Search Results for: Saint Joseph Rouge, Silice

Climate change is relentless. June was a scorcher in Europe while at the same time just a month ago France was hit by yet more major hailstorms in many areas. European countries are playing a high-stakes game of dodgeball, with the climate playing an unrelenting offense. If it’s not hail, it’s mildew pressure and/or rain at the wrong time, hot winters followed by Jack Frost in the Spring and summertime sharknadoes. Nowhere seems immune, except maybe places producing sun-drenched boozy wines along the Mediterranean coast. Who in the fine wine world wants those, anyway? A lot of people, actually. But like me, perhaps you might be living on the fringe of the wine world, where you don’t want to be punched in the face by the alcohol in a glass of wine, but rather by a nice, fresh, acidic and minerally love tap, or maybe the occasional electrocution by these latter elements. Well, 2022 is off to a good start for many, but so much can happen between now and harvest. Gino Della Porta, from the new Monferrato project in Nizza, Sette, says that the churches in Piemonte fill up with praying vignaioli before harvest and return to emptiness once the grapes are picked. We wish the best of luck to all winegrowers out there, not only those who make our preferred elixirs. Gino Della Porto from the new Monferrato cantina, Sette, and his partner Gian Luca Colombo (on the right). Website Feature Update We have two new website features that should (hopefully) add to the joy of perusal. Mobile devices will always fall short of laptops or desktops when it comes to more fluid navigation, so they’re where you will see the biggest improvements. The first redesign is our Producers menu. We’ve customized new country maps with more precise region selections and an easier view of each producer from next to their map without the need for excessive scrolling. The second improvement is a producer profile sidebar on our producer profile pages that displays more related content. The wines are also easier to get to with a quick dropdown (I know the profiles can be long, which required a lot of scrolling to finally reach the wines), as are related materials like terroir maps, videos, newsletters that update information that may not be found on profile pages or wine descriptions, and lastly, the ability to download the profile content into a printable format. Please don’t hesitate to send suggestions directly to me at ted@thesourceimports.com. We’re always looking for ways to improve your experience and much of the time we can’t see obvious things right in front of our faces. 2022 Spring Trip Top 15 Wines Following the New Arrivals, I’ve posted some highlights to drop you a little tease to get your wheels turning for the future. There are so many spectacular wines to talk about, but I trimmed it down to a select few during my forty-day Europe trip this Spring. New Arrivals The logjam at ports continues and while some countries are getting better, France remains solidly in last place with improving their turnaround time from the moment we submit orders for a container to the time it arrives at our warehouse. Why France more than anyone else? No idea. We don’t know what will hit for sure in July, but we think this new batch of French wines just might do so. Chevreux-Bournazel, Champagne The last release from Chevreaux-Bournazel stirred up a frenzy the moment we published last year’s June Newsletter. The small amount of wines allocated to us were out of stock by the end of the day—an unexpected result for this quite unknown but likely-to-turn-cult Champagne producer. We have a little more wine with the 2018 vintage than last year, but not much more. Decanter magazine describes the 2018 vintage as “truly exceptional,” and “destined to be remembered for producing both quality and quantity.” According to Bollinger’s Cellar Master (via drinkmaster.com), Gilles Descôtes, described it as the “best of his life,” and that there is a resemblance to both 2002 and 2004. 2018 is indeed a year with a good yield and also very good quality despite the warmer year. One key was that the bountiful crop helped maintain balance for the wines than a smaller crop would, leaving a greater amount of acidity for the level of ripeness. Three Pinot Meunier-based wines will arrive from this micro-producer, surely the smallest from any producer in our portfolio other than our Txakoli revolutionary, Alfredo Egia, and a new organic and biodynamic-certified Bordeaux producer, Sadon-Huguet, that will hopefully arrive before the end of the year. Two cuvées imported before are Connigis, grown on a very steep slope (think Mosel-steep) with hard limestone bedrock, and clay and chalk topsoil, and La Capella, grown on an even steeper vineyard (like the steepest, terraceless vineyards in the Mosel) with a thinner layer of clay topsoil, chalk bedrock on the lower portion, and silex (chert), chalk, and marne (calcium carbonate-rich clay topsoil) in the upper section. The new cuvée, Le Bouc, is their first blend of different vintages and the two plots for La Capella and Connigis. Chevreux-Bournazel’s Champagnes are all biodynamically farmed, unchaptalized, naturally fermented with indigenous yeast, unfiltered, zero dosage, and with all cellar movements made in sync with the rhythm of the lunar calendar. Their range is led by dried herbs and grasses, tea, honey, dried flowers of all sorts from yellow, orange, violet and red, and a multitude of savory nuances. More than anything, I find that Stéphanie and Julien’s wines separate themselves from much of the typical Champagne style due to their strong polycultural setting, different from other more famous Champagne areas. Here, there are large expanses of separation between vineyards in the backcountry of the Vallée de la Marne, and the wines are a notable departure from fruit-led, bony Champagne with fewer layers of greater complexity. Massive forest-capped slopes covered in an endless sea of vines with no other crops in sight than the swathes of grain fields in the flatter areas below don’t lend themselves to such a broad array of nuances. Chevreux-Bournazel’s wines are alive and their forcefully savory nature is almost overwhelming, which makes them gastronomically suitable for a greater mix of cuisines. Christophe et Fils, Chablis The 2020 season was not as hot as 2018 and 2019. While 2019 may have jumped a little further away from being described as “classic” Chablis due to its riper fruit notes (but with a surprisingly high level of acidity for this warm year), some hail 2020 as “classic,” “early but classic,” and “a great vintage.” I don’t even know what “classic” means anymore with Chablis or anywhere else, do you? I know what “great” means to me, personally (with emotional value topping the list), but my “great” may not be yours. Our current frame of reference and experience sculpts all of our preferences, and formative years are always present too. People who’ve been in the wine business for decades have a different reference for wine than those recently seduced by Dionysus. Classic Chablis? I haven’t had a young Chablis that vibrates with tense citrus and flint, a green hue in color, shimmering acidity, and coarse mineral texture all in the same sip for a long time—so long that I don’t even remember the last vintage I had those sensations with newly bottled Chablis. (Of course, a recently bottled wine still high strung with sulfites can give that appearance but the wine will bear its truer nature a few years after its bottling date.) Chablis is different now. Burgundy is different. Everywhere is different than a decade ago and even more so than two decades ago. With the composition of today’s wine lists and their one or two pages of quickly-changing inventory compared to extensive cellars of restaurant antiquity, most of us developed different expectations—if not a completely different perspective—for wine now than what “classic” used to imply. (The idea of “classic” from more than twenty-five years ago when I first became obsessed with wine now conjures images of chemically farmed vineyards and their spare wines.) 2020 may be fresher and brighter than the last two years in some ways but maybe with less stuffing than the similarly calibrated 2017s, a vintage I loved the second I tasted the first example out of barrel at Domaine Jean Collet. Maybe we can call 2020 “classic,” but if picking started at the end of August would that be “classic” graded on a curve? Sébastien Christophe’s wines are classic in their own way. Like older-school Chablis, they’re usually in no hurry to reveal their cards upon arrival, especially the top crus and his Chablis Vieilles Vignes. Sometimes they perplexingly arrive with a blank stare, but after a proper rest they liven up; some take a month, some three, others a year or more. The usual exception is one or the other of his two entry-level wines, the Petit Chablis and Chablis. Some years the Chablis comes out slinging miniature oyster shells at your face while the Petit Chablis plays tortoise. Other years, the Petit Chablis springs off the boat with a big smile and sticks you with rapier mineral nuances, blowing away expectations for the appellation with its wider frame and rounder palate than most wines from this appellation. One of them is almost always notably stronger than the other when they arrive, but a year later the script can flip with the same vintage of wines. Let’s see what 2020 bolts from the starting block first. Between the premier crus and the Christophe starter range is the lonely Chablis Vieilles Vignes—too big to play with other Chablis appellation wines and not part of the premier cru club. Sourced from two parcels in Fontenay-près-Chablis, one above the premier cru lieu-dit, Côte de Fontenay, and the other southeast of the village, they were planted in 1959 by Sébastien’s grandfather. These vines render a richer wine out of the gates that tightens up with more aeration (the opposite of many wines), shedding superficial weight and concentrating power. Minerally and deep, it often rivals one or another of Sébastien’s premier crus from each year. Were these west and north-facing parcels in a more southerly exposition and outside of the small valley they sit, they surely would be classified as premier cru sites. Similar to the Petit Chablis and Chablis, it’s hard to predict which Premier Crus will show the best out of the gates; it’s anyone’s game upon arrival, no matter the pedigree of the cru. What remains somewhat consistent, at least in my experience, is the way they behave in a general sense. Fourchaume is the most muscular, offering a stiff mineral jab and a stone-cold smile with a set of nice pearly shells. Opposite of Fourchaume, Mont de Milieu is sleek, fluid and versatile, resting more on subtlety than force. It often shows as much left bank nuances with its ethereal minerality and more vertical frame. Montée de Tonnerre borrows from the best of each of the other two premier crus and turns the dial down a touch in pursuit of sublime balance. Usually the most regal, sometimes it takes a while to show its fine trim and breed, while on another day it shows up straight away. While Montée de Tonnerre takes pole position in Chablis’ super-second premier crus for many Chablis followers, it doesn’t always finish in first place chez Christophe et fils. The title of best premier cru here is up for grabs each vintage and all have the potential to top the podium. Each individual taster’s preference and calibration on balance, and the moment the wine is tasted—influenced by the mood of the taster, the environment, what they ate or are eating, anything they tasted beforehand, the order in which the wines are tasted, the cork, the moon, the barometric pressure, etc—will decide their frontrunner. It’s true that most compelling wines aren’t static, and neither are we. The wine we prefer today may not be what we prefer tomorrow. This makes wine fun but sometimes maddeningly elusive, especially in moments when in pursuit to relive an extraordinary bottle and the follow up is inexplicably off and deflating. With too many variables, firm conclusions based on a single taste or bottle, or moment in time, is shaky ground. The most solid advice in wine is to consistently buy from a producer you love. It’s the most reliable way to keep the average quality of your wines high. Christophe’s first vintage of Blanchots was 2015. This grand cru faces directly south on a sharply angled, wedge-shaped hillside. Those familiar enough with this grand cru know it typically generates expansive wines, often with more blunt force than sting; nevertheless, still entirely grand cru material. In Blanchots’ defense, needlepoint texture and electricity are commonly stronger attributes for the left bank. Christophe’s Blanchots comes from conventionally farmed vines of more than forty years on white topsoil on the famous Kimmerigdian marl bedrock of the area. The wine is aged in 60% inox and 40% oak (with roughly one-third of the oak new) for eighteen months. Sébastien doesn’t employ cellar tricks, so one tastes the cru and quality of the farming. He purchases his Blanchots fruit, as he does his newest grand cru, Les Preuses. The Les Preuses grapes are organically farmed, and it shows in the wine. While maintaining its grand cru strength, it’s full of life, and more lifted and subtle, the latter element harder to achieve with sustainably farmed vineyards. Since I tasted all the new young vintages from Sébastien from 2012 up to now, the 2020 Les Preuses is unquestionably the greatest young Christophe wine I’ve experienced shortly after bottling—an important distinction. (Tasting newly bottled wines can be a fool’s game. Most of the time for months after bottling they’re off-balance and stretched uncomfortably thin and tight, and generally unresponsive to any attempted coaxing. During my wine production years, the first couple of weeks after bottling may show well, but then wines tend to tighten and shut down for some months. Often it seemed to take about as much time in bottle as their élevage after the bottling for many wines to recalibrate to their previous form. However, I suppose that wines aged extremely long in the cellar, like three or more years, may not behave the same way.) I hope this incredible effort lives up to its promise during my first interaction with it. The 2020 Les Preuses seemed to be a pivotal wine for Sébastien to go from a toe in the water to a full jump into organic culture, a point I’ve pressed him on since our first meeting in 2013. The difference between organic and non-organic wines in a region so particular as Chablis can be obviously clear (with few exceptions, and one extremely notable one…) for wines that are made to highlight their terroirs, not the cleverness and over-intellectualization in the cellar work. Stéphane Rousset, Northern Rhône Stéphane Rousset’s Crozes-Hermitage and Saint-Joseph range represents one of the greatest terroir-focused values in all the Northern Rhône. Virtues of the sublime marriage between Syrah and Northern Rhône granite and schist are commonly extolled, and there are few as fair-priced and thrilling as Rousset’s. Stéphane Crozes-Hermitage vineyards, unlike most of the low altitude, flat and gently sloping Crozes-Hermitage areas, are on steep rock terraces difficult to work by tractor, or on terraces with many vine rows, like the eastern end of Hermitage. Sharing the likes of Saint-Joseph, Hermitage, Cornas, and Côte-Rôtie, most of his wines sell for a fraction of those from more illustrious appellations, but with work that puts the same heavy toll on his body. I usually meet Stéphane in the afternoon when he’s just out of the vineyards, bushed but with a big smile, his bright cheeks rosy from the sun, ready to give me the tour—which always includes a visit to say hello to the precariously steep and rocky Les Picaudières, one of my favorite vineyards in Europe and one of the truest, quietly great terroir treasures in the Rhône Valley. Each time I drink his wines I am reminded of his daily toil with his father, Robert, who still works by Stéphane’s side, as they race to stay ahead of today’s runaway sunny seasons, followed by a full sprint at harvest time to beat the birds, the bees and the relentless sun when the grapes are in the zone. Located behind Hermitage and across the Rhône River from some of Saint-Joseph’s best steep granite vineyards in Saint-Jean-de-Muzols and Vion, Stéphane’s Crozes-Hermitage vineyards are in Gervans, Érôme, and Crozes-Hermitage (the appellation’s namesake), the original communes before the appellation’s extensive eastern and southern expansion. Stéphane’s vineyards are unlike any of your standard Crozes-Hermitage. Much of the appellation wraps around Hermitage from its eastern flank to the south on an expansive flood plain. These areas have a multitude of sedimentary rock and topsoil from mostly river deposits with some areas richer in calcareous-rich depositions but most are a mix of silt, sand, gravel and cobbles. Behind Hermitage it’s mostly a continuation of the acidic granite bedrock of Hermitage’s far western flank, with vineyards lower down on the granite terraces sometimes frosted with slightly yellowish white loess, a fine-grained wind-blown sediment rich in calcium-carbonate. All Stéphane’s Syrah vines are on granite bedrock with sections heavier in loess topsoil reserved for the Crozes-Hermitage appellation red and the vineyards with the deepest loess topsoil are reserved for his small production of whites. 2019 may be the most promising vintage in Stéphane’s neck of the Crozes-Hermitage appellation since 2015 or 2016. He is a fan of both 2019 & 2020 but says that 2019 maintained a higher level of acidity compared to the surrounding vintages because of dehydration from the heat. There is a high variability reported between regions, but Stéphane finds his to be more structured than his 2020s. 2020 was the earliest-picked vintage since 2003 (while maintaining more fresh fruits than this deeply hydric-stressed vintage) with wines said to be easy early drinkers. Sourced from a mix of mostly granitic vineyard sites scattered around the hillsides behind Hermitage and some terraces closer to the river on granite bedrock with a mix of loess and granite sand topsoil is Stéphane’s first red in the lineup, the 2020 Crozes-Hermitage Rouge. Aged in a mix of primarily concrete and inox vats with a little in oak, this wine is the most accessible out of the gates. The loess contribution softens the edges, lifts the aromatics and curbs the deep saltiness often imparted by the granitic soil. A crowd pleaser, this pure Syrah is also very serious juice led by the pedigree of its geological genetics that bring its terroirs into focus more than the variety—similarly to terroirs like Cornas, Saint-Joseph and Côte-Rôtie. Crozes-Hermitage is an appellation where a relative shoestring wine budget won’t hinder studying the influence of how many different soil types can create very different wines made from a single red grape variety. One only needs to know the location of each producer’s vineyards. This will take a bit of research, made easy by the wealth of accessible information nowadays, particularly in the fabulous Rhône books put out by authors Remington Norman and John Livingstone-Learmonth. (There’s a new book out, by Decanter contributing editor Matt Walls, that I haven’t dug into yet, but I’ve heard it’s also a good place to start.) During my first visit with Stéphane in the spring of 2017, a particular Syrah stood out among the different parcels he vinified separately before blending them into the basic appellation wine. Equally good and already on qualitative par with his Saint-Joseph and Les Picaudières, I asked why he didn’t also bottle it on its own. He shrugged, grinned, contemplated, and we moved on—my first insight into the deep humility of this quiet and jovial man that by the end of the day is clearly spent. I pushed him to bottle it alone via email and during all of my subsequent visits. The 2019 Crozes-Hermitage “Les Méjeans” is the new addition to the range, and a worthwhile exploration for anyone interested in Stéphane’s wines and high altitude, granite-based Northern Rhône Syrah. Les Méjeans comes from three different parcels only a golf shot from each other and rising to as high as 350m (maybe as high as it gets in the appellation), all within a small area known as Les Méjeans. This is the only purely granite-based Crozes-Hermitage Stéphane bottles, and it tastes like it: salt, earth, animal and pepper before fruit and flower, rustic but elegant and deep graphite-like mineral textures that keep it fresh. The steeply terraced vineyard of the three has the most fine-grained sand (an unexpectedly small grain, like beach sand), and the other two are more gradually sloped, lending support for their vines against the hydric stress of these fully exposed sites on top of the hill. We imported 600 bottles for the entire US market (he didn’t make much more than that and we both wanted to be conservative out of the gates), so let us know your interest level so we can make sure you get a shot at it. The decision is often split between Rousset’s Saint-Joseph and Crozes-Hermitage “Les Picaudières” in preference depending on the taster and the amount of time the wines are open. Les Picaudières is often less immediately approachable in the context of the two, but it’s still very accessible straight away. Les Picaudières takes time to reveal its full depth and expansion while the Saint-Joseph usually hits its mark in about fifteen minutes and remains in a heightened state and on a straight line for hours. In my opinion, Les Picaudières is the greater terroir between the two, but it will take time once opened for it to take control of the standoff, eventually evolving so much that one begins to understand that it is well beyond its appellation in hierarchy. Likely a geological transition area, the vineyard’s bedrock, on an extremely steep south face surrounded by forest on all sides except where it tops out on a ridgeline, ranges somewhere between granite and schist—perhaps slightly more of the latter rock type. The topsoil on these precarious terraces is entirely derived from its bedrock, landing this wine with some elements found in the great schist vineyards of Côte-Rôtie and the granite sites of nearby Hermitage (where only on its west flank it’s mostly granite) and the granitic southern end of Saint-Joseph across the way. Les Picaudières is no ordinary Crozes-Hermitage (as you can see by the photos), and texturally it is almost unrecognizable as a Crozes-Hermitage—except its price! Textured with fresh metal-iodine-graphite palate aromas and mouthfeel, it’s led by stronger savory, earthy and rustic notes more than fruit. If you walk down the path with this wine, give it the proper time to reveal all of its hand or you will miss the main event. Rousset’s Saint-Joseph is now labeled Saint-Joseph “Côte des Rivoires.”  During my discussion with the Roussets about revamping their range with the addition of Les Méjeans, I also suggested they add to the label the site name they use exclusively for their Saint-Joseph. (Rousset has a ton of great sites that may warrant future individual bottlings, and they may have a third new in the mix—possibly a grape selection from all of their Crozes-Hermitage vineyards in honor of previous generations.) Rousset has two adjacent east-facing plots inside one of Saint-Joseph’s top communes, Tournon. It’s a nail-bitingly steep drive up the hill with a complete open view into the massive valley to the east. At times it would seem like floating up the hill if it weren’t for the bumpy road and granite terraces and rock wall just a few feet from one window. Aged similarly to Les Picaudières and Les Méjeans in a mix of old and new barrels (roughly 10-20% new) for about a year before bottling, it is the most forward and perhaps most elegant wine in Rousset’s lieu-dit range, at least immediately upon pulling the cork. Apparent in pedigree, this classic southern Saint-Joseph springs into action upon opening, releasing esters of water-stressed wild shrubs and garrigue (with much less violet and lavender compared to many others in the area), and more earth and sun-rich cherry, and fresh but ripe fig. Perhaps the saltiest and softest texture between Rousset’s lieux-dits, it’s usually the frontrunner in the first hour and the most charming. Other Arrivals (in short form) Nothing new to report with Clos Fornelli, possibly Corsica’s most friendly-priced, organically grown, fresh and simply delicious wines from the island. Arriving are the 2021 La Robe d’Ange Blanc, a pure Vermentinu, 2021 La Robe d’Ange Rosé made entirely from Sciacarello, and 2020 La Robe d’Ange Rouge, also composed entirely of this wonderful queen of the island, my favorite Corsican grape, Sciacarello. All were born on soils derived from the erosion of the geological formation referred to as Alpine Corsica on the northeast of the island on a series of terraces that Josée Vanucci and her husband, Fabrice Couloumère, tend their vines. (Alpine Corsica is named as such because it was developed during the Alpine orogeny, while the granite parts, the dominant geological formation on the island, known as Crystalline Corsica, date further back to Pangaean time.) This eastern side of the island with mostly eastern and southern exposures butted up the island’s mountains (yes, surprisingly a lot of mountain area in Corsica) protect them from the scorching early evening summer and autumnal sun, leaving them fresher than most of the wines from the island’s west side where many of Corsica’s famous wines come from. Clos Fornelli’s wines are raised mostly in concrete vats with some old 500-liter barrels. We can’t keep these in stock once they’re here, so don’t wait. Josée and Fabrice have everything sold just months after their release, making each year a one-shot opportunity. As you likely know, the big game for Domaine Jean Collet is Chablis, but Romain Collet was always interested in Saint-Bris, a neighboring appellation with the same bedrock, but on shallower rocky soils—soils mostly too spare for Chardonnay to thrive. Only a twenty minute drive from Chablis, this is Sauvignon Blanc territory and the 2020 Saint-Bris is the third vintage for Romain. With the prices of Sancerre making steady but notable increases each year, this Saint-Bris should be a consideration for by-the-glass programs in restaurants and a great starter to a summertime meal. Domaine Chardigny has a couple new vintages for us to feast on. These last few seasons were hit hard by Mother Nature, leaving much less compared to prior years. As regularly touted over the years since our first imported vintage (2016) from the Chardigny brothers, I believe both 2020 and 2021 are exceptional years for them and jump a few notches up from the years before, with 2019 a solid pregame for the breakthrough. The 2021 Beaujolais-Leynes is their newest Beaujolais label and made from a blend of many different parcels—some from the Beaujolais appellation classification with a mix of grapes from their two crus, Clos du Chapitre and À la Folie, all entirely EU organic certified wines. Leynes leads with red-fruited charm, while its complexity is tucked further inside. The 2020 Saint-Amour “Clos du Chapitre” is likely the best wine they’ve put to bottle—at least in comparison to any that predate the 2021s. (I don’t yet know how the 2021 crus panned out since they were bottled.) This vineyard is flat and visually uninspiring compared to much of Beaujolais’ scenic hillside vineyards, but regardless it performs exceptionally. Regal, with the greater polish between all Chardigny Beaujolais wines, the 2020 is a knockout. This was the vintage out of barrel that stunned me with its Côte d’Or likeness, despite differences in grapes. The Chardignys are making serious strides in the natural wine world all the while keeping their record clean from the rodent smell so commonly found in high-brow organic and natural Beaujolais these days. Don’t miss this wine from these young stars. As expressed previously in our September 2021 Newsletter, if Pique-Basse owner/vigneron, Olivier Tropet, had vineyards in appellations like Côte Rôtie, Cornas or Châteauneuf-du-Pape, he’d be more likely to garner wide acclaim, but he lives in Roaix, the Southern Rhône Valley’s tiniest Côtes-du-Rhône Village appellation. It’s hard to believe what he achieves within this relatively unknown village with his range of wines that have been organically certified since 2009 and are as soulful as they are exquisitely crafted. Arriving is the new release, 2020 La Brusquembille, a blend of 70% Syrah and 30% Carignan, and a reload of 2019 Le Chasse-Coeur, a blend of 80% Grenache, 10% Syrah and 10% Carignan. Syrah from the Southern Rhône Valley is often not that compelling because it can be a little weedy and lacking in the cool spice and exotic notes that come with Syrah further up into the Northern Rhône Valley. However, La Brusquembille may throw you for a loop if you share this opinion, especially with the 2020 clocking in at a modest (for the Southern Rhône) 13.5% alcohol. Without the Carignan to add more southern charm, it might easily be mistaken for a Crozes-Hermitage from a great year above the Chassis plain up by Mercurol, where this appellation’s terraced limestone vineyards lie and are quite similar to the limestone bedrock and topsoil at the vineyards of Pique-Basse, without the loess sediments common in Mercurol. It’s not as sleek in profile because it’s still from the south, but its savory qualities and red and black fruit nuances can be a close match. Despite the alcohol degree in the 2019 hitting 14.5% (while the target is always between 13%-14%), Olivier tries to pick the grapes for Le Chasse-Coeur on the earlier side for Grenache, a grape that has a hard time reaching phenolic maturity at comparative sugar levels as grapes like Syrah or Pinot Noir, and farms accordingly for earlier ripeness with the intention to maintain more freshness. It’s more dominated by red fruit notes than black—perhaps that’s what the bright red label is hinting at—and aged in cement vats, and sometimes stainless steel if the vintage is plentiful, to preserve the tension and to avoid Grenache’s predisposition for unwanted oxidation. Both Le Chasse-Coeur and La Brusquembille offer immense value for such serious wines. Some of our California sales and administration team with Douro luminary Mateus Nicolau de Almeida (Left to right: Leigh Ready, Mateus, Hadley Kemp & Victoria Diggs) 2022 Spring Trip Top 15 Wines No longer successfully on the run from Covid, I tested positive on my birthday on my forty-day European tour. You probably had it already and know what to expect, but I was caught off guard. I experienced unusually intense allergies prompted by a wet spring that ended with a two-day rise of more than twenty-five degrees (F) and lasted for three weeks and pushed every plant in the Czech Republic, Austria and Italy into full-throttle growth, ending my successful spring running streak (literally). Then Covid hit—surely contracted on the three different trains between Milan to Frankfurt. Milano’s Stazione Centrale is a perfectly orchestrated Covid super-spreader daily event, swarming and—at least what seemed to be—not a single person masked up until forced to by the train conductors inside the train. It seemed that every unmasked passenger walked through our train car on the way to theirs; I guess it’s not so clear for some which car is theirs from the outside indicators on the train. Still mandatory on public transport in Italy, the passengers and the crew promptly unmasked once into Switzerland then masked up again crossing into Germany. Silly. It felt like a light spring cold at first (and frankly, initially no different than the allergies I was experiencing) and I thought it couldn’t be Covid. The horrors of this coronavirus shared by everyone seemed intense and my initial symptoms weren’t aggressive enough. The lower body aches set in while touring Arturo Miguel’s (Bodega Artuke) Rioja Alavesa vineyards. The wind was bitterly cold, strong enough to rip shoots off vines that weren’t yet tipped (a quick manual breaking of the shoot tips to stop their vertical growth, a necessity in most of Rioja Alavesa and Rioja Alta vineyards at higher altitudes that take the full force of the north winds shrieking down the Sierra Cantabrian mountains), and I was cold enough and in my favorite element to not realize that I was already mid-fever. By the time we got out of the cold, I began to thaw in his cellar. Still oblivious to my condition, my head began to heat up and slowly made its way to full Ghost Rider. I’ve never been so hot! Covid is indeed a bizarre experience. I was lucky to get Covid-light with mild symptoms over the first few days, irritating but not debilitating aches, and a fever that lasted all of about sixteen hours—maybe because my head rushed into a ready-to-erupt volcano state and peaked early. A few days after the major symptoms passed, as many also said might happen, my lungs tightened (a somewhat normal experience for me with my minor asthma), feelings of depression and a lack of motivation (neither normal for me), and physically, mentally, and emotionally disconnected—zombie-like; lightly and uncomfortably, eternally stoned. No matter what I did or where I went for necessities like tests, masks, food, and water, I felt guilty for being close to anyone. My travel companions, Victoria, Leigh, and Hadley were empathetic to its untimeliness, as I was supposed to guide them through their trip in Iberia. They all had it in January and some were also recently boosted, so they were pretty chill with my new condition. Eventually I rented a different car in Logroño, the central hub of Rioja, and drove their same scenic route through my favorite section of Spain, the verdant and mystical coastal landscape from País Vasco, Cantabria, and Asturias, finally dropping the car in Galicia. My predicament was exacerbated by my wife’s mother’s visit from Chile, a normal occurence when I go on lengthy benders my wife doesn’t want to do with me anymore. Neither of them previously had Covid, so I couldn’t go home. I couldn’t visit producers. I was adrift on a strangely lonely planet for days—a culpable castaway surrounded by people I wasn’t supposed to even see. Friends and family kept their distance and, unintentionally, harbored a look of mistrust, like I’m going to lash out at them, or maybe they saw me as a potential dead man walking and didn’t want to break the news to me if they saw it worsen. In Santiago de Compostela with nowhere to go and nothing to do, I holed up outside of town for a night in a small hotel—cheap, but better than expected. The sun’s angelic evening beams illuminated the Santiago green countryside, and the temperature was warm but breezy and friendly. Still positive but a week past the heavier symptoms, I convinced Andrea to pick me up. Benched in the backseat, no hugs or kisses after a month apart, fully masked up, windows down for the two-hour drive with a feeling like we were on the rocks (although we weren’t) I hid out at home until those pesky coronavirus proteins completely expelled from my nose. Thankfully, I didn’t lose my taste or smell, so my job remains somewhat secure. (If I did lose them, I probably wouldn’t tell anyone anyway…) Regardless of my personal woes, the trip was very successful for me prior to the Covid battle and there was an immense amount of joyful and revelatory wines experienced, even if I missed sixteen Iberian visits. Making this list was hard. There are certainly many more than fifteen wines that deserve to be on it, but it’s trimmed down to the goosebump-inducing highlights and breakthroughs. Missing here is most of Iberia and our visit with a potential new producer in Piemonte that may have stolen the spotlight of the whole trip, but next month’s newsletter will have top picks from our expert staff. My top 15 in no particular order: Veyder-Malberg 2021 Riesling Bruck. All 2021s from Peter are wonderful and the Austrian Grüner Veltliners in general must be my favorite vintage ever for this variety. In fact, any one of Peter’s Grüner Veltliner crus could’ve made this list. Malat 2019 Riesling Pfaffenberg. 2019 is very successful from Michael Malat and I think they are his best wines to date, but the 2021s will be a strong follow and will surely be in the running for his “best ever,” next to the 2019s. Martin Mittelbach from Tegernseerhof. I wasn’t surprised he made the list… Tegernseerhof 2021 Steinertal Riesling Smaragd. 2021 was another extremely successful vintage across Martin Mittelbach’s entire range. As some of you know, his 2019s were a smashing success and finally the wine press gave him appropriately high marks. La Casaccia 2019 Freisa di Monferrato “Monfiorenza” is a modestly priced, joy-filled wine with massive heart, made by maybe the happiest Italian man I’ve ever met, Giovanni Rava, and his lovely family. I never thought Freisa could be so seductive and delicious! 2021 seems to be its equal as well! (Sadly, they forwent on bottling any 2020 because of market concerns due to extensive shutdown periods in Italy during Covid.) Fletcher 2019 Barbaresco Roncaglie is a new bottling for Dave, and all of his 2019 Barbaresco wines are extremely impressive. Faset and Starderi were stunners on their own, but Roncaglie ran away with it—not surprisingly, given that the fruit all came from Poderi Colla! Poderi Colla 2019 Barbaresco Roncaglie is unquestionably in the top 3 wines of the trip, possibly the top wine for me. It’s far too good for the price and will surely be one of the greatest wines we will have imported since our start in 2010. Fliederhof 2020 Santa Magdalener “Gaia” is a mega-breakthrough Schiava made with 100% whole clusters and almost no extraction. It scored extremely high on both my pleasure and seriousness meters. The young Martin Ramoser is nailing it and he’s got a few more years to go before he even crosses thirty. Problem is that we will only get 48 bottles… Andrea Picchioni in one of his Buttafuoco vineyards Picchioni 2018 Buttafuoco dell'Oltrepò Pavese “Riva Bianca” has more X-factor than the entire Marvel Universe. Our San Diego representative, Tyler Kavanaugh had cartoon eyes popping out of his head through this entire visit. Andrea Picchioni drove it home with exquisite bottles of 1999 & 2010 Riva Bianca. One day, people will realize that Picchioni is the Mega to the late Maga. RIP Lino. We were lucky to meet Lino a year before his passing. He was much sweeter than any of us expected based on the stories told. Monti Perini 2019 Bramaterra wasn’t bottled yet and possibly will not be labeled with the Bramaterra appellation because it’s in too perfect of a moment and hasn’t yet had its mandatory time in wood required by the appellation. The 2017 and 2018 may be just as good as the 2019. This trio of wines was enlightening. Sadly, Andrea lost everything to Mother Nature in both 2020 and 2021. Almost throwing in the towel, I convinced him that our industry would support him through these times. We do our best for the little guy! Davide Carlone 2019 Boca “Adele” wasn’t bottled yet, but the tastings out of botte were riveting. Some of the best wines of the trip were in this cellar. Carlone is crazy in the best way, and with Cristiano Garella advising in the cellar, he will be one of Piemonte’s best, rivaling the biggest names further south in the Langhe. Enrico Togni’s 2021 Martina Erbanno Rosato out of concrete vat. Enrico’s cellar is rustic and he flies by the seat of his pants, but what comes out of those vats seem like miracles. Special guy, special wines. This pink wine is as serious as it gets for rosé with unique character and less enological polish. Sadly, its quantities are severely limited. Wechsler 2021 Kirchspiel Riesling Kabinett, is a savagely delicious and sharp new Riesling from this multifaceted talent! Unfortunately, there are only 20 cases coming in for the entire US. Our visit with Katharina revealed so many simply delicious and very complex wines within her natural wine range, “Cloudy by Nature,” and her classical dry Riesling range. Now, we have to add her wholloping knock-out-of-the-park Kirchspiel Kabinett (and Morstein Spätlese!) as another major success. Five wines from her could’ve made this list. (I’ll let you know more about them when they are closer to our shores.) Xesteiriña 2020 Albariño, a crackling laser beam shooting from a plank of igneous and metamorphic rock, is a fabulous new project in Rías Baixas that’s going to shake it up! Again, too few bottles to be had by all. Quinta da Carolina 2021 Xis Amarelo tasted out of barrel may also be top 3 of the trip. Somehow Luis (whose day job is the winemaker for Dirk Niepoort’s still wine range since about five or six years—post Luis Seabra) is channeling some major red Burgundian juju: think Mugnier and Fourrier birthing a schist Amarelo baby from the Douro. Everything tasted out of barrel from Luis was superstar material and there could be more wines from him on the list too. Also too limited! Mateus Nicolau de Almeida’s Porto Branco. Never did I imagine a Port wine would make my top 15! Theresa and Mateus’s (pictured further above) wines channel their openness to let terroir and vintage fully speak, and this is one of the things that makes them so special. Authenticity at its peak is found inside this quirky, fun-loving duo and their deeply minerally, savory Douro wines. Being in their company made me think a little more deeply about my place in the world, and I truly believe it would do the same for anyone.

François Crochet (left) and Romain Collet (right) are two of the most talented vignerons from their regions. When we have access to the limited production of their value wines, we take everything we can. A Short Story On The Wines François Crochet's Coteaux du Giennois is no ordinary wine. It’s a special parcel on the right bank (east side) of the Loire River, just across from Sancerre and north of the Pouilly-Fumé appellation. Its soils are composed of glacial morraines littered with rounded silex rocks, rather than the jagged ones found on the southeastern area of the Sancerre appellation. What’s most unique about this vineyard site is its genetic material. With all the talk we make about geological imprints on wine, differences within the plant material can influence a wine in just as many different ways. Ancient cultivars have had a difficult road within the last century as many low-production, high-quality strains of specific grape varieties were ousted for those with a higher production than quality—a common challenge in much of the more successful European wine regions since World War II. François Crochet’s Les Perrois Sauvignon Blanc comes from a communal nursery project that began almost twenty years ago. It’s planted to Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir and Gamay, the three grapes that can legally bear the Coteaux du Giennois appellation. Within the vineyard is planted a collection of around two-hundred and fifty massal selections (well-adapted, ancient strains of a grape variety) collected by the local, well-known viticultural consultant company called, Ceps-Sicavac. The Ceps-Sicavac team, led by one of the most talented and progressive viticulturalists of our time, François Dal, worked with many vignerons in this part of the Loire Valley to isolate some of the oldest vine parcels and to observe them over a three-year period before making the selections to preserve and cultivate within Les Perrois. François Crochet preserves Les Perrois’ fresh, bright characteristics by fermenting and aging it in stainless steel for six months before bottling. Its general profile falls within the classic Sauvignon nuances of the region that includes iodine, wet stone, flint, citrus, and in 2019 a more generous helping of taut white and yellow stone fruit. Located a short twenty minute car ride toward the southwest from Chablis, and north of the Pinot Noir growing region, Irancy, is Jean Collet's Saint-Bris vineyard. Saint-Bris is a Burgundian outlier where Sauvignon Blanc and Sauvignon Gris have been the recognized and permitted grape varieties since the establishment of the AOP in 2003. While it can be somewhat routine for experienced tasters to recognize the differences between Chablis and Loire Valley Sauvignon Blanc, the differences between the latter and Saint-Bris present a greater challenge—same grape, same general geology, similar climate. Perhaps the greatest element of difference is the wealth and prosperity of Sancerrois by comparison to growers from Saint-Bris. Sadly, most of Saint-Bris is a virtual wasteland of chemical farming—not a surprising outcome for a wine that can rarely match even the price of a Petit Chablis AOC wine, even though it requires the same amount of effort to grow and produce. However, with the continuous rise in the price of Sancerre, when Romain Collet presented the opportunity for us to purchase some Saint-Bris he made from the well-run, sustainably farmed vineyard of his friend, we immediately jumped on it. Romain has developed a golden touch with white wine, so it was a no-brainer. According to Romain, Sauvignon Blanc and Sauvignon Gris were already a regular part of what is today’s Saint-Bris appellation as early as the eighteenth century; also found there was Chardonnay, Aligoté and Pinot Noir. The limestone soils are particularly poor in Saint-Bris, compared to Chablis, and they’re well suited to stifle Sauvignon Blanc’s vigorous nature, whereas Chardonnay there would struggle because of too much stress. Some years ago, I visited Saint-Bris in the early spring with Romain to better understand the appellation and to visit a friend of his who makes wine there on a very small scale. As we drove through, row after row of vines exposed the dreary farming conditions ubiquitous in the appellation—it was almost completely bare land without anything green in sight, except the vine shoots. There is at least one maker who works in organic and biodynamic culture, but few more, if even that. Romain’s grapes come from a friend’s vineyard on a north-facing slope and are farmed using sustainable methods without the use of any herbicides or pesticides. With quality in mind, Romain treats the grapes with the same respect he does with his organically farmed Chablis wines. His vineyard team picks the grapes into small 20-kilo boxes and in the cellar they start their fermentations spontaneously, and aging is done in old French oak barrels in order to round out the wines and soften the naturally striking acidity. The version of Saint-Bris at Domaine Jean Collet follows suit with the Chablis range, characterized with an increased level of suppleness, compared to what is typically found with Saint-Bris wines, so it lands stylistically closer to those grown in the upper Loire Valley. Click on links to see other wines from Jean Collet & François Crochet

Spain’s Asturian Coast Maybe I’m just imagining it because I’ve been gone for so long, but everyone here in California seems to smile more and is generally more friendly than I remember. Perhaps it’s because I’m so happy to see people out and about, or maybe it’s because I can finally see people’s mouths again! On the other hand, I am sorry to see the prices of everything climbing so much. It’s been two years since I was last in the States, and I didn’t have a personal American pandemic experience, but the changes that have come about since 2019 are incredible; I hope that the quickly rising inflation will be curbed soon and return closer to a more manageable level. We’ll see… Wine News: The good, the bad, and, well, a touch of the rest… The prices of European wines in general haven’t yet seen any unpredictable increases, aside from those caused by the freight woes that have thus far been counterbalanced by the dollar’s increased strength against the euro over the last quarter. We should also expect some shifts given the increased cost of basic materials like bottles, labels, and corks. These are only a few of the factors that might increase prices, which are proportionately negligible for expensive wines, but for wines of lower price points, the differences will be more noticeable and may push some of them up into the next tier; those $20 retail bottles might soon be $23/$24, and the $9.99s might hit $11.99. Thankfully, we’re not there yet. Prices in regions like Burgundy are always on the rise, while most others remain more stable. Burgundy has for many years suffered greatly on many fronts, what with the Côte d’Or’s hailstorms of the early 2010s, the massive heat in 2018, 2019, and 2020, followed by the terribly difficult 2021 vintage yet on another front was cold and wet, a paradise for fungus. The expectation of fresher and tighter wines with lower natural alcohol that are sometimes paler and even harder in their youth are showing signs of possible irreversible change toward a bolder style, despite the efforts of gentler handling and earlier picking. Many regions that are known and counted on for their snappy, fresh wines seem to be hanging on by a thread to their past iterations, and it’s hard to know how long they will be able to hold the line. Continental/Mediterranean climate wine regions furthest from mountains and oceans seem to be suffering the most. Eventually we will have to accept that our expectations for what was and even for what is, at this very moment, will have to shift. Some regions who in the past could barely find market-friendly ripeness in their wines are finding new success, while others seem to be experiencing a very different style of wine than in the past, or are in a concerning and heartbreaking decline. There are a couple of solutions, including the obvious dramatic change in the way humanity goes about its daily life by making the necessary adjustments to curb climate change (which in itself would be a paradoxical goal for a wine importer to fulfill). Another approach, like any other investment, is to explore a greater diversity with our wine choices in search of newly emerging talents in incredible terroirs that have been lost to the economic crisis of generations past, many of whom work toward the goal of environmental preservation. Anyone who has followed us for a while knows that we’ve greatly expanded our European foothold. Our adventures have led us to a wider range of wines outside of France (our traditionally strongest country) and further into Spain, Portugal, Italy, with a dab here and there in Germany and Austria. Wines from the latter three countries were long supplied to us by other importers, whereas today we import them all directly ourselves. New Terroir Map – Trás-os-Montes, Portugal I’m holding onto many geological maps that we’ve finished so we can release them as nice support material for the arrival of new wines from those regions, and this month we have one for our releases from Trás-os-Montes, in the far northeastern region of Portugal. It’s a remote place near the border of Spain to the north and east with gorgeous earth colors from orange to red to even yellow earth, a rainbow of wild shrubs, and a vast open blue or star-pocked sky, framed by rugged and severely-eroded mountains that are now big hills and short mountains, at best, but are thought to have once been as tall as today’s Himalayas. This is an agricultural land with a massive output of olive oil, grapes, vegetables, fruit trees, and animal products. For our growers there, Menina d’uva and Arribas Wine Company, it’s a land endowed with a natural talent for wine from ancient, indigenous vines that often have dozens of names for the same grape variety. It’s a colorful map because this is a land of great geological variety in a very arid landscape. Enjoy it and read further into this newsletter for more about wines arriving this month from our producers in this region. The Best News: Containers are arriving now! Some of our long-awaited new producers are finally touching down after the first batch of enormously delayed containers, along with some wines that are nearly a couple of years late. A few orders on this boat were dispatched more than six months ago! Last month it was Italian arrivals, this month they’re all from France, Germany, Spain, and Portugal. France is the slowest of all countries door-to-door, and our container from France was launched almost two months before the Iberian container, and they’re landing at the same time. Crazy days... Portugal I know of no other producers in the wine world with a greater commitment to finding extraordinary terroirs in the middle of nowhere than our two from Trás-os-Montes: Arribas Wine Company and Menina d’uva. Most winemakers want at least a little contact with inspired restaurant cooking and access to a good market. Here, there is nothing of the sort for hours by car, and these two are even separated by a forty minute drive, even though they rely on each other when they need to borrow winery equipment and materials. I tip my hat to their pursuit, funded solely by their own pocketbooks and a sincere desire to make something special in the isolation of what appears to be a dying wine region. Menina d'uva's "Ciste" Menina d’uva The new arrivals from French transplant with Portuguese heritage, Aline Domigues, under her Menina d’uva label are the same three cuvées that blitzed through our wholesale channels last year. Her white wine, Líquen, is deeply textured (a classic white profile from the top to the bottom of this country) raised in stainless steel and mostly composed of Malvasia, along with a field blend of ancient varieties grown on her area’s mix of metamorphic rocks—various slates, schists and gneiss. Líquen’s characteristic aromas evoke the sense of highland grasslands with dried flora, rock outcroppings, and open blue skies. It’s overtly savory, which makes it ideal for food; in fact, it’s kinda like food, with its attractive aromas of dried pasta, bread dough, and dried herbs and grasses. The fruit is in the white-flesh spectrum, with pear, apple and cherimoya. Texturally, Líquen is a mouthful despite no intentional skin contact outside of a gentle crush by foot prior to pressing. The high amplitude metal and mineral sensations in its youth are palate staining and resonate with a streak of fresh acidity down the center and back into the throat. The finish is lengthy and activates all points on the palate, from the front, sides, middle, and back. Overall, it’s an extremely pleasant wine and its freshness is a welcome surprise from this region known for its weighty, less interesting, white wines. Aline holding a ciste, the image used for her Ciste label. The first red-colored wine in Aline’s range, Ciste, is a mixture of 70% Bastardo Preta (Trousseau, in France and Brancellao in Spain, among its many other names) and Negreda (known in Spain as Mouratón, Tinta Gorda, and Juan Garcia), and 30% white, with Malvasia, Bastardo Branco, Formosa, and others in minuscule amounts. Here in the two villages of these vineyards, Junqueira and Matela, the soil is more clay-rich and alluvial, which makes for a supple wine despite its high aromatic lift, fabulous textures, and unexpected palate weight—it looks like a lightweight but feels like a middleweight. The grapes are completely whole bunch and co-fermented for only four days and aged in stainless steel. The short time on skins is intended to achieve good fruit and floral extraction without digging too far before carbonic characteristics overwhelm the wine. Aline wants to keep this one truer to the expression of the place without using fermentation techniques that push too much fruit and fermentative aromas to the forefront. The first vintage, 2018, was lights-out delicious. The following vintage was the same, and this year should be even better. In its youth, it’s aromatically effusive and bright, and carries the scents of this arid countryside and its moorland brush and sweet, poppy-like aromas. The fruit characteristics are concentrated around reds, oranges and yellows—think wild and snappy-to-the-tooth cherries, pomegranate, and the bright flavor of early fall Fuyu persimmons. Menina d’uva's vineyard that produces her wine, Ciste. Menina d’Uva’s Palomba is made of 90% Negreda, a vine known to produce big, juicy, dark-colored berries but with surprisingly very little tannin. It’s mixed with other red grapes few outside or even inside of Portugal have heard of, like Uva de Rei, Moscatel Preta, Moscatel Roxo, among others. It comes from five different plots located in the villages of Uva, Mora and Vale de Algoso, and is grown on a mixture of schist and quartz scattered about on the surface of the vineyards. However, a walk through many of the plots revealed stone walls made with gneiss, slate, and schist—a clear indicator that it’s not so easy to say precisely what the bedrock is underfoot in the area, even in small parcels. In the cellar, Palomba was about one-third destemmed by hand, the fermentation lasted for two weeks and was gently extracted throughout by foot. Negreda has a tendency for taking on reductive characteristics and often needs more time in the bottle before it’s time to dig in. Aline’s wine, Ciste, by contrast, is off to the races upon opening. The pressure points within Aline’s wines are deep and fully mouth filling while remaining ethereal and tense. Both red wines mirror their maker and are filled with generosity, joy, calm, energy, and subtle wit. Arribas Wine Company The guys over at Arribas Wine Company, Ricardo Alves and Frederico Machado, continue their reclamation project in the far eastern edge of Trás-os-Montes, always within sight of the Douro River and the Spanish border. Never have I seen two people so committed in mind, body, soul, blood, sweat and youth, to their massive project to protect what remains of this landscape and its more than fifty indigenous grape varieties (and counting!) from big-business wine companies. All their wines are co-fermented field blends from dozens of parcels with so many geologically different spots (mostly igneous rocks and to a lesser degree, metamorphic) along the Douro River where a short length of river acts as the physical northeastern border between Spain and Portugal. Arribas Wine Company parcels scattered below with the Douro River in view. These guys don’t know the proportion of grape varieties that make up their wines because it’s simply impossible to ascertain, but there are few blended grape wines in the world with such terroir distinction as theirs. These wines taste and feel of the summer sun and its freezing summer nights that can swing more than 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Some wines are bright red and with 11.5% alcohol, like the seventy cases produced of Quilómetro; others are inky black and animal but with 12% alcohol and raging freshness, like Raiola, with just over a hundred cases made. Their starting red, Saroto Tinto, is a perfect balance of high and low tones—the result of more than fifty different ancient, indigenous, old-vine varieties farmed in different plots picked together and forged into one masterful and profoundly complex wine that should fall within any curious wine drinker’s budget. The reds of Arribas are tremendous, and while Quilómetro and Raiola are spendy, they are well worth it for the experience. Drone selfie taken in the Trás-os-Montes Arribas Wine Company has new additions arriving on this boat for which I had to push their buttons to increase our allocation: Saroto Branco and Saroto Rosé wines. This dizzying duo is extremely low production—considerably smaller than the already limited Saroto Tinto—with loads of familiar, beautiful nuances, and with characteristics that may be a first for many, even those with a lot of experience with Portuguese wine. Like the rest, both are field blends of uncountable grape varieties and made in a very simple way using a mix of barrel and concrete aging. Interestingly, the rosé is an equal blend of red and white grapes. It’s easy to see that neither of these Saroto wines are fined or filtered, and they represent extremely well made natty (not nasty!) wines. Given the overwhelming demand for orange wines (Saroto white is really an orange wine) and the drastic limit on the rosé, these wines will evaporate quickly, so reach out as soon as possible if you are interested. Spain Manuel Moldes Things would be a lot easier with Manuel Moldes’ wines if we could buy them by the container. The reality is that we can’t, and what we do get disappears in a flash—which is only fun if you're fast on the draw. We cut our teeth some years ago with a good Albariño producer in the south of Rías Baixas, in the subzone of Contado de Tea, just across the Miño River from Portugal’s most renowned subzone of Vinho Verde, Monção e Melgaço. Salnés, home to Manuel’s Albariños, is ground zero for the top wines and producers in the entire region. Most vineyards are within sight of the Atlantic, and its regulating effect and generally cold temperatures supercharge its Albariños with high acidity levels rarely equaled in still white wine, the world over. Manuel (whose friends and family call him Chicho—same nickname for his father and older brother…) is not just a fortunate producer who benefits from the magnificent terroirs of Salnés, he’s also widely considered one of its very best, along with wineries like Albamar, Nanclares, Zárate, and, perhaps most of all (at least for me), Forjas del Salnes’ Leirana wines, a collaboration of the Spanish luminaries Raúl Pérez and Rodrigo Mendes. Manuel’s white wine range is a sure thing, and 2019 is a perfectly-suited vintage for his style: intense mineral, zippy freshness, citrus for days, and gobs of subtle complexities. The first Albariño in his range, 2019 Afelio, comes from a collection of different parcels (more than twenty) mostly grown on granite soils and a smidge of the rare and prized vineyards grown on schist. It’s aged in a mix of tanks and neutral French oak barrels. For those of you who know Arnaud Lambert’s gorgeous Saumur Chenin Blanc, Clos du Midi, from Brézé, this is a solid answer to it from Rías Baixas. It’s simply far too good for its price, and its limited quantity makes it hard to spread around too far. Coming from a very rare bedrock and topsoil composition of severely decomposed schist, 2019 A Capela de Aios is serious business. In contrast to Afelio and its quasi-Clos du Midi characteristics floating high in the ether, this wine has substance that could easily be compared to other Chenin Blancs we work with from Patrick Baudouin, in France’s Anjou, an area with many vineyards on the same rock type developed during the same series of geological events that took place around three-hundred million years ago: the Variscan orogeny. This wine is aged solely in old 500-liter French oak barrels for a year or so before bottling in order to sculpt its powerful body and dynamic power. Even more limited than Afelio, it’s simply a must for anyone seriously into dry Riesling, Chenin Blanc, Chablis, and the Savoie’s ripper, Jacquère. A mighty wine with seriously fine trim. Last in the range of Manuel’s Albariños is the 2019 As Dunas, perhaps the newest and most important unicorn in the world of serious white wine. Manuel, Raúl Pérez and Rodrigo Mendes discovered this small collection of vineyards grown on extremely fine-grained beach sand derived from schist, in the far south of Salnés, overlooking the Ría de Pontevedra and the Atlantic. With an almost entirely new and exciting face of Albariño, these three winegrowers are splitting the parcels and bottling them under each of their own labels. Its combination of fine schist sand and the open face to Atlantic winds renders an Albariño with extremely refined nuances of citrus and slightly golden-brown sweet spices, and an explosive pallet supercharged by acidic freshness and deep salinity. As Dunas, translated as the dunes, is as rare as it is special. With only 120 bottles of this wine imported for the entire US, there simply won’t be enough to go around. Manuel and the As Dunas sands Manuel’s red 2018 Acios Mouros comes from Rías Baixas and is composed of 60% Caiño Redondo, 20% Espadeiro, and 20% Loureiro Tinto. The first two of these grapes have more acid than tannin and bright aromatics, while the latter is darker with an equally high level of matching tannin and acidity. In Rías Baixas and Northern Portugal’s Monção e Melgaço, red wine historically had a majority share of vineyard land, whereas today it’s the opposite. Red wines of Rías Baixas are often terribly acidic and intense with bright aromas, but there are those that manage to wrangle what may have been beasts in another cellar into something more pleasant, aromatically addicting and much more inviting—while still maintaining the vigorous energy of a white wine. Grown on a mixture of granite and schist bedrock, many of the vines are ancient, with some of them on pre-phylloxera rootstocks that are as old as two hundred years. The average age of vines is around fifty, which helps curb what may be excessive energy from the youngest of them. The old and ancient vines also impart a richer mid-palate with sappier fruit—both welcome flesh enhancers for this otherwise straight-shooting red that feels every bit as much a white, save the tannins, red and black fruits, and earthy savory notes accentuated with nuances of bay leaf and spice. 2018 was a much warmer vintage than the surrounding years, which makes this year’s Acios Mouros a standout from any iteration bottled before it. It’s special and as rare as the others in Manuel’s range. Salnés subzone of Spain's Rías Baixas A long-time friendly connection with Bierzo producer José Antonio Garcia resulted in the creation of Lentura, a complete outlier in Manuel’s lineup. In this land known for its rustic, heavy wines, 2019 Lentura is a Bierzo wine led by vibrant natural tension and freshness, red and black fruits, pointed mineral textures, and medium-to-low-weight alcohol compared to most of the wines made in this region. Alcohol and power are easy to achieve in Bierzo; it’s finding balanced elegance that presents the much greater challenge. A little more than three hours toward the east from Rías Baixas, the climate in Bierzo is extreme with a much more continental/Mediterranean influence and very little influence from the Atlantic. The summer days can be as hot as 45°C (113°F) while the nights can drop to 15°C (59°F), making for one of the most extreme diurnal summertime shifts in the entire world of wine. During winter it often reaches temperatures as low as -8°C (18°F), or maybe even colder. Bierzo also claims the distinction of the oldest average vine age within Spain, and quite possibly all of Europe. The mix for the 2019 Lentura is 70% Mencia and 30% Alicante Buschet (the 2018 was 60% Alicante Buschet and 40% Mencia), making for a more elegant version than last year’s Lentura, which was already a delicious, fuller-bodied wine. Its altitude and geologic setting are as broad as its diurnal shift. On the valley floor at an altitude of 300 meters, the vines are grown on clay, sand and large cobbles, while high up on the hills toward the west, the altitude can exceed 1000 meters and is grown on pizarra (slate) bedrock and topsoil. Manuel’s Bierzo is rendered from vines with an average age of seventy years and comes from both the valley floor and high up on the slate hillside. In the cellar it is fermented with 20% whole bunches for five to seven days, followed by aging in an equal balance of stainless steel and old, 300-liter barrels. Manuel really hit the mark in 2019, making this his best yet. Germany Wasenhaus vineyards for Am Kreuz wines, official vineyard name: Staufener Rotemberg. Wasenhaus The much-anticipated new vintage from Wasenhaus is finally arriving! There are a half dozen or more new cuvées added to our roster this year and the problem is that the quantities are so minuscule that it will be hard to satisfy the demand. Despite their obviously superb and game-changing quality, I am so surprised by how well these wines have been received by the market; who would’ve thought that German Spätburgunder and Weissburgunder have become some of the most coveted wines in our entire portfolio? Apologies in advance that we won’t be able to satisfy all requests. For those of you who will acquire some, enjoy this glimpse into the bright future of non-Riesling German wines. There’s a video on our website of Alex Götze taking us through their entire range. Don’t miss it! The boys of Wasenhaus, Alex Götze (left) and Christoph Wolber (right). Weingut Wechsler In recent years, there haven’t been many more exciting new arrivals to our collection than Katharina Wechsler, a superstar-in-the-making German Riesling producer with ridiculous vineyard holdings in the epicenter for dry German Riesling, Rheinhessen’s Westhofen and Flörsheim-Dalsheim. This organic (certified since 2021 vintage) and biodynamic winegrower is the owner of enviable holdings of the vineyard, Kirchspiel, and a small chunk of perhaps the most coveted of all, Morstein. With not only Riesling in play, Katharina loves concocting wines that range from pure pleasure and fun, like Sexy MF, her Pinot Noir rosé that is too delicious to be true, her savory orange wines, to her classically-styled dry wines, like the knockout Scheurebe Trocken, also arriving on this container. However, the most important wine arriving this month (the big cru wines will come on the next container) is her entry-level Riesling Trocken. It will give any of Germany’s top entry-level dry Rieslings a run for the money, but highlights the lifted and elegant exotic characteristics of Riesling only found in this part of the world. There’s a good first batch of it, but we expect it to quickly disappear. Everyone at The Source is happy to finally have German Riesling as a part of our portfolio once again, and we’re so lucky it’s this one! Two of Wechsler’s famous German Riesling crus, Kirchspiel on the left and Morstein on the right. France Rodolphe Demougeot Rodolphe Demougeot’s 2018s and 2019s have both arrived on our French container, and a double-up of Burgundy vintages on the same shipment has never happened for us before (Duband’s incoming wines will repeat the phenomenon!), but we have no choice if we want to get back on track with the normal release schedule and without missing anything. Demougeot’s wines are extremely reliable—dare I say it, predictable, in the best possible ways: overall quality, very measured bandwidth, and no extremes. He has committed to organic farming since the early 2000s and shortly after that his interest leaned toward a sleeker wine profile. This is great news for his 2018 reds, which don’t follow the vintage’s trend of heavier weight. All the wines remain aromatic, with ripeness kept in check and a much higher degree of fresher fruits than can be found throughout much of the Côte d’Or in 2018. 2019 red Burgundy is also a fuller year with perhaps a touch of redder fruit in the mix with the dominant darker fruit notes. The vintage is touted yet another great, but it’s very early to know how great it might just be. In any case, there is plenty of freshness to be found with Demougeot’s wines (as with Duband’s 2019s) and we feel fortunate to have Demougeot on our team; he fits in perfectly. Inside Pommard's Grande Combe, Les Vignots sits on the upper slope in the middle of the picture and the premier crus, La Chanière and Les Arvelets, lower on the slope and in the foreground. Domaine Chardigny Despite their very successful first vintage in 2016, the movement in overall quality of the wines crafted by the brotherhood at Domaine Chardigny has known only one direction: up. Initially, Pierre-Maxime and Victor Chardigny took the reins from their father, Jean-Michel, a French cartoon-character-of-a-man, with his exaggerated French accent, sweetness, accommodating nature and perennial smile. Then the middle brother, Jean-Baptiste, who spent quite a few years as the vineyard manager for Joseph Leflaive’s biodynamic Mâconnais domaine after he finished enology school, finally rejoined the ensemble of this joy-filled family. The quality from the Chardigny boys in the 2019 and 2020 vintages is a notably different level than their first three vintages, 2016-2018, which is partly due to the better balance of these seasons compared to the previous ones, but even more so to their rapid development as winegrowers. Despite the rise in quality of their Beaujolais wines, it’s Chardigny’s white Burgundies that have made the greatest strides. We have taken a stronger position with their Saint-Véran “Vieille Vignes” (from 50-year-old vines) and Saint-Véran “Bois de Fée”, named after the hill itself, facing directly south toward Beaujolais and on the other side with Saint-Amour and Juliénas in view. It’s right at the divergent point of the acidic igneous and metamorphic rocks of France’s ancient Massif Centrale and the limestone and clay that begins precisely at the bottom of Bois de Fée and moves north into Burgundy. What was missing in the past—the complete package from bright fresh notes balanced with the charm and roundness of good white Burgundy—has come into full view with these two. While Côte d’Or whites continue to vault further out of reach for those of us on a wine budget (yes, I too stick to a “realistic” budget despite my fortunate access), these wines raised for a year in 500-liter to 228-liter oak barrels are even more valuable to Chardonnay seekers with a great appreciation for Old World wine. Victor Chardigny thiefing their 2020 Saint-Amour À la Folie 2019 Beaujolais is a wonderful vintage reminiscent of the early 2010s. The fruit is redder and the wines less sun-drenched than 2015, 2017 and 2018. There are certainly many successes to be had between 2017 and 2018, but we are happy to see this more familiar face of Beaujolais once again. Chardigny’s 2019 Saint-Amour Clos du Chapitre continues to dazzle with its trim figure and subtler notes than its counterpart, the 2019 Saint-Amour À la Folie. À la Folie has won over so many with its unabashed, bodacious curves, middleweight texture and big but trim flavor. It was always the greater potential production between these two Saint-Amour crus and was the one they ran most of their experiments on with different aging vessels between concrete, stainless steel, foudre, and small oak barrels (called fûts de chêne, or simply fût, in Burgundy). In 2020, the boys—they all always have such boyish charm, just like their father—really figured this wine out. Tasted out of barrel with Victor and Pierre-Maxime this summer, the 2020 Saint-Amour “À la Folie” was stunning. I asked to taste more barrels to see if it was only the first that was so glorious, and all were the same emotionally invigorating experience. More precise and gorgeous than ever before, all the barrels felt more like Burgundy than Beaujolais! There is a new bottling from the Chardignys that we will begin to import with the 2020 vintage labelled Beaujolais-Leynes, named after their hometown. It’s a Beaujolais-Village appellation wine sourced from vineyards at the previously mentioned geological convergence between Beaujolais and Mâconnais. It’s made entirely with carbonic fermentation with 100% whole clusters in concrete and stainless steel with almost no intervention over its two-week fermentation. Given the shortage of fabulous Beaujolais at affordable price points, we’re bringing in more of this wine to try to fill some of the massive demand. It will easily fall into the right range for many restaurant by-the-glass programs and should hit wine retail shelves at only a hair over $20. For organically certified Beaujolais from a small domaine, that’s a steal. You’ll see…

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.