mind of the late Patrick Bize, where structure leads in the wine’s youth and builds to greater complexity and a drinking window that will likely be a few years down the road when compared to their more red-fruited 2017s. I love this domaine and I love the wines every year for the spirit they contain. The versatility of the premier crus of Savigny-les-Beaune makes this appellation one of my favorites and I know no better producer than Simon Bize. Many of Bize's great premier crus are in this photo, including (from right to left, generally) Aux Vergelesses, Les Fournaux, Les Talmettes, Aux Grands Liards (not a 1er Cru), Aux Guettes, and Les Serpentières. Far in the background, on the top of the hill toward the left center, are the vineyards for Bize's Les Perrières Bourgogne wines.

Brézé & Bizay His Way Photo and interview by Ted Vance Spring 2021 How did an Oregon native like you end up in France? I moved to France in 2007 after I finished up my studies in Oregon. I double majored in French. I wanted to leave the US for a period of time, looking for adventure, and Europe offered so much of what I wanted. And I met a French woman whom I was married to until a few years ago. How did you find your way to Romain Guiberteau? I lived in Paris for several years and finally moved to Saumur in 2012 to work as Romain’s apprentice. Before that I was working in retail sales in Paris with Joshua Adler, who moved on to start Paris Wine Company. He and I were selling Romain’s wines in the store next to the Louvre. Romain’s wines were some of my favorites in the shop. Once I started tasting through more Saumur wines, I quickly became fixated on the region as a whole: the vibrancy, the electricity. These were the wines that really spoke to me—almost on a spiritual level; but that’s another subject… How have you seen Romain grow over the years? Maybe the most obvious thing is that he’s mellowed out—I guess that’s the most honest answer. He’s also become more in tune with his different vineyard sites. He has the same intensity as his wines and these days they’ve found a greater balance and harmony. I can’t explain why, but perhaps it’s the same for his personal life. He’s been more in tune with his surroundings, like the vineyards and the perspectives of others. He’s truly an altruistic person. He loves giving things. That may even drive his wines: he wants to give people the best he can give in his wines. How much of a part has Romain played in your company’s development? He’s helped me a lot, especially with the market for my wines and his wisdom on what to do. I feel especially lucky in that I’m able to benefit from both his mistakes and his successes. What other wine regions or vignerons have influence on your wine style? Of course, I love Burgundy. I love Pinot Noir. I think specific varieties on certain terroirs are just transcendent. I think probably Fred Mugnier’s are the first ones that pop into my mind. They are benchmark wines for me because they have this extremely fine touch, an ethereal side—maybe even a heavenly side to them. This is the kind of wine that I want to achieve. There’s something in his wines I find both rooted in its minerality and structure and also lifted, high up, where a polarity exists between the elements. This is what I want to try to achieve with my wines. As far as other favorite regions, Muscadet is one of the top for me in the Loire. Jura white and red inspire me too. I’m also totally digging wines from Languedoc. Riesling. Gruner Veltiliner. I’m not so knowledgeable about Spain or Italy, but the Albariño wines Manuel Moldes brought for us on your trip together to Saumur were a real surprise in how good they were. Farming principals? Yves Herody method. Yves wanted to help farmers get back fertility in the soils while at the same time rebuild the soil structure, which are two things that don’t come together for a lot of people. The idea is that we need to introduce fresh organic fertilizer into the vineyards every year: cow manure, cover crops like fava bean, rye, clover, mustard, etc—things that capture nitrogen and put it into the soil. The plants are later tilled into the soil during the winter along with the composted manure. What it's doing is replenishing the soil microbes and organic matter so that the different soil horizons interact better together. It’s a close relative to biodynamic methods of soil preparation. I’ve been doing this since 2018. Romain’s wines have commonly shown more reductive elements compared to wines from other growers on Brézé. What do you attribute this to? I think that residual SO2 in the vineyards is not the ultimate cause. But after pressing we keep a lot of the heavy lees, which is really rich in nitrogen that the yeast needs. Already this makes for more reductive elements. We don’t give the whites any air during fermentation to resolve some of these characteristics. If you compared Romain’s white wines with Arnaud Lambert’s, one of the biggest differences is that Romain works with more lees. How has the climate changed since you began with Romain in 2012? The climate has been whacky ever since I’ve been here. This year (2021) seems to be a later year. Things are changing. It’s noticeable. It's erratic and harder to predict. These days the forecasts are becoming less correct with patterns. It’s tricky because we can’t plan perfectly, but we collect a lot of information from many different sources to make our decisions. What adjustments have happened strictly by the influence of climate change? We used to deleaf more but have stopped that almost entirely because the summers are like 100 degrees now. In 2019, for example, we had a severe drought and everything shriveled up. We’re also considering more grass in the vineyards, to let it go until its past its growth cycle, then roll over it with a type of pincher that creates a kind of mulch that keeps the soils cooler and more humid. Picking dates are certainly earlier. Acidity and pH are changing too, but in the wrong directions. How is your style of wine different from Romain’s on Cabernet Franc? The vinifications are similar to Romain’s, but I’m shortening my time on the skins. My Saumur red is only four days on skins while Romain does six or seven. I don’t work with press juice, but only free-run juice. Romain works with selective-press juice. The wine is aged in stainless steel, but I’m moving toward cement next year to work against the reduction. My first addition of 20ppm of sulfites is made when the grapes first come in. The second is about 10ppm after malolactic. Neither Romain or I are interested in having brettanomyces around so we calculate to have the right amount of free sulfur to keep that out of the mix. I would say that I have a lighter, more ethereal style but with the same ripeness as Romain’s, and there’s definitely less tannin on my reds. My new cru red, La Ripaille, is seven to eight days on skins and in barrel for a year. There’s about 20% new oak and the rest is a spice rack of older barrels. And Chenin Blanc? My Saumur appellation wine is aged on its fine lees for six months, then it’s filtered and bottled. Les Chapaudaises is twelve months in barrel, followed by a few months in tank. The Brézé bottling was originally like Chapaudaises, but because the grapes come from old vines I think I should’ve aged it longer—maybe two years, instead of one year in wood, plus six months in tank. For the foreseeable future Brézé will be in élevage for two years before bottling. All the whites are filtered because they all have malic acid, and malolactic fermentations are rare, if they ever take place. Regarding the vinification, I use less lees than Romain and have a tighter racking after the pressing. I love reduction in wines but I feel like it’s not necessarily the style I want. I think it can take away from the purity of Chenin Blanc and its ability to transmit its terroirs. I respect and understand that, but I feel that it puts too much of the person’s influence into the wine. The Brézé bottling has 30% new oak, but with a light toast. Les Chapaudaises has 20% new oak, and the others have no new oak. What is your idea of the perfect soil composition for Chenin and Cab? Limestone. Romain’s grandfather had the basic principle of a topsoil of one meter or deeper and you plant Cab Franc, because the roots need bigger systems. It doesn’t like to suffer and it also needs a lot of nutrients. By contrast, too much topsoil with Chenin makes the vine too vigorous and it will vegetatively grow too much with a consequence of less energy spent on the grapes. Is there a perfect soil composition for the type of wines you like? I love the mix of clay, loam and limestone together. The clay gives a certain structure and the loam gives a certain sweetness (without residual sugar) and the limestone gives it the grip, like sucking on a rock. I think the best expression of Cab happens on sandy clay soils over limestone. Sand gives the light powdery texture; the clay gives the structure more depth. Limestone gives textural finesse and influences the fineness of the tannins on the finish. I find that limestone as a whole draws the finish on a wine to something longer and more complete. Can you explain each of your vineyard sites? All of my vineyards on Brézé face south/southwest. Les Chapaudaises, which is in the commune of Bizay, faces north/northeast and is only a couple of kilometers away from Brézé. Les Chapaudaises is next to Romain’s Clos de Guichaux vineyard. It’s planted on about 40-50cm of clayey loam with a lot of sand on tuffeau limestone bedrock. The wine is more “vertical” with more of a straight-razor-edge profile by comparison to the Brézé wine. The vines were planted sixteen years ago and have been organically farmed since 2010. The Brézé comes from old vines on clayey loam on limestone bedrock. It has a sort of thicker structure and gives the wine a more austere character with a more “horizontal” profile. The vines are seventy years old and began organic conversion a few years ago. The Saumur rouge comes from five-year-old vines on the Brézé hill. Its topsoil is sandy loam over limestone, a combination that gives a lighter texture and touch on the tannins. The plot is a little over half a hectare in size on the site known as “La Ripaille.” This wine is different from the others in that I intended to make a quaffable, easy-drinking and fruit-forward wine. My vision of Cabernet Franc has been evolving for several years. What I once saw as a rustic, terrestrial grape variety, I now see as having the potential of making something brighter, more fruit-forward, and much more fun to drink when it’s young. La Ripaille has seventy-year-old vines on sandy loam, or clayey loam—depending on the section—but all over limestone. What are people planting when they have the opportunity to replant? People are planting more Chenin now instead of Cab. The global market demand and need for Chenin has grown a lot, and there is already a lot of Cab grown inside of the Saumur-Champigny appellation. Brézé is outside of the appellation and still has a lot of Chenin Blanc grown on the hill. People focused on red much more in the past, but this is flipping. Can you talk a little bit about the vine material planted in the region? I’ve talked a lot with Arnaud Lambert and he’s shed a lot of light on the fact that much of the younger vines are planted to productive varieties rather than quality focused ones. What are your thoughts about this? We don’t talk enough about vine materials, but I think this is an important and necessary subject. A lot of people talk a lot about minerality but without talking much about the rootstock and vine material. Why is this important? People think that old vines simply produce more mineral wines or wines with more depth. I don’t think that’s the case because you could have the SO4 rootstock that gives big, juicy grapes, but not concentrated flavors and textures. Then you could have a limestone resistant selection massale rootstock called Riparia Gloire, which gives tiny, concentrated clusters where even the young vines are giving amazingly pure expressions with great distinction of the terroir and vintage. I don’t think people are talking enough about the importance of it from a genetic vantage point for the right rootstocks either. The rootstock is a filter between the soil and the grape. What is your perception of how the wines taste when grown on contrasting soils, like clay, sand, rock? I think that a lot of it depends on how the winemaker makes the wines. I like to think the lighter the soil, the lighter the wine is on the palate. The rockier or denser the soil is, the same can be said for the wine. I feel the world has an idea of malolactic fermentation as being very specific in its influence on Chardonnay, but my feeling is that it’s not quite the same with other white varieties. How does it influence the taste on Chenin? ML is hard for us to attain because of the low pH levels. Bacteria just don’t like that environment. At Romain’s cellar we’ve only had it twice by accident. However, in my opinion it rounds out the palate and you lose edge—it dulls the razor. There’s a roundness and sweetness with ML in Chenin. I feel that the intense acidity [without a malolactic fermentation] melds together over time. When Chenin is young, the acidity stretches it like a rubber band, but over time the tension eases. When you use the word minerality, what does that mean to you? How is it perceived? Aromas? Mouthfeel? A combination? This is a can of worms. It’s a huge debate. I think there is a misconception of minerality. Is it even something we can define? I don’t think we will find exacting definitions of this. I try to avoid using minerality as a descriptor, but it’s hard to find other words. But I think when it comes to Chenin from Brézé, I see it as a sort of flinty, reductive smokiness. I think in the mouthfeel there’s a depth that draws the wine out. It seems to give a certain verticality to the wine. It also lingers on the front part of the palate, and it opens up my appetite. I think this is why they are fun to pair with many different types of food. There’s a saltiness to the wine and I think this makes it work exceptionally well with food because many people like salty food. We all know that salt enhances taste and I think minerality does the same. Last one. What is your feeling about reduction and/or acidity as an interplay within the concept of “minerality”? For me, reduction does enhance the perception of minerality, but it also can confuse the palate and aromas. Sometimes that is intentional by the winemaker, but sometimes it’s not. I think it’s all a question of balance. I feel I’ve grown a lot and am still growing in my understanding of minerality. Sometimes when I taste Olivier Lamy’s Saint-Aubin wines, (a benchmark white wine producer for me) there’s a richness to the body, some flesh, a backbone, a hold or grip in the wine like: Wow! It can give me goosebumps. One question I struggle with as a winemaker is, “What’s the fine balance of minerality? Can it be too intense and dominate the wine?” When I made my 2015s, my first vintage, they were like lemon juice. But when I open a bottle now that acidity is finally integrated into the wine. So I ask myself the question of whether I am making a wine for now, or do I want to make something that will open up later in its life and integrate that intense acidity and find harmony? What’s the right balance between all those elements that will get it right for the wines I’m making?

Quinta da Carolina vineyards to the left of the orange and pink house (Download complete pdf here) Last month we introduced some new producers, including the young Tuscan winegrower specializing in single-site Sangioveses and compelling experimental white wines, Giacomo Baraldo, followed by Forteresse de Berrye, a Saumur producer who bought a historical domaine (former military base) with a decorated vinous history who converted it to organic and now biodynamic culture, and finally, one of Portugal’s most promising talents, Luis Candido da Silva, who crafts a set of unique and gorgeously refined wines in the Douro with his father’s family estate, Quinta da Carolina. Now we have three more newbies represented exclusively in the US by The Source slated to be introduced this month, including wine coming from a historical Alentejo winery undergoing a complete renaissance, Tapada do Chaves. Often described by Portuguese winegrowers as one of the country’s most “mythical” producers of old wines; if you’re lucky enough to taste one from before the mid-1990s, it may surpass all your expectations for aged Portuguese white and red wines. Two more new arrivals are coming in from good friends in the Loire Valley’s Montlouis-sur-Loire appellation whose organic wines offer a beautiful juxtaposition of this underrated appellation where only the right minds are able to crack its code. Vincent Bergeron crafts ethereal wines, both Chenin Blanc and Pinot Noir, while Hervé Grenier, from Vallée Moray, produces Chenin Blanc of deep, controlled power, and a very limited supply of red wines from Gamay, Pinot Noir and Côt. California Trade Events Next week we’ll put on more sit-down trade tasting events showcasing wines that are already allocated, some that have limited quantities, as well as those from new producers. Please ask your salesperson to book your seat as they will be limited. We plan to schedule quarterly tastings because there’s so much to show and because we’ve had a great response to them. On the billing: Wechsler’s 2020 Riesling crus, Veyder-Malberg’s 2021 Rieslings and Grüner Veltliners, 2020 Artuke Rioja single-site wines, 2020 Collet Chablis grand crus, and some of our new producers, Vallée Moray (Montlouis), Vincent Bergeron (Montlouis), Tapada do Chaves (Alentejo), and José Gil (Rioja). I’ll be in attendance for each of these events, so I hope to see you there. February 7th: San Francisco at DecantSF from 11am - 3pm February 8th: West Hollywood at Terroni from 11am - 3pm February 9th: San Diego at Vino Carta from 11am - 2pm February 13th: Moss Landing (Monterey) at The Power Plant from 1pm - 4pm Visiting Producer At the end of the month, Katharina Wechsler will be making the rounds in California showcasing her top Rieslings. The eastern end of the Wachau New Arrivals A few 2021s from Tegernseerhof have arrived. As mentioned last month in the short on Veyder-Malberg’s 2021 releases, this vintage is truly one of the greats where everything on all levels of Grüner Veltliner and Riesling are absolutely top tier: full-on in complexity and range, but light on their feet—a perfect balance. Arriving is the 2021 Grüner Veltliner Federspiel “Durnstein,” a collection of different vineyards around Loiben, principally from Frauenweingarten, the former name of this bottling. Also are the big hits, 2021 Bergdistel Smaragd Grüner Veltliner and 2021 Berdistel Smaragd Riesling. These two wines are a blend of the many different micro-parcels they own, mostly further west of Loiben and into the central part of the Wachau, Weissenkirchen. They’re both showoffs, youthful, and energetic, complex but juicy and delicious. 2021 is the year, so grab what you can and know they’ll age as beautifully as how well they’re drinking young. Fuentes del Silencio’s new releases of the 2019 Las Jaras and 2019 Las Quintas are two wines we’ve been waiting a long time to arrive. 2019 was a special year and showcases the depth of talent in these ancient vineyards revitalized by Miguel Ángel Alonso and his team of passionate winegrowers. Miguel and María, his wife, are doctors (with María still an active surgeon) who set out to bring back the history of Miguel’s birthplace at the east end of Iberia’s Galician Massif. The altitude is high, with the vineyards starting at 800m and Las Quintas reaching above 1000m. This is believed to be the original location for Mencía in its most natural setting, where there’s no need for the acidification that’s done in most other regions that grow this grape prone to lose its acidity in too warm a climate with little temperature extremes. Here, in Jamuz, the harvest is late, usually in mid-October, and the wines speak of this place with its slate-derived soils, the occasional slate outcropping, wild lavender and thyme bushes growing everywhere in this high desert setting, as well as the many pre-phylloxera vines dug deep into the soil that they’re nursing back to health. They started the project in 2014 and now with the 2019s, the sixth harvest under their belt, the wines are finding the extra gears that were clearly imminent with their organic approach in the vineyard and cellar. Arribas Wine Company vineyards in Portugal’s Trás-os-Montes along the Douro River Arribas Wine Company has a few new (but late) arrivals. From their stockpile of extraordinary old vines scattered throughout Portugal’s Trás-os-Montes wine region on the border of Spain to the northeast and Douro to the southwest, they have some of the greatest bargain wines in the entire world. Imagine these ancient terroirs along the Douro/Duero River grown on gnarly slopes and rocks identical to those of Côte-Rôtie and Cornas, though they go for only a fifth of the price for even the cheapest of these French appellations. That’s what you get, but with over forty different varietals blended into some wines, and 10.5-12% alcohol… It all seems like a dream, but it’s as real as it gets. Arriving are the 2021 Saroto Branco and 2021 Saroto Rosé. “The 2021 growing season was nearly perfect as we witnessed very moderate conditions during maturation. In fact, because summer was not hot and nights were unusually cold, maturation was slow and gradual, contributing to excellent acidity in the wines. The grapes for the Saroto White 2021 (which is really like an orange wine) were harvest by hand on September 8th and were foot-trodden in a traditional lagar, totaling three days of skin maceration.” They were then aged in old French oak barrels for seven months. The vine age for this blend of different white varieties comes from 51-year-old vines on granite and clay at 650-700m. The 2021 Saroto Rosé is unfortunately in very low quantities. It comes from a blend of 50% white and 50% red varieties, mostly from the same vineyards as the white and drinks more like an extremely light red, like a Spanish Clarete—a wine somewhere between rosé and red without stinging acidity while being refreshing and in the full red-fruit spectrum. New Producers Tapada do Chaves Alentejo, Portugal I’ve had my eye on Tapado do Chaves for a few years prior to signing with them. We were introduced to the wines by one of my great friends and winegrowers in Portugal, Constantino Ramos. When asked about what old wines in Portugal I should get to know his first suggestion was Tapada do Chaves. Constantino helped find some old wines from the 1980s and early 1990s that were being sold by a Portuguese retailer, and my first experience with them was shocking. Though more famous for their historic red wines, the whites were just as good. Everything aged well, even though the bottles looked like they’d been on top of some Portuguese guy’s countryside fireplace for a couple decades and had low fills and corks barely clinging to the insides of the bottles. I bought another mixed three cases of old wines and shared them with friends from Galicia. Soon, the source of the old bottles dried up but I was convinced that I should investigate, even though I was told the most recent wines were not the same. It was true that they weren’t, but a visit to the vineyards showed what was coming. One of the many gorgeous old wines tasted over the last four years Tapada do Chaves’s legacy in Portugal’s Alentejo is legendary, though there were many speed bumps along the way, such as the Portuguese dictatorship (1933-1974) and the sale of the estate in the late 1990s to a sparkling wine company that faltered on quality of the Tapada do Chaves wines for decades. In 2017, with the purchase by Fundação Eugénio de Almeida, led by one of Portugal’s most celebrated oenologists, Pedro Baptista (known for the highly coveted Pera Manca wines), it began to regain its footing. Biodynamic farming was immediately incorporated on this unique granite massif on the side of Serra de São Mamade, which towers over the flatter lands more typical of the Alentejo. The whites grown in vineyards planted in 1903 and massale selections replanted some forty years ago are a blend of Arinto, Assario, Fernão Pires, Tamarez and Roupeiro (among others), and fermented and aged in stainless steel and old French oak barrels. The reds, from vines planted by Senhor Chaves in 1901 are a blend of Trincadeira, Grand Noir, Aragonez and Alicante Bouschet. All are aged in older French oak barrels, then bottled and released around seven years after the vintage date. Today, Tapada do Chaves is selling their new releases of white wines from when they first took over, but the reds still have some years to go before the change of direction into biodynamic culture and a fresh new take from Pedro Baptista. During a meeting with Pedro, he told me of the history of the winery and about how, when he was a little boy, his father used to take him to Tapada do Chaves to collect their yearly allocation. Though he’s new to Tapada do Chaves, it’s not new to him. This famous estate weathered the dictatorship and continued to work independently while few in Alentejo (and all of Portugal) did. Portuguese white wines may be the most underrated white wines in the world. Since moving to Portugal in 2019, I’ve had many examples of aged white and red wines for such a low price that have truly been astonishing, though the most interesting for me have been the whites. Tapada do Chaves is no exception. The old whites that didn’t fail due to bad corks were incredibly good—fresh, slightly honeyed, minty and medicinally herbal, salty, deeply textured like a very old Loire Valley Sancerre without the varietal nuances of Sauvignon Blanc. My first interaction with the 2018 Tapada do Chaves Branco was extremely encouraging. In a blind tasting with some other trade professionals along with some other wine samples from Portugal, it stole the show. It stands as another strong example of the talent of Portuguese white wines made from a blend of many grapes. Despite the wide variety of fruit, the terroir elements are always there, along with the high quality of the replanted vines from massale selections taken from the unique biotypes grown inside of Tapada do Chaves’ walled and gently sloping vineyard on granite rock atop the massif. After the tasting, I put what was left in the refrigerator for more than a month, uncorked. I forgot about it after tasting it once the day after the first tasting. Then I started to taste it again over the coming weeks to check in, a little here and a little there; it was bulletproof. I remain shocked at the resilience of this wine and its inability to be fatigued. Based on this and my experiences with the old wines from this estate, I believe that it has the potential to age very well—not only to be sustained, but to improve tremendously over time as so many Portuguese white wines do. The 2018 Tapada do Chaves Branco Vinhas Velhas comes from the ungrafted 120-year-old vines first planted by Senhor Chaves in 1901. This wine is profound but will greatly benefit from time in the cellar—a long time. It carries many similarities to the first white in the range, except that it’s denser and more concentrated. One could simply retaste this wine for a month and add, brick by brick, a new tasting note with each soft turn of its evolution. To drink it quickly would be to miss witnessing its splendor. There are few cases imported because there are few made from these historic, nationally-treasured vines. It is indeed a little expensive, but in twenty or thirty years you’ll be happy to have captured a few bottles to share with your kids or grandkids. Vincent Bergeron Montlouis-sur-Loire, France Timid and cautious yet gently charismatic, middle-aged (born in ‘78) but youthful and spirited, with a heart of gold and a deft touch with his craft, the gracious Vincent Bergeron discovered his calling to the vigneron life while walking the streets for la poste, trading in antiquities, and periodically working construction. These were simple trades, though perfect for young ponderers like Vincent, at least for the moment. He received degrees in Art History, Literature, and Agriculture, had many different work experiences that were capped by the viticultural mentorship of Jean-Daniel Kloeckle, Hervé Villemade, and Frantz Saumon. The latter gifted him with a tractor, a small Pinot Noir vineyard and part-time cellar job, and Vincent commercialized his first wine in 2016 (though he’d tinkered with various bottlings since 2013)—500 bottles of bubbles that all went to a Japanese importer. When he talks about his project, he always starts with his great appreciation for Frantz’s generosity, the man who gave him such a jumpstart. He and I were introduced by Montlouis-sur-Loire local, Gauthier Mazet, also a new vigneron (practicing since 2020) and wine industry connector, who lives by the river in the epicenter of Montlouis’ bloom of amazing producers. They’re all making deeply inspiring wines from an underdog appellation in minuscule quantities, most of whom sell almost everything to Japan and very little in France. This includes Vincent Bergeron, as well as two others who’ve also trusted us to be their US importing partner: Hervé Grenier, owner of Domaine Vallée Moray, a craftsman of densely mineral and emotional wines that embody the focus of a scientist maker in his second career as a vigneron, and Nicolas Renard, a forcefully independent and elusive natural wine wizard, a virtual ghost whose wines are nearly impossible to acquire. He transcends style and mode with no-sulfur wines, both white and red, that are simply in their own stratosphere, easily holding court with the best examples of x-factor-filled, dense, moving whites in the world, and reds that captures the essence of the earth and human in a bottle. I first saw Vincent on a cool and sunny spring morning in one of his vineyard parcels close to downtown Montlouis. With his thick mane of lightly salted pepper flowing in every direction, he wore casual well-worn clothes stained by hard work, and he shied away from the camera as I stole a few shots before our official greeting. His hands are those of a true vigneron; they were strong from a life of labor, dirty from the vines and caked with earth, swollen, scratched, scraped, gouged and bloodied. He seemed a little self-conscious to be shaking my hand, and I instantly knew I’d like him: it was impossible not to. Vincent is rare in today’s world of self-aggrandizing young vigneron talents—sometimes appointed by the wine community and often by the self, as “rock stars.” Many of them seek celebrity and membership in idealist tribes rather than going for truth and an honest view into this métier, this art, and above all, this craft, a marriage of homosapiens and nature. Vincent is a vigneron’s vigneron, a human’s human, an uncontrived example of how to live and simply let be, spiritually, without trying to be “someone.” He only tries in earnest to be himself—not for the world to see and celebrate, but for his family, his comrades, for himself and his humble yet idealistic relationship to wine and connection to nature. Though not an active provocateur, to simply be in his presence you might, like I do, contemplate life choices and motivations, what’s important to you and why it’s important, along with, “What the hell am I doing with my few short years on this planet?” Without effort or intent, he enriches others with his homage to his environment, a spirituality and open self-reflection in casual settings, drinking wine outside on a cold and sunny day in front of a tiny, wobbly table packed with cheeses, cured meats and oysters (also a favorite of his extremely young kids—only the French…), a perfect match for his bubbles and white wine. The talks are fresh and lively, more about life than wine, though in this context wine is life. His wines speak for themselves, and gently, as do his organic and biodynamic vineyards that are teeming with life. Sometimes he appears lost, even surrounded by his people, as he gazes into the world, into nothing, thinking, reflecting, wondering about his path. Perhaps he’s thinking less than it appears that he is, but it’s doubtful. Emotionally piercing, Vincent’s mineral-spring, salty-tear, petrichor-scented Chenin wines flutter and revitalize; a baptism of stardust in his bubbles and stills—a little Bowie, a lot of Bach. His Pinot Noir is earthen en bouche, and aromatically atmospheric, bursting with a fire of bright, forest-foraged berries and wild flowers, and cool, savory herbs rarely found in today’s often overworked, oak-soaked, and now sun-punished Pinot Noirs, the wines that were the heroes of the past millennium, but today are a flower wilting under the relentless sun. Advances in the spiritual heartland of Pinot Noir have been made, though I sure miss the flavors of the Côte d’Or from my earlier years among wine. Vintage is important with Vincent’s wines. With his concession to nature and commitment to honor the season, sans maquillage, ni compromise, he sets his wines on a direct course, showcasing each season’s gifts and its challenges, allowing his wines to freely express the mark of their birth year. Warm vintages (2020) taste of a season’s richer fruits and a softer palate while still being delicate and complex. Cold years (such as 2021) are brighter, fresher, more tense and rapier sharp with a gentle and welcome stab. The Vineyards On the east side of the fabulous but small and modern Loire city, Tours, across the Loire River from the historic splendor of Vouvray on a series of undulating hills with some dramatic slopes mixed with mellower hilltops, sits Montlouis. It’s a long stretch of vineyards between the rivers Loire and Cher to the south, on floodplains shaped by torrential flows over the eons. Vincent explains that between Vouvray and Montlouis there have always been differences in soil structure, topography, and social hierarchy. While Vouvray maintains a more celebrated vinous history (as illustrated by the bougie houses across the river, so different from Montlouis’ more rural and less ornate neighborhoods), some of its historical relevance seems to stifle creativity and growth—as happens so frequently in many historically celebrated regions in the wine world. Why change what already works so well? Furthermore, historic families often prefer to preserve their position instead of rocking the boat of a viticultural system that, after many generations in place, continues to provide wealth for those next in line. In contrast to Vouvray, Montlouis-sur-Loire is filled with young and finely aged winegrowers with open minds and a strong desire and capacity for kinship and the sharing of ideas. Many had widely varied experiences prior to choosing the vigneron life and together they’ve created a tribal environment where they help each other to push that rock further up the hill. Organics have become a way of life for many in this circle and the influence of this free-thinking community is expanding. Montlouis is exciting and there are so many talents emerging from this extremely praise-worthy appellation that’s up to now been an underdog. Always the bridesmaid and never the bride? No longer. Some earlier trailblazers opened the path, the most famous, perhaps Jacky Blot and François Chidaine, and others more quietly developing their names and furthering the reputation of the appellation, like Frantz Saumon, Thomas Lagelle, Julien Prevel, Ludovic Chansson and Hervé Grenier, all of whom Vincent admires and calls friends. Montlouis is mentioned in every wine book as being sandier in general than Vouvray, which is true, though there’s often great depth of clay (lighter on average than Vouvray’s) further below the surface of the topsoil, before the roots intersect with the famous whitish/yellow limestone bedrock of much of the Loire Valley’s best Chenin Blanc areas, and a slew of other elemental contributors have a say in the wine’s subtleties. Vincent has various plots in a few different zones of Montlouis, close to the bluffs that overlook the Loire River and others further away and closer to the Cher, both on classic limestone bedrock, with variations of perruche (fossils, lithified clay, flint/silex), sandstone, clay, and limestone. These structures are not independent of others but rather form a conglomeration and vary from one to the next and within the plots as well. To see the diversity, go to eterroir-techniloire.com Though the land was already worked organically prior to Vincent’s last fifteen years of ownership, it was certified as such in 2018, and biodynamic principles are practiced during the season’s life cycle, though they’re not followed closely in the cellar. Plowing is done mostly by horse every third year, or by Egretier plow, a fitting pulled by tractor. The harvest begins with alcoholic and phenolic maturity in line with the chemistry of the grapes—pH, TA—and of course, the taste of the grapes. Pinot Noir is the first to be picked, followed by Chenin Blanc for sparkling, then the still Chenin. The Wines Vincent’s bubbles, Certains l’aiment Sec “Vin de France,” is gloriously ethereal and fun to drink. Like all his wines, the vintage has a big voice in the overall expression, though the spirit is the same: serious but playful and easy to gulp down. It’s made with a simple method using early pickings from the Chenin Blanc parcels. (Here, in this part of the Loire Valley’s Chenin Blanc region, many growers make numerous picks on their vineyards rather than just the one—a smart and utilitarian method to maximize quality with what yield nature provides, without being too forced.) Spontaneous fermentation takes place in fiberglass vats. Following malolactic fermentation, the wines are hit with their first sulfite addition of 20mg/L for its eighteen-month bottle aging. No fining, filtration, or dosage. “Morning, Noon and Night,” is a perfect name for this exquisite, fine, platinum-hued wine labeled Matin Midi et Soir – Chenin Blanc “Vin de France.” This is Vincent’s inspiring still white wine, (especially the 2021), where the vintage seems tailored for his style: helium-lifted, minerally charged, cold, wet rock and taut yet delicate white fruit. All the elements from each vineyard parcel in his 3.4-hectare stable of 40-plus year-old massale selections (and .60ha of clonal selections) give it breadth and complexity while maintaining Vincent’s head-in-the-clouds Chenin Blanc. It’s hard to pick a favorite in the lineup, but this low sulfite dose Chenin (30mg/L) raised twelve months in oak barrels (with some new to replace older barrels, which aren’t noticeable) is truly singular for this variety in the Loire Valley, so much so that it doesn’t even seem to be of this earth, but rather plucked from the heavens, pure, untainted, downright angelic. The first taste of Pinot Noir out of the barrel, Un Rouge Chez Les Blancs, was jaw-dropping, a burlesque walk from glass to nose and mouth. In recent years, I’ve greatly missed Pinot Noirs that carry this grape’s nobility and naturally bright, energetic, straight flush (hearts and diamonds) of red fruits and healthy forest with wet underbrush. I was tempted to be impolite and drink down my entire barrel sample from this mere one acre of vines (0.4ha) instead of returning it (2021 vintage) to whence it came; I could’ve nursed that first 500-liter barrel to completion. By the end of my first visit, I wanted everything in his cellar just so my friends back home could bear witness to it. Given to him—yes, given—by Frantz Saumon, the land was organically farmed long before Vincent took the reins of the plow horse. Optimal for this young vinous artist to explore his direction with epic, terroir-precise and living fruit, he nailed it. It’s true Pinot Noir perfection: egoless, a balance of nature and nurture, sensual, honest, captivating, pristine, delicious. There’s no sulfite added to this wine, so the future of each bottle will be in the hands of the handler, though with its naturally low pH, high acidity, and low alcohol, and, most importantly, its balance, it should manage well over time. One pump-over per day in the beginning, two later on in the fermentation, a year aged in 75% old oak barrel, 25% in fiberglass tank, and it’s not fined or filtered. The 2020, tasted blind by our staff in January, blew them away—an Allemand-like Pinot Noir. There’s not enough of the 2020 to go around, so we’ll have to wait for the taut, red-fruited 2021 to come! Domaine Vallée Moray Montlouis-sur-Loire, France Endless curiosity and self-reflection are characteristics of the most compelling vignerons. Some are born into the métier, many of whom are children of the greats, and a select few reach for new heights never before attained in the family line. Then there are the industry’s most enlightened freethinkers who come from the outside, drawn in by revelation, romance, and occasionally, a healthy mid-life crisis. At forty-six, Hervé Grenier abandoned the life of a scientist and began anew when, in 2014, he had an epiphany that brought him to an old ramshackle cellar with beautiful, healthy, organically farmed vineyards, in the quiet countryside of the Loire Valley appellation, Montlouis-sur-Loire. Hervé explained, “During a visit with a winemaker I used to frequent, I suddenly thought, ‘I’d like to do that!’” Inspired by the excitement of a significant life change, Hervé left a career in academic meteorology research and underwriting, focused on agricultural climate risk in the States, then moved back to France with his American wife, Emmy. They started their new adventure, only a couple of solid golf swings away from and to the south of the Loire River, on the first significant left-bank alluvial terrace that runs in parallel to them, but 30-35m above the river. Over time they bought more parcels further south and closer to the river, Cher, as they reshaped and converted the land to organic farming. As of 2023, they maintain roughly 4.5 hectares, 3.2 of which are Chenin Blanc with an average of 60-70 years of age, a single hectare of Pinot Noir, and 30 ares (.75 acres) of Gamay. Tasting with Hervé in his long, dark, damp, and cold underground concrete tunnel lined with mold and wine-stained old French oak barrels, is thrilling. Impressive from the first sample, Hervé shares his perception of each wine’s strength and weakness observed through its journey from budbreak, to grape, to wine. Organoleptic vibrational overload builds with each thieved sip, sips that gush with vinous lifeblood along with the gifts extracted from unique soils that have been bolstered by the microflora and microfauna and minerals mined from the rock and soil. His dry Chenin Blanc wines are vinous with the sweet green chlorophyll captured from the sun, the alchemy of slow fermentation—very slow, never forced—and the stamp of healthy lees from happy plants that render his wines digestible and revitalizing. The truth-seeking Hervé seems in deep reflection with each taste, contemplating the wine, his own nature, his choices. Vacillations between bursts of joyous laughter and doubt and self-reflection are interrupted when he hits the mark. Inspired and utterly serious, he slowly chants, “Ça c’est bon. Ça c’est bon. Ça c’est bon.” On Terroir Montlouis has a different quality of soils from those of Vouvray, across the Loire River. Vouvray vine roots typically have closer contact with tuffeau limestone bedrock and more clay in the topsoil than most of vineyards in Montlouis-sur-Loire. Hervé believes that the wines on this side of the Loire River are typically less marked by minerality than Vouvray, he says, “So there’s room for other stuff!” The composition of Montlouis-sur-Loire soils from a general point of view (though each site is different) is a mix of perruches (fossils, lithified clay, flint/silex), sand, and clay, atop bedrock of tuffeau limestone with varying levels of topsoil depth. ‘Montlouis is sandier than Vouvray,’ is the usual summary in textbooks, but this depends on each parcel, because it’s much more complicated than that. Domaine Vallée Moray With a manifesto (adopted by artists like him) that espouses ‘terroir expression over all things,’ Hervé says, “I would not like that my wines mainly express terroir, even if it’s a beautiful terroir.” But what is interesting and even slightly contradictory to Hervé’s notion of Vouvray and Montlouis and the terroir influence is that his wines are wrought with a sense of place; perhaps not only in the perception of mineral nuance, texture, structure, and ripeness imposed by the site’s soils, exposure and grape, but his full commitment to the preservation of his full-of-life, organically farmed old vines, the quality of the soils, and, of course, his skill in capturing their essence. His whites are strongly mineral in impression, thickly textured and weighted on the palate and the nose; his Aubépin Chenin Blanc is like a magnum squashed into a half bottle. Early on in his newfound life as a vigneron he demonstrated (through his 2017 and 2018 Aubépin, the fourth and fifth vintages of his life) a precocious and keen understanding, maybe even a certain level of mastery, in his sculpting of wines with clean and fine reductive elements—no doubt an intended consequence of protecting and preserving his sulfite-free, naked wines until bottling. The body is fuller though the wines remain finely balanced between the earth and the sky. The deep clay underneath the sandy topsoils, the quality of farming and his personal calibration of fruit maturity is marked through his entire line of wines. Terroir aside, Hervé’s wines reflect his intuition, curiosity, and measured hand. White Wines (and Orange) Hervé says he wants his wines to deliver, “The quality of the raw material produced from my vineyards; that they should feel good when you drink them. Satisfying. Pleasurable.” And he goes well beyond his aim. The Chenin Blanc are spectacular, singular, emotional, honest, and heavy on x-factor. For this taster, they stand tall among everything from the Loire Valley; sometimes they even tower over well-known and celebrated wines overwrought by cellar technique and experimentation. Hervé’s simple and confident approach is to let his wines find their own way, which they do. His objective for them to “be satisfying and pleasurable” is easily achieved, even for the everyday drinker. One doesn’t need to be an expert, or a wine lover with a penchant for the esoteric to fall for them, though a wine insider may be needed to help people find a bottle. They’re also profound, brainy, finely etched, and swoon-worthy for wine experts in search of a new frontrunner in the world of natural wine. Though they indeed fall into this genre, they are sterling examples of sulfite-free reds and whites, void of fault and without explanation or excuses. The whites don’t usually have any sulfur added at any point of the process, though if a wine is in peril he has no reservations when it comes to giving some assistance. This leaves his wines unclipped, robust and true in expression, free flowing yet harnessed and directed. Hervé describes his approach in the cellar as “The simplest and most natural way to make wine. The only intervention is the topping up of the barrels until I prepare them for bottling.” Like the superficial tillage of his vineyards (light scraping in Hervé’s case), his winemaking hand is gentle and patient. The fermentation of the classically styled whites, Cailloutis and Aubépine, takes place in old oak barrels with the total lees from the press—no débourbage (wherein the lees are settled before the wine is racked off them). There are no finings and filtrations, nor additions of sulfites—though, as already mentioned, necessary exceptions can be made. Fermentations can last months, or more than a year before dry. The two Chenin Blanc wines are made in the same way, with Cailloutis a blend of many different parcels and Aubépine a specific site of old vines closer to the Cher than the Loire. Hervé also makes an orange wine from Chenin Blanc (80%) and Sauvignon (20%), called, A Mi Chemin. This wine usually undergoes a two-month maceration on skins (fully destemmed) and is sparingly punched down, pressed, then aged in old oak barrels. Though the Chenin Blanc wines are glorious, Hervé claims with a smile, “A Mi Chemin is my wine.” It’s more gourmand than the other wines, with floating tea notes, dried citrus, stone fruit skin and dried flowers as opposed to fleshy fruit notes—which is to be expected with orange wines. It, like many other orange wines, is a wine for all occasions, with great versatility when it comes to chosen fare. Red Wines Hervé’s reds sing a bright and merry aromatic song. They’re fun, and they achieve Hervé’s objective of pleasure-led, feel-good, crunchy reds. Pinot Noirs grown in Montlouis and made by the right grower are a fabulous surprise, as are the Gamay. He doesn’t commit the reds solely to single-varietal bottlings but likes to make blends, too. There is the Pinot-led blend with Gamay, Arcadienne, and the solo Pinot Noir bottling is Les Figurines—neither are imported yet as they are produced in very small quantities. Côt Libri is made entirely of Malbec from very old vines on extremely calcareous soils in Montlouis-sur-Loire. It was fully destemmed and after fermentation ages in 400l-800l old barrels. As expected with this variety, it leads with more purple fruits than red, and after quite a few years of cellar aging in bottle it shows a broad range of earthy, savory qualities.

Süditrol’s St. Magdelena vines shot from Fliederhof winery, May 2022 May, Europe’s new summer month… As we descend upon Germany via train from Milan through the Alps, our group of four are all wounded and bloated from a massive intake of beef tartar, vitello tonnato, agnolotti, ravioli, gnocchi, and a near overdose of Nebbiolo (if that’s possible… well, maybe it is with the tannins of young ones…). We are in Germany for a day and then I’m off to Iberia for two more weeks of visits with another group of our staff who are joining me there as the others head home. I packed light for this forty-day bender, as sparingly as I ever have for a journey of over a month: four pairs of pants, two sweaters and a long jacket have taken up precious space in my bags since I left Prague at the end of April. It’s strangely hot this year and especially dry too. Climate change is really starting to weigh heavily over here and everyone’s concerns are more heightened than ever, despite 2021’s colder year in many locations, with great losses in some areas due to mildew pressure. In the past, climate change was a talking point in the midst of each vintage’s woes, but today, perhaps elevated by the post-pandemic shutdown period (hopefully post!), Ukrainian invasion and inflation ridiculousness, the mood is heavier than ever, especially after so many years of wackiness with the twisting of seasons. In many parts of Northern Italy it has only rained three times since November and what has arrived didn’t deliver enough. We just left Barolo and Barbaresco and many of the Nebbiolo vines were already flowering in those areas and their surroundings, around May 20th, which means a harvest will likely be in early September. There isn’t anything to do except hope for some relief, but it’s already quite late to slow things down enough to extend the season. I started the trip with ten days in Austria and the Czech Republic accompanied by my wife, Andrea, where we found the best Napolitana pizza I’ve had outside of Campania, at Pizza Nuova (which has a fabulous Italian wine list too), and a great wine bar, Bokovka, both owned by the same clever company. When Andrea left, JD, our Los Angeles sales rep, arrived. After a great visit with our Austrian team—all highlights, honestly, between Tegernseerhof’s 2019s, Veyder-Malberg’s 2021s, Malat’s 2019s and 2021s, Weszeli’s 2017s, and Birgit Braunstein and her cool range of progressive and well-made, biodynamic natural wines—he and I jumped down to Milan to grab Victoria, my sister and Office Manager, and Tyler, an Aussie expatriate who represents us in San Diego and Orange County. We all have serious farmer tans now just in time for the real summer months and big setbacks on our beach bellies. There is far too much to say about my trip here, and I wish I had time to share it all. What I can say is that I am very proud of the producers we represent in Austria and Northern Italy. Perhaps the biggest surprise for our team was the quality of wines coming from our four producers in Monferrato: Crotin keeps nailing it with inexpensive but serious wines and some new bottlings, too; Spertino is becoming a problem because the international demand for this true vinous artist is putting a pinch on our allocations; La Casaccia, a new producer for us, was probably the most unexpected knockout visit for our group with their masterfully crafted range of Barbera, Grignolino and Freisa (the latter is simply inconceivably delicious, perfumed, and subtle but generous as any Freisa I’ve ever had); and Sette, a new winery working biodynamically that lived up to my hype for my staff with their head-turning wines from Nizza. Alto Piemonte and Langhe also had a spectacular showing with the most notable highlights being Monti Perini’s yet-to-be-bottled 2017, 2018 and 2019 Bramaterra wines, Davide Carlone’s upcoming 2020 entry-level wines all grown in Boca, Dave Fletcher’s 2019 four Barbaresco bottlings that were simply a stunning breakthrough for him (an already very good, young winegrower) and Poderi Colla’s 2019 Barbaresco Roncaglie, a true masterpiece and unquestionably the top Barbaresco I’ve had from them. There’s so much more to add, but we’ll get there another day because now we’re off to Spain and Portugal. In next month’s Newsletter, I’ll give the play-by-play and note the highlights from my final two-week leg of the journey. New Producers In June we have a real boatload of wine coming in (unapologetic pun intended). It’s hard to know where to start because there are so many good things arriving. All the new wines this month are from France, except a lone Spanish wine made from one of our new French producers who plays by his own rules, Imanol Garay. Also arriving in the warehouse are new wines from Arnaud Lambert, Thierry Richoux, David Moreau’s 2019s, finally the 2020 Dutraive wines, Francois Crochet’s 2021 Rosé of Pinot Noir, Domaine du Pas de L’Escalette, Pascal Ponson “Prestige Cuvée” Champagne, and finally a reload from our lone Bordeaux producer (for the moment), Cantelaudette. Because there is so much, I’ll only highlight a few, starting with our newest additions. Aside from the two new producers we will explore today, there are over a dozen more we signed on with over the last six months or so whose wines will finally be arriving by the last quarter of the year. We have new wines coming from Chile (Itata), Saumur, Montlouis, Champagne, Bordeaux, Piemonte, Abruzzo, Douro, Setubal, Alentejo, Azores, Rías Baixas, Ribeira Sacra, and Sicily—finally, after five years of poking around the island. We are in the middle of exciting times at The Source and we greatly appreciate the support from you who continue to work with our talented team and consider the wines from our constantly evolving portfolio. It’s because of you that we can continue to do the work we love to do. Imanol Garay, Southwest France/Northern Spain Spanish/French former engineer and barrel broker, Imanol Garay, un vigneron libre, follows no wine rules (other than some labeling requirements for his French/Spanish wine blends) and believes in terroir not only as the concept of specific site or even region but as a contiguous philosophical thread practiced in different places that may be forged into one wine. A resident of southwest France, his cellar is in Orthez, only a short drive from Spain’s Basque country. Before starting his project, he worked with French natural wine gurus Richard Leroy and Vincente Careme, among others. Some vineyards are his own, some he rents and farms, and some fruit comes from friends with the same deep respect for nature aligned with their life philosophy. He has another project in Spain’s Txakoli region with friends, Alfredo Egia (also in our portfolio) and Gile Iturri, labeled Hegan Egin; some years he makes Rioja, others Navarra, and always a lot of French wine. Cautiously walking the natural-wine line, his pursuit is of the clean yet uninhibited, void of unwanted animally smells (the mouse, the horse), and instead with wonderful character-filled and potently nuanced, high-energy wines filled with joy and authenticity, like the man himself. Imanol Garay We start with Imanol’s 2020 Clandestinus, a Pyrenean red wine from Spain’s Navarra grown on limestone bedrock with brown topsoil. CLANdeSTINUS is a play on words regarding Imanol’s family history, the Stinus clan, from (de) Alsace in former times, and a “tribute to all those who have crossed mountains, seeking a better life.” The mix is equal parts Grenache and Graciano, the latter a less well known and very promising red variety with an incredible structure led with, at times, jarring acidity when not fully ripe, but gorgeously savory with tight dark red fruit. As all of Imanol’s wines, it’s made without any additions throughout vinification, with some added after malolactic fermentation where it receives a sparse amount of sulfur prior to bottling. Élevage takes place over a ten-month period in a mix of 228-, 600- and 700-liter French oak barrels with mostly old wood and a small portion of new. Clandestinus dances on its toes around the danger of a natural wine disaster while delivering a non-stop barrage of juicy, slightly baked fruits and roasted nuts, and sweet, northern Spanish countryside rusticity—think leather, chestnuts, and cured meat. I observed this young and surprisingly voluptuous wine for days after opening it, waiting for it to succumb to exhaustion after its vigorous dance, but my wife fell under its spell and finally finished it off before I could stop her—a surprising act from someone who usually has little interest in red wines that hit 14% alcohol. Diving into Imanol’s highly sought after whites with unfortunately extremely tight limitations on quantity are his Ixilune (pronounced “itchie-loo-nay”), French whites grown in and around the Madiran and Béarn appellations, without the appellations on the labels. These are very special whites indeed, and we took whatever Imanol would allow from the two vintages available. Both are deep in reductive, minerally elements (à la Richard Leroy) and need a moment to open and express their rolling hill, limestone and alluvial terroirs. The 2018 Ixilune is composed of 70% Petit Courbu from d’Aydie, and 30% Petit Manseng from Soublecause. The élevage takes place in 225- and 500-liter barrels of young but no new French oak. Free of sulfites through its time in wood, a first and final addition was made at bottling. The 2020 Ixilune is a blend of 25% Petit Courbu and 25% Petit Manseng (both from Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh), with the difference, a rare white grape with a long tradition, Raffiat de Moncade, cultivated in and around the village of Orthez. The potentially high-yielding Raffiat de Moncade produces relatively neutral white wines, often expressing soft, white flesh fruit notes and flowers. It offers this blend with the other two higher-toned and more tense fresh grapes a gentler mouthfeel and softer aromas. The 2020 Ixilune is similarly aged in 225- and 500-liter barrels of young French oak and 10% in a small amphora. Always searching to work around sulfur, Imanol was confident enough to bottle this white without adding any. Given his successes with his no-sulfur Txakoli project, Hegan Egin, the 2020 Ixilune appears to follow in those very successful footsteps. Both wines are 14% in alcohol, but fresh, tight, minerally (alongside its beautiful reductive elements) and as mentioned, surprisingly unbreakable for days after opening. New Producer: Nicolas Pointeau (Domaine de la Sablière), Chinon Due to the severe shortage of Saumur red wines from Arnaud Lambert, Romain Guiberteau and Brendan Stater-West, I began to search for some young blood in the Loire Valley’s Cabernet Franc world, especially outside of Saumur, to add a little variety to our Cabernet Franc range. I love the wines of Saumur, but I’m also interested in finding other things throughout the rest of the Loire Valley, a region we adore. Marielle et Nicolas Pointeau I received a tip from one of our top winegrowers about the wines of Nicolas Pointeau, a young vigneron working his family’s Chinon winery organically with his wife, Marielle, in Domaine de la Sablière. Any tip from great producers is worth exploring, and a few years ago they met Nicolas at an event and pointed me in their direction—this is how “discovery” in importing works most of the time (nearly all the time), rather than knocking randomly on doors and cold-calling in other ways. A lot has happened between my introductory tastes of his wines in the summer of 2019, with the 2017 and 2018 vintages, and what is in the bottle now, with the 2020 vintage. The conversion to organic farming and a few more years of experience in the cellar, Nicolas made wines convincing enough to jump on his wagon. Pointeau’s organic Chinon vineyards on alluvial soils used for the entry-level Chinon wines Nicolas’ wines will not yet revolutionize the Cabernet Franc wine scene because they are made in a very straightforward way without much “hand in the wine.” His entire range is solid, unpretentious, and not over-thought or overplayed; they deliver tremendous value and exist squarely in the realm of lightly structured, delicious, gravelly, black earth, lovely red and dark-fruited, perfectly ripe and deliciously savory Cabernet Franc. Their vineyards in Chinon are largely on alluvial soils with some on shallow topsoils above tuffeau limestone bedrock. The alluvial soils make for wines with a little more gentleness on acidity and palate roundness without being too rich from the soil and much less solar powered than Cabernet Franc wines from further south in western France. If you are familiar with Arnaud Lambert’s range (as are most restaurant and retail buyers who work with our portfolio), think Les Terres Rouges, or Montée des Roches, both grown on Arnaud’s richer soils of the Saumur-Champigny commune, Saint-Cyr en Bourg, but maybe a little less dense given the loamier soils than the clay-rich soils of Saumur-Champigny. Even more, Nicolas’ reds represent his conviviality and hard-working nature; when I drink them, I am always reminded of him in his well-worn vigneron’s clothes, with a smile from ear to ear. The Pointeau cellar Within the range of the three Chinon reds that will land, the 2020 Chinon “Tradition” is the first in line and raised in only stainless steel tanks and comes from gravelly soil on large terraces. The wine does indeed have gravelly textures (classic for the variety), a good mix of dark and red fruits, graphite palate and nose, on a light frame. The 2020 Chinon “Tonneliers” is raised in old French oak barrels (called fûts de chêne in these parts, rather than barrique) and similarly grown on gravel soils as the “Tradition” bottling. The difference here is maybe just a slightly fuller body and rounded edges though with a similar fruit profile. The time in wood also imparts more savory notes and a slight softening of the fruit notes. The 2020 Chinon “Vieille Vignes” comes from parcels with a greater tuffeau limestone presence, further uphill from the vineyards used for the other bottlings we imported. Finer lines and a deeper core with additional mineral notes alongside the variety’s ubiquitous graphite notes, this stainless-steel-aged Cabernet Franc has great purity and depth for Nicolas’ gentle and easy style. The average age of vines for all the cuvées is around forty-five years, with the Vieille Vignes closer to eighty. All the Chinon red wines we imported from Pointeau are bottled between March and June after their vintage year. New Arrivals Richoux, Irancy We have a fabulous group of wines coming in from Thierry Richoux and his fils, Gavin and Félix. The baton is in the process of being passed from Thierry to them, which explains why some labels display their names, and others have Thierry’s. Since 2017 a few things have changed at this organically-run domaine. The boys have incorporated some new techniques, most noticeably a gentler extraction and the use of smaller barrels, where in the past they were aged exclusively for a year in stainless steel, followed by another year in large foudre between 55hl-85hl capacity. They are also experimenting with notable success with smaller total sulfur additions and holding out on the first addition until the wines are ready to be bottled. Much of these changes will be felt in the years to come more than those that arrive today. We adore the old-school style of Thierry and hope they will stay close to it, but it’s obvious that Gavin and Félix are making a few advancements instead of experimental setbacks. Félix, the youngest of Thierry and Corine Richoux’s sons We have a reload of 2017 Irancy and our first batch of 2017 Irancy “Veaupessiot”. This vintage expresses the beautiful fruit nuances of this warm vintage that ripened when the fruit was still dominated by red tones. In the 2005 vintage, Veaupessiot became Richoux’s first single-cru bottling of Irancy, and for good reason. While a good portion of Irancy sits inside the amphitheater shape that surrounds the ancient village, there are many prized sites just outside of it, or on the south-side of the south hill of the appellation. Veaupessiot is on the outside, at the southwestern end of the horseshoe-shaped appellation as it opens toward the west. The slope is moderately steep and ends near a ravine that cuts in below it, and an incline far too steep for vineyards. Other vineyards look like they could be as good, but that’s the fun and mystery of great vineyards; it’s not what’s above that determines the great sites, it’s what’s below. Richoux recognized this early on and it remains the most well-balanced single-cru wine in his range. This wine will have good moments early on but certainly has the chops to age as effortlessly as Richoux’s many wines have time and time again. The Richoux family’s wines are bulletproof and remain one of the greatest deals still to be had in all of Burgundy among top domaines. Richoux Veaupessiot parcel to the left of the road Les Cailles is Richoux’s second single-cru bottling and is more powerful and structured than Veaupessiot. It’s spicier, more mineral and with more formidable tannins, requiring extra time in bottle as well as aeration once opened to find its peak moment. When it gets there, it arrives in a big way, but we must be more patient than with Veaupessiot. 2015 Irancy “Les Cailles” will surely be the best yet put to bottle (that is released), and this year is a perfect vintage with its boosted ripeness and softer tannins; this means that it will require of you less patience to find its moment upon opening compared to the previous three releases. (The first year of Les Cailles was bottled in 2012.) The 2015 Veaupessiot is an extraordinary wine (that sold out in a flash), which means that Les Cailles will be nothing short of impressive for decades to come. It will be interesting to see Veaupessiot and Les Cailles duke it out over the years, and it would be best not miss a vintage from either of them to experience this intriguing comparison. Les Cailles is situated on the north hill of the amphitheater facing south. The vines are over seventy years old and contribute added depth. South-facing old vines of Les Cailles Arnaud Lambert, Saumur Yet another group of wines from Arnaud Lambert is arriving. We have a lot of coverage of his wines in our newsletters and on the website, so I won’t take a deep dive here. On the boat are reloads of the Crémant de Loire Blanc & Rosé and some new releases of single-cru wines. It seems we have some of our barrels marked in Arnaud’s cellar! In the Saumur Blanc department, we have the 2020 “Les Perrieres”, 2018 “Bonne Nouvelle”, 2018 “Coulee de St. Cyr”, 2018 Clos de la Rue, and the 2018 Saint-Just “Brézé”. Quantities are minuscule on some of these, so please go easy on us if we can’t fill your requests. In the red department, the new release of 2019 Saumur “Montée des Roches” and 2018 Saumur-Champigny “Clos Moleton” will arrive. Quantities on these two wines are very limited, so get ahead on those and reach out soon if you are interested. Brézé’s tuffeau limestone diversity from stark white to light orange due to a higher iron content Jean-Louis Dutraive, 2017 Dutraive, Beaujolais Finally, the 2020s from Dutraive will arrive. We opted to wait until all the wines were ready in this vintage (some fermentations ran a little later than expected) before we brought them in, which resulted in some unexpectedly lengthy delays. The 2020 vintage was relatively uneventful and without demoralizing natural elements such as frost or high mildew pressure. However, it was a warm year all around. The difference between some of the other warmer seasons of late is that the vines had a good natural yield that was only curbed by the summer heat, concentrating grapes and making for riper wines. The most positive element of the year was that the growers were able to choose when they wanted to pick, resulting in balanced fruit. Dutraive’s wines in 2020 are fresher than many of the recent years thanks to the naturally balanced crop load. The recent warm years that had early season losses to nature’s elements affected the final balance of the wines due to too much of the vine’s focus on the little quantity of fruit they produced. As usual, quantities are very limited. Dutraive’s Clos de la Grand’Cour vineyard in Fleurie Pas de L’Escalette, Languedoc Julien Zernott and Delphine Rousseau have become one of the Languedoc’s leading producers for substantive wines with higher tones and greater freshness than the typical wines from this massive area of France. During the pandemic many producers were understandably forced to seek out new markets for their wines while their traditional markets, including France, waited out the pandemic. That, in conjunction with the rest of the world taking notice, is why our allocations are more limited these days. I apologize in advance for an unusually small quantity of wines from this young (still!) and progressive duo. Escalette vineyard with walls constructed from “clapas” 2021 should be a great year for French rosé. It’s probably the coldest year since 2013 and offers a lot of freshness to the wines, especially after the long string of warm years, particularly between 2017 and 2020. Escalette’s 2021 Ze Rozé is a slightly top-heavy wine sourced from some of the better red grape parcels—no specific parcels are isolated for the rosé. Here, compared to most Provencal rosés similarly composed of Grenache, you can expect more body but on a rather tight frame due to the higher altitude, rockier limestone bedrock and topsoil, and the constant fresh winds that blow through this narrow valley. The blend this year is 65% Grenache, 20% Carignan for greater flesh and deeper fruit, 10% Cinsault for more lifted and floral aromas and 5% Syrah. The 2021 Les Petits Pas also benefited greatly from the cooler year, yielding a very fresh red. From the moment the Les Petits Pas was created, Julien and Delphine’s intention was to add a charmer in their line of wines that didn’t take itself too seriously—hence the full color pinkish red label with neon green, baby footprints. Pas de L’Escalette is nestled up into an ancient roadway that connects the Languedoc to the north by way of France’s central mountain range, the Massif Central. This is cooler wine country, far from the Mediterranean, so it’s plenty cold at night, even in summer, and this is what imparts their wines with more zippy freshness and crunchy red and dark fruits, which make it a perfect wine for warm weather. Les Petits Pas is a multi-parcel blend from organically farmed vineyards on limestone terroirs, typically a mix of 40% Grenache, 40% Syrah and 20% Carignan. Each of these grapes naturally carries ample freshness, magnified by a little chill, making it anything but heavy on a sunny day. It is indeed compelling for us wine geeks, but it’s more of a drink-it-don’t-think-it wine. Les Petits Pas doesn’t constantly tug at your sleeve begging to show you how good it is, it’s just good. Les Clapas Rouge, named after the limestone rock piles (clapas) found in the vineyards, is led by Syrah, which makes up 50% of the blend. The Syrah is entirely vinified in whole bunches, and Delphine says they never destem Syrah because the stems add so much complexity; they’re mixed in for the fermentation and contribute what one might expect: heightened freshness, texture, and exotic green, animal nuances. The remainder is a mix of 30% Carignan and 20% Grenache, both co-fermented with 50% whole clusters. The latter two grapes contribute more of the suppleness, but the combination of the three—all extremely noble grapes—make for a wine broad in dimension and full in flavor. After its three to four week “infusion” fermentation (which simply means no big movements for extraction) the wine is polished up over fourteen months in 50-hectoliter upright wooden tanks and a single 20-hectoliter foudre. It’s racked once in the spring and the only sulfite addition (no more than 30mg/l, or 30 parts per million of total SO2) is made just prior to the bottling, without any filtration.

(Download complete pdf here) Loire River with Montlouis-sur-Loire on the right and Vouvray on the left, November 2022 After a string of scorching summers, we had a lucky break in 2021 in what now seems like a season we’ve all been waiting for half of our lives. Some European regions were hit by spring frost but almost everywhere else in Europe was cooler and rainier earlier on than usual which continued into the early summer. The year showed a reduction in volume but the results are often excellent for those looking for a more elegant version from their favorite regions. The vineyards were heavy on fungus, which required a lot of sorting by hand long before harvest, and once the warmer weather finally came it was still cool and pleasurable, unlike the blistering pain of the previous summers and the one that followed. During the latter, it was uncomfortable just to go anywhere outside until the sun was out of sight, or to try to take refuge at home (few in Europe are set up with air good conditioning, even though it’s been available since 1942), or even to find relief at the beach, where, after three minutes out of the water, it was time to go back in. I remember four big heat waves that summer between June and September, and the spring was uncomfortably warm, too. Insuportable!—the sweaty Catalan gasp of summer 2022. Though the term is overused to describe many vintages, a true “classic” is hard to come by these days in European wine regions. I’ve come to understand that, at least for me, some growing seasons impart characteristics that remind me of the glory years in the most historic wine regions of the last century when the vines eked out ripeness just in time for the change in weather that comes with the earth’s tilting back the other way. Though some years hit a few of the marks and stir excitement when the wines are young, the complete package often comes up short after more time in bottle. It’s important to taste wines out of barrel every year to get a clearer read on what’s really happening, though I admit I’m sometimes distracted by the romance that comes with this being what I do for a living, and I forget to pay attention at times. Young wines seem much fresher and more tense in their early moments in bottle than they really are, making it sometimes difficult to assess if a vintage should really be described as “classic.” Even no-added-sulfur wines at bottling freshen up for a period before they regain their true characteristics, just like when wines get a good oxygen hit during racking in the cellar, leading to a short window of one of the most honest and pure moments of a wine’s entire evolution from vat to bottle. For many northern European wine regions, 2021 hits all the “classic” markers: a cool growing season with a good balance of cloud cover, rain and refreshing winds to provide a longer window than normal for the growers to meticulously select the best fruit and to harvest within the fruit and structural profiles they prefer. Harmonious and with graceful fluidity, the 2021s tend to have greater freshness and higher natural acidity and lower to more moderate alcohol than from an average season, so you can drink more of them! What’s not to love about a “classic” year? I was in Portugal for most of the summer after a solo six-week road trip that started in Portugal and cut across northern Spain, southern France, through the Alps into northern Italy and back up through mountains to Austria, cutting back through Germany’s Rheinhessen, across to Champagne and Chablis, down into Burgundy and the Rhône and finally back to Portugal. I remember my surprise in response to the soggy, foggy and gray middle of June when, between showers, I went on runs from Michael Malat’s Kremstal winery, up the painfully steep and will-shattering rise of over a hundred meters in a span of just a kilometer, on the way to the Stift Göttweig, the historic abbey. There I was met with towering views of the valley below carved out by the Danube—the glorious, viticultural dreamland of the Wachau, Kremstal, Kamptal and Wagram. (Traisenthal is very close too, but mostly out of sight.) After that last rainy period in June, things took a steady course until harvest. The rest of the season remained cool for some regions to pick earlier than others without any severe heat waves (that I can remember), but a late summer and early fall drought began in other regions (such as Italy’s Langhe) prior to the fruit ripening. A day after the rains at Stift Göttweig, June 2021 Many regions made what appear to be historic wines in 2021, and for a lot of northern European white wine lovers, this year is tailored for the classicists—those who remember (and dearly miss) the days of the fresh and the tense, the mineral-laden wines that barely made it to a natural 12% alcohol without picking before the phenolics were in the grower’s ideal balance. 2021’s natural acidities are typically high, mineral nuances tight, sharp, and finely textured, and fruit profiles more citrusy than tropical. Austrian 2021 whites are as good as those from more than twenty years ago, like the historic 1997, 1999 and 2001. (Sadly, this predates Peter Veyder-Malberg’s Wachau project; wouldn’t we love to taste his wines if they were made back then?) 2021 marks perhaps a perfect vintage fitted to my taste in both Grüner Veltliner and Riesling. It also stands as the undisputed best young vintage I’ve tasted with regard to depth from either variety, though, for me, 2013 is right there with it. German Rieslings seem to be a dark horse that will pay dividends for the believers and those experienced enough to know the merit of youthful austerity evolved after much time in the cellar; oh, how I love balanced austerity! Northern French and Galician whites had stellar years, though the 2022 Albariños may edge out 2021 by a nose, which didn’t happen in other European areas that had much hotter conditions in 2022. The white and red wines from the Loire Valley are superb, and it’s surely our Saumur-based superstar Arnaud Lambert’s best vintage to date! Vincent Bergeron This month’s featured producer keeps us close to Lambert country, only slightly more than an hour-long drive on a hilly country road to the Loire River and straight east from there to the more verdant and humid Montlouis-sur-Loire. There we meet again one of our newest treasured vignerons, Vincent Bergeron, and his emotionally moving and finely etched 2021 Chenin Blancs (bubbles and still) and his full-of-life and delicately nuanced ethereal Pinot Noir. Vivid is my memory of these 2021 wines out of barrel on my first visit with Vincent, and casually slurping them down with oysters, cheeses, patés, and bread on a wobbly, makeshift table in his driveway in front of the tuffeau limestone wine caves during my second visit shortly after their bottling. Though the wines have changed over the last six months, since they’ve been bottled, I can confirm that the ones I nurtured in Spain over the last week while writing this newsletter validated my memory of their allure and proved that my subsequent infatuation is not based on embellishment or fantasy. Vincent Bergeron is a vigneron’s vigneron, a human’s human, an uncontrived example of how to live and simply let himself be, spiritually, without trying to become “someone.” He only tries in earnest to be himself—not for the world to see and celebrate, but for his family, his comrades, himself, and his humble yet idealistic relationship with wine and connection to nature. Vintage is important with Vincent’s wines. With his concession to nature and commitment to honor the season, sans maquillage, ni compromise, he sets his wines on a direct course, showcasing each season’s gifts and its challenges, allowing his wines to freely express the mark of their birth year. Warm vintages like 2020 taste of a season’s richer fruits and have a softer palate while still being delicate and complex. Cold years like 2021 are brighter, fresher, more tense and sharp. Vincent explains that between Vouvray and Montlouis there have always been differences in soil structure, topography, and social hierarchy. While Vouvray maintains a more celebrated vinous history (as illustrated by the bougie houses across the river, so different from Montlouis’ more rural and less ornate neighborhoods), some of its historical relevance seems to stifle creativity and growth—as happens so frequently in many historically celebrated regions in the wine world. In contrast to Vouvray, Montlouis-sur-Loire is filled with young and finely aged winegrowers with a strong desire and capacity for kinship, the sharing of ideas, and progress. Many had widely varied experiences prior to choosing the vigneron life and together they’ve created a tribal environment where they help each other to push that rock further up the hill. Organics have become a way of life for many in this circle and the influence of this free-thinking community is expanding. Montlouis is exciting and there are so many talents emerging from this extremely praise-worthy appellation that’s up to now been such an underdog. Though the land was already worked organically prior to Vincent’s last fifteen years of ownership, it was certified as such in 2018, and biodynamic principles are followed in the season’s life cycle, though Vincent clarifies that they’re not followed closely in the cellar. Plowing is done mostly by horse or tractor every third year. The harvest begins with alcoholic and phenolic maturity in line with the chemistry of the grapes—pH, TA—and of course, the taste of their taste. Pinot Noir is the first to be picked, followed by Chenin Blanc for sparkling, and finally, the still Chenin. There is much more about Vincent on his profile on our website. Click here to read more. Emotionally piercing, Vincent’s mineral-spring, salty-tear, petrichor-scented Chenin Blanc wines flutter and revitalize; a baptism of stardust in his bubbles and stills—a little Bowie, a lot of Bach. Vincent’s bubbles, the 2021 “Certains l’Aiment Sec” started out as Bach last fall and rebelled its way over the last seven months into more Bowie. At the domaine we made short work of a bottle of 2021 that was delicate and fine, maybe too pretty and too easy to slurp down? And perhaps because there is never a lot of this wine made! The bottle opened at the end of last month was more gastronomic and quirkier in a good Chenin-y way and shares quite a lot of similarities to Pinot Meunier-focused Champagne growers with deeply committed organic and biodynamic practices. Not so flowery and ethereal as it was last fall, it developed into a much more aromatically gourmand and abstract wine with notes of yellow apple, lemon pith, yeast, wheat and wheat beer, fresh oregano, first of the season freshly cleaned artichoke hearts, and the sweet and tender heart of a celery stalk. It’s savory and finishes with a welcome bitterness and plenty of refreshing acidity to cleanse for the next bite in the early courses of lunch and dinner. It’s made with a simple method using early pickings from the Chenin Blanc young-vine parcel. (Here, in this part of the Loire Valley’s Chenin Blanc regions, many growers make numerous picks on their vineyards rather than just the one—a smart and utilitarian method to maximize quality with what yield nature provides, without being too forced.) Spontaneous fermentation takes place in fiberglass vats. Following malolactic fermentation, the wines are given their first and only sulfite addition of 20mg/L for its eighteen-month bottle aging. No fining, no filtration, no dosage. Vincent’s inspiring 2021 Chenin Blanc “Maison Marchandelle” grown in Montlouis-sur-Loire is a vintage tailored to his preferred style: helium-lifted, minerally charged, cold, wet rock and taut yet delicate white fruit. It comes from Vincent’s favorite single plot of 50-year-old Chenin vines called Maison Marchandelle. The bedrock is tuffeau limestone and the topsoil, calcareous clay and sand. The clay brings breadth and depth while the sand and tuffeau keep this wine in the clouds. My first impression out of bottle in June 2023 was one of a cross between a Meursault of old, and a cru from Brézé raised in neutral oak barrels. It’s rich in woodsy aromas, hazelnut, sweet chanterelle, fallen wet oak leaves, Devonshire cream and creme fraiche, acacia honey, magnolia, cherimoya, and pear. If tasted blind in its first hours, I might mistake it for a cold vintage Meursault (though perhaps not within a lineup with other Meursaults) if it wasn’t so gentle and less muscled up—think a light version of old François Jobard (I believe all under the label of Antoine Jobard now) aromas with some age but without the cut of the harder limestone, dense core, and the fat of Côte d’Or’s rich clay. I had to leave the house to go out for dinner so as not to guzzle it to the end. On day two, it continued on the same path, and the palate strengthened a little more and deepened in complexity. The pear went a little more apple with a welcome smidge of strudel and spice. Fully intact and even improving on day three, it began to shed its Bourgogne-ness and moved much closer to Brézé in style and weight yet it was still quite different from many Chenin Blanc grown in Montlouis or Vouvray. It’s absolutely delicious and seemingly indefatigable in its first year in bottle. This low sulfite dosed Chenin (20mg/L in total) is raised eight months in oak barrels (with some new to replace older barrels—beautifully woven into the wine) followed by four months in fiberglass tanks before bottling. Vincent’s Chenin Blanc is truly singular for this variety in the Loire Valley, so much so that it doesn’t even seem to be of this earth, but rather plucked from the heavens, angelic, virgin, pure, untainted. In recent years, I’ve terribly missed Pinot Noir that showcases the grape’s nobility and naturally bright, energetic, straight flush (hearts or diamonds) of red fruits and healthy forest with wet underbrush. I didn’t expect to find such a shining example outside of Burgundy, let alone in France’s Chenin Blanc country. During my first visit with Vincent, I was tempted to be impolite and drink down my entire generously large barrel taste of the 2021 Pinot Noir “Un Rouge Chez Les Blancs” grown on an acre of vines (0.17ha planted in 2017 and 0.27ha in 1978) instead of returning the precious amount left after my first two sips to whence it came. It was jaw-dropping out of barrel, a burlesque walk from glass to nose and mouth, and I could’ve nursed that first 500-liter barrel to completion. It was sensual, honest, captivating, pristine, and delicious; egoless Pinot Noir, crafted into a sublime balance between nature and nurture. As I write this the day after tasting my sample bottle on the longest day of the year, more than six months after bottling, it’s more relaxed and lower key but with the same seductive spirit. Delicately crafted, sans soufre and sans concerned-enological-brow-raising, the first two hours open tested our restraint, especially my wife’s, but we very much wanted to give it more time to reveal its full breadth on day one before gulping it down. After the first sips, we decided to open our fifth bottle so far this warm season of the gorgeous 2021 Jean Foillard Morgon “Cuvée Corcelette” to slow our roll, but as delicious as that was, it didn’t stave us off for long. We were only disappointed with the bottle size (standard 750 ml), and the wine was down the hatch in two hours, leaving us with what felt like unfinished business; like the power went out in the theater just before the best part of the movie. In those two hours, the wine could be described as a combination of the finest understated Sancerre Pinot Noir from a cool year and an elegant Richoux Irancy and Lafarge Volnay of old, with a dash of Yvon Metras’ subtle yet often intoxicating Fleurie nose and slightly stern, gravelly mouthfeel, you can imagine this lovely Pinot Noir’s aromatic color palette and pointed-yet-fine structure. Grown on limestone bedrock and calcareous gravel and sand, the first glass emits dainty, sweet, red flowers (think Beaujolais florals), crunchy wild berry fruit (not to be confused with the store-bought greenhouse variety), verdant pastoral greens, fine wine lees, strawberry skin, orange, citrus, fresh mint, fresh oregano, gravel, and wet dirt. The palate is delicate but has fine, pointed tannins and very fresh acidity. There’s no sulfite added, so the future of each bottle will be in the hands of the handler, though with its naturally low pH, high acidity, and low alcohol, and, most importantly, its balance, it should manage well over time. One pump-over per day in the early stages of fermentation and two later on, a year aged in 75% old oak barrel, 25% fiberglass tank, and it’s not fine nor filtered.

Newsletter April 2025 Diego Collarte, Cume do Avia, Ribeiro Is there anything but strange happenings lately? The last decade produced some memorable moments for all of us as the wine import business, restaurants and retailers have constantly teetered between epic meltdowns and nearly irreparable disasters. Nothing has been easy and current events keep throwing more wrenches into the works. So then, what do you get when you cross a warm winter, a warm spring, and a hot summer with numerous heat waves recording the hottest year in Europe on record? Indeed, not only the sweaty Catalan gasp of Insuportable!, but also great white wines. Yeah, that happened–some good news. I posed the question everywhere on my warp-speed winter wine tour with Remy, our New York captain, across six countries where makers were selling their 2022s. As I suspected, most of them credited the 2021 season for providing the vines with greater resistance to 2022’s solar beatdown. And after a series of hot summers, Mother Nature struck back in 2021, shut out the sun, and replenished the well. It was also a month-long never-ending feast for mildew, to the point where growers actually began to miss the relentless summer sun. But the pump was primed, and 2022 delivered—not only on quantity but also with quality. I love exfoliating, tenderizing, vibrating and borderline abusive acidity and I expected many 2022 European white wines to be a little flat, which is typical in hot years. Instead, there’s thrust and energy alongside a sun-kissed fruit profile and many aren’t just good, they’re excellent. For a lot of growers, the crop was bigger, which helped reduce the high concentration most common in balmy vintages and also made up for the losses of 2021. As I write this segment, I’m sipping on Vincent Bergeron’s 2022 ‘Matin, Midi, et Soir’ Chenin Blanc from Montlouis-sur-Loire, which will hopefully arrive at the end of April without a 200% tax. Each new pour picks up momentum and tension, increments of cooler and cooler freshness. While tasting his 2022s out of barrel, I couldn’t read them well—maybe I was too in my head about what I expected from the hot season. But across our Northern European white wine territory, from Austria to Galicia, makers were met with success—with few exceptions. Because of their deeply embedded location inside Europe’s continental climate influence, our Austrian and German growers were the true test. Of all grapes, dry Riesling is most prone to fall flat when the vines are overheated. They remain complex, at least by definition, but their libido goes … well, a little limp. The 2022 Rieslings of Wechsler, Malat, Tegernseerhof, Veyder-Malberg, and Muthenthaler? Energy-filled, with surprising torque. So are the Austrians’ Grüner Veltliners. Our two Chablis growers, Christophe and Collet pulled it off. Few anywhere are salty shredders like the Val do Salnés 2022 Albariños, which many growers there consider their best vintage in years. So far, I’m enjoying these longboarding 2022s, soul surfing in the diffused rays of a low winter sun. There are some great reds, too. In continental areas, the balance is still intact, but the fruit is juicier and the wines stouter. But growers who’ve recently moved from power toward a gentler approach played well in 2022. It’s a vintage with the potential to create bruisers, but so far with our growers, it’s loads of purity and the unmistakable echo of their terroirs. Dave Fletcher, our Barbaresco grower (available in select markets), described the 2022 fruit as the most immaculate of his career. It’s not that they’re necessarily perfect in profile (perhaps missing some floral and brighter red tones), but the clusters in hand were without imperfection. And, like the top-quality 2022 Val do Salnés Albariños, the reds of Galicia hit their highest notes. They are ideal examples to represent this region’s potential for reds. The fruit and charm are more on display than the typically pronounced angles, squares, and jolts of metal and mineral from their rock-and-roll terroirs. Unofficial port authority, Salerno 2018 I hope you’re not like me—weaned on Côte d’Or, which carved my preferences in stone and sometimes led to my donning a pair of blinders. Enmeshed nostalgia for our past influences is a strong default, especially when challenged by the enormity of the constant and rapidly accelerating variations in the wine world’s evolution. It captured my primitive wine mind early, narrowed my focus, and became the benchmark to which I compare every other wine on the planet. It hit the bullseye, and everything else landed in the outer rings. And I remain as guilty at times of regressing as anyone, though I tell myself that at least Côte d’Or wasn’t a bad place to backslide into. “Burgundy has the advantage of a clear, direct appeal, immediately pleasing and easy to comprehend on a primary level.” -A.J. Liebling, Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris, 1959. My Côte d’Or-influenced bias leaned more toward red than white. New oak notes in the forefront have never been my inclination, but the older more structured Côte d’Or reds seemed to digest it well. Now, gargantuanly fruity reds in hot years still have the same levels of new oak and taste like either a slightly sloppy smash-burgundy or a material display of wealth rather than of cultural and intellectual value—a surface allure of riches, to be paraded to a table of those who often lack appreciation for a wine’s relevance–the art of the thing. Malat cellar, Kremstal Few whites in the world, if any, wear woody bling better than Chardonnay from the Côte d’Or, but my preference for neutral aging vessels (mostly older wood barrels or concrete rather than steel) was yet another product of my wine youth. In the late 90s Austrian wines (for me, more Riesling than Grüner Veltliner) became the next thing and influenced me greatly. More neutral aging vessels on whites illuminates their directness and highlights their terroir. Between the two early influencers of red and white, that of the more neutral vessel with white wines remains closest. Below in the section, “France Part Two: North Central,” you will find more information about two of our most important new arrivals this month from two organically certified farmers and growers. First are Jean Collet’s 2022 Chablis Premier Crus and Grand Crus. In my experience, Collet is one of the most reliable domaines in Chablis for warmer seasons. The wines migrate from cooler years that are unmistakably classic, and in the warmer years, they’re like a marriage of Chablis’ nuances with Côte d’Or’ and Mâconnais’ sunnier fruit qualities. While in warm years Chardonnay can be a bore, Collet’s ‘22s still express their origins and will be quite crowd-pleasing for a typical restaurant guest, more than those who love a Chablis with a sharper edge.  The most successful regions of 2022 inside our collection of whites are those of Galicia, specifically Rías Baixas and Ribeiro. The 2022 Val do Salnés Albariños of Manuel Moldes and Pedro Méndez are undoubtedly the best we’ve experienced from them. Manuel (Chicho) describes it as his best year ever, and those who enjoyed his 2022 Albariño ‘Afelio’ and Pedro’s 2022 starter Albariño already know what’s coming with the imminent arrival of their parcela selections. Manuel Moldes and an ancient Albariño vine in “Peai” The 2022 Albariños arriving from Manuel Moldes are A Capela de Aios, a wine made from 70-80-year-old vines on severely decomposed ancient, Pangean-era schist with a rich topsoil, Peai, another Albariño on schist but harder bedrock than A Capela de Aios and similar topsoil, and As Dunas from schist-derived beach sand. Each is raised in old 500-600 L French oak and they’re quite different. As Dunas finds a unique set of aromatic characteristics unlike any other Albariños in the region (except those of Rodrigo Méndez and Raul Pérez, who bottle two different wines, one under Forjas del Salnés and Rodrigo Mendez’s eponymous label) and remarkably powerful for a wine from beach-like sand. Peai, pronounced P.I., like Magnum P.I., might be the most structured of the bunch, a powerhouse puncher with a dense nucleus and an intensely salty mineral orbit. A Capela de Aios is the foundational wine of the bodega—the first of his Albariños from schist, and one of the first in the region to acknowledge its geological difference—a true anomaly in this granite-dominated region. In the years past, it was heavier and richer; a gilded but deeply complex and slightly baroque wine. But in 2021, there was a change, a finer line drawn in its sandy-loam schist soil. The 2021 lit the way, but the 2022 walked the path up to this vineyard’s zenith, like a star at the peak of its nuclear fusion—harmony is now in perfect equilibrium. While As Dunas and Peai have opposing qualities, Chicho’s ‘22 A Capela de Aios combines their best qualities and finds its newest level. It may be the most compelling young wine I’ve had from him, which also makes it perhaps the most compelling and complete young Albariño I’ve ever had. Also arriving from Moldes is his 2023 Albariño ‘Afelio.’ 2023 was another successful year with a slower growing season. Each year after the new wines are buttoned up for aging, my wife and I meet up with Chicho and his wife, Silvia, and he says the same thing no matter the season: “A really difficult vintage but I am very happy with the results.” Afelio is Chicho’s wine grown almost entirely on granite soils. It’s highly mineral but more fluid compared to his three parcela wines on schist that often pack a tighter punch. Most of this wine comes from further north of the schist outcrop just north of Sanxenxo. In 2018, he and I discussed raising more wine in older barrels, and he’s now incorporating new large foudres. 2022 was a great year for Galician reds, too. There’s nothing more that Rías Baixas needs than a consistent season with some sun, warm daytime temperatures and the ocean-cold nights to ripen their reds to beyond a bearable pitch. A 50-50 blend of Caíño Tinto and Espadeiro from old vines (some pre-phylloxera), the 2022 Acios Mouro’s summer and fall red fruit profile is as bright as usual but softer and more generously juicy to balance its light balsamic notes and high acidity—a natural characteristic not only spurred by the cooler climate but the extremely high acid of these two varieties. Acios Mouros has become a cult favorite for those who know it, but it might be better served by leaving it for professionals and adventurers who like an intense experience. If you’re looking for a simply relaxing moment with a glass of red, this probably won’t be your copa de vino. Chicho’s wines move out of our warehouse like we’re having a fire sale, so if you are interested, please let us know soon. Pedro Méndez and an ancient Albariño vine for ‘Tresvellas’ Dancing around the 2022s are two new arrivals from Pedro Méndez. Both are unofficial non-D.O. wines made entirely from Albariño in the Rías Baixas Val do Salnés area of Meaño, the historical viticultural center of Val do Salnés. The 2023 Pedro Méndez ‘Viño Branco do Val’ eponymous label is a fabulous follow-up to the double-take inducing ‘22 that took everyone by force and charm. 2023 is tighter in some respects and narrows more quickly to a more minerally point. (But don’t forget that if you’ve recently had the 2022, this 2023 with a year less in bottle will be more piercing until it settles in a bit further.) It’s harvested from a broad collection of small parcels in Meaño, from young to ancient vines, giving it a wide range of complexities. It sneaks in just under the limit for by-the-glass programs but will deliver on expectations for that upper-tier price. Liquid gold and platinum Albariño is bottled up in the 2021 Tresvellas ‘Viño Branco de Viñedos Historicos.’ Continuing its winning streak after the ‘19 and ‘20 versions from these ancient vines that look more like trees, each of these 100-year-old-plus vines (with a few estimated to be around 200 years old) were able to maintain their root systems free of the aphid due to their silty and finely sandy soil grain. Many for this wine are next to a small creek at the bottom of the hill on super fine silt, and are used as budwood for all new plantings in that area—they are not only the Tresvellas (Three Old Ladies), they’re the mothers of almost every young Albariño vine around them. Another borrow from a previous newsletter, as this wine doesn’t miss a beat from the earlier versions: “With concentration, depth, and restraint, the warm and well-worked Tresvellas fills the glass. All the varietal’s classic high-toned lemony notes went to full preserves: sweet, salty, acidic, zest oil and the right amount of bitter pith. The color is between straw and gold leaf and it tastes expensive.” This is one of Rías Baixas’ most triumphant bottlings, and one not to be missed. Though stout to the core, it’s also generous and filled with the joy of its ancient mothers surrounded by their thriving babies. Iago Garrido, Augalevada From serious to the most serious of our Galician growers, former professional Spanish futboller turned virtual modern-day Cistercian cellar monk, Augalevada’s Iago Garrido recentered his athletic discipline from the highest level of sport to natural viticulture and precision cellar work. Established by Benedictine monks in 889 A.D., the Monasterio de San Claudio de Ribeiro is perhaps Galicia’s most historic viticultural center from the Middle Ages. Iago’s proprietary vines are a few kilometers to the east on a sliver of granitic land carved out into an amphitheater facing the sun where vines were first probably planted more than a thousand years ago. Today, those vines “replanted” again between 2008 and 2010, and grafted over a few times to varieties that he gravitated toward as his ideas for the kind of wines he wanted to make, crystallized. Fully committed to biodynamic farming since the first plantation, he wed himself to Treixadura, a variety that produces soft and agreeable white-fruited and herbaceous wines, but eventually left her for a much racier pair, Lado and Agudelo—the latter also known as Chenin Blanc (first identified by a Spanish ampelographer exactly a hundred years ago this year, though it’s believed to have been brought in centuries earlier). This duo comprises the new 50-50 blend of his 2022 ‘Ollos de Roque,’ (Eyes of Roque, Iago’s son). But first, we have to introduce you to the 2021 ‘Ollos de Roque,’ a blend of the gently structured Treixadura balanced with the extremely high acid, minerally-dense varieties, Lado and Agudelo. This flor-influenced, old oak and amphora wine is Iago’s flagship. His other white from Ribeiro, 2022 ‘Ollos Branco,’ is a blend of 15-50-year-old Treixadura, Albariño and Godello from organically farmed vineyard of Manolo de Traveso and other parcels in the three unofficial Ribeiro subzones Arnoia, Avia, and Miño. This is the right introduction to Iago’s Neil Gaiman-like wine universe where everything is fascinating and far from typical. All his wines up to this release are under the influence of flor, which was naturally discovered on his property when he buried an amphora with wine out in his granite terraces. It’s a striking wine filled with moments of almost unbearable tension, liberation and euphoria. One needs a meditative journey to uncover all its secrets that evolve from one sip to the next. It’s a brilliant wine, though perhaps too Lynch and Kandinsky for the common drinker. Out of Ribeiro and into Monterrei, one of Galicia’s D.O.s furthest to the southeast and perhaps its warmest, is Iago’s 2022 ‘Areas de Rei.’ A play on words, it means “king’s areas,” but also “areas” in Gallego means sand (in this case, sand from granite), and Rei, as in Monter-Rei. It’s sourced from 80-year-old vines on granite at altitudes exceeding 450m. A strange name for a grape, Dona Branca can almost always produce innocuous, perfumy white wine with low acidity. But put her in the hands of a wild man with a brain that works overtime outside the box, and something altogether different arrives. It’s hard to describe such wines, but let’s say it’s mildly floral, spare in fruit but white fruited, salty for days, earthy, spicy and utterly savory. It’s a wine that mystifies me—not for the first time with Iago’s wines—and there is certainly a place for it on the right menus. The most electrically charged in his high-voltage range is yet another Albariño in our collection of five growers who make the stuff.  2022 Val do Salnés Albariño “Parcela Eiravedra” comes from 60-year-old Albariño vines just three kilometers from the ocean in the Val do Salnés. This is Luke’s Return of the Jedi green lightsaber in liquid form, a bottle of aurora borealis; it’s mean to some and absolute glory to others–and I’m one of those others. Older vintages are denser and almost offensive to some who don’t appreciate the high voltage. In recent years, he found a way to calm the current and make it play nice. It’s a beauty, and one of the great representations of salty, minerally and high-strung Albariños, though it’s made in a cellar far far away from its roots. I love Iago’s whites, but I am a bigger sucker for his reds. He’s never as proud of them as he is for his whites, and I don’t understand this. I’m not sure what he’s searching for, but I keep finding what I want. They’re so fresh and vibrant, clean yet character-filled, more analog than the usual digital waveform Galician reds, with thin frames but a solid smack of affection. The 2022 ‘Ollos’ Tinto and 2022 ‘Ollos de Maia’ (named after his daughter, Maia) have found a new level. The differences aren’t so great, but Ollos Tinto is a blend of young and old vines of Caiño Longo, Brancellao, Espadeiro and Sousón from organic and sustainably farmed vineyards on granite and gneiss, and Ollos de Maia is a blend of 15-year-old, biodynamically farmed vines of 45% Caiño Longo, 45% Brancellao, and 10% Caíño da Terra, from the unofficial Miño subzone on granite. The whole-cluster management may have been the biggest factor, at least outside of learning how to do things better each year—this guy’s a fast learner. It went from fully destemmed in 2018 (which I also adored, as I drank at least three cases, maybe four over a few months—no exaggeration), to 2019 partial whole cluster, then to 100% whole cluster in 2020, and now to about one-third in 2022. During those 100% whole-cluster years, the wines needed more time once open to find their footing. We spoke about this subject at length in 2021 on our first visit after the borders reopened as we tasted the 2020s. I explained that I was worried about clipping the fruit with too much whole bunch; in this part of the world, fruit is a needed asset that doesn’t always come easily with these indigenous red varieties (not including Mencía) that tend to overload on metal, mineral, earth and flower. They are naturally intense channelers of the region’s hardcore acid bedrock and topsoil that often seem to overdose their wines with minerally and metallic angles. But this year he nailed it. Everything is in place: fruit, freshness, authenticity, and the coming together of the seventeen years of the Camino de Iago. For someone who rarely seems satisfied with his work, even when it’s extraordinary, the question is, where will he go next? We arrive at the last of this month’s 2022 white wine act. And what a way to finish the story of the white wines with the arrival of Katharina Wechsler’s 2022 Westhofen Riesling Grand Crus, Kirchspiel, and Morstein, as well as Katharina’s monopole cru in between, Benn, among others. I hoped Europe’s hottest year on record would be as gentle to the vines here in the Rheinhessen as it was elsewhere. Same story: 2021 filled the well and helped the vines maintain their resilience through a scorcher, yielding a collection of superb dry Rieslings with unexpectedly strong punching power. Even Katharina’s 2022 Riesling Trocken, the starter in her range, is an especially powerful wine. Of course, many of the areas with limestone, a rock with good water retention, and clay, were well advantaged over those regions with sandier soils that had a harder time fending off the heat and protecting the grapes. Benn, the family’s tiny monopole vineyard site, has perhaps the most diverse plantations of all her vineyard parcels. The warmest of Katharina’s three important crus, it’s composed mostly of loess topsoil in the lower sections that sit as low as 120m, and limestone in the upper part, peaking around 160m. Quality Riesling thrives with suffering vines, which is why much of the non-Riesling vines are planted in the lower sections. Its 50-year-old Riesling vines, particularly those used for Wechsler’s top-flight trocken bottling, are planted in limestone bedrock and limestone and loess topsoil toward the top, not too far away from the bottom of Morstein. Benn produces a substantial Riesling that expresses impressive moments, especially with more time in the glass. When the others shine so brightly in their specific ways, Benn has been upfront but is somehow still a slower burn. Katharina Wechsler, photo credit to her husband, Manu Kirchspiel is a great vineyard and screams its grand cru status as soon as it’s opened, especially the 2022. It’s always readier out of the gates—often in the range of other growers—and for many reasons. Shaped like an amphitheater facing the Rhine River (though still roughly five miles away) with its southeastern exposure an average of around a thirty percent gradient, its bedrock and topsoil is composed of clay marls, limestone and loess. It’s a warmer site than Morstein because of its lower altitude (between 140m-180m) along with the curvature of the hillside that allows it to maintain greater warmth inside this small but sheltering topographical feature from cold westerly winds. Katharina has three different parcels in this large vineyard with reasonably good separation, giving the resulting wines a broader range of complexity and greater balance. Morstein, Rheinhessen’s juggernaut limestone-based dry Riesling vineyard is—even with vines only replanted in 2012—the undisputed big boy in Katharina’s dry Riesling range. Katharina’s Morstein vines are massale selections from the Mosel and have smaller, looser clusters with naturally low yields, even from the young vines. A mere pup by the standard of vine age, Katharina’s Morstein is formidable. And while it’s not usually as flashy out of the gates as Kirchspiel, it picks up serious power and expansive complexities that know no end. Like many of the world’s great wines, Morstein is no rapid takeoff F-15 fighter jet with instant supersonic speeds, it’s a rocket ship with a slow initial takeoff and a steady climb that reaches 17,000 mph before entering orbit. The topsoil is known as terra fusca (black earth), a soil matrix of heavy brown clay. Its low to medium topsoil depth (by vinous standards), combined with limestone fragments from the underlying bedrock makes its ability for water storage more limited than Katharina’s other main sites. Other 2022 wines arriving from Katharina start with her mid-tier dry Riesling, Kalk (formerly labeled Westhofen Trocken), a wine entirely composed of the younger vines of Kirchspiel, making it a fabulous deal! And the greatest deal in the bunch, the Riesling Trocken is about to arrive, which also benefits from a large percentage of Kirchspiel fruit. And finally, in the range of dry white wines, her Scheurebe Trocken, made in a classic way, and the Scheurebe Fehlfarbe, an orange wine. Lastly, but often first in my summer wine line, the Kirchspiel Kabinett, one I begged her to make and with which I’m now completely obsessed. It’s a wealth of riches from Wechsler at unbelievably fair prices for such talented terroirs. Remy Giannico and Jean Delunay, an old master of Bourgueil, Domaine de la Lande Only thirty kilometers east of Saumur, Bourgueil feels so much farther away. Maybe going into flat lands after Saumur’s limestone perches over the river with troglodyte dwellings and limestone mansions, ornate pasty white tuffeau châteaux surrounded by residences built with the same white stone, and the absurdly beautiful, overindulgent churches (like the hemispherical-domed Notre Dame des Ardilliers, scrunched between the bluffs and river) with their glistening gray slate roofs hued green-gold with the same lichen found on the region’s vines. The majesty of Saumur’s inspired buildings seems to descend into Bourgueil’s more serviceable and industrial buildings on the north side of the Loire. But once inside its vineyards, Bourgueil’s are just as exciting as Saumur. That is to say, they don’t look like they would render wines that would send a shiver of excitement down your spine or make your hair stand on end. But if the wines couldn’t, those 12th-century Cistercian monks would’ve split faster than it took them to plant and wait a few years to taste their first few harvests. But like many of the world’s unassuming vineyard sites that generate life-changing wines, you gotta go to where the root meets the rock. Those clever monks knew the magic of Bourgueil started mid-slope and continued farther up into the clay-rich rocky topsoil and limestone bedrock not too far underneath. Bourgueil has long been overshadowed by its neighbor, Chinon (at least in the US market). Maybe because it’s easier to pronounce? The word is more guttural than Chinon, which somehow sounds more noble, even if its name originates from the word, Canetum, which means swampy area. Maybe Bourgueil would be more accessible if they left it to its Latin origin, Burgus, or even when that evolved to Burgolium before Bourgueil. They got the Bourg part right, that’s easy. But the last syllable with all those vowels is tough for the back of the throat of English speakers. Maybe it’s Chinon’s dark yet romantic connection to Jeanne d’Arc? The Saumur-esque reemergence of magnificent ancient buildings overlooking a river, like the Château de Chinon, with even more charming residences than in Saumur? Maybe it’s the wine? Perhaps Bourgueil is viewed as more rustic than the typical Chinon, but this doesn’t seem plausible to me … On a mostly contiguous slope on the north side of the Loire River, the landscape of Bourgueil and Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil (SNdB) is shaped much like parts of the Côte d’Or, or high quality Champagne spots. Chinon is more topographically diverse and mostly former marshland sandwiched between the Loire and Vienne like Montlouis-sur-Loire’s vineyards are between the Loire and Cher. Perhaps it’s a matter of more gravelly and sandy sites in Chinon? I don’t know, but Bourgueil’s wines have great potential and deliver on the authenticity of terroir as strongly as anywhere in France. And perhaps more growers here are committed to a more classical style, which seems to be coming around again. After an evening tasting and dinner that included his spectacular new release of Arnaud Lambert’s 2023 Saumur “Midi” (formerly known as Clos du Midi) arriving in California this April, Remy and I left Arnaud’s, we headed east toward Touraine and into Bourgueil to Domaine de la Lande. There we met with François Delaunay and his kids, Pauline and Thomas, and his father, Jean, a charming well-aged vigneron responsible for crafting some of the greatest old Cabernet Franc I’ve ever had the pleasure to drink. François Delunay, a young master of Bourgueil Because we were so tight on time, and I didn’t expect that Remy could sell the wines in New York, we had a quick tasting of their precisely crafted and wonderfully expressive new releases. We then went straight to their organically farmed vineyards (certified since 2013 under François’ direction) and, despite running late, were enticed into their limestone lair for my third round of extraordinary old bottles that dated back to the 60s. In a past newsletter, I wrote about my experience with their old wines and how I managed to procure four cases back to the earliest part of the 1980s, when Jean made all the wines. There wasn’t even close to a single dud in the entire bunch and it was by far the greatest batch of old wines I’ve ever purchased from any domaine, the prices ranging between that of a good sandwich and a three-course lunch menu at a decent bistro while they all delivered a long-drawn-out Michelin experience of constantly evolving vinous courses. 2 pm is already too late for lunch in France. But we had skipped breakfast, and I couldn’t drag Remy to the next appointment hangry. We had no choice but to grab a grocery store sandwich, even though I knew being late for lunch in France was a bad idea. Those stale and tuffeu-white sandwiches with a paper-thin, salty, reddish cross-section of animal lacked nourishment. They only served to bloat and balance us out a little after our undeserved and illuminating rarities cellar tasting with the Delaunay family. The Delaunay’s unexpectedly offered us the opportunity to represent their work in the entirety of the United States, and I knew everyone needed to be introduced to these wines. Their wines are as honest and pure as any found in all “wines of place” inside France. And most of the time, in the middle of your wine discoveries, don’t you want at the very least an honest wine? Brutally honest, or even just brutal? So long as it’s true? It’s easy to feel cheated with wines that lost their identity through too much tinkering. Like they’ve cheated you, cheated themselves, cheated their terroir. You won’t find that in anything coming from the Delaunay family. Was ‘sur-Loire’ really necessary? Montlouis alone sounds noteworthy; regal, even Royal: Mountain of Louis! Now that carries weight! But Mount Louis on the Loire? No. Would Volnay-sur-Saône sound like a glorious terroir? A name says it’s only as good as a secondary appellation … Paulliac-sur-Gironde? Unclassified swill … Cornas-sur-Rhône? Cheap! Montlouis’ hyphens and dead-weight words hold it back! Vouvray? Two syllables. Clean—like a sword unsheathing from a metal scabbard. Or, a challenge to a duel, “Tu as insulté mon honneur! Je demande un Vouvray !!” Well, it turns out that this was actually said in a celebrated French restaurant by a nobleman after they had sold out of Vouvray, and Montlouis-sur-Loire was offered in its place … With or without Sur-Loire, Montlouis is indeed old but these days it’s a newish frontier with a second generational wave of boutique growers rising in the ranks of quality for Chenin Blanc. The natural wine movement sparked it, and what better appellation to spawn a group of rebels to challenge the establishment across the river in Vouvray. It may be Touraine’s mirror of Saumur as an overlooked appellation creating unexpected waves. Interestingly, I recently received a message from Arnaud Lambert asking for me to write a letter—which I did—in support of the Saumur growers application for a new Dénominations Géographiques Communales (DGCs) that includes the six names: La Côte (some areas inside of Saumur-Champigny), Brézé, Berrie, Brossay, Puy-Notre-Dame, and Courchamps. However, Saumur has nearly ten times the surface area of vineyards than Montlouis’ 400 hectares. This warrants some delineation. The first of our three Source underground Montlouis luminaries (one of whom is still withholding our US allocation because Trump got elected) is Vincent Bergeron, a man whose humility and generosity continues to inspire me to better myself. He’s a gem of a human being. It was easy for Remy, our Los Angeles tastemaker JD, and me (the first time I met him in 2022), to want to do everything possible to support such a person and bring him the recognition he deserves. Borrowing from the website profile I wrote a few years ago, “Vincent is rare in today’s world of self-aggrandizing young vigneron talents—sometimes appointed by the wine community and often by the self, as “rock stars.” Many seek celebrity and membership in idealist tribes rather than going for truth and an honest view into this métier, this artistic pursuit, this craft–a marriage between homo-sapiens and nature. Vincent is a vigneron’s vigneron, a human’s human, an uncontrived example of how to live and simply let be, spiritually, without trying to be someone.” Soul-filled? Angelic? These are two impressions that come to mind with Vincent’s wines. He crafts some quite serious but inviting organic, and, most of the time, no-added-sulfites Montlouis wines. Again, as I put it years ago: “Emotionally piercing, Vincent’s mineral-spring, salty-tear, petrichor Chenin wines flutter and revitalize; a baptism of stardust in his bubbles and stills—a little Bowie, a lot of Bach. His Pinot Noir is earthen en bouche, and aromatically atmospheric, bursting with a fire of bright, forest-foraged berries and wildflowers, and cool, savory herbs rarely found in today’s often overworked, oak-soaked, and now sun-punished Pinot Noirs, the wines that were the heroes of the past millennium, but today are a flower wilting under the relentless sun. Advances in the spiritual heartland of Pinot Noir have been made, though I sure miss the flavors of the Côte d’Or from my earlier years among wine.” Vincent’s Pinot Noir takes me back to the beginning of my love affair with this grape’s propensity to produce the world’s most beguiling and slightly austere red wines. Vincent’s range of 2022 Chenin Blanc is arriving in May (we hope without 200% tariffs!) with the vineyard blended, ‘Matin, Midi et Soir’ and the lieu-dit, “Maison Marchandelle,” two of the most convincing 2022s I’ve had, and his Pet-nat, “Certains l’Aiment Sec” is about to land as well. Vincent’s 2022 still whites are some of the initial ones that helped me begin to recognize the quality of white wine from this vintage across Northern Europe. As mentioned in the introduction to this month’s newsletter, they’ve got legs and unexpected thrust for a year with such hot weather. And once I tasted 2022s from other makers, as mentioned early in this text, I was sure that the vintage has merit, a wine worthy of those who want and need a white wine with snap. Vincent Bergeron in Maison Marchandelle, December 2024 Vincent’s Maison Marchandelle plots outlined in black—the green sections! While standing in Maison Marchandelle, a 0.87-ha plot planted in 1970, Vincent lamented that this was the only vineyard he harvested grapes from this year. Outside of this small parcel, the rest of his 2.6 hectares of crop were destroyed by the constant mildew pressure of the season. He’s made it clear that if 2025 isn’t fruitful, he might have to hang up his vineyard boots, a personal tragedy. And if you know the wines and even more the man, it becomes a tragedy for us all. Fingers crossed. In the meantime, enjoy the masterful wines that we have on hand! In 2024, Vincent managed to buy some fruit from one of last year’s new Source growers, Thomas Frissant. The morning after we visited Vincent we would stick our nose into the cellar of this young, well-trained, and technical cellar swashbuckler. His organic vineyards are located near Amboise, the final resting place of Leonardo da Vinci. We braved a walk through his vines (and he braved a drive with his truck through some pretty wet, slippery clay roads) for probably the coldest vineyard exploration of our trip. We thought it would be quick, but Thomas took us on the long route! I mean, how much silex does one need to see when it’s all over the place? It was bitingly wet and windy but glimmers of sun shone through that would’ve surely inspired Leo to paint, had he lived to 572 years old. Against my better judgment, I flew the drone. I could’ve easily lost it as I did its twin in Wachau’s Spitzer Graben seven months earlier. But this flat terrain presented no obstacles other than the fierce wind, so it returned and touched down with no problem. Thomas’ wines are fabulous and mostly come from older vines and all are under organic certification. He has higher-end wines too, but the starter range is restaurant-program gold for the price, quality and vineyard culture. Their silex soils seem to endow them with that similar Pouilly-Fumé and east Sancerre hard-punching mineral quality. Sometimes it’s hard to break the market of such addictions when they deliver at these prices, but it’s perfectly fine with Thomas that we’re addicted and even particular regarding the selection we import from him. We blistered through the first batch we received in October, and the second one just landed a month ago and is on the move again with the two main features, 2023 Sauvignon Blanc, “Le Chapeau Comte” and 2023 Chardonnay, ‘Tout En Canon.’ Thomas Frissant Nicolas Renard’s cellar We won’t spend too much time on Nicolas Renard given the minuscule quantity of wines we’re allocated every other year, but we would finish our day tasting with him in his pharaoh-like tomb of a cellar. While we receive so little from Nico (pictured above), his wines are of the most substantive whites in our entire portfolio from seven countries. Nico is a magician with Chenin, Sauvignon, and Chardonnay. They’re epically singular (like the guy) and flirt with x-factor perfection. I can’t get enough of them, and once they’re open they’re unbreakable, and they have not a molecule of added sulfites. I asked Nico during my first visit in 2022 if some of the wines had had any sulfite additions at some point. It was the only time I ever felt like I had crossed a line with him. After his brow unfurled, his usually ever-present sheepish smile returned. His wines ferment for years (the last two whites we received, the 2017 Sauvignon and 2018 Chardonnay, finished fermenting in 2023) and I’ve not tasted many more intriguing wines out of barrel in the Loire Valley, though I could say the same for all the cellars I’ve visited in France. If there’s any Loire Valley grower whose wines should fetch massive second-market prices, it’s Nico’s. But good luck finding them, though I have faith they’ll come around again. The three restaurants in France that get a few bottles don’t even put them on the list, saving them for a rainy day, I guess. The rest that we don’t get are in Japan. Le Berlot has become the communal restaurant of the growers most preoccupied with nature, in the area. It’s a tradition for me to meet up with everyone I know when I’m in town (again, now minus the guy who withdrew our allocation because of Trump), and I was most happy that our young Thomas joined us for dinner there with Nico and Vincent. Thomas already has the skills but a little of the magic dust that falls off Nico and Vincent wouldn’t be lost on him. Le Berlot has a good kitchen with only slight tweaks to more French classics, and a good selection of natural wines. There are so many names on it I don’t know that I need a virtual wine shaman to guide me through it. And if you’ve had too much to drink to get behind the wheel (so less than two glasses with France’s tolerance of 5g/L of blood alcohol level), they have dorm-style private rooms upstairs, but with shared bathrooms. The legend of after-hours here is quickly gaining a reputation, though I’ve been lucky enough to avoid any unwelcome long nights and space shared with strangers. Domaine Jean Collet and Christophe et Fils amplified my perception of northern Europe’s unexpectedly successful 2022 white wines. (Perhaps southern Europe was also successful, but that’s not where we have a strong position with white wine.) And I mean unexpected only because I thought they would be shorter on energy. But they’re not. They have plenty but are even maybe less corpulent and rich than I expected. They go down easy, but they don’t have the premature notes I associate with struggling vines and sun-tested clusters in other warm seasons in Chablis. We tasted Christophe’s 2022s for context with his recently bottled 2023s. The 2023s were sparer in body at the time because of their recent sulfite addition at bottling just some weeks before. 2023 was yet another sunny year, and we’ll see how it will compare to the 22s. In any case, the 22s showed very well. Maybe this vintage won’t live forever in the context of age-worthy Chablis seasons, but who cares? I suppose that in the three years after their release, 95% of every bottle of 2022 will already be down the hatch, and that seems like a good time for them. Curious to see what others thought of the year, I checked out a critic’s website and how they tasted and scored the Chablis growers of 2022. A lot was tasted blind at BIVB, the Bureau Interprofessionnel des Vins de Bourgogne gathering. Of course, no critic would dare blind taste and score certain domaines for fear of giving accidental poor marks, which they might be tempted to alter once revealed for fear of dismissal from their readers, or a cold welcome from the celebrated winegrower on the next visit to the domaine. While so many well-made wines are analyzed in minutes, or seconds, in a snapshot with no personalized fluffing and far too early in the wine’s development, others have them isolated for the pitch—pharmaceutical sales 101. I’m fortunate to still drink the two elites from Chablis here and there because of my regular visits to the appellation, where restaurants are forced to sell them at fair markups from the cellar pricing or risk losing allocations; no grower wants to see their 15€ ex-cellar premier cru sold for 200€ on a wine list in their hometown. There are also a few hidden restaurants in France, or close to it, with relatively fair prices on the Big Two. In the past, wine pros would say, “I love Chablis!” But when you’d peruse their list, they only had the Big Two on the bottle list and something else on their glass-pour program. Is that a true love for Chablis? Or, at the time, just a love for the cheapest ticket to extraordinary white Burgundy? Sometimes blind tasting is useful. Sometimes it’s not. Five minutes of excessive swirling, exhausting the wine and your palate as you try to discover its clues … The best outcome? When we are wrong …  especially after we were so certain, it’s humbling. It’s always a test of what we think we know—a harmless learning experience, though maybe not so great for the ego. Sometimes we look like a boss. Other times, a World Market wine department specialist—no offense: ya gotta start somewhere! And sometimes we’re not humble enough in spirit and develop an immediate negative bias that, sadly, can stick around when we’re wrong. “No, not me,” you say. Never … “Oh! I should’ve said that … I was going to say that!” Or, “I can’t believe that’s that. It doesn’t have X, Y, and Z (otherwise I’d have nailed it). The post-mortem play-by-plays are often best left unsaid. Blind tasting doesn’t work well with Chablis. Especially within only five minutes of opening it … Chablis is a journey, and the best may seem spare at first, sometimes even awkward. If it outshines others in a blind tasting within the first ten minutes, maybe there’s something more off than on. Most compelling Chablis start and remain snug, withholding, and can even be Willy Wonka quirky. And in an instant after waiting, almost pressuring it to perform, they strike deep into its Kimmeridgian limestone marl, the salty brine now rising to ocean’s spray, the phenolic blob now cutting minerally textures and acidic flare. No worthy Chablis is as quick a read as an Instagram post. By the very nature of this region’s wines, its best traits can be slow to get out of first gear. Like with any serious wine, depth takes time to discover. Analysis in a minute, six months after bottling for a few minutes of swirling it to death? Folly. So many Chablis just won’t give their all so quickly—whether just uncorked, or within the first two years after bottling. It ain’t Côte d’Or nowadays, where an immediate blast fizzles quickly or grows into a sixth-gear, high-rpm hum but rarely goes to the salty clouds of the taut Chablis. If there’s any blind-tasting category with the greatest probability of missing the wine entirely, it’s Chablis. So, congrats to Sébastien and Romain for scoring some solid 80s with their AOC Village wines when tasted blind at a BIVB events by critics. Sébastien Christophe Romain Collet We tasted with Romain Collet out of the various vats they employ to highlight each cru’s qualities: Montmains in steel to memorialize the edges of its rocky terroir; Vaillons, with its brown but light textured clay and rocky topsoil, aged equally in 20-year-old 85-hl and 228-liter French oak, a great balance of vat choices to gently “sculpt the clay” and preserve the strong minerally compaction of Vaillons, the wine of their range that helps me best understand each vintage; the exotic Fôrets nestled up in its furthest western part inside a small heat-trap amphitheater raised in an egg-shaped concrete; the remaining 1er Crus—Butteaux, MdM, MdT, and grand crus, Valmur and Clos, all in more marne-rich (calcareous clay) topsoil—in variations of two-to-seven-year-old 228-liter French oak barrels (none new) to sculpt the clay once again. No matter what Romain employs in the cellar, each wine speaks its truth. There’s some new excitement from Collet labeled ‘Vallée de Valvan,’ but it hasn’t arrived yet. If you look at a map of Chablis, there is a “village” section of the backside of Montmains facing northeast, mirroring Vaillons and most of Vaillons is inside Valvan. I asked Romain since my first visit with them in 2010 about this long stretch of vines they have that makes up a good chunk of their AOC Chablis. It seemed obvious and still does, that it has the same geology as its neighbors. When they classified the area the southerly exposure needed for premier cru classification was missing eighty years ago, but the soil was premier cru. But things have changed, and these “less favorable” expositions can now chalk that up as an asset, and that’s clear in this minerally fresh new bottling. Collet’s Vallée de Valvan represents Chablis’ future. We finished our day at the Richoux’s cellar in Irancy. We work with the Richoux family only in California and a few other states, but Remy needed to meet them and their wines as they’re one of the central pillars of our company’s French portfolio. Our first imported vintage from them was the 2005 Veaupessiot and 2007 Irancy. Since Gabin and Félix were given more input into the production, things have changed a bit from a more rustic, classic, striking and clean style raised in 55-85-hl old French oak foudres to something more in line with a Côte d’Or style, smaller barrels with some a little newer than the past. The first moment for their cellar filled with 500-600 L barrels was with Thierry’s “Ode à Odette,” a unique wine made in honor of his grandmother who used to work a certain parcel of ancient vines. Seemingly on a whim, they bought a massive batch of new barrels and aged it for three years in them. Well, then they had to do something with all these leftover barrels! The Richoux boys also experimented with softer extractions and withheld sulfite additions until the bottling. These changes resulted in much more fruity wines but it was harder to understand all the changes at the time because the seasons were going haywire and particularly impacted Irancy. Fast forward to 2019 and 2021, two of their finest vintages demonstrating the balance of those changes. 2019 is richer, as the season was warmer, but balanced with denser fruit and well-managed alcohol levels still around 13.5%. While the 2019s may be the crowd-pleaser between these two vintages, the extremely low-yielding 2021s are nearly perfect wines for my preference: elegant, lifted, red-fruited, finely structured, fresh, floral, and without any impression that the sun abused a single berry. After the cellar tasting and the open bottles of 2019 and 2021, we tasted and tasted and tasted, Remy became a deep believer in the mythology of Richoux. Our first shipment of the 2021 Richoux Irancy wines will arrive in California this month.

Reznicek, a fabulous, new Viennese restaurant by sommelier Simon Schubert I’m writing this month’s newsletter in Vienna even though I thought about canceling this trip, as I have frequently done in the last few months due to Covid and the war next door, but I figure I can’t wait forever for the world to stabilize in every direction to feel completely comfortable traveling in this area. My wife and I decided to take a few days in Austria and the Czech Republic for her birthday before the arrival of some of my team from the States. This week is the beginning of forty consecutive days I’ll be on the road, starting in Riesling and Grüner Veltliner country, ten days in Northern Italy between Südtirol, Lombardia, and Piemonte, followed by what will surely be a stunning train ride from Milan through Switzerland and into Germany. From there, after a brief German excursion with Katharina Wechsler, the first team goes home, and I fly to Madrid to welcome three others for two weeks in Iberia. It’s going to be an intense one, but it will clear my schedule for a more relaxed summer. Last night we went to one of Vienna’s cool wine spots, Heunisch & Erben. It had been an overcast day, a little chilly but sunny, similar to when we left Portugal, though a bit drier. We settled into a tastefully remodeled modern flat with a light oak and shiny dark marble floor apartment with the classically high ceilings in a historic building in the Neubau district of Vienna. The original plan in Austria this year was to go to VieVinum, but despite how great the event is, I opted to avoid the crowds and see our Austrian growers in a more intimate setting. Ever since my first visit in 2004, I’ve searched Austria for the best wiener schnitzel and I may have finally found it. Two nights ago, at Heunisch & Erben, Katharina, our server, gave it a 9.5 out of ten, and I had to agree, only because she insisted a ten isn’t possible. It was near perfection: thin, soft veal somehow floating inside and seeming not touching its pillow of gold and brass-hued breaded crust with a superb and perfectly crafted delicate crunch. Their wine list is massive and requires a thirty-minute hunt to settle on the bottle for the night. We scoured the list of old Riesling with one of the sommeliers but he didn’t commit to pushing us in any particular direction, so we started with a series of Riesling tastes from their extensive wine-by-the-glass list and asked for a bottle of 2017 Domaine du Collier Saumur Rouge “La Ripaille” (because we knew we wanted a red for the night as well) to nurse over the next hours. During the last two years, I’ve had three different bottles of this Collier wine, two 2014s and one 2016. The La Ripaille Cabernet Franc wines I’ve had are, to me, complete in every way, and loaded with x-factor and perfect texture and palate weight. The 2017 clearly needs a few more years for the newish wood notes (not sure of the wood regimen) to meld a little further into the wine to make it a true 9.5. It was a solid 9, but I’m sure it will go up a notch with more bottle age. Everyone who will join me on this five-week journey will experience new places and meet new people that they admire through their wines. It’s a great pleasure to watch them visit places for the first time that I’ve had the fortune of visiting many times before, thanks to the great support of our customers and friends in the wine industry! Sometimes during the first visit to anywhere we are so worried about avoiding missteps that further complicate our travels that we miss the pleasure of watching others enjoy themselves too. My fondest memory guiding someone to somewhere I frequently visit was with my sister, Victoria (also our company’s Office Manager and Company MVP—yes, the second should be an official title), the first time she went to the Amalfi Coast. My wife, Andrea, and I lived on the eastern border of the area, in the port town of Salerno, a place people often just pass through without staying for more than a day or to just hop on the bus to Amalfi; Salerno is a true Southern Italian city populated mostly with Italians. Almost every sunny weekend we would catch the ferry to one of the Amalfi Coast villages, and our favorite was Cetara. Amalfi Coast fishing village, Cetara On the ferry ride we sat daydreaming while sea mist cast into the air by the boat bobbing up and down in the wake from other boats, the cool water freshening our faces under the hot sun. But anyone familiar with the area knows the better beaches, at least for relaxing, are to the east and south of Salerno in Cilento, not the pebbly and cobbly Amalfi Coast. The Cilento Coast is much flatter and has expansive and long, soft beaches made of fine sand, save the occasional razor-sharp volcanic outcroppings on the shore and scattered in the breaking waves. The water is cleaner and clearer than most of Amalfi (a place already known for its beautiful, clean water), and it’s where many Campanians go during the summer when excessive amounts of tourists make Amalfi unbearable, if it weren’t for its breathtaking beauty. One can only imagine the origins of the beauty of the Amalfi coastline adorned with limestone cliffs: surely it was the hot spot for torrid love affairs between gods. In Cilento, every beach shack restaurant surely has better food than you can find anywhere else on the beach in Europe; the Neapolitans have very high expectations when it comes to food and these places deliver, even if they’re served on paper or plastic. The place was Ravello, perhaps the most picturesque and well-kept village along the Amalfi Coast, a hilltop town about a thousand feet above the sea, celebrated in books, clean and well-groomed, and subtly posh. It’s a place that attracts the richest and the most artistic of our species for inspiration from the Mediterranean below, with its shimmering kaleidoscope of inimitable shades of blue and green, all backed by a treacherously steep, wild shrub-covered, limestone mountainside that seems to run right into the city center. It was only there that I ever witnessed someone so deeply awed by the beauty of a place that it brought them to tears. This person was Victoria, who was embarrassed by how it moved her, and this is, and will always be, one of my greatest travel memories. There won’t be anything quite as stunning as Ravello and the Amalfi Coast during my upcoming trip, but Galicia’s Ribeira Sacra and Portugal’s Douro will stimulate many other sensations: vertigo; disbelief that people would elect to work in such extreme conditions; deep contemplation about the history of conquest and religion in the region; the superiority of Roman engineering in their time and their lust for gold and how deeply they changed Europe. All this lies between our start in Austria’s Wachau and our terminus in Portugal and Spain’s Atlantic coasts. So much to see and experience, to learn and to ponder! It never gets old, only we do… Ancient gneiss from hundreds of millions of years ago, the famous bedrock (or “primary rock”) of Austria’s Wachau New Arrivals: Austria Tegernseerhof, Wachau An hour’s drive west from Vienna lies Austria’s ground zero for the country’s great Grüner Veltliner and Riesling. While I feel it’s not fair to say one region is better than another when comparing Kremstal, Kamptal, and Wachau, Austria’s elite spots for these grapes, Wachau certainly gets heaped with the most praise and is home to a tremendous number of great producers, including our friend Martin Mittelbach and his historic Weingut Tegernseerhof. The far eastern side of this appellation’s steeply terraced, ancient gneiss rock hillsides is where the recently organic certified Tegernseerhof has operated since 1176. While vines existed in the area for hundreds of years before the arrival of the monastic order of Tegernsee, Tegernseerhof is the oldest Wachau winery in the Loiben area. Owned and operated by the Mittelbach family for the last five generations, there are dozens of winegrowers in the area now, including two of Mittelbach’s neighbors and close family friends, the Knolls and Alzingers. Martin’s stylistic difference from his friends lies mainly in how he now organically farms and is certified (and I could see that would eventually head that direction when I first met him in 2009) and uses only stainless steel for fermentation and aging. He is also slightly stricter about excluding berries that are concentrated by good botrytis in his classic still wines from Grüner Veltliner and Riesling. Similar to the others, however, skin contact is used depending on the health of the berries: the better the health and the greener the berries, the longer the maceration before pressing. His vineyard and cellar choices leave Martin’s wines naked with a starkly clear view into the differences between the aspects, slopes, bedrock and topsoil, and genetic material from each particular vineyard site of his top wines. Always straight and intentionally slow to unfold upon opening, Martin wants his wines to evolve through time rather than erupt in the first moments. To better understand terroir with an extremely fair-priced wine, Tegernseerhof is second to none—make sure you do more than just taste them; better to drink them over some hours next to each other to let the differences truly reveal themselves. What a treat to have more 2019 vintage wines coming from Austria. Similar in overall caliber to other recent banner years, 2017, 2015 and 2013, 2019 may be considered a leader among them. Of course, each vintage has its standout characteristics, but 2019 fires on all fronts, leaving nothing ambiguous regarding its potential as well as its natural openness early on. The ripeness is full but balanced with zippy acidity and mineral nuances and loads of texture. It’s a great vintage on which to double down: one for today and another for the cellar. The Austrians are crazy about Grüner Veltliner. Why, one might ask? It’s extremely universal. It invites everyone with its mixed simplicity and convivial nature, and with the good ones, a deep but unintrusive complexity. At home, grandma, grandpa, mom and dad, and the entire extended family, and some of the country’s older kids enjoy their time together with this appealing white wine shared among everyone. Yes, Austrian teenagers drink wine (and probably more beer) with the family and in restaurants. The public drinking age in Austria is 16, and alcoholism is not a big societal problem thanks to the lack of taboo… Better to get them started on Grüner Veltliner than waste the Rieslings on them at such a young age! (Save the Riesling for the adults!) Interestingly, when asked which wine between Grüner Veltliner and Riesling may age better and even improve more, many of the winegrowers have a strong belief that Grüner Veltliner may slightly outdo Riesling in the long run. And if anybody knows, they would! Grüner Veltliner is a grape variety that doesn’t like to suffer too much stress in the vineyard, that is, benefit from the vine’s search for nutrients and water in the soil. It’s mostly planted on less extreme slopes and on deep soils, whereas Riesling takes to more precarious, spare soil, with picturesque positions that result in greater stress to the vine. Here in the Wachau and the surrounding regions, Veltliner loves to bathe in the water-retentive loess, a wind-traveled, fine-grained, and well-structured calcareous sand—well structured enough through its crystalline matrix that entire loess caves can be dug relatively deep into the earth with very little structural support and concern of collapse. Most of these loess vineyards in the Wachau are down by the river, on more east-facing terraces or in areas inside the river’s historical flood plains. The first Grüner Veltliner and Riesling in Tegernseerhof’s range are labeled Dürnstein (formerly labeled Frauenweingarten for the Veltliner, and Terrassen for the Riesling). The Dürnstein Grüner Veltliner Federspiel is grown on alluvial river sands and loess which brings bright notes of spice, honeysuckle, and white pepper to the forefront and a broader palate richness. (Federspiel is a ripeness category particular to Austria’s Wachau region, similar to a Riesling Kabinett in ripeness level but a dry wine rather than a sweet version one would typically expect with the reference to Kabinett on the label.) The mineral nose is further enhanced by notes of dried yellow and green grasses, and white radish, while the deep and glycerol back palate is characterized by Indian spices and a slight minty, lime finish. Between the Veltliners in Tegernseerhof’s range, this is the easiest and most universal for all palates. Grown in a parcel only a few dozen meters from the Danube and right at the doorsteps of the historic rock village, Dürnstein, Tegernseerhof’s Superin Grüner Veltliner Federspiel is quite different from the Dürnstein bottling. Here the Danube did some sculpting and stripping away of soil during flood periods while replacing it with new river sediments. Through this erosional process, it carved deep enough to expose the gneiss bedrock below. In other Grüner Veltliner vineyards used for Federspiel, they are often covered in a deep enough topsoil of loess and alluvial sediments with very little, if any root contact with gneiss bedrock far below. The dynamic of gneiss as a dominant feature of this vineyard creates a Federspiel Grüner Veltliner with a much more vertical, mineral, saltier, and deeply textured palate. Between the two Veltliners, this is the one for the mineral seeker while the other may be better suited for those in search of more obvious Veltliner deliciousness. The three newly released 2019 Tegernseerhof Grüner Veltliner Smaragd Crus are all located in the Loiben area. Leading with the most elegant of the three, we start with Loibenberg, a Smaragd (the Wachau’s regional name for the highest quality dry wines; think the equivalent of a dry Spätlese or Auslese-level trocken) grown on numerous parcels on perhaps the most recognizable hill in the Wachau. Unlike many other Grüner Veltliners from this hillside, similar to other Loibenberg Grüner Veltliners, Martin’s is a mix of around 2/3 loess-dominated soil in the middle and lower parts of the hill, but with the other third harvested from gneiss-dominated soils and bedrock further uphill, which may make (in theory!) his version a little more minerally than one may expect from a Smaragd Veltliner from this hill. The aromas and flavors express a beautiful collection of sweet purple fruits, Concord grape skin, violets, green melon, green candy, Meyer lemon, and kaffir lime. Tucked further in this tension-filled but open Veltliner sits a deeply rooted core of iodine, sea urchin, and marine salts. One of the most famous and exclusive vineyards in the Wachau is Ried Schütt. As far as I know, only Weingut Knoll and Tegernseerhof have labels that carry this name; both have Grüner Veltliner, but Knoll is the only one to bottle Riesling, which some say is the best Riesling in Knoll’s impressive range. This Veltliner from Mittelbach is slightly more textured and amare (in a very pleasant way!) than his Loibenberg Grüner Veltliner, with ethereal aromas of fresh sage, spice, exotic greens, and sweet lemon. On the palate, the aromatic sweetness of bay leaf stains deeply on all sides, while sweet green grasses, marine salt, and lightly purple and yellow citrus fruits round out the full but clean palate. Schütt is perhaps the most regal and firmly textured of the Veltliners from Martin, and it sits beneath Höhereck inside of a combe (known as the Mental Gorge, or Mentalgraben) where water eroded the eastern neighboring hillside of the Loibenberg vineyard just across the way. The combe floods with cold air from the Waldviertel forest behind and above the vineyards, contributing tension to balance out its deep power. An unusual look for a great cru site, it’s a relatively flat vineyard with only slight terracing below Höhereck. It’s composed primarily of hard orthogneiss bedrock and decomposed gneiss topsoil with a mixture of different sized, unsorted gneiss rocks and sand deposited by the former water flow. Replanted in 1951, Tegernseerhof’s Ried Höhereck is the Grüner Veltliner parentage of many vines in the area. A rare Grüner Veltliner planted almost exclusively on the acidic metamorphic rock, gneiss, rather than the sandy, nutrient-rich and water-retentive loess, typical for this variety with a beneficial southeast exposure inside and just popping out of a ravine with great access to mountain winds and an early summer and autumn sunset, Martin says that the most important element of Höhereck is its genetic heritage. This half-hectare (1.25 acre) vineyard has been a growing field for centuries for ancient Grüner Veltliner biotypes, thus contributing to the complexity of this wine and Martin’s entire range of Veltliners, with all new plantations made with genetic material from this hill. Höhereck produces dynamic wines that still manage to show great restraint, though this is perhaps due to its great abundance of layers that unfold once the bottle is open; it shouldn’t be drunk quickly because all the most important acts of the show take time. As charming as it is serious juice, with precise nuances of yellow and white peach, cherimoya, lemon curd, baking spice, bright green herbs eventually take center stage. It’s a lovely wine with immense depth. We have a rock star lineup (pun intended) of 2019 Tegernseerhof Rieslings grown on gneiss bedrock with slight variations of exposure and topsoil. First, we start with Martin’s rapier-like Dürnstein Riesling Federspiel (formerly labeled Terrassen). Every year this Riesling shows a gorgeous selection of green notes that dance somewhere between sweet mint, green fig, green apple skin, and sweet green melon, with razor-sharp steel and crystalline, salty mineral notes adding to its appeal. These grapes come exclusively from the first and second pickings of Riesling clusters from the gneiss terraces of some of the region’s greatest badass Riesling vineyards: Loibenberg, Steinertal and Kellerberg. The pedigree is all there, and Martin’s deft touch and desire to craft this wine into fine liquid art, making it one of the world’s greatest values for serious but delicious white wine. In the range of Martin’s Smaragd Rieslings, the Loibenberg Riesling Smaragd is the most delicate and refreshing while maintaining its Smaragd-level fullness. It comes from one of the warmest sites in the Wachau (which is still much cooler than most parts of Austria’s white wine regions) and is often the first to be picked within Tegernseerhof’s Smaragd Rieslings. The numerous parcels that are scattered over this large hill give the wine a great balance of characteristics from sweet Meyer lemon notes to the first pick of yellow stone fruits in early summer. It has a wonderfully refreshing spring-like feel, adorned with sweet flowers, acacia honey and early spring grasses. Indeed, spring and summer nuance is what this wine is all about, however, earthiness and forest floor notes are very present. As already noted, Martin prides himself on the savory and subtle nature of his wines, all framed with precise and regal mineral notes of river rock and freshly scratched metal, like a carbon steel knife after a good scrubbing. Refreshingly delicate for a Smaragd, it’s one of the most quaffable in the range and can be thoroughly enjoyed without the need for your full attention on each sip. If there is one wine in Martin’s range that he (and I!) might favor, the Steinertal Riesling Smaragd may be it. This tiny vineyard’s particularities give its wines tremendous range and also make it uniquely special. Steinertal is one of the great sites in all of Austria and its aromas beam from the glass with enticing and full-of-energy, high-toned mineral impressions; if it sounds exciting, that’s because it is! These elements of the wine are likely due to its growth in purely gneiss rock, spare topsoil and Martin’s preference for earlier picking and rigorous sorting to remove any concentrated botrytis grapes. The vineyard’s heat-trapping amphitheater shape and the steep ravines on both sides also create a teeter-totter of hot days and the cold nocturnal mountain air that breezes in and cools down the vineyards. My tasting notes from last summer express that the second glass emits discrete, late summer stone fruits, citrus, flowers, and French lavender. Exotic and sweet herbal notes follow, displaying fresh thyme, lemongrass and subtle wheatgrass and watermelon rind nuances. In the deepest parts of the wine, the acidity is fluid but intensely focused, supported by a gentle gust of palate-refreshing tannins. This full-scale orchestra of profound intellectual and hedonistic pleasure seems endless, so prepare yourself. If one were to cut their Wachau teeth on this Riesling, it may set the bar a little high. As Burgundy grower David Duband says when we dig into his grand crus at the cellar, “Be careful. It’s very good…” If one were to ask a knowledgeable wine professional about the greatest vineyards in Austria, the Wachau’s Kellerberg would likely be mentioned in their first breath. Keller-berg, or “Cellar-mountain,” is without a doubt one of the Wachau's greatest vineyards, and Tegernseerhof’s Kellerberg Riesling Smaragd is the fullest Riesling in their range, surely vying for the top spot with Steinertal. Imposing and profound in every dimension (very Chambertin-like in this way), from structural elements to the balance of power and subtlety, the only known weakness of this type of wine can be its maker; fortunately, Martin has a handle on it. To attempt to describe all the nuances of this wine would be a paragraph with no end. However, to better understand the wine’s nature it would be easier to demonstrate it with an explanation of its terroir. The hill faces mostly southeast, giving it good morning sun but also an earlier sunset than the neighboring Riesling vineyards with more southerly and sometimes western exposures, like Loibenberg and Steinertal. Similar to Steinertal, Höhereck and Schütt, and unlike the main face of the large Loibenberg slope, Kellerberg is exposed to a large, open ravine to the east that brings in a rush of cool air during the night. The aspect and exposure to this ravine, along with mostly unplanted hills just to the west, allows the fruit to mature to ripeness without imparting excessive fruitiness, while highlighting its pedigreed gneiss bedrock and spare topsoil. It has a deep range of topsoil from volcanic, loess and bedrock-derived gneiss, and Tegernseerhof has six parcels inside its boundary that cover these soil types. Loess brings richness and lift, gneiss the tension and focus. Even more important than the nuances is the way this wine makes you feel: the energy, the profound reservation, and at the same time its generosity. Kellerberg is formidable and does indeed comfortably sit among the world’s greatest vineyards. There are also reloads of Tegernseerhof’s popular 2019 Bergdistel Grüner Veltliner und Riesling Smaragds. These wines labeled with the name Bergdistel are a blend of many different small plots not big enough to be made into their own wines. Some of the grapes also come from further west of Dürnstein, closer to Weissenkirchen, home to many great vineyards, most notably (for me) Achleiten. Tegernseerhof’s renditions of these wines are his most generous in the Smaragd category. They are another great example of drink-it-don’t-think-it fabulous Smaragd Rieslings that don’t hold anything back immediately upon opening. New Arrivals: Italy Poderi Colla, Piemonte (Langhe) I think I write more about Poderi Colla in our newsletters than any other producer we work with outside of Arnaud Lambert. We always have new things coming from these guys and they’re fun to talk about. The Collas, like Lambert, are one of the most important cornerstones of our entire portfolio. I simply never tire of drinking their wines and would be happy to have them as my desert island red wine producer, although the island would have to be a little less tropical because warm Nebbiolo doesn’t sound so appealing… The reason for my infatuation—that could more aptly be described as absolute love—is simple, but also a little complicated to explain… Colla is among very few other producers throughout Europe who represent to me an unmovable historical wine culture. The Collas, like other quiet giants of the wine world, didn’t alter their course over the last fifty years regardless of the constantly changing wine styles the broader market wanted. Through the years of conformity in the global market in European staple regions like Tuscany, Piedmont, Rioja, Burgundy and Bordeaux, some producers stayed the course on more natural methods through the age of chemical farming (since WW II), the caricature-like muscular and overplayed wines of the Age of Extraction (1990s-2000s), until today, with the welcome movement away from those eras toward softer handling and elegance over power on one side, and on the other to the culture of unapologetic and, unfortunately sometimes, unaccountably flawed natural wines whose fans fashion them as a sort of punk rock-like movement; the difference is that the respectable punk rockers were good musicians that knew how to play their instruments in order to hit the notes they intended to hit. Intention has everything to do with any great wine too, “natural” or traditionally crafted. Tino Colla in Bussia Dardi le Rose The game-changers of old, the unflappable ones, refused to conform. Think of the many iconic and unmistakable historical styles found in the wines made by producers similar to Clape, Rayas, Rousseau, Leroy, DRC, Lafarge, Pierre Morey, López de Heredia, Vega Sicilia, Giuseppe Rinaldi, or Bartolo Mascarello; you get the point! (Perhaps the only shift in some of these producer’s philosophies in the last fifty years is in the direction of more natural farming.) For me, Poderi Colla is also on that list. It’s true that the Colla family’s wines weren’t popular for decades, but why? Because they made them like they were made in the 1950s and 60s, and they weren’t cutting edge anymore after the 1970s until about a decade ago. The Collas made their wines more or less the same seventy years ago as they do today. For example, Colla’s Barolo Bussia Dardi le Rose still goes through a two-week natural fermentation and is then aged two years in massive old barrels (50++ hectoliters) before bottling, as it was half a century ago. The difference is that now people get them because their graceful but traditionally sculpted and gently structured style is in again. Their wines are elegant and old-school, pale in color, subtle but fully expanding by the minute as they aerate, and, today, more pristinely crafted than in the past—perhaps the only thing I can think of that one might criticize about their style… Many of the great producers of wine know perfectly how to measure the risk in walking the line of volatile acidity in pursuit of x-factor perfection while remaining only a shade to the right of vulgarity. The Collas don’t walk that line, they keep it straighter from the start all the way to the finish, and that’s one of the many reasons why their wines are so incomparably reliable in this area. In fact, I cannot think of another producer with better consistency in their entire region—believe me, I’ve tried. The Collas are indeed pure on craft, thanks to the laser-sharp attention to detail of the family winemaker, Pietro Colla, with the help of his father, Tino, and their deeply ingrained three hundred years of knowledge passed down from the many Colla winegrowing generations. Another element I believe defines the Colla style is their unique position that lands between Piemontese and French style, more specifically, that of Burgundy and yesteryear’s Northern Rhône. I’ve often thought that the Colla’s wines would be less understood inside of a largely Italian portfolio, or a broad tasting of Italian wines because they are so straight. In many ways they fit perfectly into the expectation for the region, but in other ways they don’t. To better understand this, let’s rewind the clock a little. Back in the early 1960s, the late Beppe Colla (the family’s spiritual leader and a quiet revolutionary during his seventy years making wine and influencing his neighbors) went to Burgundy and it changed him. He returned home and decided to bottle, with the epic 1961 vintage, the first commercially marketed single-cru Barolo, Barbaresco, Nebbiolo d’Alba, Dolcetto and Barbera. It’s hard to believe, but Beppe is the true O.G. of the single-cru wine movement in the Langhe. Beppe was the first to commercially do this in the region’s history, all bottled under the Prunotto label, a winery they owned until the early 1990s before they sold to Antinori and then launched Poderi Colla. Colla’s wines today bear the mark of that pivotal moment in Beppe’s perspective, and that’s why I view them as wines that agree as much with a French palate as with an Italian one. I’m also inclined to mention (and not massively expand on, though I really want to) that Piemonte is historically linked to France by way of the rulership of the territory by the Savoy for almost five-hundred years. Many things in Piemonte are very close to France, but none more than the Piemontese dialect, which is clearly heavy on French-like vocabulary. For me, Colla’s wines somehow embody this (even if the Collas may not see it that way), and it’s interesting to be mindful of this when their wines are in your glass. They’re surely Italian, but there is a distinctive dash of French there from influence hundreds of years ago, but even more recently with Beppe’s pilgrimage to Burgundy a half century ago. The best news with Colla is that we have a great relationship with them, and despite their major surge of interest by the global market as of late, we are still able to import a good quantity of wine from them. Most of what we have arriving from Colla are restocks on wines that we simply can’t seem to keep around long. However, their 2020 Dolcetto d’Abla “Pian Balbo” is a new release. Dolcetto is a grape that deserves more respect than it gets. I am sure every visit I’ve had with Tino Colla he tells me that Dolcetto is the wine the local winegrowers drink the most. It seems like they would drink their top Barolos and Barbarescos with every meal, but their reality is that they focus on wine all day and at the end of the day they want something a little easier going, and less serious but also delicious and complex, and unmistakably Piemontese—and that’s Dolcetto! Pian Balbo, sourced from Cascina Drago, their magnificent vineyard on the border of Barbaresco at around 330m altitude, is macerated on the skins for a week, or slightly less, and aged in stainless steel to preserve its fresh and bright fruit profile. The acidity is cleansing and the tannins smooth and lightly chalky. It may seem strange, but I often open Dolcetto on the nights when I need a couple-hour vacation from too much seriousness in my wines, much like the vignaioli do. Sometimes I find its simplicity just as thrilling as the complexity of other greater wines. But no matter whether a wine takes itself too seriously or not, Colla’s Dolcetto, with its unmistakable Piemontese aromas and tastes, transports me back to Piemonte, and what can be better than that? And the price? At four or five bucks per glass at your home wine bar, it’s almost free. When Dolcetto is in the right setting, however, it can indeed be serious business. We squeezed the Collas for a last batch of their 85% Dolcetto, 15% Nebbiolo blend, 2016 Bricco Del Drago, a monumental wine with this historical blend long before the concept of IGT came around, with the quality and guts to outlast even the most prestigious of Barolo and Barbaresco wines. I know that’s a big statement, but I, a former skeptic too, have been convinced of this wine’s chops from the numerous examples with decades of age, especially the 1970 that Tino Colla regularly speaks about with seemingly greater reverence than even all the great Barolo and Barbaresco he’s had in his seventy-plus years. Piedmont wine junkies, like us at The Source, know that 2016 has all the accolades (well-deserved), and they are a treasure to keep but also show fabulously now. Don’t miss an opportunity for a serious cellar wine at a very fair price for the pedigree that will likely outlive you but give you a lot of pleasure along the way. Do all those six-year-olds in your family (and extended family) a favor and lay some down until it’s time to give them some as a special and thoughtful gift. The 2016, and all the other vintages of this wine, will likely stand the test of time without much effort—probably better than many of the Barolo and Barbaresco wines from the same year, but at a third or quarter of the price. There’s more 2019 Barbera d’Alba “Costa Bruna” arriving as well. There was a battle between our sales team for quantities of this wine for our top restaurants and I’m sure these will go fast again. Notes from November 2021 Newsletter: Almost every vintage in the last twenty-five years (save a few, like 2002 and 2014) has brought greater credibility to Barbera as a world-class variety, and 2019 has kicked it up a couple notches. The 2019 Vintage was a long growing season with steady weather all the way through, and despite the lack of extremely high temperatures in the previous two vintages, it ripened perfectly, and its naturally high acidity relaxed just enough to bring its stockpile of complexities into balance in this slow growing season. What’s more is that Colla’s Barbera d’Alba “Costa Bruna” is sourced entirely from the Barbaresco cru, Roncaglie, on what would typically be a Nebbiolo exposition facing south, and with very old vines that were mostly planted in the 1930s. It offers a diverse combination of fruits, from bright red to dark, with sweet red and purple flowers and spice. It’s absolutely another Colla wine to pepper into your annual wine schedule. More of the outstanding 2019 Nebbiolo d’Alba hit too. We went as long on quantities as the Collas would let us with this wine. It’s truly one of the greatest Nebbiolo years and this one will simply blow out your expectations with respect to category and price. It’s made with the same care as a Barbaresco (a year in large, old botte) and has the same basic calcareous marls and sand. The difference is that it sits between 330-370m and covers a multitude of aspects from east to west, and sits at the top of the hill, fully exposed to cold air which makes for a wine of great tension and never any hint of desiccated fruit, only fresh and bright notes, like those old-school Barbaresco and Barolo wines we all miss. As we said back in our Notes from November 2021 Newsletter: While discussing the 2016 vintage in Piemonte at the start of the pandemic in Italy during a visit to the Collas (among about a dozen other top estates visits in Barolo and Barbaresco) in February of 2019, Tino Colla, who has seen more than fifty harvests as an adult, basically skipped over 2016 and jumped right into the merits of 2019, a vintage he felt would be one of the most important of his lifetime. Colla’s Nebbiolo d’Alba is a preview of that oncoming quality, and it’s gorgeous. If Nebbiolo is one of your passions and you need a price break without sacrificing quality, go deep on 2019 entry-level Nebbiolos. For the very serious collectors and Nebb-heads, the 2017 Barolo Bussia Dardi le Rose MAGNUMS came in on this boat. The critics are circling back on this year and retracting a few of their initial concerns. Built to age for decades, and even longer in magnum, this could be a good one to take a look at. (We also have a few 2015 Barolo mags left in our inventory if mags of epic wine are your thing…) Crotin, Asti It seems that when we bring in wines from Colla we also take more wines from the Russo brothers at Crotin at the same time. The word Crotin is Piemontese dialect for “small cellars under the main wine cellar,” and is used for keeping the best wines for long-term aging. The Russo boys have been churning out some of the top values in Asti now for nearly a decade, under the assistance of the well-known prodigy enologist, Cristiano Garella. Their organically farmed vineyards are in some of the coldest growing sections of southern Piemonte, where the frigid temperatures offer grapes a long growing season, ideal for the high-toned aromatic Piemontese varieties. In these parts, it’s all about punching power inside of this lightweight division. We have the 2019 Barbera d’Asti “La Martina” finally arriving. It’s been more than two years since we ordered Barbera from these guys (and that’s what they specialize in!) because the last order of 2018 landed a month or two after the shutdowns of 2020 began. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last few years, you already know 2019 is a simply fabulous year for Piedmont. Wines like Barbera, known for their intense acidity, found their heights in this long and steady growing season (at least for my palate, whereas many growers here prefer the even hotter years for this grape) that helped the grape phenolics balance out this variety’s naturally high acid. Organically grown on calcareous sands and clay, the vineyard, La Martina, is in a very cold section of Asti and makes for a special profile mixture of crunchy but ripe, palate-staining dark red and purple fruit. It’s aged only in stainless steel, so you can expect notable purity here as well. Crotin’s 2020 Freisa “Aris” is made from this nearly forgotten grape variety that was ubiquitous in Piemonte only decades ago. Today, it’s been relegated mostly to the region’s backwaters in the wake of the mass propagation of Nebbiolo in Piedmont. There are still compelling examples to be found at cantinas like Brovia and Giuseppe Rinaldi, but perhaps with the ever-increasing demand for Barolo and Barbaresco, it won’t regain footing in the Langhe anytime soon. Nevertheless, it should be on anyone’s radar looking for more of the identifiable but difficult to describe Piemontese characteristics imprinted on all of its wines. From year to year, Freisa can vary in its tannin levels and if not managed well it can be a beast, but at Crotin’s Aris vineyard they’ve tamed it and it brings great pleasure with only a slight tilt toward its natural rusticity. Over the pandemic, the Russo brothers came up with a new wine bottled in liters: 2020 Vino Rosso Contadino “Beverin”. The label is totally different (more fun!) than the others in their range and it is certifiable Piemontese glou glou, by design—not a typical wine style for this very traditional region! It’s a blend of 80% Bonarda (the fiesta grape) mixed with 10% Freisa (the curfew police for the Bonarda party), and 10% Grignolino to bring more elegance and beauty to the scene. Beverin is Piemontese dialect that implies “a light and easy to drink wine.” I took my first sample bottle to a tasting in Portugal with some of our producers there and it was a favorite for all who tasted it. For the price and quality, it’s tough to beat for those looking for a glass of Piemontese deliciousness. New Arrivals: France Patrick Baudouin, Anjou I finally made it back to the Loire Valley three weeks ago after an almost three-year absence! Crazy! Last summer I hit the road for six weeks straight at the end of spring and into the early summer and missed only the northern part of Champagne and all of the Loire Valley before the fall Covid restrictions started to complicate things again. It was strange for me to miss this part of what has been my usual wine route because over the years I often stopped there twice in the same year. Now, one hour and twenty minutes on a plane from Porto drops me right into Nantes, making it one of the easiest trips from Portugal. It was a great tour and nice to finally see our friends there. I took some days in Saumur and then a few in Montlouis (some very cool things coming from there a few months from now!) and finally hit Patrick Baudouin on my last day before flying back home. Since I saw Patrick last, he seems to have swapped out his old crew for a group of younger workers in the vineyard and cellar. I’m sure this will influence some of the wines in the coming vintages. Months prior to the pandemic when those nasty tariffs were imposed, we had an order waiting to set sail from this natural-wine guru and somewhat controversial Loire Valley winegrower. The order was suspended and then the pandemic hit. We added a few more goodies but managed to maintain some quantity of great wines from 2015 and 2017. The first wine is Patrick’s 2019 Anjou Blanc “Effusion”, a Chenin Blanc grown on a mix of a few different parcels of vines on metamorphic and volcanic rocks, the latter formation was the inspiration for the name of this bottling from “effusive” igneous rocks, magmatic rock that cool on the surface of the earth instead of underground, which are known as “intrusive” igneous rocks. We historically import the highest volume from Patrick, so it may be the most recognizable. It’s made in a simple way, as are all the dry Chenin Blanc in Patrick’s range, with barrel aging mostly in older French oak with very little intervention. I find that all of Patrick’s wines go down very easily, but Effusion is the one that performs its best melodies in its younger years, and that’s why it’s always released earlier than the others, along with Les Fresnaye, a vineyard that has seen a lot of trouble in the years from frost. Volcanic ash rocks from one of Baudouin’s vineyards for his Anjou Blanc “Effusion” Produced from Chenin vines planted in 1947, the 2015 & 2017 Anjou Blanc “Les Gats” bottlings represent perhaps Patrick’s highest level in his range of dry Chenin in this neck of the woods, on the left bank of the Loire. The others may equal it, but Les Gats carries a few x-factor notes that in my opinion often separate it from the others. The other dry wines in the range are maybe a little more predictable in some ways, whereas Les Gats, even once you think you know it, somehow reveals a new secret with each vintage. That is the case with these two very good Chenin Blanc vintages, and to have them side by side in a tasting shows the merit of these two stellar years and the talent of this northeast-facing site grown on ancient schist that dates to Pangean times. Les Gats is raised mostly in older barrels (perhaps with a new one slipped in there occasionally) and is always released quite late. The 2017 is the new release and the 2015 was a wine that I requested before the pandemic that Patrick held onto for us. The quantities of both wines are minuscule, but at least we finally have some! We wanted to bring in some stickies from the Loire Valley because there is a small but growing interest again in the category. To work with Patrick on these wines is always a pleasure because they are typically quirky sweet wines, but under Patrick’s direction of natural methods in the vineyard they take on a few lesser-known layers in this part of the Côteaux du Layon, an area that is largely chemically farmed. The 2018 Côteaux du Layon “Les Bruandières” grows very close to the borders of Quarts de Chaumes, the most famous sweet wine appellation of the Loire Valley. Historically, Les Bruandières was on equal footing as Quarts de Chaumes but was not given its own appellation, perhaps due to its very small size? Les Bruandières is a fabulous sweet wine in the sense that it’s not overwhelming with too much sugar. I even sometimes find myself drinking it at a still-wine pace, like drinking a fabulous German Spätlese or aged Auslese, because the balance is gorgeous. It’s perfect for tasting menus when the dessert or cheese course needs something sweet, but it’s not overbearing after an extensive meal and at a time when palate fatigue (or disinterest in more wine) begins to set in. The 2015 Quarts de Chaume “Les Zersilles” is a very different story than Les Bruandières despite also being a sticky. It’s denser and darker in color, and serves a very different purpose at the end of the meal (I cannot imagine having it at any other point in a meal other than the end!) geared toward a more decadent finish. In contrast to some of the profound, sweet Auslese and TBA wines of Germany, this purely Chenin Blanc wine exists in a more deeply earthy, damp, and herbal sweetness—almost like a Sauternes (I haven’t written that word for almost two decades!) without the aristocratic gold trim and aim for perfection; like us, Patrick prefers the perfectly imperfect wines. Here, in Patrick’s Les Zersilles, it’s a berry selection; not a selection of berries that are totally free of funk, but rather full of the good funk! The quantity of this wine is even less than the others and is meant to be for the many restaurants with tasting programs looking for truly organic and naturally made, high quality sweet wines. Patrick Baudouin

We know our business is not going to save the world. But we’d like to help brighten as many moments as we can. We plan to continue offering you deals over the next months with our overstocked goodies that were originally destined for our restaurant customers. We can’t keep them forever and our growers always have another pile of wines ready for us once we're through with the ones we have. While we have hundreds of excellent wines, this short list has some classics that you might be familiar with. As you choose your dozen bottles, or meet the $300 minimum, to get our 20% discount, these wines will help you build your order. They are more in the middle-of-the-road style, and universal enough for just about anyone searching for a lot of pleasure and intellectual stimulation out of the same bottle. The Sorgente Prosecco project was born out of the mutual desire for The Source and a special undisclosed estate (sorry I can't specify who) to work together on this Prosecco wines. The proximity of these vineyards to the Alps and the Adriatic Sea brings an ideal temperature characterized by large diurnal swings from day to night. As you may know, this is crucial for a proper Prosecco to remain true to form (bright, fresh, minerally) and function (pleasure over intellect, although both are strong here.) Limestone and clay are that magical mix of soils that impart many of the world’s great wines with interesting x-factors. Yeah, it’s still Prosecco, but it’s a good one. And it’s been noticed by some of the best restaurants in New York, California and Illinois where it's poured by the glass. (The dosage level between the two wines is 12g/l for the Extra Dry and 5g/l for the Brut, which means that the Brut will be the drier of the two.) The Château de Brézé Crémant de Loire is another wine in our collection that over-delivers for the price, especially when considering the exhausting effort made to craft such an inexpensive sparkler from one of the Loire Valley’s greatest terroirs, Brézé. This now famous commune in Saumur is known for its laser-sharp Chenin Blanc wines, and fresh, bright and extremely age-worthy Cabernet Franc. The blend here is about 75% Chenin Blanc with the rest Chardonnay; the latter is used to soften up, add body and round out the edges of the extremely tense character of the Chenin grown in the coldest sites of this already frigid hill. Our next gem comes from the Wachau, Austria’s most celebrated wine region. It’s hard to dispute the Mittelbach Federspiel Grüner Veltliner as likely the top value wine in this region from stellar winegrowers. What’s more is that it comes from some of the region’s most revered terroirs, like Loibenberg, Kellerberg and Steinriegl. So why is the price much more than fair? The grapes come from mostly young vines from a set of recently purchased vineyards for Weingut Tegernseerhof, the producer of this wine. Martin Mittelbach, the winegrower, wanted to observe how these new wines performed for some years in the cellar to determine what sections would go into his top wines, and what should go into his entry-level wines. For now, it's all in one cuvée and it's classic Mittelbach style: crystalline, energized and pure. Emmanuelle Mellot's Sauvignon from the Loire Valley is grown not too far from Sancerre, her hometown and the location of her family’s historic domaine, Alphonse Mellot. However, this wine is made by one of her close friends (who asked to remain anonymous) in support of Emmanuelle’s negociant project, which focuses on satellite appellations close to Sancerre. To keep the wine straight and easy to drink, but still loaded with the unmistakable mark of Loire Valley Sauvignon, the natural fermentation and the aging takes place exclusively in stainless steel tanks. While it’s indeed marked by the region’s classic characteristics of citrus fruits, mineral elements and freshness, it’s a gentle and easily accessible Sauvignon Blanc. Arnaud Lambert's Saumur Blanc "Clos de Midi" is our top selling single white wine to restaurants for by-the-glass programs. We usually struggle to keep it in stock, but the coronavirus has changed that, at least for now… Once you’ve had it, it’s easy to imagine why somm culture can’t get enough. For an experience that combines an immense amount of intellectual stimulation and pleasure, it’s hard to get a more complete white wine than this for the price. It comes from one of the colder sites on the now famous Brézé hill, and with Arnaud’s soft touch there is a fine balance between tension and generosity. It’s never easy to pick a favorite wine, especially if you’ve made it a habit of drinking well with Europe's best wine regions. That said, we can’t say which rosé in our collection tops our list, but if we were to choose the most complex and energized, it would probably be François Crochet's Sancerre Rosé made entirely of Pinot Noir. A textbook example of finely wrought Sancerre rosé, this is hard to keep your hands off, but keep in mind that it will age effortlessly for numerous years. (Tip: Don’t believe the myth about the ageability of rosé; especially Pinot Noir rosés from northern France. They are often even better the year following their release.) A short maceration on the skins here typically laces the wine's charming but deeply layered nose with the essence of elegant green citrus, sweet pink rose, passion fruit, and fresh green herbs. This wine gets top honors if you need a little extra complexity and tension in your rosé. Another wine that has reigned supreme for many restaurants we work with is Arnaud Lambert's Saumur-Champigny "Les Terres Rouges." It was and still remains one of our top sellers since we first began importing wine ten years ago. The vineyards that make up this lip-smackingly good wine are from Saumur-Champigny’s most southern commune, Saint-Cyr-en-Bourg, which makes it one of the coldest areas of the appellation. The fragrant dark earth notes of Cabernet Franc may give the sensation of grapes grown in black soils with wet forest moss, grass and bramble. Its name translates to “the red earth,” but it's grown on light brown clay with alluvial sands atop a bed of stark white tuffeau limestone. The naturally cool harvest conditions of Saumur, the clay and limestone soils, and a life spent in stainless steel tanks renders this medium-bodied wine an absolutely refreshing red quaffer. Of course we have to have Beaujolais on this list! The young Chardigny boys are fast on their way to stardom and they’ve already caught the attention of a few French “natural wine” luminaries, like their southerly neighbor in Fleurie, Jean-Louis Dutraive, and over in the Jura, Jean-François Ganevat, who both have signed on to buy some of their beautiful, organically farmed fruit. The Chardigny Saint-Amour "a la Folie" leads with a punch of charming bright and full red fruit, freshly cut sweet green herbs and warm earthiness. The cellar aging takes place in a mix of concrete, stainless steel, and neutral oak barrels, which keeps the wine full of life. If a wine could indeed exemplify “love” in a bottle, this Saint-Amour may be it. From the moment the Pas de L'Escalette "Les Petit Pas" concept was created, the intention was to be a charmer from the getgo and not taken too seriously—hence the full color pinkish red label with neon green footprints. It's a multi-parcel blend of limestone terroirs with 40% Grenache, 40% Syrah and 20% Carignan. It's bottled the spring that follows its harvest to keep it lively and bright. It’s perfect for warm weather because even though it's a red wine, with a little chill it loses nothing but doesn’t feel heavy under the sun. During fermentation they use a sort of soft infusion technique instead of the typical but stronger extraction methods (pigeage, pumpover, etc.) This renders a wine that bursts with fresh red and crunchy purple fruits. Not only does the Russo family’s organically-run cantina make fabulously good “price-sensitive” wines, they produce superb hazelnuts and many other delicious edibles, but their preserves get my full attention, especially the apricot jam. The Crotin Barbera d'Asti has been a constant favorite of many of our top Italian restaurants and others with Italian influenced cooking. It comes from likely the coldest section of Asti—quite close to Turin—which was the first area to be abandoned after WWII (because it had a train station while many other areas further south didn't!) and one of the last to be replanted since. It's a wine that showcases the classic qualities of Barbera, Piedmont’s most widely planted red grape. It’s fresh and textured with soft tannins and mouth-watering wild fruit qualities. Think of those Italian cooking nights without the need to hold the wine so precious; just let it lift your spirit and raise your glass to the brave of Italy trying to save their greatest treasures—nonna e nonno—who still gift our world with the ancient secrets of their splendid culture. After living in Campania for a year, I’ve become crazy for Aglianico (and the Amalfi Coast’s indigenous white grapes and their unapologetically upfront and friendly nature and perfection with salty fish and seafood). Madonna delle Grazie's "Messer Oto" Aglianico del Vulture, is a charmer too, and perhaps the cantina’s most versatile wine with potential to appeal to a broad range of drinkers. It maintains impressive aromas and freshness, while allowing its natural earthiness, beautiful red and dark fruits and an ethereal nose filled with smells of Italian herbs to freely move about the glass. It's named after a fountain in Venosa, from where you can see these vineyards off in the distance. Paolo Latorraca, the winegrower, commented that the wine should be easy to drink, like you're drinking from a fountain. Yes, it's like that. So we end on another truly high note in an ensemble of wines overloaded with talent and modest prices. Poderi Colla's Nebbiolo d'Alba is no ordinary Nebbiolo d'Alba. It sits on a hillside just across the road from Barbaresco vineyards on nearly the same dirt: sandy limestone marls. This estate in Colla's stable of three estates, known as Drago, has a quiet, legendary history; so much so that it inspired Bepe Colla, one of Barolo and Barbaresco’s legendary vignoli, to bet on it and make it the family cantina's home base. The Collas stop at nothing short of treating it with the same reverence in the cellar as they do their Bussia Barolo and Roncaglie Barbaresco. It’s made just the same (in large, old wooden botte) and aged for the same requirement as a Barbaresco—two years before bottling with more than nine months in wood; in this case, the wine is aged for a full year in wood. This is serious juice, and if you want to keep your budget straight and drink special wines on a regular basis at good prices, it’s a must.

(Download complete pdf here) Photo courtesy of Katharina Wechsler, harvest 2024! As I begin to write this in the middle of September, the leaves of Catalonia’s Costa Brava have started to show the first signs of color change. The sun’s angle is noticeably lower and the sky has a hazy cast softened by feathery cirrus and stratus clouds. The temperature? Perfecto. It’s easy to miss the fall when the summer is ablaze, but the first day of real fall weather I find myself lamenting the passing of those first days of summer. I’d like it to always be like May in the arc of my life, but at forty-eight, perhaps I know I’m getting closer to my own fall season, even if I know I’d also be lucky to get past the first week of July on my route to the other side. Everything seemed relatively fine when I returned to Spain at the start of the second week of September after two months of bouncing around the States. But at this moment, Lower Austria is flooding and the Langhe is being held hostage by ambivalent weather patterns between constant downpours and rays of hope that barely pierce the clouds. Our neck of the woods in Portugal is on fire, literally and figuratively, and we’ve had to check in with our neighbors there to see if our house hasn’t been razed to the ground. It’s fine, but others a few ridges over were not so lucky. Everyone in every part of Europe is stressed about harvest and how things will end up with the fruit that’s still on the vine. I’m often praised for “bringing California weather with me” to Europe and I guess this association has remained consistent, considering the all-too-regular recent flooding and burning in the Golden State. My “contribution” on this front might not be as appreciated lately as it once was! My visits with many buyers in other states outside of California were filled with cautious optimism since the changing of the guard within the Democratic party. Aside from many political issues in which we respect different perspectives, those of us in the import industry can’t accept implicit indifference to the potential reelection of former President Trump, who wants to blanket all imports with as much as a 20% tax, and even airing the casual threat of an even higher one. This would be devastating, even for those not in import trades. In criticism of such tariffs, the media often says the American consumer will pay the difference, not the country producing the goods. But that’s not my experience. Remember those wine tariffs that started in October 2019? Companies like ours that import goods had to pay at least half of the tariff because the market would never take on an overnight hike of 25%. So we bought whatever we could, and European growers just sold what we couldn’t acquire to other countries, so many people here lost a good portion of their allocation of special wines. The tariffs and then the pandemic slowdown combined to foment mistrust in the US’s stability, resulting in a redistribution of interests away from the US market. With the global downturn as of late, a 20% tariff would be a more devastating event for our European growers because the world is facing a different circumstance than in 2019, 2020 and 2021. Many would have no choice but to lower prices because the rest of the world’s wine market is generally static, or even declining faster than in the US. This will be difficult for them because of the massive inflation that has yet to slow, while their costs remain elevated. Some approached this as a pass-through cost and folded it into the end product without adding higher margins to compensate for the inflated costs of support goods such as labels, corks, bottles, etc, which would hit any business hard. Every European grower is now looking at the US–and directly at us–to help solve their stock problems. But, we won’t be coming to anyone’s aid if new tariffs are imposed in January. Suffice it to say, anyone in the import business that doesn’t vote blue this season is casting a vote against their own financial security. After the new arrivals list, be sure to check in on the 2024 Vintage Report further below. It’s a quick summary of the 2024 season from Austria all the way to Portugal, supplied directly from our growers. This month we have a decent dose of arrivals, but I won’t dwell so long on growers who’ve been with us for a while because we’ll need extra time for two new ones. Each has been on the table for a while now but the unexpected economic downturn that started with the film industry strikes in California last year stayed our hand for some time. But we couldn’t wait any longer, and neither could our sources! After shedding more than five import suppliers over the last five or six years and many domestic producers, we’ve wanted to fill the gaps with important things we know sell well. As mentioned in our August 2024 Newsletter, the most thrilling visit on my French summer tour was with the Richoux family, one of my spiritual and quasi-familial wine destinations in Europe. While the heat is changing the landscape from year to year, the magic of Irancy and Richoux is still there–perhaps it’s even greater. Thierry’s sons, Gavin and Félix, have had a lot of influence over the last ten years; their biggest change was organic certification (though they were already working organically) and with biodynamic practices, no added sulfites until just before bottling, and smaller format barrels (in this case, 500-600L instead of only one year in the large 55-80hl foudres and another one in steel tanks) among other small adjustments. The wines are intended to take on more openness and lush fruit–a contrast to Thierry’s style, which often feels like classic cool climate Italian-style wines made in Burgundy. What’s arriving this month is the 2019 Irancy, a spectacular wine that finds the balance of ripeness and freshness. This year, it’s a little Vosne-Romanée-like with its delicious, full red fruits and well-rounded balance of body, structure, and matière. If one were to blend the brightness of 2017 and the density of 2015, they might arrive at this 2019 Irancy. Also off the boat is their outstanding Crémant de Bourgogne from Pinot Noir grown on the south side of the horseshoe-shaped amphitheater of Irancy, facing north. In Italy, we have new arrivals from two generous and humble families in Piemonte, Fabio Zambolin, from his Coste della Sesia vineyards inside the Lessona appellation, and La Casaccia, in the small village, Cella Monte, inside the Monferrato Casalese. With Margherita Rava’s visit to California, everyone who had the pleasure to meet her couldn’t resist her charm and the charm of her family’s La Casaccia wines. They are as authentic and carefully farmed and crafted in their cellar in all of Monferrato, and represent some of the most thrilling wines for the price with no shortage of emotional and cultural value. Arriving is their 2023 Piemonte D.O.C. Chardonnay ‘Charno,’ a pure Chardonnay grown on chalk and siliceous sands that immediately evokes its geological family heritage of limestone for those who regularly drink white Burgundy (but minus the new oak notes). Perhaps the star of their line in red is the 2023 Grignolino Monferrato D.O.C. ‘Poggeto,’ with which it’s impossible not to be enamored. It’s a red that’s barely red (a natural color for this red grape with very little pigment) but, like Nebbiolo, it can be deceiving with a firmer structure than expected but it always softens the blow with purity and elegance. While the Grignolino is their calling card, their 2022 Barbera del Monferrato D.O.C. ‘Giuanin’ is their economic flagship and an easy shoo-in on quality and fine tuning for those in search of a more robust but still elegant Piemontese red with bright acidity and soft tannins. During a tasting at the cellar of Fabio Zambolin, his 2021 wines about to be bottled weren’t completely in form yet. Given this season’s woes, we weren’t sure how they would turn out, but the calamitous frost that spanked (with their pants down!) neighboring Bramaterra and Gattinara further to the east missed his area for the most part. Now there’s no doubt about where Fabio’s 2021s are headed. He may have lost some quantity, but not a step in quality. Tasted out of bottle early this summer, I was once again wowed by Fabio’s deft touch and knowhow working with his tiny parcels and his teeny tiny cellar underneath his grandparents’ house, and I was reminded of how little I know about judging unfinished Nebbiolo from vats. In my experience visiting cellars that produce Nebbiolo in a more classical way, I find this grape one of the most difficult to predict from tasting out of vat because of the structure. Some are obvious, but often times others, like Fabio’s 2021 wines, are difficult to gauge but end up being some of the most compelling wines of the vintage. Crafting Nebbiolo is really an Italian thing–must be in the blood; unless you’re Dave Fletcher! As we’ve mentioned frequently, both of Fabio’s wines are grown inside the storied, but until recently, nearly forgotten Lessona appellation with its famous yellow and orange volcanic marine sand. But because his winery is 10-15 meters outside of the D.O.C. legal border, he’s relegated to the generic and large Coste della Sesia appellation, so this is a great terroir wine at a great price because of a technicality. In the opinion of many in his now cult-like following (which includes me), his wines are worth far more than what they cost, especially compared to other even pricier Lessona wines that bear the D.O.C.’s name. Arriving are his 2021 Coste della Sesia ‘Feldo,’ named after his grandfather who planted its vines inside the Lessona D.O.C. in 1953 on a flat surface of pure volcanic marine sand at nearly 300 meters and is a blend of 50% Nebbiolo, 25% Croatina, and 25% Vespolina. It has gobs of festive aromas and flavors (at least compared to other wines in an area known for often producing more solemn and strict wines in their youth), with not a single dash of pretension–it’s well-made Northern Italian glou glou. Its rustic, playful flavors evoke an ancient Italian culture and are perfect for full-flavored food such as cured ham, braised meat, pasta, and pizza. The newly arriving 2021 Coste della Sesia Nebbiolo ‘Vallelonga’ is the flagship of this dinghy-sized operation. What is most striking about Nebbiolo grown in the soil of Lessona is its subtle and equally substantial aromas specific to this place. It hits all the markers expected from Nebbiolo (rose, tar, anise and great structure) but here they transcend the weight and power of the Langhe with an angelic rise of elegance from the glass. A very well-respected wine writer once mistakenly lumped Lessona into the mix of northern Piedmont Nebbiolo wines and labeled it “a rather less pure form than a great Barolo.” This oversight would be easy for anyone who prizes power over elegance. But a Lessona tasted and compared next to its regional brethren, like Gattinara, or Boca, or to a Barolo further south, is like putting a ballerina in the ring with a bunch of boxers in different weight classes. Famous Italian wine writers of late 1800 and early 1900 once considered Lessona wines to be the greatest reds in all of Italy, and in the right hands it can represent one of the most pure expressions of Nebbiolo. In Fabio’s hands, this wine is substantial but will always veer toward the side of grace as it ages. When I’m first introduced to a new grower’s wines, I try to find reasons not to import them because we already can’t help ourselves by not overextending with our current roster. In fact, after two rounds of samples of Castello di Castellengo, I went to the cantina for my first visit to confirm whether or not I was in. I went with my longtime friend, the former importer and restaurateur, Max Stefanelli. I told him on the way there that the first two tastings were very good and that I was hoping to be let down by the visit so I didn’t have to sign them on. After Max tasted the first two red wines in the range, even before we got to their top red, the Castellengo, he leaned over and whispered, “I’m sorry, but I think you know you have to import these wines.” Located east of the once wealthy Alto Piemonte town of Biella, and south of the prestigious Lessona appellation–whose Nebbiolo wines were once considered Italy’s finest–a unique hill stands above the eastern plain below, spared from the full erosion caused by Alpine runoff and glacial movements. This special terroir, featuring volcanic marine sands similar to those in Lessona and the eastern side of the Bramaterra appellation, is home to the organically farmed Centovigne Nebbiolo and Erbaluce vineyards, owned by Magda and Alessandro Ciccioni. Raised on the grounds outside their 18th-century castle, Castello di Castellengo, Magda (who is both the mind and hands behind the delicate yet flavorful wines) matures their organically farmed wines in concrete tanks and large oak barrels, blending tradition with modern sensibility. Magda Ciccioni, the mind, hands and emotion behind these special wines. It’s only a matter of time before the generic D.O.C. appellations of Coste Della Sesia (established in 1996) and Colline Novaresi (in 1994) need to be updated. Their D.O.C.s were established when almost nothing so serious was happening in Alto Piemonte to grab the attention of journalists and buyers. Today, several hectares (give or take 100) planted can only be classified as Coste Della Sesia D.O.C., but where it starts to get hairy is when grapes grown in other D.O.C.s that don’t adhere to the D.O.C./D.O.C.G. regulations can also be labeled Coste Della Sesia D.O.C. or Colline Novaresi D.O.C. Viewing this appellation through terroir lenses, like geology and climate which, of course, both affect the choice of what varieties are optimal to plant, makes them especially hard to generalize, except that they’re far too general. There’s too much quality wine made on very different terroirs all over these widespread appellations, and while some are average sites, others are spectacular and picturesque. However, dizzying eye-candy vineyards don’t immediately guarantee the highest quality, and it’s often those that are unassuming and even boring to look at that can deliver a spiritual awakening in vinous form. Take many top vineyards of the Côte d’Or, like Chambertin and its satellite Grand Crus, or the unassuming vineyards of Brézé that electrified the wine world only just over ten years ago. In the Coste Della Sesia D.O.C., one such grower making fabulous wines whose range easily competes regardless of price on finesse with some of the top growers in the ‘more serious’ appellations, like Lessona, Bramaterra, Gattinara, and Boca, is Castello di Castellengo. This perfectly concise map was borrowed from winedecoded.com.au This illuminating map was borrowed from vinland.wine Photo borrowed from the cantina’s website, Centovigne.it Those beautiful yellow and orange sandy soils–a near dead ringer for Lessona, at least visually. My first taste two vintages ago (the 2019) of Castello di Castellengo’s Coste Della Sesia ‘Rosso della Motta’ made me do a double take. This wine has a shocking price–in the best possible way! It’s very inexpensive, but it’s also very serious. What it’s best at is how much joy it unfurls compared to so many other Alto Piemontese reds that have forgotten wine is also to be enjoyed; to be fruity and merry. It’s made entirely from Nebbiolo grapes harvested from 70 to 80-year-old vines planted between 300-350 meters on the rolling hills of marine sand and clay. To keep the fruit profile upfront during its two-week natural fermentation in steel, Magda keeps the temperatures maxed out at 22° C. It’s then aged on lees for 24 to 30 months in concrete without racking before a light filtration at bottling. With only 40 mg/L of total sulfur, added only at bottling, its years of refinement under all the natural bacteria, yeast and microorganisms that survived and even grew in fermentation make this a truly authentic wine, at a great price. Despite the emotional, cultural, and fine-tuned craftsmanship Magda delivers with her flagship wine, 2016 Coste Della Sesia ‘Castellengo,’ we only dipped our toes in the water because of the current downturn of the economy. The 2015 was spectacular already, but given the choice of starting with that slightly more rustic but wonderful version or the more perfected and precise 2016, when tasted side by side, there was really no choice. If we were in the year 2013 today, during perhaps the height of Alto Piemonte’s market share, this wine could’ve been one of the most talked about in the entire region, if tasted blind–its appellation while tasting might deter people from acknowledging how fabulous it really is. Also entirely composed of Nebbiolo from a single plot of 25 years, it peaks at 370 meters but is on a steep slope. In the cellar, it’s also kept from exceeding 22° C during fermentation to preserve more fruit for its three years in old 15hl barrels. For those who love wonderfully refined and stunningly perfumed Nebbiolo in large old wood, this is not to be missed. At this moment of our arc as importers of fifteen years, we are always looking to work more with enjoyable partners as much as talented ones. With Sébastien Cartaux and his wife, Sandrine, we have found both. And the mind behind the wines, Sébastien is equally serious about his craft as he is genuinely joyful and generous. The first samples sent from the domaine included mostly their entry-level white wines and their Pinot Noir. From the first tastes, it was a no-brainer. The whites were classically styled without an extensive amount of funk to get me thinking about how they’d be received, and the Pinot Noir was just perfect: simple, clean, bright and fun with just the right amount of trim and architecture imposed by the terroir. A visit this June confirmed my enthusiasm and we expanded our selection to include their Vin Jaune and their lovely, bright-fruited Trousseau and Poulsard. We made a tour through their vineyards in l'Etoile, Quintigny, Ruffey-sur-Seille and Arlay with a little droning, a little photography, lots of smiles and lots of tasting and a nice lunch where they treated us with a rare (and correctly priced) and inspiring bottle Nicolas Jacob Gamay, ‘PG’ to taste along with their Poulsard. While Jura is loaded with tiny domaines that everyone wants and few can have, like Jacob, and a few dozen others, there are ‘working horse’ Jura wines that carry just as strong a sense of place rather than an association with the producer. Sébastien’s are more related to the former and are not yet, and may never be, in that cult-of-personality line because that just doesn’t seem to be Sébastien’s way, nor interest. He’s determined to carry on a traditional style with their reds to preserve the naturally fresh and bright fruit-led aromatics with rusticity in the background, while their whites a core of acidity and firm structure led by the aromas, flavors and textures from the ancient noble practice of sous voile (under a veil) aging that highlight austerity and the floral bouquet of Savagnin and, particularly from Chardonnay from these parts. Photo borrowed from L’AtelierTM, a designer of maps and cool designs. Sébastien and Sandrine’s family domaine is relatively young. The family’s first harvest in 1973 on a small 0.20-hectare plot in L’Étoile, their parents, Anne-Marie Bougaud and Guy Cartaux, acquired the Château de Quintigny (whose name adorns most of the labels as well as their family name) in 1983, expanding their vineyards and fully committing to winegrowing. Sébastien Cartaux and his sister Nathalie (who left the domaine in 2010) took over in 1993, and today Sébastien and Sandrine continue to run their 20-hectare estate, which was organic-certified in 2022. They produce Chardonnay (which makes up the vast majority of the vine surface area of L’Étoile’s 67 hectares) and Savagnin from AOC L’Étoile, as well as reds (Poulsard, Trousseau, and Pinot Noir) from the Côtes du Jura. Their wines are crafted in numerous cellars, including the ancient Château de Quintigny, using both traditional “ouillage” method with air space left in the barrel and the region’s unique oxidative aging process, essential for producing the renowned Vin Jaune. The Jura is a classic combination of continental and mountain climates, which means cold winters and potentially very hot summers balanced with cooler nights, thanks to the nearby Alps. Here, the diversity of the grape varieties makes for harvests that spread out over the season, with Pinot Noir typically ripening early and Savagnin picked later to achieve greater maturity. Geologically, the region relates mostly to the Jurassic era, like the Chardonnay and Pinot Noir areas of Burgundy. Though here in Jura there is a lot more friable/fragile limestone marl that decomposes rapidly and holds water well, making for deep root penetration into the bedrock and offers some resistance against what can be very hot and dry summers. Also, l’Étoile gets its name from the Lucky Charms-sized star-shaped (étoile) pentacrine fossils formed from the stems of ancient sea lilies. The white wines are a mix of different approaches but are always made in a more classical and direct way with a simple cellar approach. All Chardonnay and Savagnin wines go through natural fermentations with higher maximum temperatures of around 25° C to reduce the fruitier characteristics–further encouraged by lower temperatures–to focus on the secondary and tertiary notes from the start of their potentially long lives. There are differences in aging vessels with both steel, enameled concrete vats and ancient 228-liter French oak. All whites undergo filtration and are fined (except the Vin Jaune) and they all get their first small sulfite dose added to the must before primary fermentation and then again after malolactic. The reds are as equally direct as the whites and tend to be focused on more upfront fruit qualities but fermented at a maximum of 33° C, which curbs their overtly fruity potential, imparting, again, more savory notes alongside the lifted fruit and flower aromas. Natural fermentations are the objective but are sometimes stubborn enough to warrant assistance. Each variety spends its élevage in different vat types and for different lengths of time, between six and 12 months. The vineyards of Cartaux-Bougaud are planted on gentle to relatively steep limestone rock and marl sites with variations of clay, sand and silt topsoil mostly derived from the underlying bedrock, and sit between 250 and 300 meters of altitude. Sébastien makes a few different bottlings of bubbles, but it happens that the one that strikes us the most is the starter in the range. It’s perfect for a grape like Chardonnay that only needs a good terroir to channel its minerally message in a simple and straightforward way. Like any bubbles intended to be easy to quaff without too much hubbub, the Crémant de Jura Brut (no dosage) comes from younger vines of about 15 years old (2024) planted on a south face at 250 meters altitude on gentle slopes. Their sturdy line of Chadonnays, their appellation L’Étoile Chardonnay and L’Étoile Chardonnay ‘La Côte des Vents’ are both on an average of around 280 meters but La Côte des Vents (“the slope of winds”) comes from vines planted in 1973 on a steeper slope where the other Chardonnay is on a gentler slope with vines planted in 1983 on deeper topsoil. Consequently, the L’Étoile Chardonnay is aged under flor for 12-18 months in barrel (perhaps to round out the shoulders the deep clay topsoil seems to impart), while La Côte des Vents spends its life entirely in more inert vessels (steel and concrete) for a year to build on its finely etched lines. Vin Jaune is an obsession for some, and one of France’s historical vinous triumphs. There are those that are ready when young with a richer, energetic profile in their youth, and those much more stoic, seeming to be born serious and built for the longest haul. So far, Sébastien’s interpretation seems to land solidly in the stoic lane, which would be unexpected once around this always jovial maker. It might be better suited for a private collector with many years ahead of them (or for their children!). However, paired by the sommelier with the right food, like its famously perfect match, Comté, it will definitely inspire the drinker to crack a smile. We might even suggest the similarly styled but higher acid, well-aged Beaufort to force a bigger grin from Sébastien’s rendition. Their Savagnin grapes for this most historic wine of France comes from vines planted in 1993 on a west face at 280-300 meters on a steep slope of limestone marl bedrock and rich clay topsoil. The three Côtes du Jura reds hit their varietal marks with clarity. All come from gentler slopes that range from 250 to 280 meters of altitude–typical for the top Côte d’Or wines across the Saône Valley toward the west. The Pinot Noir comes from vines planted in 2006 on an east-west face, the Poulsard from two plots planted in 1993 and 2015 with east and west faces, and the Trousseau also comes from vines planted in 2006 on a south face at 280 meters. These are classic and even slightly dainty red wines with only the slightest hint of Jura funk. After a couple weeks on the skins without stems, the Pinot Noir is raised in 2/3 concrete and 1/3 old 228 L French oak for ten months prior to bottling, while the Poulsard and Trousseau are aged half a year in concrete before bottling. We sent messages to more than a dozen growers about how things were going around mid to late September. Optimism is a crucial trait of every successful and inspired grower, but this year has put them all to the test, especially the organic and natural wine practitioners. Another photo courtesy of Katharina Wechsler, harvest 2024! In Southern Piemonte, Giovanna Bagnasco, from La Morra’s Azienda Agricola Brandini, said it was pouring rain on September 17th as they picked their Dolcetto d’Alba fruit. Our Barbaresco grower, Dave Fletcher, said the same thing happened when he picked his Dolcetto d’Alba fruit from Roero in the cellar just a few days before my inquiry, same with Daniele Marengo, who takes all of his Dolcetto from their high altitude vineyards in Novello. The consensus is that the Dolcetto was picked about two weeks later than in previous two years. Almost across the board was the common theme that the vegetative cycle and flowering started two weeks earlier than recent vintages. However, during harvest everything is on pace for two weeks later than expected from the typical and usually reliable prediction of “100 days from flowering” for the pick date. The advantage here is that longer seasons often mean more complexity, that is, if a new calamity doesn’t arrive before the grapes come off the vine. Dave told me that it was a tough season from a grape-growing point of view. There was a lot of sporadic rain in spring and early summer, and some places were pummeled by hail. Mildew pressure was always high and didn’t back off an inch during the weekly rains. This forced many organic growers (as all three mentioned are) to spray copper and sulfur around sixteen to seventeen times because the weekly rain continued to wash off the treatments. He noted that this was an extraordinary amount of treatments for a single season and nearly unprecedented in his 15 years in the area. The summer was short with low thirties Celsius with warm nights, but those typically cooler nights came at the beginning of September rather than the end. Photos, hands, and grapes (Pinot Noir from Alta Langa, Arneis from Roero) courtesy of Brandini’s Giovanna Bagnasco, harvest 2024. All of them mentioned the upside of longer hang time for both Barbera and Nebbiolo; the latter still has the upper hand and instills more confidence in growers because of its higher natural resistance to mildew. Nebbiolo seems extremely promising to all three, but the jury is still out. August had its hot moments but quickly cooled off at the end of the month. They each said that at night in much of September, it got down to 7° C and up to 24° C during the day, which is unusually cool for the month. Quantity is low but the outlook on quality remains good. If the weather shifts and pushes Nebbiolo into October, Dave said that the season would likely end up like one of those classic vintages we read about from the 1970s, where the longevity of the wine is in the cards but they might not be as immediately accessible as the more upfront vintages of recent years, unless the producers change their cellar strategies, which doesn’t happen so much in these parts. One observation Giovanna, Dave and Daniele shared was that the phenolics continued to advance even though the sugar levels remained relatively unmoved. Daniele said, “We are very hopeful because there is enough water to have lower alcohol than in past harvests and at the same time well-ripened tannins and aromatic flavors.” Giovanna is still confident about the potential quality and health of the fruit to continue her work with whole cluster fermentation on Nebbiolo. “The quantity is not high, but the quality is very good,” Giovanna said as she added that the berries are also unusually small this season. Fabio Zambolin said that the 2024 vintage in Alto Piemonte was one of the rainiest from May to mid-July with mild temperatures that then rose throughout August but still with frequent rains. These weather conditions led to many agronomic difficulties and the work in the vineyard was long and difficult. At the end of September there was a big difference in temperature between day and night which, of course, led to a great refinement of the balance of the grapes. It’s hard to say what kind of vintage it will be when it’s all said and done, but Fabio believes it could resemble something between the 2014 and 2019 seasons. We’ll see! On the other side of northern Italy, the (still) young Martin Ramoser from the Südtirol’s Fliederhof said it was a similarly tough year with a lot of rain in May and June. Like everywhere else, this made their organic and biodynamic farming extremely laborious, with many cluster casualties along the way. In August it went from cold to very hot, quickly. With the enclosed series of glacial valleys in this part of Italy, the dial can get cranked up quick and it often has the second hottest summer highs in Italy behind Sicily. After the August heat, September dropped again to super low temperatures at night, with less than 10° C and raised to just over 20° C during the day. Usually through September, it stays up around 30° C during the day. Similar to Nebbiolo in Piemonte, the Schiava grapes have thicker skins than usual, and also the grapes already tasted great in mid-September but the tannins needed more time and were ultimately picked at the end of the month. So, it was on the same basic track here as in Piemonte. In Toscana, a vigneron following a vinous path with a similar mentality to those creative footsteps of the region’s famous renaissance men, our fearless and deeply talented Giacomo Baraldo said the harvest is already going really well even if the weather is difficult (in his words, “an ‘effing bastard,”) because since late August it’s been rain one or two days, then sun, rain, then low temperatures between 9° to 12° C in the morning, which is good for slow development. The style and season will be a cooler year with lower alcohols, like 2018, 2020, and 2022; even though ‘22 was warmer, there are similarities. There was no snow this winter, only a couple of weeks with freezing nights, but not as long of a cold season as usual. Both budbreak and flowering were seven to 10 days earlier than usual, and everything pushed quickly but the spring got cold and a little wet and slowed down and remained cold until the arrival of a hot and dry July. Four to five weeks of sunny weather with no rain until the first week of August brought helpful rainfalls in August but remained hot again until the end of the month when it dropped to 7° to 10° C at night, and in September it was 6° to 7° C minimum. In September there was a lot of drizzle, so the grapes were bigger after it rained, but after a few days of wind and cold sun, they got smaller again. Giacomo believes that everything should be around 12 to 13% potential alcohol. Like our northern Italian partners, he doesn’t feel a rush because the skins are thicker this year and they’re more resistant to mildew. Giacomo expects a similarly fresh vintage with crunchier fruit, good acidity, and good length, and it might be the most similar to 2020. Photos, meaty hands, and grapes courtesy of Giacomo Baraldo, harvest 2024. From picking, to vineyard fermenting, to the press. In other September news, our cantina in Gaiole in Chianti, Riecine, has been sold! And it went to none other than its current wine director, the young Alessandro Campatelli. This is the first time in this cantina’s 50-year history that an Italian has owned it without partners! Of course, nothing in the wines will change as they have been under Alessandro’s direction over the last decade. This is big news for this humble and talented winegrower to become the head of his dream estate. Congratulations, Alessandro! In the south, Paolo Latorraca from Madonna della Grazie said that the opposite was the case for Basilicata. It was too dry, and these conditions are good for the health of the grapes but on the other side it means there aren’t great water reserves in the soil now. But because the majority of their vineyards are older and stronger, their root system handles difficulties caused by the strange climatic systems. He said July was not easy but fortunately, they had rain in August and September. Aglianico has a long ripening process, so what happens for early ripening grapes is different for those who harvest well into the fall. Further south on the peninsula, Sergio Arcuri is still waiting to start the harvest of his Gaglioppo grapes for his Cirò wines, Aris and Più Vite. Jumping over the Straight of Messina from Calabria to the north side of Etna, the season started cold and wet but once the sun came out at the beginning of summer the hot and dry weather didn’t ease up until September and the arrival of some welcome rain. Federico Graziani’s white wine, Mareneve was ready more than two weeks in advance than usual and harvested before the rainfall between the 27th and 29th of August. The white wine bunches were tiny, and the reds were also small. It won’t be a big quantity this year, but Fede is convinced it’ll be super-top quality. At the lower altitude of 650 meters, the ancient Profumo di Vulcano vineyard was harvested on September 17th, and they finished the first part of the main harvest on the 20th and wrapped up the highest altitude locations in Montelaguardia before the end of the month. This successful season is great news, especially after the 2023 frost took about 90% of his production and that of many other growers on Etna. Nerello Mascalese from Federico Graziani’s Profumo di Vulcano vineyard. Photos courtesy of Federico, 2024. In Lower Austria, the season started with an early budbreak and early flowering and the harvest was much later than expected – pretty much like everywhere in this report. Sugar levels were expected to be high, but fortunately, the sugar ripeness was not as fast as anticipated. Compared to the last years where the acidity was sharper, like 2021 and 2023, the acidity promises to be somewhat lower, but still higher than 2022, making for easier and earlier wines with moderate acidity. Then the flood came. Photos courtesy of Michael Malat outside of their winery, 2024. Michael Malat told me that when the rains hit, a state of emergency was called in Lower Austria’s Kamptal, Kremstal, and the lower areas of the Wachau. All over the lower zones vines went for a swim and some completely drowned with the fruit still on the vine! The sun began to shine again on September 17th, and the vines outside of the flood area continued to ripen. Thankfully it didn’t get hot right away after the rains, so the vines didn’t take up so much water and explode the berries as what typically happens. Grüner Veltliner and Riesling harvest for the Malats began mid-September before the rains. However, the cru sites–well outside of the flood zone–were still hanging fruit. The final pickings were made in the last week of September into the first week of October. Because of the unique weather at harvest time, Michael said there may be more play in the cellar at harvest with the tannins to bring a little more body. Overall, he expects a modest vintage with easy drinkability. Given that he’s one of the first to pick in the Wachau, I’m not surprised that Peter Veyder-Malberg had already brought in about 60% of his grapes before the torrential rainfalls and flooding. He began picking on August 19 and told me, “The fruit was excellent!! Perfect pH. Low sugars. Fermentation without any problems. The young wines are so good. I am really happy (which I am usually not, at this stage).” Of course, he stopped picking during the heavy rains, which between the 12th and 17th delivered 295 mm, almost 12 inches–one-third of their annual average, in five days. This is a lot for anywhere, but being beside a river as big as the Danube, with its numerous tributaries also flooding before they even got to wine country, it can be catastrophic, and it was. Harvest began again on September 18th, so this year will have two vintage reports: grapes picked before the rains, and those after. Katharina Wechsler was busy picking her Rheinhesen Pinot Noir and Kabinett Kirchspiel in the third week of September. Acidities and pH levels look to be great, but it’s too early in the game to know and the weather got warm but not hot in the last part of September. The first two weeks of harvest had some rain, but Katharina said it will mostly be an October harvest: good news for those who, like us, have a predilection for bigger acidity in Riesling! Her Pinot Noir (pictured) is also expected to be a great success! The gents at Wasenhaus started harvest in mid-September in their Baden vineyards but got off to a slow start due to the cold and otherwise difficult weather. It was the earliest bud break they ever had, but it may also be their latest harvest. “The mildew pressure was so high that we had to bring things in earlier than we wanted, or we may not have picked anything at all from some parcels!” Alex Götze said. The calibration is different this year, because like some other areas of Europe the season is unusually longer, and well past 100 days after flowering–the common measure for predicting harvest dates. Ripeness went dormant at the beginning of September and almost didn’t shift at all through mid-September. The acidity and pH levels are great, and alcohols are unusually low, “like 2021, but better.” There’s also more fruit than 2021 (less than 2022) and they didn’t have the frost that many regions had earlier in the year. “The taste is good, but it will be a light vintage. Of course, we want the reds a little riper, but we have to take what nature gives us,” Alex said as he added, similarly to Dave Fletcher, that maybe it’s one of those really old school vintages where it’s cold during picking and ripeness is no longer advancing on sugar but grape phenolics continue to ripen. Overall, the French regions where we work (the figuratively “cooler” ones) had a rough go of it. One of France’s greatest cultural and geographical assets is that it’s the center of Western Europe. It has the Atlantic on two sides, the Mediterranean on another, and massive mountains bordering its southern and eastern sides. Right in the center, where much of our focus is, it’s locked into the current woes of continental climate weather, which means when it’s hot, it can get really hot; and when it’s cold, it can be pretty miserably cold and dreary. 2024 was another year that continues the stress test of its organic and biodynamic growers, of which are about 90% of our French growers. In Saumur, our friend Arnaud Lambert told me that it was good weather mid-September to harvest grapes for sparkling wines. Cabernet Franc will be harvested in October, like 2021. The Chenin Blanc and Cabernet Franc were both green harvested to find balance on the vine come picking time. Arnaud added that it won’t be the vintage of the century but perhaps it will end up with good overall maturity. There were rains in the last week of September, which pushed the entry-level Chenin Blanc grapes into the first week of October. Arnaud said, “All the vines were prepared for low yield, so we should be okay this year. And whatever was not ripe enough for the still Chenin Blanc wines will be used for sparkling, so I’m focusing on that.” Also, in Anjou, Patrick Baudouin, whose wines have finally just left the cellar for California at the end of September harvested on September 25th after a sizeable rain. While it presents some challenges, it also may stimulate Patrick’s favorite result: botrytis for sweet Chenin. I already know without asking that our gang in Montlouis-Sur-Loire is in the same rain-pelted boat, navigating their way toward sunshine. Romain Collet from Domaine Jean Collet told me that while it’s difficult to say 2024 is like other Chablis vintages at this point, it’s closest to 2021 because of the cold season and tension of the wines, and it’s also a later year. “It’s a difficult vintage to reference because there are few comparisons for the growing season. There were only 15hl per hectare because of a terrible hailstorm on May 1st and a season with big mildew pressure and the wines have a great acidity with very low pH levels. It was, like so many organic producers have said, that it was the most difficult in recent memory. Well, with those 15hl per hectare, we should have something quite nice and fresh! It’s impressive that there are two years in the last ten in Chablis that will still have classic notes while almost all the others have been much sunnier and riper. As mentioned in the August newsletter, David Duband lost almost his entire crop on the Côte d’Or. He’s practiced organic certified farming for the last decades, but this one put him to the test. He still has his Hautes-Côtes de Nuits wines, but with their modest pricing (compared to the Côte d’Or) it will be a shock to his venture’s financial stability. Ophélie Dutraive from Clos de la Grand’Cour just finished picking grapes in Beaujolais by September 22nd. 2024 was a very intense vintage because of the heavy rainfall, disease, and hail. The vintage is similar to 2021 but might have more concentration, tannins and structure. Just before harvest they had very nice weather in Fleurie and Beaujolais in general. Fermentations are going well, but because of the weather the fermentations are slow going, with longer pre-fermentation time. Unfortunately, in Fleurie there are only two different tanks so there will be Fleurie Tous Ensemble this year rather than the four or five domaine Fleurie bottlings. The harvest in Rías Baixas’s subzone Val do Salnés, where we have all three of our Rías Baixas growers, said the harvest was very small because the few grapes they had were due to poor fruit set in spring. However, the wines should have moderate alcohol levels (approximately 12.5%) and very good acidity. Rías Baixas stars, Manuel Moldes and Pedro Méndez, both finished their harvests on September 24th. After what Manuel describes as a very strange summer with cold and rain first then a quick transition to hot and dry, “only a little water was missing at the end to be a perfect vintage.” Ultimately, the season was longer and calmer with time to make the choices they wanted without rushing. Manuel said, “In principle it looks good, but wine has a life of its own. The alcohol is balanced and the acidity is high. I think it’s going to be very similar to 2016, which I love, and it ages fantastically. The malics are a bit high, but it remains to be seen how they’ll integrate.” Pedro shared his optimism and hesitance, saying that it’s still too early to describe the wines of the new vintage, but he thinks it may have similarities to the 2022–given how spectacular his 2022s are so far, this is good news for all of us! He also thinks it could be a good vintage for the reds too, since the grapes arrived very well until the harvest. Exciting to have more great Albariño in the pipeline! Adrián Guerra, former co-owner and founder of Pontevedra’s famous wine spot, Bagos, and now a collaborator with the fabulous local Galician importer and retailer, Viños Vivos, and helper/advisor at Adega Xesteiriña, believes it could be a great vintage. At Xesteiriña, the grapes were very healthy and they’ve not felt obliged to add sulfur this year. The ringleader of Cume do Avia, Diego Collarte said that 2024 could be an exceptional vintage for Ribeiro, on par with 2015 and a style similar to the fuller 2022s and sharper than ‘23. There will be great continuity between the last three vintages. It was a well-spaced out season, with a slow and harmonious maturation. It produced musts with truly spectacular figures in terms of the relationship between alcohol content, acidity and pH. They will also finally again make a Caíño Longo monovarietal bottling. Exciting! In Ribeira Sacra, Pablo Soldavini is extremely pleased with the results despite about 25% less than the previous year. Similar to Cume do Avia’s report, all the grapes they processed in September were in great shape. However, the labor shortages that are normal these days across Europe have put Pablo in the vines all day long with just enough time to go back and give the wines a sniff while they go through their slow, nearly untouched fermentation processes. In Rioja Alavesa and Rioja Alta, Arturo Miguel from Artuke started picking September 16th. It seems like a great year for them. Arturo said, “The summer was pretty fresh compared to other hotter years, though we had four or five days where the temperature was above 37° C but every night in the summer was a 20° C swing with around 12° to 14° C, which was perfect for maturation. The last week of August and into the first weeks of September the skies were filled with clouds and temperatures fell to 20° to 24° C during the day, with a little rain (50 to 70 millimeters) but not much. The crop was a little higher than normal, like 2021 and 2019.” Carmelo Peña Santana from the Canary Island’s Bien de Altura had an unfortunate result this year with losses of about 80% because of no rain, with maybe the driest winter of the last 10 years. Grapes are also small with a lot of skins and stems, so this year he’s using short maceration to avoid dry tannins. The bunches were also irregular with some fully ripe bunches beside unripened clusters. It was a hot spring and summer until August which brought a good amount of rain. He said it took a crazy amount of time to pick just 500 kilos of grapes and added, “The previous year was a bigger production and maybe it blocked a potentially higher yield for this one. But that is the nature.” Loureiro from Portugal’s Lima Valley & Touriga Nacional from Douro. Photos courtesy of Constantino Ramos. In Northern Portugal’s Vinho Verde area, Constantino Ramos said that it seems to be a very good season, save the rains midweek prior to harvesting on the last weekend of the month that brought some losses. Overall it’s been a very successful year given the strong final stretch after cool and wet conditions in spring and early summer. The Alvarinho was picked about a week to 10 days later than last year, resulting in richer wines but still with comparable acidity to the previous year–not a bad thing in this area where the wines could use a slightly stronger flavor profile to support the natural strength of the continental climate wines of Monção e Melgaço. Luís Candido da Silva from the Quinta da Carolina (and head winemaker for Niepoort) said that harvest finished for his wines in Douro about mid-September. “It was a weird year in general for me but it was really good. My vineyards had a great balance between sugar and acid. I harvested Carolina with 12.7% 3.4 pH and 6 g/L of total acidity. It was an incredible year for the old vineyards. I guess it had to do with more established root systems and their knowledge about the management of fluids within the vine, which kept the old vineyards more balanced. The young ones had problems in keeping photosynthesis going during the heat and wind in this last period of the ripening season. They couldn’t get sugar they needed and the acid was dropping daily. We harvested some whites for Niepoort with 10.5% alcohol, pH levels around 3.4 and total acidities at 4.5. Normally with this alcohol level we’d get pH levels of 2.9 or 3.0 and a TA close to 8. So in general I think it will be a great year as I work mainly with very old vines my juices are super good and I'm really happy about them. They have good quantity and very good quality. The reds are super flavored, the color extract was with colors that I’ve never seen: fuchsia! And, the whites are vibrant and electric. Let’s see in a couple of months!”

Our first visit with the Boys of Saumur started with the inseparable pair, Romain Guiberteau and Brendan Stater-West. As it turns out, Brendan (who spends his days working for Romain) hit a wall in his pursuit of trying to make something more of his work in Saumur. Late last year, he was eyeing a small parcel of vineyards for his new domaine, but it didn’t work out the way he’d hoped and he contemplated going back home to Oregon. Romain immediately stepped in to invest some of his own resources to keep Brendan’s dream alive, while preserving their working relationship; he was able to secure for him a short-term contract for two hectares of land on Brézé—one hectare of red and one of white. So now there is another new producer on Brézé, our favorite hill! J.D. and I were there to witness the cutting of the first vine on one of Brendan’s new parcels. The vines are old and in need of a lot of love, which these two will easily supply. The potential is very promising. Our tasting with these two was inspirational. Romain always aims to improve his ideas and it seems that his newest wines do just that. Brendan’s second vintage has taken a good jump up from his 2015, which was already a very successful first vintage. As usual, our visit with Arnaud Lambert was inspiring. He has turned another new corner with his wines and there are only good things in the air. He made a few special cuvées for us from Chenin in Montsoreau, a commune within Saumur-Champigny, right next to the river, and Bonnes Nouvelles, one of the historic lieux-dits of Brézé that was used in previous vintages for sweet wines, and they’ll be coming to California soon. Sadly, there were only two barrels of each of these two delicious wines, so the quantities are miniscule. More to come on that later. I’ve known Arnaud now for eight years and I’ve noticed that he has a newfound level of confidence and conviction. His 2015 reds are outrageously delicious and have begun to match the quality of his best white wines. His 2015s, 2016s and 2017s are exciting and forcefully continue the march upward. If you haven’t noticed yet, he has merged his two domaines under one name, Arnaud Lambert, which will make his work easier to follow. Arnaud and his wife Geraldine’s son, Antoine (the little guy in the pictures), is now three years old and charming everyone everywhere, just like his mom and dad. My time in the Loire was the shortest I’ve spent there in years, and it was sad to go so quickly.

Newsletter May 2025 Les Picaurdières, Crozes-Hermitage In last month’s newsletter, I wrote about my visit with Vincent Bergeron during my 41-day bender with Remy Giannico, our New York-based gaucho, and this month, three of his 2022 Chenin Blanc wines are arriving. Since tasting them for the first time in bottle last spring with our Los Angeles tastemaker, JD Plotnick (and a couple times out of barrel the previous year), they continue to evolve beautifully. Like many 2022 whites from this area, they show surprising snap and tension for this hot season. I know “hot season” evokes great hesitation, if not terror, for those of us who need that electric charge in our wines. However, as I wrote in more depth last month, 2022s are a different breed—they seem to be Defying the Sun. Vincent sent some bottles to taste in the early fall of last year. They were head-turning—another convincing 2022 encounter that dismantled assumptions. This resulted in a request to purchase more to bring home, followed by a second order six weeks later. I’ve had more than four bottles each, and all continue to chip away at preconceived notions about how a “hot year” should taste. I also shared a set of his wines over a cassoulet dinner (the last of the season!) with longtime Villa Más sommelier, Núria Lucia Serra. She was surprised that Vincent isn’t on everyone’s radar. (She has since left Villa Más this year and started a new wine bar project in Girona called La Cantina.) Vincent Bergeron Don’t sit on your hands. This is an impressive set crafted by a young idealist's gentle but well-worn hands, already showing a deep emotional mastery of his craft. As I’ve mentioned, Vincent is a man whose humility and generosity inspire me to better myself. He’s a gem of a human being. It’s easy for anyone to want to do everything possible to support such a person and bring him the recognition he deserves and needs in the face of financially troubling times. Borrowing from the profile I wrote for our website a few years ago, “Vincent is rare in today’s world of self-aggrandizing young vigneron talents—sometimes appointed by the wine community and often by the self, as ‘rock stars.’” Many seek celebrity and membership in idealist tribes rather than going for truth and an honest view into this métier, this artistic pursuit, this craft–a marriage between Homo sapiens and nature. Vincent is a vigneron’s vigneron, a human’s human, an uncontrived example of how to live and simply let be, spiritually, without trying to be someone.” Soul-filled? Angelic? These impressions come to mind with Vincent’s wines and the 2022s follow suit. He crafts serious but inviting organic, and, most of the time, no-added-sulfites Montlouis wines. Again, as I put it years ago, “Emotionally piercing, Vincent’s mineral-spring, salty-tear, petrichor Chenin wines flutter and revitalize; a baptism of stardust in his bubbles and stills—a little Bowie, a lot of Bach. His Pinot Noir is earthen en bouche, and aromatically atmospheric, bursting with a fire of bright, forest-foraged berries and wildflowers, and cool, savory herbs rarely found in today’s often overworked, oak-soaked, and now sun-punished Pinot Noirs, the wines that were the heroes of the past millennium, but today are a flower wilting under the relentless sun. Advances in the spiritual heartland of Pinot Noir have been made, though I sure miss the flavors of the Côte d’Or from my earlier years among wine.” Vincent’s Pinot Noir takes me back to the beginning of my love affair with this grape’s propensity to produce the world’s most beguiling and slightly austere red wines. Sadly, Vincent opted out of bottling his 2022 Pinot Noir. Following two gorgeous sans soufre bottlings (the 2020 seemingly made by the hand of Thierry Allemand himself, and the 2021 in the shape of a Montlouis Pinot Noir that could’ve been crafted by Pierre de Benoist), his 2022 fell short of his expectations. The big tariff we were facing didn’t materialize, so Vincent’s range of 2022 Chenin Blanc wines will be appropriately priced instead of bearing the price of a 1er Cru Meursault. Vincent’s 2022 still whites are some of the first that helped me to recognize the quality of white wine from this vintage across Northern Europe. Again, they’ve got legs and unexpected thrust for a year with such hot weather. Certain L’Aiment Sec (some like it dry) is yet another wonderful example of clean and finely tuned pét-nat from Vinny. The 2021 was oyster-shell bubbles with taut white-fleshed citric and malic fruits and this 2022 engages a broader range of nuances, dipping into stone-fruit skin notes and is naturally fuller, but only slightly. It comes from 2.6 hectares of various Chenin plots in Montlouis on gentle hills of limestone, clay, sand and silt with an average vine age of 30 years (2023). Its natural fermentation takes place in fiberglass until the finish of malolactic fermentation. Sulfites are added (if they are added at all) after malo, and the wine is aged in bottle on lees for 18 months. No dosage, filtration or fining. The 2022 version of Matin, Midi et Soir (morning, noon and night) brought the race for first place between Maison Marchandelle to a photo finish. The 2020 version, also from another warm year, was fleshier and rounder, gliding easily on the palate, while this 2022 expresses the same fullness but with much more tension and texture. But 2020 followed a string of hot years that added the extra hydric stress on the vines with a big spring frost that significantly reduced yields, exacerbating the warm season’s influence with even quicker ripening, resulting in many wines with less tension. 2022 followed the cold and wet 2021, which replenished many water reserves. This restorative energy is immediately felt in these wines, and in this early stage of its evolution, I can’t get enough of this MMeS. Though probably not a good post-morning workout refresher, perhaps I would even drink it in the morning, should my mind and body allow such a lifelong regimen while keeping me in top form. More responsibly, it would be perfect for lunch at Costa Brava’s Restaurant Villa Más by the beach of Sant Pol. And dinner, a fitting accompaniment for any inspired cooking, and a solid rescue for a misfire. The grapes come from the same 2.6 hectares of various Chenin plots in Montlouis as the pét-nat. It’s fermented by ambient yeast and aged for 12 months in mostly old 225-400 liter French oak with the first sulfites added after ML. No filtration or fining. The prized parcel in Vincent’s 2.6-hectare collection of vines is Maison Marchandelle. This Chenin Blanc comes from 0.87 hectares planted in 1970 on perruches, sandstone, and clay. The 2021 was the first year I tasted this bottling, and it inspired the earlier comments about emotion piercing, stardust, and more. Because the 2022 version fights more in the Light Heavyweight class than the tighter, trimmer 2021, it may appeal to a wider audience. It still flaunts all the qualities specific to this site, but they’re slightly more loosely knit with a fuller sensation in the palate and richer in fruit and dried grass aromas compared to the tight weave of 2021. In the cellar, it’s fermented with ambient yeast and aged for 12 months in mostly old 225-400l French oak with the first sulfites added after malolactic. None of Vincent’s wines are fined or filtered. Stéphane Rousset’s 2023 Crozes-Hermitage “Les Picaudieres” has arrived, and this wine is fabulous, rewinding the phenolic clock to 2015. During that long Remy trip this November and December, I stopped in for a visit. You can read more about that further below in the section titled “Rhône.” Those familiar with it know Les Picaudières is a singular, exceptional vineyard that shouldn’t be overlooked in this vast appellation. It’s Crozes-Hermitage, but it's not what people envision when they think of this appellation and its wines. Just look at the picture. If there were ever wines to taste on a brisk, sunny June morning at 8:30 a week after bottling, it would be Dutraive’s 2023 wines at cellar temperature. The négociant range was excellent and better than any year since 2016. The domaine wines were superhero level. 2023 is a fabulous effort for Dutraive. I tasted each bottling of their 2023 vintage on separate occasions to get a more comprehensive read on them, as I wanted to see just how much the set was evolving. With just 10 mg/L of added sulfites (up from mostly nothing before 2022), across the range makes them faster-moving targets than wines with more additions. I tasted each cuvée at least three times: once at the cellar in June just after bottling, five months later, and again this spring after eight to nine months post-bottling. I expect a similar reaction from those who knew the wines before the 2017 vintage: smiles, relief, nostalgia. But they aren’t the same. Things have changed quite a bit from the crescendo they hit and stood atop Beaujolais before the arrival of unrelenting heat, prefaced by the calamities of frost, hail and tornadoes. The wines arriving in the US will need some time to regain their land legs before they spring into action. 2022 was a hot season, but following a dreary, wet and markedly inconsistent 2021 growing season, there seemed to be water reserves that kept the wines balanced through the hottest recorded year in European history. The vintage was more concentrated, yet still fresh, and some changes in picking time signaled a return to the fresher profile, but on a much hotter planet. Jean-Louis’s firstborn, Ophélie, returned home in 2017, a season that marked the start of a series of hot drought years (2017-2020) that tested the region and the willingness of our buyers to jump on the train, even if Dutraive and Beaujolais continued to trend. Dutraive’s more ethereal style with vineyards made of sand made them exceptionally hard to adapt to. During these years, the wines showed much higher alcohol levels and riper fruit profiles, which contrasted with the lower alcohol, brighter profiles of many years before. 2015 was an exceptional anomaly of balanced power, alcohol and acidity. The wines in these hot years differed from the similarly full-throttle years before 2010, celebrated at the time, like 2005 and 2009. The hydric stress of the four hot, low-yielding years from 2017 to 2020 threatened the region’s stability. 2021 was a welcome respite from the heat, but was otherwise an uncontrollable mess across the region. Yet some hit the bullseye with wines that harkened back to the taste profile of 2013. My initial belief in Dutraive’s medium to long-term wine cellaring credibility came from some old bottles he gifted me when we started working together. One was a 500ml 1995 Fleurie Terroir Champagne, and the other was a 2005 Fleurie Terroir Champagne, bottled in Leroy-like heavy glass, an exceptional experiment hand-bottled from a new oak barrel. The 2005 evolved into a wine similar in profile to a higher-altitude parcel in the “Pearl of the Côte,” and the 1995 seemingly inspired by the hand of the late Jacques Reynaud. They were not only convincing, they were glorious. Even though 2023 was another hot year following the hottest European year on record, somehow Dutraive’s collection is the closest in spirit to the lighter style of the 2012, '13, '14, and '16 vintages. Though there were challenges with the widely misunderstood '16s, wines in bottle from well-regarded domaines speak of beauty and refinement, including Dutraive’s Fleurie Tous Ensemble (a collection of all the Fleurie plots blended into one) and two négociant Chénas from purchased organic fruit grown by Thillardon. Even the hot 2015, with its higher alcohol and fuller ripeness, had an unexpectedly high natural acidity, making wines that may still be confidently cellared. As I’ve written many times, Jean-Louis says it may be the best year of his career. My first tastes of the 2023 vintage at the cellar brought me back to my first tasting of their 2013 range ten years ago during my second visit to the domaine, when we were still feeling each other out. I tasted them in the cellar, seated alone with the wines in front of me and the entire family of four towering over me, saying nothing and leaning in with each swirl and sip. I held my cards tight until I couldn’t. A single wine to transcend any Beaujolais I’d ever tasted would’ve been enough. But in 2013, there were five. I didn’t yet have the French words to express everything that went through my head (nor did I have them in English). In California last summer, I revisited every Dutraive bottling of 2013, ‘14, and ‘16, and two from 2012—about 18 wines with many second and third bottles. I also drank 2009, 2010, 2013, 2014 Foillard Morgon Corclette (my preferred bottling from this domaine), various 2013 and 2014 Lapierre Morgon wines, 2009, 2010, 2012-2014 Alain Michaud Brouilly and Brouilly V.V. (simply stunning, all of them), Chamonard 2009, 2010 and 2012 Morgon. Not a single bottle was “tasted,” per se; rather, they were all enjoyed during many different occasions and were savored to the last drop over many hours of observation, leaving some tiny amounts left in the bottle to check in with the next day. There wasn’t an off wine in the bunch. Dutraive’s renditions stood out as more ethereal and with a softer touch—a signature style of the time from his sandy Fleurie vineyards. It was hard to outmatch that element of his range, but they made up for it in other ways; to compare and define the best is the same as comparing the greatest Côte d’Or producers’ wines from different grand crus. The hierarchy is purely subjective. Each has its optimal moment, and all these wines still seemed youthful—Foillard and Michaud, still babies. Every Dutraive wine was pristine on its first day open, without exception. Some showed a little squeak and fatigue the next day, with only a few ounces purposely left behind. They were pure nostalgia that brought me back to period inside of about 18 months of endless gatherings to which I could write an entire book with a fabulous cast of wine characters centered around Santa Barbara at that time: Bryan McClintic (who lived in our back room for four years), Raj Parr, Graham Tatomer (lived in the middle room for maybe seven years), Drake Whitcraft, the late California Pinot Noir legend, Burt Williams, and the late winegrower taken from us far too early, Seth Kunin. Some who share my predilection for brighter, fresher vintages counter that 2013 bettered 2014. There are indeed many extraordinary wines in the former. They’re often tenser, with brighter acidity and higher-toned aromas. Yet the clipped yields and colder season presented challenges that seem to have inhibited some of their prettier aromas from fully expressing, and often delivered shorter length on the palate. However, I can attest that all the 2013s I had from all the growers mentioned were fabulous and as good overall as their 2014s. Jean-Louis Dutraive, 2016 In 2014, everyone seemed to deliver aromatically open and fabulously balanced wines with long finishes that still don’t show any signs of shutting down—at least from the growers I frequent. I can say there are no wines from any grower in my life within a single vintage that I’ve consumed more than Dutraive’s 2014s, except perhaps the 1999 vintage of Jean-Marie Fourrier inherited as the sommelier at Wine Cask Restaurant in Santa Barbara (with nearly a full pallet allocation before he became famous), purchased by the late Christopher Robles before he went to the supplier side. Dutraive’s 2014s gave me that same intense rush of discovery and obsession as Fourrier’s 1999s. We made an offer from my cellar of Dutraive’s 2014s last year, but few jumped on them, and I understood why. Most newer buyers simply didn’t know this era of Dutraive. They were more familiar with the hotter years and the challenges they presented. I thought about doing a tasting to display their qualities, but I don’t like spreading rare and irreplaceable bottles over fifteen palates. What can you gain from that but a still-life of one moment in the progression of a multidimensional wine that changes from pour to pour, minute to minute, hour to hour? I will sell most of my Côte d’Or wines before I sell another bottle of Dutraive’s 2014s and 2016s. But I’m happy to open them with anyone joining for dinner. The 2023s are the closest relatives since. Clos de la Grand’Cour Chiroubles lieu-dit “Javernand” was the juiciest and fullest of the red fruits: thick and voluptuous, seductive, randy. The palate is delicious and a perfect match for the nose. It’s the best example of this bottling from Dutraive I’ve had to date. Chénas “Les Perelles” usually wasted no time opening up. The earlier tastings showed high-toned candied fruit qualities, and later bottles put on some meaty weight but became fruitier as they opened up. I’ve always been a fan of this wine, and this one is close to the 2016 version. All three times I tasted the Saint-Amour "Le Clos du Chapitre" it was super classy and elegant—a straight line. Pure, fresh. While it always remains tight for a Dutraive wine, it doesn’t waste time fleshing out after opening. Lots of ferrous, blood, metal, savory flowers rather than sweet. It’s definitely the finest Dutraive wine made from this vineyard. The Fleurie lieu dit “Les Déduits” may be the trickiest wine in the bunch. Each bottle I tasted started a little closed, with maybe a lean toward a bit of “squeak,” but each time they slowly evolved into a tight, ruby red with striking clarity. This is a wine that cannot be firmly judged in short order. The 2023 version of Moulin-À-Vent comes from younger vines instead of the ancient ones from the previous years. In the cellar, this was one of my favorites. The color is quite pale, like an old Burgundy. Aromatically spicy and slightly reductive/minerally. It kinda smells like old (but young) Grenache-heavy Châteauneuf-du-Pape with low alcohol—even a little Etna-like. It’s a deep wine, and the palate resonates for a long time. While its color is pale, it’s stout in expression and reminds me of those old Jadot Moulin-à-Vent single parcel wines. Of all the wines in the range, Fleurie “Chapelle des Bois” has the most Burgundian evolution. That’s to say that it starts with some wood notes (unexpected) that, with more time open, fall away. My tasting note in November: This is more Burgundian, and the acidity and fruit profile say that as much as the woody note. 25 minutes in, the nose is lifting. This can be the sleeper in the range and top billing on any given day. I’m not sure I would ever guess this is Beaujolais over Côte d’Or—trapped somewhere between Vosne and Gevrey—close to Morey. Tannins have a welcome tautness, keeping the richer fruit profile in check. This wine is rockin’. It’s well above expectation, even from Dutraive. It’s awesome. Ask Dutraive for more. It’s classy stuff in my top four of the range. The Fleurie “Clos de la Grand’Cour” could bring a tear to your eye–the first nose is a real WOW. So classic and refined. It’s like old-school Burgundy without oak—think Mugnier on granite, and the drive in the palate is spectacular. This wine is focused and fine, a dreamscape of a Beaujolais. The balance of stems and fruit is glorious. It has the right balance of bitterness, fruit and acidity. This could be easily missed in the context of others, but should stand tall for those who like it more classic. Also in my top four. Of all the wines to know Dutraive for each year, my pick is the Fleurie “Clos de la Grand’Cour” and Fleurie “Le Clos.” Taken from the same vineyard, separated by vine age and vinified differently in the cellar, every other wine is a satellite around this center point. There’s a lot of tension here in the 2023 Le Clos, and it takes me back to 2014 in overall style, though a little riper. What a nose! It relentlessly expands and fleshes out over time and has the greatest complexities. Top four. In the cellar tasting in June, the Fleurie Champagne was the most impressive and pure wine in the bunch. It was bottled a few weeks before my first tasting and was snug in the right way on the palate, but perfumed like crazy. The second and third bottles (November and February) were hard to read, and the fourth bottle in April, nine months after bottling, seemed to head back home. There is promise here, like all the wines Dutraive has bottled under this label, but as Ophélie suggested, we all just need to be patient with it. The only moment the Brouilly didn’t explode upon first taste was at the cellar, but every bottle since has put it in the running for top billing of the year. The bottle I had in November took a moment, but after thirty minutes it began to climb with brighter and brighter aromas. After an hour, it was fully open, and any doubts were gone with its beauty in full force. It’s the best rendition of this wine I’ve had in any vintage. It may also be the most stable wine in the bunch. This is for those who want a little old-oak Burgundy profile from their Beaujolais. It’s a journey. Don’t drink it fast or you’ll miss its most glorious moments. Top four. Bubbles are hard for me to assess through tasting. They simply must be drunk—a problem for this organism that’s too easily affected by bubbles: instant bloating, a quick rise of desperation for a twenty-minute nap, and almost a guarantee for a headache the next morning, no matter how much or how little is let in. I need that streak of acidity from the tip of the tongue that scorches all the way down to the epiglottis. It needs to journey to the point of no return. Champagne seems to best reveal the length of its capabilities with the entirety of the eight-centimeter or so journey over the tongue. Our day in Champagne was our most ambitious, with at least seven hours in a car fully packed with whatever wines we could fit in from Richoux, Bergeron, and Dechannes around the cassoulet pot and 40-day travel bags, the only view being out the windshield and the rearview mirrors. We left Chablis for Les Riceys, an hour east, trudged the clay-rich and rocky limestone vineyards, and tasted Champagne with Élise Dechannes and Éric Collinet, followed by a Van Helsing-intense race against the sunset to reach Montagne de Reims and catch the last rays of light in Pascal Mazet’s vineyards, toured, tasted, and then boomeranged south to Arbois to squeeze in a brief nighttime nap before our 8:30 am start with a new potential grower, and then on to our organic new grower in L’Étoile, Cartaux-Bougaud. I know no grower as far out on the edge as Élise Dechannes. She’s already all in on organics and biodynamics, but is now committed to completely abandoning sulfur and copper treatments. While other O.B.N. growers are taking all the measures to keep production at a livable level and still losing almost all their crops, she’s at least losing on her terms. She treated the last two harvests with only teas and biodynamic preparations. Nothing was harvested either year. We were again wowed by Élise’s wines, even if many were opened weeks before and stoppered up in the fridge waiting for us to take their last tastes, leaving the fresh tastes of newly open bottles for her next visitors. She did this with me when I first discovered how great her Rosé bubbles were. The bottle was open for three weeks and only had about three ounces left. It was pure magic. I was shocked. Few other growers do this in our portfolio and still provide convincing results. Peter Veyder-Malberg and Tapada do Chaves also make bulletproof wines when opened young. But more than a decade ago, my only visit ever to Giuseppe Mascarello’s cellar only included bottles on their last tastes that were already open for a month. That set did not deliver, but some of my most exhilarating experiences in the Langhe have come from bottles under this label—and when they’re on, they’re bucket-list wines. We will once again have a micro-allocation of Dechannes’ Rosé de Riceys, a wine that keeps me up at night, not due to indigestion, but because I can’t stop thinking about it. She’s known more now for her Champagne, but there isn’t a rosé in the world that tickles my fancy more than hers. Eric Collinet and his vineyards on the right side—the green one Éric Collinet is a relatively new Source addition and a great friend of Élise. He brought the same three wines to Élise’s that I tasted 18 months prior, and again in May. It was a great exercise in observation, especially with Champagne that had been so recently disgorged before my first tasting. The dosage of these wines takes time to integrate, and a year and a half after my first encounter, they’re quite different—alchemized to fluidity now. He was also organically certified some years before her, and these days he’s planting trees right in the middle of his vineyard rows to encourage greater biodiversity with agroforestry. It must be a swift redirection of conversation for the local non-organic growers in this area when these two crazies roll in for an apero—no treatments at all with one and trees in the rows with the other—indeed, low-hanging fruit for a bunch of backwater chemical Champagne hillbillies. But I’m pleased to say that in one of Europe’s most callously farmed wine regions, we only work with growers with organic certifications. Vincent Charlot and Pascal Ponson aren’t available to us all over the US, including New York, so Remy and I had to sneak in and out like Connery more than Craig. There’s another one en route, too. But I won’t let these cats out of the bag until the litter of kitties are on the boat. I’ve released the news too early and occasionally ended up with litter but no kittens. Olivier Mazet, from Champagne Pascal Mazet With the last moments of daylight quickly fading, we met Oliver from Champagne Pascal Mazet in charming Chigny-les-Roses, a village of five hundred inhabitants and one excellent restaurant. Pascal Mazet committed to organic farming when they started, in 1981, and they were eventually certified in 2009. His sons, Olivier and Baptiste, returned to help their quiet, mustachioed, slender and jolly father to contribute to their current offerings. All are released at least seven years after the vintage date, usually nine—a major commitment for these prices on organic Champagne. Leading the charge is the middle son, Olivier, who in 2018 began to incorporate agroforestry by planting trees and shrubs in the middle and ends of vine rows—yep, he’s another crazy, at least perhaps to the neighbors. They’re also exploring more ancient vine-training methods, and soon new labels will be slapped on the bottles. Like almost all of our visits on this trip, it was too short. While we might have been able to make time to dine at that one very nice restaurant, we decided that driving for three hours in a food coma after dinner would’ve been lethal. I thought we might have to eat at Flunch for dinner, but we got an unexpected upgrade instead. Our day wasn’t only ambitious, it also contained some risks that might’ve made it more exciting. Aside from speeding through France while tasting Champagne all day (and spitting, of course), we still had to get fed and get into our hotel in Arbois. I opted for KFC for the first time in 23 years, maybe 24. The alternatives at the auto-stop seemed like gambles, not because of the items listed, but simply because they were on the menu at a gas station. At least KFC is like McDonald's (haven’t touched that one in about 27 years), like Motel 6– globally standardized, so you have a pretty good idea of what you’re going to get. The other choices included random animal parts with plenty of sausage in a stew at the buffet, with only the dregs remaining. It would undoubtedly have been dreadful and rewarded us with unwanted consequences. I don’t usually worry about my stomach; it’s the part of my digestive system that has acquired a tolerance for the questionable. But if something barely gets past that first checkpoint, it’s a sign of unnecessary risk on a lengthy road trip. Better off with deep-fried everything from frozen ingredients. This KFC demonstrated that it was a solid emergency lever in France. Never have I thought that I’d go for it, and it turns out I’d do it again. Arriving late to a French hotel can be like sneaking into your parents’ house in your teenage years in the middle of the night when you’ve forgotten your keys. The desk attendants will let you in, but the disapproving looks can sometimes go well beyond microaggression. We arrived at our Arbois hotel around midnight, no soul in sight. It was below freezing, and thanks to the Cuissance flowing only fifty meters away, the fog was thick–nearly crystallized, which added to the sting. With no obvious parking spots where we could legally park until at least seven am (moving the car by eight), we stood with a pile of bags in front of a dimly lit entrance, an automated door and an intercom between us and our bedrooms. But the Maison Jeunet’s night auditor let us in without the slightest unpleasantness—it was Jura, after all. With my second-story window cracked open to let out some of the massive steel radiator’s boiling rage, I snuggled up with the spare pillow and thought about tomorrow and Cartaux-Bougaud. I wondered how Remy would process Sébastien and Sandrine, two of the nicest people one could meet, whose Jura wines won’t stir the depths of your emotional pot, but rather deliver an honest and finely crafted range of organic bubbles, whites, Vin Jaune, Macvin, Pinot Noir, Poulsard, and Trousseau. Many classically-styled, well-made, straightforward wines in the region mirror places like Burgundy, where people generally shy away from stylistic risks. But Jura wines don’t have to be made uniquely for their easily identifiable house style to be deemed more than worthy. After blasting the heater and patiently waiting for the flailing windshield wipers to scrape the windows clean of the frost, we finally had the first signs of a clear view through the windshield and set off. Our first stop was with a generous man in Poligny whose wines are almost nail-biting in their tension, like watching a gymnast on the balance beam spinning around on the ball of her foot. Some wines are epic. Others nearly throw me off the beam headfirst; his Vin Jaune is simply Simone Biles-level. His whites are quirky but excellent. His reds give me The Twisties. If he just wasn’t so damn controlling about where all his wines go without much intrusion (and this is part of his allure), he might be the most celebrated of all growers in the Jura. Let’s see what happens. After Poligny, we headed southwest to L’Étoile, caught a glimpse of the mythic Château-Chalon on its limestone perch, and landed at the warehouse of Cartaux-Bougaud. (Back at Champagne Pascal Mazet, we were joined with our good friend, burgeoning winegrower, and our French grower/trouble-shooter, desperately needed with all the goings-on: tariffs, delayed freight, etc. To avoid confusion, I intentionally failed to mention his joining us at Pascal Mazet because his last name is also Mazet, but there is no relation.) On our way to the domaine, Gauthier mentioned we would be having lunch with the family; he kept what it would be close to the vest, but alluded to something special. The sun broke through the fog here and there, revealing gilded blue relief, but the vineyards and all of Europe were fully in winter’s grasp, and we wouldn’t get warm until we found fire. And find fire we eventually would, but not until after we tasted through their range. Cartaux-Bougaud’s wines would be a reintroduction for Remy to Jura in their simplest form before the comic book and newspaper cartoon labels took over, and a new style of wines thrust into stratospheric prices. I haven’t yet found an inkling of this domaine trying to rock your world, rather to be accepted as Jura wines of old, though they are crafted to highlight higher-toned aromas and the power of these vines grown mostly in clay-heavy soils. Their reds aren’t richly extracted, nor have they left anything useful to the pomace pile. The whites have broad shoulders, and a deep well rather than an ethereal lift—that’s left for their fabulous bubbles. They’re perfect for local cheese, a fireplace, a warm cabin, hearty food for the laborer, those with scratched, torn, bloodied, and thick hands with an eagle talon grip built for pruning, barrel tossing, and wrenching cellar equipment with the tips of their fingers. Remy got it. Paul Generational shifts can go one way or another. Sébastien and Sandrine’s firstborn of three, Paul, is soft spoken and humble with a quiet charisma. It’s easy to see his conviction and understanding of this work and the benefits of more natural production. It will be interesting to see where he further influences the domaine, and I expect him to push things further in the right direction. They began organic culture some years ago, which was a big step. And this is only the beginning. Fire! At last! It seemed the entire hamlet filed in through the kitchen entrance. It was hard to be quickly herded past their blazing wood-fired oven and into the big dining room with all of their workers, a dozen or more that day. A massive twenty-seat table quickly filled up, faces lighting with anticipation as the blood returned to their extremities. Across from me, Remy silently expressed something between concern and excitement. We toasted with their Crémant and some Champagne we brought down—I thought they might like to try something other than their wines. And then, potatoes. Lots of potatoes. A series of four or five long, thin silver platters filled with long-cut, slow-roasted, mildly caramelized potatoes were set out with more plates of sausages that closed the gaps on the table. More glances from Remy. I shrugged. Gauthier’s smile grew. Sandrine entered with smelted edible gold. She set two wooden, pie-shaped containers oozing with magmatic versions of my favorite runny and crusty French cheese, Vacherin Mont d'Or—amber-tinged rind on a fully melted creamy golden fromage. The woman next to me, as charming as she was country rough, her once frozen hands now glowing pink and hot like her swollen cheeks, took a big spoon, quickly subducted the firmer pieces below into the magma and sheered the spruce-aged crust still clinging to the sides. I was transfixed. Vacherin Mont d’Or, my highest of liquid fromage highs, the pinnacle of what any cheese can express when fully ripened, now quickly forced into a melted state? I’ve had such reverence for this triumph of French cheese. I buy it. Store it. Wait. Hoping, like a bottle of old Michel Lafarge Volnay, that I’ll hit it square on the head of readiness; little margin for error, and when it’s just right, there’re few experiences like it. I never imagined doing such a thing to Mont d’Or, even if it’s been done for centuries. I thought it was regularly done with cheaper, less sophisticated cheeses without a greater purpose, like finding their perfect ripening to compete with the world’s greatest cheeses. Perhaps my reverence for this cheese in one form is shortsighted. In the US, it’s more expensive and who knows where it’s been and what refrigeration conditions it met along the way. Or, maybe it’s the second-quality milk from old cows already predestined for export. But in Europe, particularly France and Switzerland, and even more particularly, Jura, it’s gotta be the world’s best examples, and it ain’t expensive. I can melt a few each year and not feel guilty about it. I’ve done it twice since. It’s one of the two badder habits I’ve picked up from this trip with Remy. The other? The increased frequency of cassoulet weekends with my new but old traditional Toulouse cassoulet clay pot. When it was over and the cheese boxes were scraped clean, our stomachs tested, another wave of cheese magma, potatoes and sausage came. Remy’s smile of guilt, pleasure and recklessness was smeared all over his face. I’m sure mine was the same. Nothing else in the world existed at that moment but the pleasure and glory of that moment–I’ll never forget it. It has forever changed my relationship to Mont d’Or: to bake, or not to bake. It really depends on whether my wife is around (don’t bake) or not (yes, bake). If it’s too stinky, bake it. Either way, Vacherin Mont d’Or is a French triumph meant for the world. Our big night out in sleepy Arbois was at a place seemingly in pursuit of a Michelin star. After our epic lunch, we were tired of eating and drinking and settled on a bottle for the three of us: Poulsard from Bruyère Renard & Houillon Adeline. It was nice to see this celebrated cult Jura wine on a list for a fair price. I think it was 75€. However, its soft pinkish red color was immediately eclipsed by a thick cloud of lees that stifled any purity of the aromas, sadly, and likely, unintendedly, foreshadowed by its label. The wine emerged from the bottle as turbid as pink cotton candy. Behind the thick veil, it was clear; there was excellent juice in there somewhere. But only about two-thirds of the bottle delivered the message; the rest was discardable. I can appreciate growers who want to leave some sediment in the bottle, even if this bottle seemed like a bad rack job or the last bits accidentally taken from the bottom of the vat and bottled before they cut the line. Wines like this, especially when served on home-court in Jura, deserve to be handled with care. I’m doubt the grower bâtons their barrels right before they analyze their wines or barrel taste with clients. In the bottle, they need to be stood upright for a while to clarify before opening. Then they need to be carefully poured. Respected. At least the first glass shouldn’t come out like a violently shaken, nearly empty old glass bottle version of Heinz Ketchup aimed at a ramekin in the service room. Had I paid the going rate somewhere else, which I believe sometimes breaks the four-digit barrier (which I wouldn’t have), I would’ve refused it for lack of careful handling. I don’t know if you feel the same, but I’m fed up with poor wine service, especially when it’s with a bottle that warrants serious attention. If the wine service isn’t done respectfully, what’s the point in committing to anything better than a glass from an already open bottle? At least if you don’t like it, you can quickly dispatch it and move on. If the winegrowers were present, I’m sure they would’ve been embarrassed; though maybe not if only the last glass partially looked like liquid pink Laffy Taffy. But at the bargain price of 75€, I was ok with a milky first two-thirds. Through the thick and dangerously eerie fog of the flat Saône Valley, the car’s black ice alert flashing, we left Arbois at seven and headed west to Meursault. It was below freezing for the duration of this unremarkable stretch separating two extraordinary wine regions. We arrived to the cellar of Rodolphe Demougeot as he finished bottling some of his 2023 vintage. Rodolphe is a giant killer. Built like a pit bull, the man himself looks like he wouldn’t have any challenge dispatching all three of us in short order if provoked. But that’s not him. He’s one of the most unpretentious and gentle growers in the Côte d’Or. Rudy found a seriously new level in 2023, yet another in a sequence of upticks with his modest holdings—modest at least by Côte d’Or standards. What this guy could forge with a bigger stable of superstar appellations and crus? I can only imagine. It doesn’t seem to matter if the year is “classic” or “hot,” he’s bashing it out of the park year to year. There’s so much pleasure with terroir folded into every crease that it’s hard not to stay transfixed in the glass. We thieved through his 2024s with various blending parts of the wines before sitting to taste the 2023s. I’d never tasted the separate parts of his two lieux-dits, Les Pellans and Les Chaumes, for his Meursault appellation bottling. As expected, the former, just below the premier cru Les Charmes, was richer and rounder, and the latter, high up on the slope, just above Les Perrières, is straighter with finely plucked minerally chords. In his glass-encased winter garden, we tasted the 2023s and did a few blinders. He continues to elevate his game, and his 2023s are no exception. It’s incredible what he achieves in his secondary appellations, like Auxey-Duresses and Monthelie. But in warm years like 2023, these are exactly the appellations that should more confidently strut their stuff. Three cases of the 2023s showed up at my place a month later, and over the last month, I’ve worked through six bottles. I’ve tried to cut back a little, especially after this nearly abusive trip with Remy, but once you open one of these, it’s hard to stop. It’s been a long time since I sorted an entire bottle alone in a single night (my wife was in Chile at the time), but each glass of his Auxey-Duresses “Les Clous” was far too enticing and the bottle didn’t even make it to midnight. Short of flash with only two premier crus in his range, he bottles a lot of lieux-dits in his village appellation wines, and there’s distinction in each of those terroirs as much as anywhere. These days, he’s perfectly managing the balance of richer fruit, reduction to keep them closer to the vest at the start, and loads of x-factor. He’s in Côte de Beaune exclusively, but his reds, with three Pommards the highlights, are as lifted as they are rich. The whites are a no-brainer, and his reds are the sleepers. Skipping Beaujolais altogether, Burgundy straight into the northern Rhône is an abrupt transition. Topographically, geologically and culturally, it’s different. We skipped my usual stop in Beaujolais to visit the Dutraive clan, Anthony Thevenet and the Chardigny boys, all of whom we work with in California and several other markets, but nothing applied to New York. Beaujolais is much more free-wheeling, casual, and sometimes rough compared to Burgundy (though Burgundy is loosening up–well, maybe just a little), and with the river insight of all the appellations, the Northern Rhône is far more rustic and industrial. If you’re a Northern Rhône grower and it’s your name on the label, your face is probably weathered, hands gnarled, back and neck tight, likely a few ruptured disks and shot knees; you might also have a thick beer-wine-meat belly more like a keg than a six-pack. In Crozes-Hermitage, there’s a lot of easy work down in the vast flat flood plains where tractor blades tear up the land with ease, while more treacherous spots with dizzying heights and steep terraces, like Saint-Joseph, Cornas, Hermitage, and Côte-Rôtie, are weeded by hand, but most often by spray … And then there’s the Crozes-Hermitage vineyards of Stéphane Rousset behind Hermitage. They’re not what most expect. And they’re probably the reason Stéphane’s body isn’t yet broken down and maintains a core closer to a six pack than a keg. Stéphane was bottling during the only day we had allotted for him, and he didn’t have any time to show us around. I’ve driven through the vineyards enough times, droned them, and mapped them on Google Earth to lead the tour alone through the quietly legendary Les Picaudières and the three vineyards that make up Les Méjeans at the apex of this side in the area around the Rhône, and across the river in Tournon for his Saint-Joseph lieu-dit, Côte des Rivoires. On the latter stop, the road was too precarious for my sedan and Remy didn’t see them but understood the extremity of their cliff-like position. Almost every vineyard in Stéphane’s collection is the hardest of hard vineyard work to be found in France. The only area for tractor work is down by the river on loess terraces, mostly used for his white wines and the entry-level Crozes-Hermitage, and on two parcels of Les Méjeans on the top plateau. Everything else is done by the four hands of Stéphane and his father, Robert, on the Pangean remnants carved into various terraces of granite and sometimes metamorphic rock. In the case of Les Picaudières—a sort of transitional material between igneous and metamorphic—it’s a geologically complex and intimidating slope that stands alone on its steep face. Stéphane’s wife, Isabelle, tasted us through the new releases, and it all made clear sense to Remy: Rousset’s Crozes-Hermitage wines were anything but ordinary from this, perhaps the most ordinary of the Northern Rhône appellations. They were the true underdogs of Crozes-Hermitage, given the quality of their terroirs. They’re more southern Saint-Joseph granite or the extremity of Hermitage’s Les Bessards—little in common with the Crozes-Hermitage of the flats that make up about 75% of vineyard surface area and probably quite a bit more in overall production. Crozes-Hermitage from these granitic parts is rare. The financial incentive is low for Crozes-Hermitage growers because of its appellation price cap. This means that if you can’t do the work by tractor, you’re going to struggle to find people to do the work. Labor costs have to be managed, and sometimes they’re running lean on willing hands. If you were a harvester who didn’t care about the quality of the grapes you picked, would you opt for long days on hot terraces over the flats? Maybe it’d be romantic for a few years, but that romance might run dry pretty quickly. In the hotter years, Rousset can get caught off balance and can’t pick the fruit fast enough. This can lead some wines to express the sun’s abuses. But when the season is milder and not a bum-rush harvest, the whole range is tight. The 2022s were rock solid, but sadly, almost already sold out by the time we tasted them. Outside in the cold and darkness, with faces backlit by the warehouse lights further in with bottling in full clank and buzz, I finally met Robert. I’d only seen him in pictures. He was a beast of a man when young, seemingly double the size of his stout but average height son, Stéphane. Of course, today he’s more squat but still a massive frame with strong hands, more like skillets, and with medium-sized potatoes for fingers. Our encounter was brief, and he was much nicer and more welcoming than I expected; I guess I’d forgotten that giants are often gentle, too. He’s also a giant in my personal wine story with the Roussets and their nearly forgotten celebrated vineyards on some of the region’s historic terroirs. The other parts of Crozes-Hermitage to the south of Hermitage shouldn’t be part of this appellation but a different one altogether. It’s much closer to the top sites of the entire region, while the others are relatable by climate, grape and culture, but not much else. While we find the Roussets the financial incentive to see how far they can take it, let’s continue to enjoy their wines that offer the greatest value for serious wines in the entire Northern Rhône. Photo of a photo: Robert and Stéphane Rousset France overflows with hidden gems in the world of food, art and craft. Just down the street from about any friend’s house, from the Loire Valley to Provence, there are always some fabulous multigenerational artisan cheesemakers, bakers, charcuterie masters, a gypsy truffle hunter with great prices you have to work a little for, and broke artists on every block. It’s harder to find these gems unknown to the wine world now with importers scouring every corner, but we’ve got one, and he’s hard to top in quality and price with his Syrah. Just outside the southern border of Crozes-Hermitage, lies Domaine des Collines, a winery with exceptionally high-quality wines at an incredibly affordable price. It’s run by Sébastien Mazérat, one of the most mechanically ingenious winegrowers I’ve ever met. We were greeted with warmth and openness on this drizzly, cold day, and a smile and laugh of a man who clearly loves his life. Mid-forties, Sébastien is a longtime friend of Gauthier, so our warm welcome was already a little expected. Another Working Class Hero, I’m sure that if Sebastien were given the opportunity with a slab of Cornas, he’d be on the podium. Here we’re talking wines that will hit retail shelves under $20 and easily put many neighboring high-quality Crozes-Hermitage growers on notice, if they even knew he existed. A native of Cornas and from a family of winegrowers, after nearly a decade in Chapoutier’s cellar, he’s now in Rhône no-man’s land producing wines in the style of the luminaries of those celebrated hillsides. Not only talented in the cellar, he’s da Vinci-like in his creative mechanical ingenuity. Because he can’t get much for his wines in the broad IGP Collines Rhodanienne, he needs to keep his labor costs down, so everything is farmed and picked by machine—machines he bought and adapted to his specific need in the vineyards. We were given a tour of his gadgets as well as his wines. If he wants a certain kind of filtration, he designs prototypes that, when other growers learn about them, they ask him to make for them too. Custom fittings for all his tanks, labeling contraptions, dolly case-loading assistants, everything is a custom contraption. He’s a talented inventor who also has a great palate for wine. Every little detail is optimized in efficacy so he can do as much as possible alone, and this carries over into everything he produces. His two versions of Syrah, one with a soft addition of sulfites and one without, are stiff competition. They need to be tasted alone, away from other organic Syrahs, because few could challenge this one for the price. It’s just not a great value; it’s a great wine for an absurdly low price. If I told you the price was double, you wouldn’t blink. You’d likely even think it’s still a great deal. After an unexpectedly fabulous multi-course lunch cooked over fire by a friend of Sébastien (by far the best I’ve ever had in these parts, which is usually of the belly-thickening vigneron type), Remy and I headed south. It was a two-hour drive, which gave us just enough time to reflect on the three-week French leg of our trip. We agreed that the cassoulet back at Laurent’s in Cahors and the Cartaux-Bougaud madness of melted golden mountain cheese on roasted potatoes and the multi-course lunch we just wolfed were the top meals in France. I also had to acknowledge the KFC emergency rations from two nights before. It wasn’t the worst meal I’ve ever had—not even close. I don’t remember Remy’s reaction to this admission. It was probably silence. Still dumbfounded by Sébastien and his extraordinary wines that go for nearly nothing, Remy said, “How do we show Sebastien’s Syrah next to other wines? They’re such a gift.” “We don’t,” I replied. “It should go alone.” We were on our way to my regular French refuge, my French home away from home, La Fabrique. Sonya was waiting there with boudin and sautéed apples and upside-down pineapple cake finished with rum. It would be Remy’s first time, and it wouldn’t be fair to include her meals in the competition; they’re in a league of their own. Some people I’ve taken to Fabrique don’t appreciate it like I do, and I understand—it’s not for everyone. Sonya says that I belong to the house now—and she’s right—but she wants to sell it because it’s too big for her and she’s too old now to take care of it alone after the passing of her husband, Pierre, last year. But Fabrique is not only a place she could make into an amazing home–a home is a state of mind. Somewhere to forget the world while sojourning there, eat like it was post-WWII Provence, inhale a little second-hand smoke, and drink things you normally wouldn’t. I knew it would be a Remy place. Next month