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(Download complete pdf here) The world calls those from Galicia, Galicians. The Spanish call them Gallegos. They call themselves Galegos. Fazenda, a name associated with the Portuguese and Galego languages is rooted in the Latin faciendus, and parallels the Spanish hacienda, a term that today implies an agricultural homestead, or farm. Both names are extensions of their respective verbs for “to do”: hacer in Spanish; fazer in Portuguese; facer in Galego. Our focus this month is on two of our top Galego growers and they happen to be close friends, former teammates in Spain’s professional league futbol, and fazenda owners: Xabi Soeanes’ Fazenda Prádio is from the far western end of Ribeira Sacra’s Chantada subzone. A windy hour-long drive further west along the steep and rocky Miño River gorge, across the former Roman settlement, Ourense, in the softer-sloped Ribeiro is Iago Garrido and his Fazenda Augalevada. The two share the same organizational mentality, intense work ethic, and regional identity, but their wines are stylistically worlds apart and connected only through the similarities of their Galician terroirs and culture. Sometimes wines reflect their maker’s physical stature and personality. Xabi’s are robust, powerful, and muscular. They’re also just fun, like the guy, though Xabi is a hungry pirate until he’s had dinner, his first and last meal of the day; he’s fully committed to extreme intermittent fasting. Iago’s wines, on the other hand, are more slender, horizontal, wiry, compact, deeply contemplative and contain their own unique, Neil Gaimanesque fantasy world. Both focus on indigenous varieties, though Xabi is trying to move away from Mencía, the hard-to-quit cash cow he’s famous for, in favor of more historical local varieties. (Mencía is not believed to be indigenous to Ribeira Sacra but was brought in from Castille y León due to its uniformity, higher yields, and higher consistency compared to most indigenous grapes.) Xabi and Iago Challenging vintages are full of surprises and are usually good ones with intuitive growers. Understanding the details about a vintage is helpful to better understand why things turn out the way they do, but measuring sticks are less important for those of us who like different shades from the same terroir. Critics often give too much credence to vintage conditions early on when establishing their point scores, and while they’re sometimes not too far off, they can be overly cautious with those that don’t check their ascribed weather-condition boxes for greatness. (And in some regions like Burgundy they often don’t break from terroir hierarchy, even if a wine from a lesser terroir is better crafted than one with a higher assumed pedigree.) If the terroir has a strong character, it may show even better in challenging vintages than the supposedly universally “balanced” ones. But isn’t balance subjective? Indeed, there’s no room for subjectivity with a person balancing on a highwire, but with wine there is, and it seems to be more than ever. Our perfect isn’t everyone else’s. One may believe that Italian espresso is unparalleled in average quality (even Italy’s Autogrill freeway stops offer legitimate coffee), but it’s not everyone’s favorite. Each vintage has its own balance regardless of whether it fits our idea of what that means. With a cold spring and summer and a long dry spell before a rain-plagued harvest, Galicia’s 2021 season fit the bill as a challenging one. (Though what year in Galicia hasn’t been?) 2021 once again tested the already hard-working Galicians who habitually lose more crops than most regions, courtesy of constant mildew pressure. It was a cooler year, and it was drier. But when harvest arrived, the fast-moving Atlantic systems moved in and rain darkened the skies and the spirits of the growers. Galicia has come a long way over the last decade, having gained valuable experience in rising to their typical challenges. Some remain unsure about their results, but many are quite good. At the early stages of their evolution, the wines seem generally fresh and fluid, with a welcome touch of austerity. Northwestern Iberian wines are often slightly lower in alcohol than the average, and the overall style of the 2021s seems, at least at this moment, tighter and less exuberant on fruit than in recent years—not a troubling characteristic in an ever-increasing alcohol and fruit-heavy wine world. From our growers, the wines are a little tighter and more focused: qualities we seek. Xabi Soeanes’ vineyards were planted in 2000 by his father, Manuel, on a carved-out, steep hillside of schist and granite. Eventually, Xabi grafted some Mencía vines (which initially covered the entirety of their vineyards) to the indigenous varieties Caíño Longo, Brancellao, Merenzao, and Espadeiro, though the latter is not allowed in Ribeira Sacra D.O. wines. He used to make single-variety wines but because the historical way of making them here involved blends, he came to believe that the sum of multiple parts makes a more complete wine. It’s lovely to taste all the grapes vinified and aged separately in the cellar, and I can’t help but push him with my mono-varietal mind (which is changing…) to bottle some separately, but he’s right: combinations are more complex, and when properly unified they produce dynamic wines with strength and the right amount of lift and tension in all directions, with few gaps in fluidity. Fazenda Prádio Prádio’s 2021 Mencía is vinified and aged similarly to Pacio but it’s entirely Mencía. It’s uncommon to find Mencía planted west of Ribeira Sacra, and Prádio’s is one of the furthest west in his appellation. His vineyards are inside Ribeira Sacra’s subzone, Chantada, one of the most Atlantically influenced of the region’s five subzones. Mencía is not gifted with high natural acidity, so the stronger Atlantic influence helps maintain freshness. It’s darker and more profoundly textured and mineral than most Mencía wines, which is also influenced by the shallow topsoil on hard bedrock. While other top wineries in Ribeira Sacra bottle wines from grapes grown throughout the appellation, Prádio has one large vineyard of contiguous parcels with a multitude of southerly exposures. The 2021 Pacio Tinto is the blend of Xabi’s best barrels. The grapes are fully destemmed, kept separate and ferment naturally over 7-10 days in granite lagars (shallow and wide rock vats, like a kiddie pool). The wine, composed of a blend of Caíño Longo and Brancellao, is only free-run wine prior to pressing and it’s aged in older 500L French oak barrels for about a year. Normally Pacio has Merenzao in it too, but Xabi wasn’t satisfied with the results in order to include it in the 2021 Pacio. It’s a pity because Merenzao, known as Trousseau in France, is aromatic and delicate and adds more lifted fruit and floral elements; it’s always vying for everyone’s top pick during the barrel tastings. 2021 appears to be a massive success. It’s strong on all points, with a profound depth in texture to an expansive range of floral, fruit and herbal aromas tied together with a marine-like iodine saltiness and wet green-forest freshness. In 2014, Iago Garrido buried an amphora filled with Treixadura in his newly replanted biodynamically farmed granite vineyard inside Ribeiro’s Avia River Valley. Initially convinced he made a mistake with the discovery of a flor yeast veil, he later realized this errant shot actually hit a vein of gold that went on to define the direction of his wines. And while Prádio’s wines are equally compelling, they are more straightforward than Iago’s off-the-grid, fully liberated wines that need a more thorough examination (and explanation, if even possible). Iago continues the quest for his uniquely undefined and mysterious holy grail. In a constant state of experimentation, his wines meander off the normal path in search of their identity and voice only to return to form in time for bottling, or sometimes a year or so later. Some tastings with Iago out of his amphoras and old oak barrels (now with some ancient sherry barrels in the mix along with the large old French casks) are of the most authentic and emotionally stirring I’ve had out of vat. Each wine presents a winding and limitless narrative of its season’s idiosyncrasies and the grapes’ year-long journey of alchemy under the veil of flor, gently guided by his nose and hands in his frosty, toe-numbing cellar. From purchased grapes in rented vineyards that Iago works himself along with those of trusted organic farmers, Iago’s Mercenario range remains his main testing ground. This season we find the experiments bottled under a single white and red. (What doesn’t make the cut often ends up in a proprietary blend for some of his restaurant clients.) The 2021s strike me as a return to the 2018 vintage in style, though the vintages are quite different. They are eccentric but engaging—even though the 2018 Albariño from Salnés was lightning-bolt extreme, it was also as pure as spring water. The 2021 Mercenario Blanco’s extensive complexity is thanks to a combination of young and old Treixadura, Albariño and Godello vines scattered through many microclimates in the unofficial Ribeiro subzones of Arnoia, Avia, and Miño. Grown at altitudes of 100-300 meters on a multitude of aspects with a geological diversity that includes igneous (granite, granodiorite) and metamorphic (gneiss, schist, slate) bedrock with shallow to deep sand and clay topsoil, the result is wine with great depth. In the cellar, it was cleverly fermented in steel at very low temperatures to encourage a greater presence of fruit in what are often extremely savory and overly mineral-led wines; in Galicia, it’s possible to be over the top on mineral and metal notes. Its cellar aging after fermentation lasted ten months partially under the naturally developing flor, split between amphora and 500-600l old French oak barrels. Tasted in late September, this Ribeiro white led with lightly oxidative citrus and yellow apple notes that quickly freshen up in minutes to pure white flesh of green pear and green apple. The flor was present but not dominant, and it was a rollercoaster of finely etched nuances inside explosive framing. Other micro nuances present were white grass, cherimoya, preserved lemon, orange zest, melon, and sweet celery (a classic Treixadura note). This wine was a journey and would be perfect with salads, seafood, and fish. I had the 2020 Ollos de Roque over the last month, once at home and again in Santiago de Compostela’s back-alley speakeasy restaurant, Pampin. (Make sure to have the anchovy toast!) With living wines, every bottle has its own distinct life. Upon opening, the first bottle at home was aromatically snug while the second at Pampin came out hot as fireworks. They were both vivacious curiosity magnets with the first a little backward initially but with a dreamy and seductive reductive/mineral aroma that eventually fell in line with the extremely extroverted second bottle when it had more time open. Stationed in my fridge for days with periodic visits, it was bulletproof, always on point after the first twenty minutes open, and forever positively evolving. The Pampin bottle was an immediate supernova and didn’t let up. Consequently, we finished it before our first course was over. Ollos de Roque comes from Iago’s estate vineyard and is the sole biodynamic wine in his organic range, though there are some gifted terroirs he keeps even if he hasn’t yet convinced the growers to fully commit to organic ways. Its Christopher Nolanesque evolution is finely detailed and musical storytelling: liquid Inception and Oppenheimer. (I don’t think I blinked more than a few times or felt I was in my body for more than a few seconds over the three epic hours of Oppenheimer.) Both unveiled notes of flor yeast, yogurt and a pizzicato of mineral, metal, white fruits and Treixadura sweet celery hearts. Originally planted entirely to Treixadura in 2008, he grafted and replanted some vines to Lado and Agudelo (Chenin Blanc). Treixadura is a low acid variety but it captures the gentleness of Ribeiro’s verdant pastoral setting, while Lado and Agudelo are the wine’s livewire current and cross-eyed citrus bombs. The bedrock and topsoil here are entirely granite/granodiorite on south-southeast facing terraces at 205-245 meters. (Check out our regional geology maps, including the Ribeiro map, to learn more about the differences between these rock types on page 3 of the map download.) In the cellar, it’s fermented at very low temperatures and aged for ten months in one-third 400l amphora and two-thirds in old 330-600l French oak barrels and an ancient 500l Jerez American oak barrel. The 2021 Crianza Biolóxica is intense and densely phenolic—perfect for hearty and very flavorful food. Made from Salnés Valley Albariño purchased from winegrower, Xurxo Alba (the generous superstar owner and winegrower of Rías Baixas bodega, Albamar), grown on granite soils at nearly sea level next to the Atlantic, it’s completely under flor for ten months in old 600l French oak and 500l Jerez American oak barrels. (Unfortunately, Iago lost the “flor mother” to a cellar flood this year.) Over the first hour, the juxtaposition of the Jerez barrel’s olfactory patina and the granitic Albariño picked early compels a double take after each sniff and sip. Like a Champagne base wine, it’s incredibly minerally, salty, austere, powerful, and salivation-inducing. We have so few bottles to offer with only five cases imported to the US, but they are a completely unique experience and it’s worth seeking a bottle or two. The 2018 Mercenario Tinto is a gloriously fine and uniquely harmonic wine. It was, and remains, so close to a Pierre Overnoy Poulsard-style wine (granted the Galician terroir is about as different as you can get from the Jura in geology and culture, and Overnoy is indeed one of a kind, though not an untouchable reference point). I bought numerous cases and have nursed these dainty, minerally, 11% alcohol reds heavy on x-factor since their release four years ago and it remains one of the most consistently thrilling wines I frequent. The 2019, 2020 and 2021 reds had more extensive experimentation with stem inclusion, and they departed from the more filigree, fruitier style of the 2018 into darker wines (but still relatively light hues for reds) with a longer awkward stage after bottling. After tasting the 2020 in barrel, we spoke about stems and their amplification of savory notes in this more Atlantic-influenced area of Galicia, which risks leaving them with even less fruit for wines that are not fruity to begin with, unless they’re intentionally fruity as a result of cellar techniques. Red wines made in a region that naturally lead with big rocky, metal, mineral notes, make finding the balance tricky. And if one wants to break out the mineral measuring stick, be prepared to be humbled by Galician reds. While many regions try to curb the overt fruitiness of their wines, Galicians need to work to preserve it. (Perhaps the exception may be the non-indigenous and most famous red grape of the region, Mencía.) One key to Galicia’s success with red wine in the global market may be to encourage a greater presence of fruit in their densely mineral and sometimes screechingly acidic wines. Indeed, earlier in this newsletter I mentioned the subjectivity of balance, but these Galician red wines can be extreme in mineral and metal characteristics and very spare on fruit. They are not for everyone, and even some wine geeks have been slow to take up the challenge. A bottle of 2021 Mercenario Tinto opened in September growled and sneered at first. Reductive elements and animal notes put up an aromatic fight, but with time open they released their grip on the fruits and flowers. A second bottle opened only a few days before we published this newsletter, was softer from the start and more open. The knowledge gained from the 2019 and 2020 stem experiments brought greater integration of the full stem maceration of 2021, and perhaps built in what he thought to be missing in the 2018. The 2021 is not as a pure as the 2018, but it’s in the same line of elegance. Iago still finds my enthusiasm for the 2018 amusing, or perhaps an attempt at flattery. Or maybe after all this time of experimenting and progressing he’s annoyed that I continue to remind him that he nailed it in 2018. Perhaps he finds the 2018 too simple or it’s hard for him to believe that he did something so special so early in his career, something that wasn’t the sort of direction-defining accident that burying the amphora in his vineyard was, developing the flor that’s now known to be the Ollos de Roque prototype. But the simplicity of the 2018 hit the mark, even if I don’t believe it’s a simple wine. I think it was Iago’s second vein of gold, and after sharing more than thirty bottles with my wife it remains one of my most consistently compelling red wine experiences out of Iberia. There are moments when this whole cluster, 35-day fermentation blend of Caiño Longo, Brancellao, Espadeiro and Sousón aged for ten months in amphora and old French oak drops you into the ancient Variscan Mountains, the same geological structure of granite and schist formed some 300 million years ago found in some western European wine regions. The first bottle had moments where it seemed to be Côte-Rôtie from a cold vintage and without new wood, or a jump to high-altitude Beaujolais on granite. The second was like a light Santa Barbara County Pinot Noir from the 90s with that barnyard appeal and charm but the pointed palate textures of the Ribeiro and immediate appeal. Both were compelling and alive but like so many of the world’s most interesting wines, it needs time.

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.

Newsletter December 2025 A dream front entrance in Navelli, Abruzzo There are very few years in my life that I’ve anticipated as much as 2026. Like many of you, I felt constant recurring moments of being blindsided, body-checked, steamrolled, pick-pocketed by Uncle Sam, whiplashed and emotionally dragged behind a car in 2025. I’m glad the year is coming to a close. But strangely, and hopefully like you, I’m feeling some unexpected tailwinds and am excited by what’s on the horizon in 2026. Come May, I’ll be fifty, and I plan to be in the best shape (physically and mentally) of my life by my birthday. Yes, I’m a Gemini, and as they say, it’ll be my annual Week of Freedom. We have a pile of wines arriving in December. But due to our company’s 30-day no-sample policy after shipment, to allow the wines to regain their footing before we show them, they’ll all start to flow out in January, February and March instead. It’s going to be a lot, and we’ll need the time to get it all out properly. As a reminder, here’s what was shared last month that will be available in January: We expect the 2023s from David Duband, Les Infiltrés third vintage, Christophe’s 2023 1er Crus, a pile of Lambert, and a new grower for our California sales team, the “natural” wine world’s quietly legendary low-alcohol, Languedoc grower, Thierry Forestier, and his Domaine Mont de Marie. Landing in New York from Portugal is a touch more of the immediately legendary (as of last month’s California tastings and the inaugural release of the wines) San Michel and its Colares and Sintra-based wines, Menina d’Uva’s fluttering and charming Trás-os-Montes wines, and Constantino Ramos’s Lima Valley Loureiro (already in massive demand for the temporarily short supply). From Spain, the Augalevada 2023s, Manuel Moldes, Pablo Soldavini, Aseginolaza & Leunda, Michelini y Muffato Bierzos, Mixtura’s 2021 reds and whites (wait till you get a load of these!). Also en route is Prádio’s game-changing 2022 vintage and name-changing project for their Mencía and Pacio red, now called Familia Seoane Novelle—a slightly more challenging name than Prádio, which he was forced to change to avoid a lawsuit. Then comes the new organic Atlantic Mencía from Ribeira Sacra’s historic Ponte da Boga. In Italy, more of the highly requested Maneterra 2024 Vermentino, the extraordinary Castello di Castellengo and their deal-of-the-decade Alto Piemonte Nebbiolo range grown on Lessona-like volcanic marine sand, Paglinetto’s salty, beautiful Verdicchio di Matelica, Sergio Arcuri’s Olympic-level Ciró wines (2019 Più Vite & 2021 Aris), and Dave Fletcher’s remodeled and fresh take on Langhe Dolcetto, Barbera and Chardonnay, among others. In the meantime, I’d like to take this opportunity to bring to your attention our new “tech sheets” which can be downloaded from all our website product pages; it’s a project that’s been years in the making: gathering photography, content, and accurate vineyard and cellar details that don’t just check the standard data point box but stimulate more thought and accurate theory on how the wine might taste. I was hesitant to do them, knowing full well the amount of interesting albeit monotonous work it would involve, but after years of prodding from our staff, I took it on. Retrieving details from growers is no small task in itself, but it was also done in six different languages. Growers grumble at such formality when they know the variables are impossibly infinite, difficult to precisely define, and always a moving target because circumstances change quickly, forcing them to veer away from their plans and make spontaneous decisions that aren’t always remembered or recorded. But that doesn’t stop administrative anxiety for those who prefer to work with their hands, their noses, their mouths, and to do their thinking out in open and solitary spaces while pruning, driving the tractor, or racking barrels. Below are examples of downloadable tech sheets from our website that represent what you’ll find on EVERY wine now. If you don’t want to print all the extra pictures consolidated on a second page, you can easily opt out and print just the first one.   Each page has a Producer Overview, an abridged version of our in-depth website profiles. Vineyard Details and the ever-changing Cellar Notes are taken directly from inquiries from the growers, which, I can attest, are often quite different from what you may hear during an off-the-cuff chat about the wines. When growers can sit down and write out these details, that’s when they have the greatest accuracy. Not surprisingly, when I send them the template I use for writing profiles and product details for our site, many respond by thanking me for my questions, because it made them sit back and contemplate what they’re actually doing. For me, one of the most important elements is the eight-panel photo album, where so much is revealed in the portraits of the growers. All are candidly shot during visits as they move, explain, and emote in their home environment—pondering, often second-guessing themselves, or lost in thought. Nothing is contrived, with no setups for the shots; they’re simply depicted in a moment, often in thoughtful reflection as they explain their processes and experiences. For example, the picture of Vincent Bergeron shows his practical layers of clothing and hat that speak to the bite of the colder Loire seasons. His expression is calm, inward—the look of someone who listens to the land rather than trying to bend it to his will—a mirror of how his wines are composed. There’s a quiet patience in the way he holds himself. The black and white photo shows his young face already well-weathered from long days outdoors, and he’s relaxed enough to suggest an ease with the cycles that govern his vineyards and his financial security. Nothing about Vincent is performative. As someone who already knows the man, the picture speaks to me of someone who works, watches, waits, contemplates, and often openly suffers with the loss of an entire season’s harvest to bad weather and the threat to his family’s security that brings. This snapshot captures his emotional availability, the quiet discipline that defines his work, and perhaps the fleeting unease that comes with the unpredictability of his calling. Take the momentary capture of Daniele Marengo bundled up in the cold Novello air at the end of a season, the end of the year. His look is familiar and defining, another candid shot, capturing the quiet inwardness of someone who has lived in these hills his entire life, carries their rhythms and through his family’s spirit as he shoulders the burden of what it means to be entrusted at such a young age with such a great responsibility—to lift a new Barolo estate; to run it with the full trust of his older sisters and their partners, his parents, aunts and uncles, and his grandma, Angela. There’s no bravado. He’s a young vignaiolo born in 1997, already shaped by Piemontese culture—its mountains, its hills, its struggles. Caught in contemplation, he’s not focused on those in his presence, but perhaps on those who worked these hills before his family’s tenure. Even his hands, loosely gathered, reveal a person who thinks before he speaks—a quiet gesture of someone assembling an idea rather than performing one. The portrait presents a youth and brilliance that watches and absorbs, someone who weighs decisions with the patience and wisdom resurrected from the cemetery of past talents and cultural icons; this is reflected in his wines that seem crafted by a master with a lifetime of experience. We see the calm, the hesitation, the spark of eccentric insight behind his eyes—the same qualities that surface when he pauses before answering a question, or when his sudden, thunderous laugh claps through his natural reserve and shakes the walls. As with Vincent’s portrait, it reflects his humility and seasonal sensitivity, which define his work: a young artisan negotiating the inevitabilities of nature, the burden of family legacy, and the fragile economics of viticulture, with the investments expected to be paid in full, whether there’s fruit next season or none. The photos of rock and soil offer clues of what lies beneath them as the roots meander through pathways of least resistance. The Marengo photo collection highlights the soft limestone marls, the fine and sandy limestone soils, easily carved through by roots and washed away by drought and torrential rain. Bergeron’s shows the green and flat vineyards with clay and rock—a deep bed that reinforces the stout nature of the Montlouis wines, where Vincent sculpts his Chenin in an angelic spirit, their beautiful white fruit, fairy-dusted, green and citric. His hands are gnarled, bloody, ripped, charged to execute his mind’s desires—a man of the sky and earth whose hands seem like they were born of the latter a moment before the photo was taken. The drone shots tell a different story. I do have a license, though it’s buried inside the hard drive of yet another broken Mac that died at the beginning of the pandemic. Most of what I’ve filmed was skirting the boundary of legality (I must claim ignorance of almost all laws but that of a limited altitude), and many times it’s nearly gotten me in trouble: with the Austrian police at Stift Göttweig, and in Montsoreau, with Arnaud Lambert, confronted by a local bike-riding hall-monitor, a retired French Karen (Carine, as it were), military base and nuclear-plant airspace and low-hanging powerlines, all closely missed. There were mishaps with two trees, however—one recovered drone in the Lima Valley, the other lost in the Wachau’s Spitzergraben, taking video of Brandstatt as it crashed behind the steeply terraced Trenning on a steep, fenced off hill decorated with autumnal trees and their slippery fresh litter. Perhaps it’ll be an artifact someone will discover in a thousand years. Drone images reveal the community mindset of a people. We get a great view of the land, the exposure of the vines to the elements, their dimension (or lack thereof), biodiversity (or lack thereof), clear signs of responsible farmers, and their neighbors who carpet-bomb their vineyards. Indeed, the patches of our growers grow green with grass and herbs, and often stick out like a green thumb among many stripped and sore neighboring digits. “Any fool can know. The point is to understand.” -Albert Einstein On the Details Everything in our tech sheets has a purpose, and I’d like to preface why certain details are included. The details on our website are meant to serve as general notes and don’t precisely represent all the infinite variables that go into wine craft and how a wine will ultimately develop over time. We’ve picked our spots on some general concepts that leave minute details to your imagination, or for us to explain in greater depth in person. We represent growers who tend to their own grapes and don’t follow a recipe, no matter the season. Deeply committed winegrowers evolve and embrace change. No season is the same, and they rely on intuition and intimate knowledge of their land and past vintages to make calculated adjustments that suit every situation. To know only whether a wine has added sulfites or not is too vague a detail; it doesn’t stimulate any consideration beyond that fact. But when sulfites were added during processing and aging, it’s a more salient clue about a wine’s theoretical stability, how much total sulfur may have been normal to add at a specific time, and how much the vineyard and cellar yeasts and bacteria imprint the wine before being controlled. It’s impossible to provide all the answers; on many levels, I’m not qualified to decipher and explain scientific reasons for outcomes, but I want to stimulate curiosity and contemplation with accurate information. Over many years of traveling in vineyards and cellars, taking in a tremendous amount of information with well over a thousand different growers I’ve visited in Europe, I’ve consistently witnessed a story about a wine one day and another story on the next that slightly contradicts what I heard about the same wine the day before; it’s difficult, even for them, to keep track. Which “fact” should we present, and how do we pinpoint such a thing when it’s a constantly moving target? One thing that surprises me most after working with geologists for more than ten years on the wine trail is that many growers know little about their bedrock or topsoil’s true composition. It can be simplified as sand or clay, but they both vary in their composition, and these base minerals matter, as they are one of the main food sources for the plant. Finally, we are simply unable to cover all technical details with true accuracy. The variation is too great from one parcel to the next, from genetic advantage and health between vines in the same row, vintage to vintage, how the winegrower managed certain moments during the growing season (pruning, canopy, clusters), treatments and the dates administered and how much at what precise moment and why, or how much they added of something to the wine (sulfites, finings, yeasts, lactic acid bacteria) and all the other off-the-cuff decisions made during the wine’s creation. We’ve tried to keep it consistent and relatively general so that some of the crucial foundational points are relayed for you to build on. Why Tasting Notes Are Missing Tasting notes are unreliable without context. They do offer useful orientation in a rudimentary sense, but usefulness is not the same as accuracy. Some segments of our Grower Profile content have tasting notes, but it’s important to note when it’s tasted during its evolution, particularly with young wine tasted relatively recently after bottling. Wines obviously change drastically from one day after bottling to two months, a year, and so on. And a taste is merely a snapshot in time from a specific bottle, in a particular environment. Even in the most controlled professional settings with neutral glassware, stable temperatures, and repeated sampling, each bottle will still refuse full standardization. And while acidity is fixed in a bottled wine, its integration with the entire composition of the wine is not. Tannins and bacteria, among many elements of a wine, recalibrate within months in its earliest phases. Early tasting notes can offer first coordinates, a rough sense of fruit, structure, or balance, but without temporal context, they point to a moment that will never exist again. Tasting notes do indeed create a shared language, but without chronological context, they can be misleading impressions detached from the moment that shaped them. Attempts will be made in our Source content to highlight consistencies with many wines in various settings and moments, from the first tastes out of barrel in raw and unfinished form to the full capture in bottle. However, I think they’re best left out of the tech sheet details, as they may undermine individual activation of creativity and tasting theory before even engaging directly with the wine. Ecological Certifications? Vineyard and cellar certifications are important distinctions. Growers work exceptionally hard and spend a lot of money to attain and maintain them, and we want to respect them rather than casually throw references to these accolades around. However, uncertified growers who practice highly conscious viticultural philosophies are no different to me than those with certifications. More than 90% of our growers maintain organic farming certifications, but what’s most important is that growers are in touch with their land and have great reverence for nature. This is immediately obvious to us when we observe their vineyards in person and ask the hard questions–certified or not. I regularly visit almost every grower at least once a year, and vineyard biodiversity is one of the great clues of true sustainability. But imagine if every third year, you worked hard but didn’t make any money because you thought you should adhere to a strict dogmatic approach to your job. Would you take such a risk when it could cost you so dearly, cost everyone in your family, and those who put their faith in you as an employer? The challenge of being judged on whether one is or isn’t certified has made the industry practice of misrepresenting certification status commonplace. This is why, within our content, we try to make these distinctions explicit. If a grower is certified, it’s noted. If they’re not, we make it clear if they follow the practices and philosophy of certification(s), mostly always, with some growers occasionally utilizing minimal traditional methods in times of emergency. Much of our work as importers is to visit vineyards (after all, that’s where good vignerons spend most of their time), instead of just tasting new wines in the cellar and quickly moving on to the next appointment. The best time to visit is in the spring, when the yellow and orange death of the first herbicides would be impossible to hide from view. However, I’ve always made it a point to ask our growers directly, and it doesn’t take but a second to know if they’ve used them before even a word is said. If I get the response I was hoping not to hear, I always view it as an opportunity to engage and see how willing they are to consider change. Perhaps to the dismay of us idealists, there are many compelling arguments for the use of certain synthetic treatments in vineyards when compared to the impact imposed by the constraints of organic or biodynamic certification, and it’s a tough argument one way or the other once the research is presented. I’ve always believed that what’s most crucial is that whoever’s crafting the wine needs to work in their vineyards themselves to understand the specific challenges of any given plot. Look at the growers’ hands. Look at Vincent Bergeron’s rough hands in the above photo album. The clean and soft hands in Marengo’s photo album holding limestone marls are obviously mine, not Daniele’s! It’s the makers’ experience and knowledge of their land’s tendencies that give them the knowledge to measure applications with precision instead of carpet bombing with something that can do more harm than good to the vines’ health (and that of the wine drinkers!). Is some level of sustainable farming with effective and relatively safe synthetics the way to go if we place our planet above our personal ideals (and perhaps our health)? That’s a decision each has to consider. As importers of wine—organic, biodynamic, natural and the rest—our hands are as dirty as anyone’s with the current methods needed to encourage production and then transport wine from a European cellar to a table in the US. Climate The general climate and regional overview are usually noted in the short Producer Overview. Sometimes that may have been minimized due to assumptions we make about the high level of our readers’ knowledge base. Some regions, particularly in Europe, are defined by the weather more than anything—the grape varieties largely chosen because of it—and how it relates to other parts of the wine world. Extensive climate details are largely found inside the producer profiles. Topsoil and Bedrock While some would argue that terroir elements like climate, exposure, and vine age exert more influence than soil alone, details count when it comes to a wine’s vineyard soil. Soil constitution can be divided into a few basic but distinguishing categories that play a role in shaping the wine; some are more significant than others: general topsoil depth and grain size (clay, silt, sand, gravel, cobbles and/or boulders), soil composition (its source material/rock), and bedrock. These factors determine soil nutrition and water-retentive abilities, which influence the shape and taste. Bedrock and topsoil are also the reasons specific grapes were chosen; for example, in Austria, Grüner Veltliner thrives better in soils with higher water-retentive capacity and easy access to nutrients; Riesling develops its complexity in poorer soils and a much more stressful environment in order for it to find its peak expression. Some note that root architecture and rootstock selection can outweigh soil type in determining water uptake, and mineral flavor doesn’t reflect soil mineral content, and impressions of “minerality” may often arise from fermentation compounds rather than the bedrock and topsoil. In wine lingo, sometimes we refer to wines as “horizontal” or “vertical” in shape. This is to say whether the wines are more tense, angular and straight (vertical) or more expansive, rounder and broader (horizontal). Much of this seems to have as much to do with the variety, climate, and the soil composition and structure than how the wine is made. If the soil is completely spare and rocky, the wines tend to be more vertical and less horizontal because there isn’t much flesh on their bones. (Of course, many growers try to fill in those terroir gaps with cellar techniques, but there are the purists whose intention is to express a terroir by accepting the perception of missing elements because that’s what the terroir has provided.) If the topsoil is deep and rich with good water retention it may render wines less “vertical” and fall into the more expansive, fleshy “horizontal” description. It’s also worth acknowledging a deeper challenge to the entire premise. What we interpret as “soil expression” may actually be the product of factors correlated with geology rather than caused by it; water availability, ripeness levels, microbial shifts, rootstock behavior, clonal selection, and regional winemaking culture are strongly influential components. Under this view, bedrock and topsoil may be descriptive anchors rather than drivers of sensory consistencies we attribute to geology and might emerge from vine physiology and human decision making more than from the rock and dirt themselves. For growers who minimize manipulation in the cellar and vineyard to give greater voice to the terroir, the bedrock and topsoil become paramount. Of course, we know that consistent patterns emerge from different wine regions on similar soil types and that experienced tasters often find those links in blind tastings. The connection between soil and wine remains one of the greatest consistencies of a vineyard and its resulting wine, despite the influence (or non-influence) of those who crafted it. It’s also one of wine’s great mysteries, yet we cannot forget that most soils are amended, even by organic and biodynamic practitioners. This complicates the idea of “pure” soil expression, since amendments alter biological and mineral balance, including soil pH. To complicate the matrix more, microbial communities within those soils (fungi, bacteria, mycorrhizae) may shape aromatic outcomes more than soil mineral content. Since we all have the fortune of working with some of the most talented wine thinkers, growers, importers, wine buyers, sommeliers and knowledgeable collectors of our time, there is much discussion about what kind of bedrock and topsoil potentially influences the resulting wines, no matter what sort of tricks or techniques are employed in the vineyard or cellar. We also note that soil and rock type can vary dramatically within a single parcel, making it difficult to pinpoint dominant features. To borrow from two of our good friends and their book, The Sommelier’s Atlas of Taste, they quote another good friend of ours, Pedro Parra, a specialist in terroir who presented to me a decade ago this same data of his experience analyzing wines grown from specific bedrock types. One excerpt from the first chapter (one of the most compelling chapters I’ve come across in any wine book) reads, “Granite, he [Pedro] says, offers a very acidic sensation, with a huge amount of energy/minerality in the front of the mouth. He doesn’t feel much impact on the sides of the tongue. Wines growing in schist also have acidity, he says, but it is felt more in the cheeks. The wines feel bigger—not round, but with more energy than granite felt in the cheeks and sides of the tongue. ‘Schist is always about power,’ he says, ‘a mineral bomb.’ Limestone is easier to identify because of its distinctive short tannins and energy. Limestone wines aren’t round, but go farther down the tongue. They’re elegant, with a fine granularity and subtly tense electricity. Finally, he says, volcanic substrates tend to be a little flat and rustic, lacking in electricity.” Skeptics note that these sensory claims remain unverified in controlled blind studies and may reflect metaphor more than measurable chemistry. Pedro’s suggestion is not an infallible guide, but since meeting him, I’ve observed these aspects and find them to be consistently truer than not with the wines we import from sites throughout Europe with a specific dominant rock type. Our interest in providing an even more accurate survey of these vineyard characteristics is the reason why we’ve had a geologist on payroll of some sort since around 2015, starting with Brenna Quigley before she rocked the greater wine world (pun intended), and now with many excerpts in our content along with a series of terroir maps developed together with Spanish PhD Geologist, Ivan Rodriguez. Research still lacks clear chemical pathways linking soil minerals to specific sensory outcomes in finished wine. The most compelling reason to include this in our content is to share enough information about bedrock and topsoil to further the conversation by doing our part in developing a sort of in-house database in which others can compare notes. Vine Age This is an interesting consideration because what truly separates one masterpiece wine from the rest may have to do with what characteristics you like in your wines, not the age of the vines. Old vines don’t automatically mean better wine (only different wine), and this varies enormously by region, grape variety, and farming culture. We can assume a position of some sort in tasting theory on a vineyard’s age, yet vine age should not be hierarchical. It’s just one variable in the matrix of a wine. Our vine age notations should also be viewed as general. The dates inside our Vineyard Details in parentheses represent the year this information was received by the grower. If ten years pass before an update on the material, it’s easy to figure out the general vine age unless it recently went through a large-scale replanting. What’s important to know is that a vineyard plot’s vine age can absolutely impart characteristic qualities to a wine. It’s interesting to note how young, middle-aged, old and ancient vines may express themselves through wine, and this compels most to want to know the vineyard’s age. One could say that young vines don’t bring complexity, and this statement may be largely agreed upon because of the lack of development of the root systems and the overall weakness of the younger plant, but it’s not empirically true. Young, but not fledgling vines have vigor and energy, but perhaps not a great depth of complexity. However, young vines from talented terroirs and growers still produce wines to be admired and enjoyed, and are not so vastly different from those from older vines. On many occasions, younger vine renditions are more appropriate for certain moments than old vine renditions. This perception of vine age also often stimulates the grower to treat the grapes and wines differently, thereby perpetuating or building on this sense of innate difference. Wines made from old to ancient vines have a specific depth and weight, partially due to lower yields and (in theory) deeper root systems that may take in more complexity the further they plunge. On the other hand, wines rendered from these vines may sometimes be dense and glycerol on the palate, making for a show-stopping couple of ounces but a difficult bottle to finish without the help of a group. I’ve also tasted young vine wines that taste like they’ve come from ancient vines, and sometimes those rule the day for me. While age may correlate with certain vineyard impressions, the hard science remains less conclusive: root depth is driven more by soil structure than age, yields can be lowered by pruning and other methods of control regardless of vine age, and physiological efficiency often favors younger vines. Young and old vines under controlled conditions show that most differences attributed to age (complexity, concentration, depth) can also arise from farming choices, disease pressure, microbial variation, or simple vine balance. In other words, vine age may influence expression, but it is rarely the primary causal force for high quality, and it never operates in isolation. Perhaps the sweet spot is somewhere in the middle where the plant has hit its prime, and on all fronts, it seems balanced. But who’s to say what the prime of a plant is for each clone or massale selection and the vineyard it’s planted in? This is a matter of taste, and not everyone always wants this kind of static balanced MVP in their glass. Differences keep wine interesting. Vines of all ages have something to channel and it’s simply a matter of mood and frame of mind during our constant development and evolution. Now we dig into some areas that help us theorize a wine’s characteristics based on its respective vineyard’s physical principles. Altitude, Aspect and Gradient The altitude, aspect and slope gradient are crucial details that play important roles in a wine’s intrinsic characteristics. This likely doesn’t require much of an explanation, but to distill it down to what’s important, these elements directly influence a grape’s ripening, structure, complexity, taste and aroma profile. The information concerning altitude, aspect, and gradient doesn’t take up much space in the Vineyard Details, but these characteristics greatly influence the shape of the wine and many of its structural elements and aromas. They offer simple theoretical guidelines, a quantifiable element for how a wine is likely to taste and feel. Altitude influences temperature, and the higher up you go the colder it becomes. For example, Jean-Nicolas Meo, from the famous Vosne-Romanée estate, Meo Camuzet, explained to me for the first time on my first trip to the Côte d’Or in 2004 at the base of La Tache that the difference in the ripeness from a vineyard that sits at two hundred meters and one at three hundred can be a full degree of potential alcohol on the same day, the lower alcohol being from the higher site. This simple concept is one of the great keys to understanding some aspects of the profile of Burgundy wines, as well as many other regions on notable inclines. Aspect can explain a lot about wine. For example, an open eastern exposure (meaning with no close topographical features in the way) brings early morning sunshine and can render fresher and brighter characteristics when on a hillside as the direct sun hits the vines early, but may—depending on the steepness of the parcel—also cast a shadow on the vines long before the sun sets, often hours before. In the northern hemisphere, direct south may be the easiest to reach balanced and consistent ripeness from one year to the next, and there are many examples of this throughout the wine world. On a south- or west-facing plot in the late afternoon during a heat spike, the direct sunlight can push grapes closer to dehydration faster than those facing east and can scorch western exposures and bring a very different taste to the same fruit nuance compared to one next to it facing east. It’s not improbable for even a less experienced taster to recognize in the context of a flight from the same vintage and producer which vineyards likely face in what direction based on the fruit nuances and the structure of the wines. Slope gradient is another equally influential factor that shapes wine. It offers clues to the level of topsoil available for the vine, or whether the topsoil is naturally derived from the underlying bedrock, or not. Gravity and steep slopes make it difficult to keep topsoil around, so, for centuries, growers have brought it back up the slope and put it back into terraces, just like they do for gardens. In the Côte d’Or, for example, vineyards at the top of the slope struggle with balance in the coldest years to find full ripeness, and also in the hottest years because the shallower soils don’t provide refuge during the scorchers, potentially leading to quicker desiccation and an imbalance in ripening. Stickier soils like clay can stay put longer, even on steep slopes, as they do in the Côte d’Or than the decomposing granite on the treacherous hills of Saint-Joseph. Once broken away from the granite bedrock, the granite sand and gravel easily slide down, creating constant erosion and exposing rock outcrops while keeping the topsoil in a perpetual state of sparseness. In these extreme locations with looser topsoil, terraces are constructed to try to minimize this constant challenge. But without some aided cover crops or a no-till practice in a rainy area with these soil types, good luck keeping the topsoil in place. The flatter the vineyard, the more important the grain and compostion of the soil. Some flat sites are perfect for viticulture, while others are best suited for corn. Much of Bordeaux is flat and wet, but the well-drained gravels of the Haut Médoc, for example, have managed to render the most reliable and consistently age-worthy red wines in the world. Put those varieties in a colder area and with more water-retentive soils, and you may get a weedy mess of a wine. In Burgundy, the transition from vine to other crops is a matter of soil change, not altitude or exposure. In some areas, it happens only within a few meters. Cellar Notes Simple cellar notes are what are typically found on a tech sheet. Each detail focuses on general practices and not quantum mechanics—well, at least everything around sulfites. Some details may not seem consequential, but we believe they are important when considering intricacies and potential stability. Vinification and Aging Details like sulfite addition and its timing can go down many endless rabbit holes since there’s so much to say about it. Some of the more obvious implications (at least to the experienced wine professional) include whether whole clusters are fully or partially used in red wine, or not at all, and how that can radically change the wine’s profile; fermentation times, which is not a perfect assessment here, because there is always a variation of days from one vintage to the next; the amount of extractions per day/week/total before pressing and how the producers extracts (rack and return, pumpovers, punchdowns, gentle pushdowns by hand only inches deep, or no-touch infusion and carbonic or partial carbonic—all have varying differences of extraction), a very important detail during the process which can ultimately influence to a great degree the color, tannin, weight and other elements within a wine’s final characteristics. But to simply state their basic approach without its frequency in a day or week would be leaving a very important detail out. Punchdowns? Once per day, three times? Or once in the first three days and then never again? All that counts: oxygen management during fermentation and maceration is equally decisive, shaping color stability, tannin integration, and aromatic development of reductive or oxidative elements as much as extraction and aromatic lift itself. Yeast selection and nutrient management (YAN) also shape the speed and behavior of fermentation over time and aromatic profile as strongly as temperature or extraction. Fermentation length and temperature also speak volumes about how a wine can taste. As mentioned earlier, temperature gives a good idea of more primary fresh fruit and flower notes with lower temperatures that simmer at a slower pace. Higher temperatures steer wines into reducing primary characteristics and strengthening secondary expressions earlier in the wine’s life. In white wine, depending on the area and the fermentation vessel, temperatures are commonly lower than in red. Barrel fermentations tend to stabilize in the mid-20s Celsius, though this depends on cellar temperature, barrel size, stave thickness, and the grower’s level of temperature control. In a relatively controlled environment, the smaller the barrel and the thinner the staves, the lower the thermal mass and the more quickly heat can dissipate. Larger vessels can build much greater thermal mass, and if not controlled, temperatures can reach precarious heights for yeast health and, consequently, fermentation health. Stainless steel tanks without temperature control can spike in temperature much faster than wood vats of the same size. At 30–32°C, most yeasts begin to be greatly stressed, resulting in possibly negative effects: reduction issues may arise (which can also arise with very low fermentation temperatures), along with the risk of more unwanted volatile compounds and stuck fermentations. In the mid-30s, yeast experiences significant mortality due to heat and increased ethanol levels, and fermentations may begin to stall, often leading to bacterial issues, greater volatility, and long-term instability. Above those temperatures, one may fall back on cultured yeast for assistance or allow the fermentation to rebound naturally once it cools down, but risk fatality of the batch if it doesn’t. In any case, extremely high temperatures are a dire condition for fermentation health. White grape skin contact time clearly has an impact, but this varies based on variety, with some being much more affected by it. However, this isn’t reserved only for the orange wine category. It’s also part of the greater program in places like Austria in their Riesling and Grüner Veltliner production, which tends to be a few hours to a full day of crushed berries before pressing and fermentation. Often, the gauge is whether the grapes are green or more golden in color or with botrytis: the green is given more time on skins, while the latter is between no hours to a few. Wines categorized as “orange” often have lengthy skin contact and full fermentation on the skins (sometimes stems too) for days and/or weeks before pressing. For red wine in our market division, the common choices are many, but, as we all know, these days shorter maceration times are a focus because of the demand for fruitier styles and less interest in long-term aging. It’s also an adaptive response to the regularity of warmer vintages, higher natural alcohols and the need to avoid harsher phenolic extraction with less ripe seeds and/or skins. The ceremonial aspects of wine are fading along with the older generation collectors and drinkers. Old wine, for me, remains the ultimate frontier in wine’s depth of complexity, but this is also fading away with shorter wine lists and the interest in fruit-heavy, lighter style wines, which I love as much as any style of wine. Cellar aging is one of the more obvious inclusions in this information detail. I won’t go into the specifics about the consequences of every choice, such as aging vessel types and the length of time within them. The information in this section includes details that begin from about the time the grapes were harvested and the moment they’re put into the bottle. Vessel Type Wines age in all sorts of vessels in all parts of the wine world, and with many variations within each type. With wood, it’s often oak (French, American, Slavonian, Hungarian), but also chestnut, acacia, cherry, driftwood (kidding), and all can impart distinct nuances. Then there’s the barrel age, which remains the most common inquiry if a wine is in fact aged in wood. We can no longer just say amphora anymore because there’s terracotta, earthenware, tinaja clay, qvevri clay, talha clay, Impruneta clay, high-fired ceramic, stoneware, sandstone, granite, basalt, and concrete (coated or uncoated), and all sorts of other vessels, like fiberglass, porcelain, stainless steel and more. Then there’s the size of the vessel and its porosity. This can lead to a deep exploration that can be made on one’s own, but we’ll always list the general volume of these vats and barrels, and sometimes the shape, if unusual and noteworthy. They are clues that also point to how a wine will evolve, because the ratio between liquid and the surface of the container determines both the pace of oxygen exchange and the concentration of lees in contact with the wine. Larger vessels slow everything down—oxygen ingress decreases, temperature swings flatten, and the wine tends to develop with greater steadiness and less oak-derived influence. For tannic varieties that bear finer aromatic nuances, like Nebbiolo, larger barrels are ideal for growers that want to preserve its fine aromas while slowly softening the tannins through longer aging. Small barrels, by contrast, amplify the dialogue between wood and wine, accelerate structural softening, and promote more noticeable aromatic shifts in shorter times. Even in inert materials like concrete or clay, scale matters. Larger forms create a more tranquil internal environment, while small ones encourage more rapid settling, clarification, and textural change. I won’t pretend to know the nuanced effects of every aging vessel, but it can be a useful tool to get acquainted with these details with greater precision and less generality. Vegan Wine? How can you know a wine is truly vegan? I suppose one has to ask how far they want to go in excluding the involvement of animals in connection with the production of wine (noting that many vegans define the term to include inputs used in the wine, not the broader agricultural ecosystem). That said, if there are any animal products used for any wine in our collection, we will do our best to find out what they are and list them. It would be fair to say that most animal products used as a fining agent are byproducts of animals that were used as a food source first, and the inedible parts are used for something instead of being discarded as waste. Even so, strict vegans would argue that using byproducts still participates in the same supply chain and is therefore not ethically neutral. I believe that in most cases, if the animal wasn’t killed in the first place for food, the byproduct wouldn’t likely be available, or, if it were, it may cost a fortune on its own. It would also be a safe bet to say that if there are vineyard fertilizers used (which there typically are within at least a 5–10-year rotation, but likely more frequently), there are usually animals involved, especially in organic and biodynamic farming. I’m not sure if this would disqualify a wine from being vegan, but perhaps the strictest practitioners will not likely be able to drink any wine in good conscience that has been produced on this planet because it’s likely not free of some kind of animal contact in some way (even though vegan certification bodies generally focus on winemaking inputs rather than total ecosystem purity). Indeed, they may exist, but again, how far do we want to go with this, and how reasonable is it to expect any agricultural product to be entirely animal-free in a literal sense? At this point, because of the loose interpretation and unofficial guidelines, we won’t state whether a wine is vegan or not. However, I assume that some vineyards do use exclusively plant-based composts or vegan-certified fertilizers. Enological Additions (& Subtractions) Fining and filtration details shouldn’t be generically stated as though they are all the same. However, truthful explanations seem like they could stir some minds into thinking that wines are simply stripped out because they’ve been fined. But avoiding clarity and truth can invite a deeper mistrust, so instead of being coy about the subject, I believe we can take it head-on and simply list what we know from our growers. Most of our growers prefer to only intervene with intention rather than avoidance, knowing that certain finings can amplify rather than obscure terroir. Ideally, the growers we work with want unhindered and clear terroir expressions with as little touching as possible. However, when wines have a lot less time aging before bottling, commercial risk management is important. Time itself is a tool, and growers choose between time and treatment depending on both style and circumstance. Market cycles and cash-flow needs, for example, shape these decisions just as much as cellar philosophy. One subject within the additive department that you will most likely see, aside from sulfur dioxide, is fining agents, if they’re used. It’s important to define the fining agent as they range from non-synthetics—like egg whites, bentonite clay, animal-derived substances, etc—and of course, a multitude of synthetics. And it’s worth noting that “synthetic” is not inherently pejorative; many synthetic fining agents are designed to be more selective and less extractive than traditional natural options. (However, the casual use of synthetics in one area of a grower’s work would raise an eyebrow when it comes to potential practices using other synthetic treatments or materials as well.) I’d like to cite the Australian Wine Research Institute (TAWRI) for a concise explanation: “The purpose of adding a fining agent preparation to wine is to soften or reduce its astringency and/or bitterness; remove proteins capable of haze formation; or reduce color by the adsorption and precipitation of polymeric phenols and tannins. The fining agent reacts with wine components either chemically or physically, to form a new complex that can separate from the wine.” In other words, fining agents are used to take things away from wine, not add to them. With this perspective, we could say that fining agents are additives, but not truly ingredients, as they remove things and then are taken away from the wine; they’re more of the opposite of an ingredient. Even so, their use shapes the wine, and the transformation they enact is what consumers often care about more than the technicality of whether they remain in solution. For small domaines, like the ones we principally work with, finings, as far as what I’ve gathered over the years, fall within the natural product category, and the most common is bentonite, though growers accept that it can be one of the more extractive options. Its impact can be variety-dependent: aromatic whites and delicate varietals sometimes lose volatile compounds if bentonite is used too aggressively. This clay is mostly used for the removal of proteins capable of haze formation. If everyone were ok with a little haze in their wine—we suspect that many consumers still prefer clarity, though tolerance for turbidity has grown significantly in recent years, especially in fresh white wines bottled within months after harvest and those from growers that place themselves in the “natural wine” practice—growers might not be motivated to use finings to make their wines with a short aging period in the cellar that renders wines that look perfectly clear. Most wines bottled in the first spring after their harvest season need some assistance to reach a broad commercial appeal—especially those intended for market within six months after the grapes were picked. Likewise, if the transport of all white wines with short cellar aging were kept at low temperatures (which is likely not to happen from the moment it leaves the cellar until it finally gets poured), the potential for unstable proteins to not coagulate and to create a haze is elevated, but then there’s the handling thereafter. There are some grapes, like Grüner Veltliner, that have a lot of proteins, and if they are bottled shortly after harvest, the probability is high that they will need fining for clarification. Still, most whites can reach stability through settling and time alone. Cellar practices, like precise racking and natural cold stabilization in the winter months, allow the avoidance of fining even with difficult varieties. Filtration is also villainized as though a membrane filtration that removes all yeast and bacteria is the same as a lighter “coarse” filtration to remove only larger particulates, like seeds, skins, and lees. Then there are all the in-between options, like diatomaceous earth, crossflow, plate and frame pad filtrations. They’re all different, all relative to the conversation, and should be noted if known. And behind those technical differences lie philosophical ones: some growers pursue clarity for precision, others preserve colloids for texture (microscopic suspended particles larger than molecules, smaller than solids, like proteins, polysaccharides, tannins, etc.)—each a valid expression of intent. Filtration decisions are also shaped by economic reality: wines destined for long export chains or by-the-glass programs may benefit from greater microbial stability and need to remain stable for days after opening. Sulfite Additions and Timing And then there’s sulfites. We know they function primarily as antioxidants and antimicrobials, safeguarding a wine’s freshness and stability. The questions about sulfites we face now are not only where it’s sourced (natural volcanic deposits, industrial petroleum by-products), how much to add and when, and the differences between sulfur gas, potassium metabisulfite, sodium metabisulfite, and elemental sulfur. Again, I can’t explain everything, but if I can note the difference, it’s worth noting (if not already on some tech sheets, in future notes!). It’s also worth acknowledging that most growers make these choices for practical, not ideological reasons, and regional traditions and the inherited practices of each cellar are also in play. It’s too difficult to get exact figures of total and free SO₂ for each wine every vintage, and it’s also a hard conversation to have with growers who fear some kind of consequence from the sulfur police. This fear often arises not from misuse but from the way sulfur discourse has become polarized, where numerical thresholds are sometimes taken as moral judgments rather than contextualized winemaking decisions. In my mind, an important consideration is the timing of an addition, and that can tell you a lot already. If a winegrower has opted out of adding sulfites, we think you should know—not as a sales pitch, but as a measure of your own expectations and risk. And crucially, abstaining from sulfur is not inherently a marker of greater integrity or authenticity. It signals a different set of trade-offs, and a different vision for how the wine expresses its fruit, structure, and microbial life. The late Santa Barbara County Pinot Noir trailblazer from the 1980s, ‘90s and ‘00s, Chris Whitcraft, famously explained that wine is like an addict: if you give it sulfites at the beginning, its stability depends on getting a regular fix. This comparison describes not only a strict chemical dependency but a pattern of cellar behavior. The timing of the first sulfite addition speaks to the risk tolerance of a grower, their need to control, or perhaps their experience with regularly challenging vineyards. Yet timing is equally a stylistic gesture: some growers prefer the brightness and precision that early sulfur additions protect, while others covet the wildness and texture that come from delaying this intervention. It may seem counterintuitive, but the longer one waits to add sulfites (of course first to healthy grapes, the must and then wine) the greater stability it might impart. Still, this principle is influenced by pH, microbial load, vineyard biodiversity and health, and grape variety. Turbidity levels and the rate at which early sulfur becomes rapidly bound also shape how effective an addition will be. Timing of the first addition and those thereafter magnify differences but doesn’t guarantee outcomes. And at every stage, fruit health and vintage conditions can override even the best-laid sulfur strategies. A first addition after primary fermentation speaks to the grower’s desire to let natural yeast fermentations and bacteria have greater voice in the wine, but they’re good staying in that lane. Whites and reds are different. Decades ago, growers began to understand that not adding sulfites to white grape must and severely oxidizing it prior to fermentation offers greater stability for the simple reason that it’s better to oxidize less stable phenols in the must and not after fermentation. These phenols oxidize, polymerize, turn brown, and precipitate out of solution as solids much easier before fermentation because of the absence of alcohol, the abundance of proteins, and the simpler colloidal structures allows oxidized phenols to form large, insoluble complexes that fall out. These same conditions do not exist once the must becomes wine because alcohol and new colloidal structures hold oxidized phenols in solution instead of letting them precipitate. This is all the more reason why it’s important to note with white wines when the sulfites were first added. In practical terms, this means that protecting the must of whites with sulfur too early can hinder long-term stability rather than help it. The chemistry may seem intricate, but its practical meaning is simple: early oxidation of must removes fragile compounds before they can cause problems later in the wine. Other growers, by contrast, lean on reductive handling or extended lees aging to pursue the same stability without encouraging early oxidation, demonstrating how philosophies diverge even when the goals align. Reds have a different stability due to the greater concentration of tannins, anthocyanins and the lot of polyphenols. A first addition after malolactic? Yet another increased level of risk tolerance with the terroir and cellar bacteria to have just a little more to say. Only at bottling? Now we’ve come to a different place. At this stage, what appears daring in one cellar may be routine wisdom in another. Factors like cellar hygiene, historical microbial populations and barrel maintenance influence what a grower considers “safe.” An older experienced craftsperson often baby steps toward this decision. Indeed, a leap of faith if you’ve made mistakes in the vineyard and neglected in the cellar, but if all is right and observation is vigilant, they will go there until they believe they see an undesirable turn ahead. This gives the wine through its élevage the most voice without suppressing yeast and bacteria that might otherwise continue fermenting or redirect the wine’s evolution. It also, in theory, may require less sulfites for stability—the addiction element reduced by not administering it until the last phase in the cellar. But what constitutes “less” is also shaped by bottling-day realities—oxygen pickup, closure type (another interesting consideration that’s too great a task to follow each year with each wine), filtration decisions, dissolved CO₂, and the distance it will travel when shipped all influence how much sulfur a wine needs to endure its future. Then there’s no-added-sulfites (NAS) wine, which only delivers with much more than faith and ideology. When comparing a wine’s preservation between a 225 L barrel to a 750 ml bottle, that’s one-third of one percent of the barrel’s volume. This is a much greater risk for stimulating bacteria, yeast and general spoilage. The voyage from barrel to bottle without protection can be like taking a long vineyard tour naked in the cold, pelted by sideways rain after a transatlantic red eye, no sleep and an eight-hour jetlag. NAS winemaking succeeds not because of a lack of intervention, but because of extraordinarily vigilant intervention: flawless fruit, meticulous cleanliness and oxygen management, and deep familiarity with the cuvée’s fermentative and oxidative tendencies. For this reason, NAS wines demand not only skill but humility, because a single misstep can compromise an entire bottling. NAS wine is complicated, but when it’s done well, it’s devoid of obvious faults or obstructive flaws; it may for some be the holy grail of young wines intended to be consumed early. And the paradox is that the most “hands-off” wines often require the most watchful and technically precise hands—a devotion that defines many of the growers who attempt them. These seemingly one-size-fits-all notes are all greatly oversimplified and outdated for anyone who’s working their way through this extensive, yet relatively brief for the depth of each subject, explanation of our tech sheet! But we can all be better versed in all this information to surpass the commonly regurgitated and reductionist factoids out there when the finer details actually matter. Like vineyard practices, interventions carry historical and cultural meanings as well as technical ones; acknowledging that complexity strengthens the credibility of the information we provide. Transparency, in this sense, becomes not merely the sharing of data but the articulation of how choices, risks, and philosophies converge in each wine and each decision.

Newsletter February 2026 Concrete vat in the cellar of Domaine Mont de Marie There’s too much to talk about in February to consolidate into a single newsletter. The second part will be an early stand-in for March’s Newsletter and will be published next week on Friday, February 13th—scary … In the second part, I will reintroduce two new players on the Saumur scene. Our first vintages we imported from both were just two years ago, but they’re maturing in craft and vineyard evolution faster than an AI updates its language model; the gamble is going to pay off big with these two. But that’s our favorite thing: finding those talents no one knows before they’re known—before they’ve proven their merit, been colonized by the hype machine and turned into stars. Those domaines are Fabrice Esnault’s Domaine la Giraudière, making Brézé and Saumur-Champigny wines, and Gilles Colinet’s Forteresse de Berrye, making Chenin bubble and still, and Cabernet Franc from inside Saumur’s Puy-Notre Dame. The prices of their previous vintages are tough to match, but wait till you get a load of them now with their 2023s and 2024s starting to roll in. Before we jump to Italy and Spain, let’s start with France, where last month left off: David Duband. France A New Duband Les Terres des Philéandre | Côte d’Or & Hautes-Côtes de Nuits Available From The Source in select U.S. states Monsieur Duband has a newish project (started in 2018), a portmanteau created from the names of his twins, Philomène and Léandre: Les Terres de Philéandre. While he’s best known for his meticulous stewardship of some of the Côte de Nuits’ most prestigious appellations, this deeply personal project was born from a desire to work with greater freedom at the margins of Burgundy’s formal hierarchy—to step back into something quieter, more intuitive, and perhaps even more revealing. With only a few parcels in Savigny-lès-Beaune, the grapes for this project are primarily sourced from the Hautes-Côtes de Nuits, just adjacent to his classified vineyards, and are often labeled as Vin de France (VDF). These wines draw from medium-aged to old vines rooted in clay-limestone soils and shaped by the same rigor that defines his domaine work, with whole-cluster fermentations, native yeasts, gentle extraction, long élevage, with sulfites added only after malolactic fermentation—or not at all where the wine allows. Les Terres de Philéandre doesn’t sit apart from Duband’s core work; it quietly completes it. Les Terres de Philéandre fills a continually widening gap on shelves and lists for years: Burgundy that smells, tastes, and seems like what it is, priced fairly, without feeling diluted or like the result of a quiet cellar declassification. The Hautes-Côtes areas just to the west of Côte de Nuits and the Côte de Beaune share the same basic geology, and they will matter even more as the landscape continues to shift due to climate change. Like many wines from the Hautes-Côtes, these wines feel like a preview of what’s coming. Once again, we’re able to drink “value” Burgundy that doesn’t ask us to lower our expectations. Both TdP 2023 whites strike a higher chord than one might assume, considering their appellation classifications. Both come from vines in the Hautes-Côtes de Nuits, just adjacent to HCdN parcels with the VDF Chardonnay “Le Blanc” from 30-year-old vines that reads nearly as much like an Aligoté as a Chardonnay; the Côteaux Bourguignons Chardonnay tastes like Chardonnay. It comes from 40–60-year-old vines, both facing southeast on steep clay and limestone slopes. I know–you’ll have to taste ‘em to believe it. You’re right, and you’ll see what I mean when you do. It’s rock-solid, with no extra trim, no tinkering, just clear and focused white Burgundy. Unlike the two Chardonnay-based TdP wines grown in old French Burgundy barrels, the Bourgogne Aligoté was aged in a combination of 30% concrete egg, 30% in a 25 hl Stockinger foudre and 40% in steel to build texture without masking its natural tension. These grapes come from 50-year-old vines in the Hautes-Côtes de Nuits, facing southwest on steep clay and limestone slopes. The 20-year-old (2026), high-altitude vines for the VDF Pinot Noir on steep, east-facing slopes just next to Duband’s HCdN vines underwent whole-cluster maceration for 10 days, with one daily pumpover during the first four to five days, followed by foot pigeage three times per day over the final five days to release maximum sugar before pressing. The wine was aged for ten months in 228-liter French oak barrels ranging from one to five years old. Sulfites are added after malolactic fermentation, and there’s no fining or filtration. I admit it: we made a mistake with Célénie. I’ve always had reservations about ordering no-added-sulfites wines, even from top technicians. Indeed, we have quite a few wines like this now, but we scrutinized them all heavily before buying. Yet here we are with this Hautes-Côtes de Nuits Rouge ‘Célénie’ as one fabulous example of a sans soufre wine gone completely right, and we’re in very short supply—only until we get more. After getting a little bored with the classical Burgundy profile of fruit that is often even a little tired compared to some of the regions we work in, when I poured the first taste for my wife (who doesn’t drink much anymore), she looked at me like I’d asked her to marry me again and said, “Now this is my style of wine.” Then, when I tasted it at the cellar in December with our San Francisco boss, Marissa, her first reaction was excitement, and then regret: she didn’t request any when I placed our first order for the 2023s because she, like everyone else, wanted to taste them before jumping on the Duband Sans Soufre Soul Train. Three wines into our 25-wine tasting, we pleaded, David scrambled, and now we’ll have a few more cases on the water destined for the warehouse in March or April. These grapes, harvested from 50-year-old vines in the steeply sloped Hautes-Côtes de Nuits, underwent whole-cluster maceration for 10 days. There was one daily pumpover during the first four to five days, followed by foot punchdowns three times a day over the last five days to release maximum sugar before pressing, then aged in a Stockinger foudre. No added sulfites, no fining, and no filtration. This is yet another testament to sans soufre wines' success when left to those who have mastered the fundamentals first. Congrats to David and to his son, Louis-Auguste, who surely spurred his dad into doing this experiment. What a wine! We’ve had a lot of interaction with Savigny-lès-Beaune over the years; early on, we imported Simon Bize, Jean-Marc et Hugue Pavelot, and Bruno Clair, and it’s nice to have some wines from this underrated place. David has a few different ones, but we went with his appellation Savigny-lès-Beaune Rouge and the 1er Cru Aux Serpentières both from 50-year-old vines (2026) and vinified the same way in the cellar: 70% whole clusters and macerated for 10 days, with one daily pumpover during the first four to five days, followed by foot pigeage three times per day over the final five days before pressing. It ages for 13 months, in 40% new oak 228-liter French barrels, with the first sulfites added after malolactic fermentation, and no fining or filtration. Hautes-Côtes de Nuits vineyard where many of Duband’s wines come from François Crochet Sancerre Available from the Source in select U.S. states We don’t promote François Crochet’s wines very often because so many already know them well, everything sells so quickly, and we never get enough to meet the demand. Here’s a quick reminder of his story and the arriving wines. After enology studies and stints at many wineries (highlighted by Domaine Bruno Clair), François took over his father’s Sancerre winery in Bué. Approximately 11 hectares on 30 parcels display a range of aspects from flat to steep, and north to south. Most of the grapes are the lieux-dits Le Petit Chemarin, Le Grand Chemarin, Le Chêne Marchand and Les Exils. Certified organic and working with biodynamic methods, the terroirs range from Kimmeridgian limestone marls, silex, various other limestone formations, and iron-rich clay. He’s one of the first growers in the appellation to pick, and the whites are whole-cluster pressed, fermented, and aged in steel or old tronconic oak vats. François’ Sancerre Rosé is made entirely from Pinot Noir and undergoes a short maceration with the fermentation and aging in steel. While a master of white, his reds are also revered in his appellation and are fermented in stainless and aged in old tronconic oak vats. They’re unfined, lightly filtered, and contain added SO2. Wines What’s most interesting about François Crochet’s entry-level Sancerre Blanc is that it is an assemblage of dozens of small vineyards from every aspect (north, south, east and west), various geological formations, including the hard, silica-based sedimentary rock (silex, or chert/flint stone), limestone formations of soft, powdery chalk (referred to locally as grillot), medium-hard chalky limestone (caillottes), and other limestone marls. Aside from the mix of tiny parcels too small to have their own cuvée, most come from the vineyards that are bottled as single-site wines. Fermented and aged solely in stainless steel, Crochet crafts an energetic, mercurial style of Sancerre with fine lines and pointed complexities. A compilation of different sites within Bué, a commune in the western area of Sancerre, Les Amoureuses is a blend of three parcels with heavier clay topsoil than any others within his collection. The name, Les Amoureuses, translates from French as “the lovers.” The clay-rich soil makes Les Amoureuses a freight train of Sauvignon Blanc, and the most powerful and generous wine in François’ range of white Sancerre—it’s a crowd pleaser. Planted in 1976, Le Petit Chemarin showcases ethereal high-tones and strong mineral nuances. Its first vintage was 2014, and it quickly moved to the front of the pack then and every year thereafter. The bedrock here is limestone formed by a coral reef about 150 million years ago. This wine is made nearly the same as all the other crus in François’ range; it’s unique in its own way and stands apart from the entire range in polish and delicacy. Le Petit Chemarin was used for the basic Sancerre white, but after years of vinifying it separately in the cellar, François recognized its merit as a single-site bottling. We couldn’t agree more. It’s one of our favorites because of its unique display of x-factors, strikingly fine mineral textures and sleek profile. New Grower for The Source Mont de Marie Languedoc – Gard | Southern French Recalibration Available from The Source in California Continuing into France, we’ve added another wine producer to our California roster that fits into the game-changer category. The south of France has a well-deserved reputation for powerhouse red wines and far less for subtlety—at least inside a more delicately framed wine. That’s not to say that powerhouse wines cannot be elegant, but I’ve long wondered why the sunniest places in mainland France strive for power to appease critical press when the local fare and climate themselves often ask for the opposite. When I’m there, which is at least a couple of weeks every year, I want an ethereal wine that matches the ambiance, not a hefty one, which is all too common. This is what draws me to Domaine Mont de Marie, where I’ve found an elegant portrayal of regional specificity in the south, in this case, the Gard, that strikes the resonant chord I’ve long been missing. Thierry Forestier and his wife, Marie-Noëlle, and their Domaine Mont de Marie are a wonderful addition to our collection of growers. It was indeed happenstance that I first visited him a few years ago, while moving through the south toward a run of cellar visits in Jurançon, Cahors, Bordeaux and then up to the Loire Valley. As we tasted before lunch, the wines really surprised me. I thought it would be a quick in and out, nothing to say but thank you very much and best of luck to you. But while different in overall shape and expression than the domaines to follow in the next few days, these were as compelling as they were unique. At the time, Thierry was settled in his national agenda with his U.S. importer, and, with a wonderful taste in my mouth and some confidence in the region’s need to recalibrate toward more elevated, less burdensome wines, I bid him and Marie-Noëlle farewell. Then I was pleasantly surprised when I was welcomed back mid-year last year to talk about more than just the wines. I love Thierry’s wines; they bring me so much pleasure and downright thrill me. They demonstrate what can be accomplished in the south of France when one consciously farms to pick the fruit at alcohol levels around 12%, with some a little lower and some a touch higher. Their range of natural wines, most without any added sulfites, is shaped as much by wild herbs and scrub as by fruit, with his entire range striking taut aromatic chords and channeling emotion as though the wines are alive themselves and happy to be part of the moment. Located on the rocky landscape of Souvignargues, directly 20 minutes west of Nîmes, their twelve hectares of organically farmed Carignan, Cinsault, Grenache, Ugni Blanc, and the rare aromatic and fine red, Aramon, are surrounded by all those wonderful herbs that seem to infuse the wines rendered from them: lavender, thyme and rosemary and their gorgeously aromatic flowers in bloom in spring, laurel, chamomile, sage, and ciste. The ancient alluvial soils of sandy clay, red iron-rich earth, flint, and rolled "poudingues" stones, with deeper conglomerates, lend natural drainage, restraint, and pointed structure for these fine nuances and gentle but aromatic wines. Cooled at night by air descending from the Gard’s Aigoual massif, complementing the burning summer sun and the Mediterranean and African winds from the south, his stable of old vines (50-100 years old) produces small, balanced harvests of taut, early-picked fruit that retain their aromatic purity and delicacy. Thierry’s love for nature shifted him from a career in tech to a life immersed in farming, foraging, and viticulture, where he observes, rarely touches, and finishes his wines with purposefully clean and precise craftsmanship. Across his cuvées raised in neutral vessels (concrete, old large foudre, well-seasoned barrels of many different sizes) the through-line is freshness and clarity, a conscious selection of fruit in its earliest ripening phase that flutters yet remains taut with bright lift and modest alcohols, especially for this southern French area known for intense summer heat, while still grounded by the wisdom of his old vines. His commitment to preserving the region’s heritage varieties, especially Aramon, underpins his production of intricate terroir wines sans artifice. His best-known wine is Anathème, which he makes in both white and red, both of which we’ve imported in our first year with him. Calling a wine Anathème (anathema in English) is Thierry putting a name to his idea that once you stop trying to please everyone, the wine is finally allowed to tell the truth. It’s sure that neither Anathème wine is what one expects from this area that soaks up some of France’s hottest summer sun and warm winds. The varieties behind these wines were largely discarded after WWII, but not because they lacked quality. Aramon and Ugni Blanc, for example, were not abandoned because they were difficult to grow or low yielding; in fact, both naturally ripen late and yield a lot. But they fell out of favor as markets shifted toward darker, richer, higher-alcohol wines, while perfume, acidity, nuance and finesse were deprioritized in favor of heavier impact. Carignan, which makes up 90% of the Anathème red, followed a different path. Once widely planted across southern France, it was progressively pushed out as Grenache proved easier to manage, ripened more reliably, and could flex across multiple styles from rosé to powerful reds that aligned with the styles the market demanded. A similar consolidation unfolded just west in northern Spain, where broad plantings of indigenous varieties (like Garnacha/Grenache and Mazuelo/Cariñena/Carignan) gave way to Tempranillo, not because of inherent superiority, but because it adapted more cleanly to trellised systems and postwar mechanization. Across both regions, this was not a judgment of quality, but a narrowing driven by commercial alignment. Thierry’s southern French wines are not corrections of a warm and sunny place, but a recalibration of what we’ve come to expect from it. When I first tasted Thierry’s Anathème blanc, I thought, “Who in our supply chain wants a white wine from these parts?” But without it, the complete story of Thierry’s approach would fall short with only the reds in tow. It is indeed worth seeing what he accomplishes with white grapes, again, from one of France’s hottest regions during summer. It’s all about calibration and expectations on the overall profile. The gentle whole-cluster pressing and natural fermentation in 10-year-old, 400-hectoliter French oak keep the wine truer to form and terroir, without too much hand in the wine. Sulfites are added to this cuvée after malolactic, and there is no fining or filtration. Composed of 80% Ugni Blanc with Viognier and Grenache Gris from vines planted in the 1960s. The two bottles of 2023 I tasted had a broad range of nuances that unfolded over a few hours after opening. Everything from warm citrus to early-season stone fruits, light honey, solid minerally nuances with wet forest floor. The Anathème rouge is Mont de Marie’s business card. 90% Carignan and 10% Aramon planted in the 1950s, this is jovial, well-balanced and very perfumed rouge—a capture of whole clusters and the built-in floral and herbal aromas that swirl in the scented winds of these parts. Over seven days of maceration, it’s untouched and maxes out at 24–25 °C. This limited-temperature and infusion approach lifts the finer floral and ethereal nuances and balances out its savory backdrop. It’s aged for nine months in very old 130-hectoliter concrete vats. There are no added sulfites, no fining and no filtration. This wine is best served on its first day to ensure that it stays in its jardin de fleurs et de fruits. “Greetings to the field!” is a loose translation of the Latin in the name Salve Ager. It’s also used in Italian and French while saluting (salut). Ager means field in Latin, so the name is a slight (possibly unintentional?) homage to the Reynaud-like delicacy, save the monster alcohols of Château Rayas; of course, I do understand that I’m taking liberty with this reference to one of the world’s most singular and extraordinary growers, but I’m mostly just looking to describe its profile rather than its pedigree. Here, this 95% Grenache and 5% Cinsault is grown on ancient alluvial soils of sandy clay, red iron-rich earth, flint, and rolled “poudingues” stones, with deeper conglomerates, facing west on gentle slopes. The sand makes a big difference with this beautiful wine built on Grenache’s finest points—perhaps attributable to its Rayas lean. To build on this theme of grace and subtlety, it goes through a whole-cluster, seven-day natural infusion (no extractions) with fermentation at 24–25 °C maximum before pressing. Again, like Anathème, this medium temperature and aging in 80 hl concrete tanks for nine months allows this wine to retain brighter flowers and fruits that decorate its otherwise earthen and metal-gilded frame. Here, there are no added sulfites, no finings and no filtration. In the wine world, it’s much easier to make wines at this price that speak loudly and broadcast their high value, but Thierry has done the opposite: an elegant wine that floats well above its price. This is one of Thierry’s strongest positions: he doesn’t want to get on an airplane to sell it in person to get a higher price. He prices it right so they can sell easily on their own merit. Coquin de Sort is a mild, old-fashioned French exclamation of slight annoyance, surprise, or exasperation, which is translated literally as “rascal of fate” and meaning “what the devil?”. It’s a polite, slightly theatrical way of reacting to bad luck or an unexpected turn. In this case, the first Coquin de Sort started as a surprisingly delicious vat some years ago, so he decided to bottle it, and then it became an annual occurrence. It comes from 60% Cinsault and 40% Grenache. Burned into memory, the bottles I had last year recall the wine’s aromatic draw of Persian mulberry-like exoticness intermingled with sweet greens, like lime, wheatgrass, and fresh bay plucked right from the plant and crumpled up in hand to release its aroma. On the palate, it was elegant and refined with a balance of petrichor, forest floor and wild berries, another wine impossible for us to ignore. In the cellar, it was whole-cluster fermented over seven days at maximum temperatures of 24–25 °C before pressing. To keep it tight and true to form, it was aged nine months in 25 hl concrete vats. No added sulfites, no fining and no filtration. Like all no-added-sulfite and more hands-off wines, Thierry’s wines may need even a few more months after their transatlantic voyage to settle and find their magnificence. I’m sure they’re revealing many cards early on, but they will have even more to share in the next few months. Italia Brandini Barolo | High Elevation Available From the Source in all U.S. States, except TX This month, the exciting new 2021 Barolo La Morra crafted by the hands and mind of Giovanna and Serena Bagnasco and their team has arrived. We’ve been waiting for this one since we started our collaboration at the beginning of 2022. They already nailed the 2019 and 2020 versions, but this one just might top them. Gio’s Words | 2021 Barolo ‘La Morra’ “As most people know, 2021 was great. One of the most important factors was the winter of 2020 and 2021, which was the snowiest one I’ve ever experienced. We had a lot of snow and very cold temperatures, and after two consecutive years of fairly severe drought, this finally restored the water table. The vineyards went into hibernation, regained nourishment and energy, and entered spring in excellent condition. Spring itself was not too warm. Toward the end of May and into June, there was some rainfall, which meant the flowering was not excessive in quantity. Summer, however, remained very balanced, with some rain and no extreme heat events. By the end of the growing season, we had what I consider a great contemporary vintage. It leaned more toward the warmer side than the colder, but it maintained its balance, and the vines were never significantly stressed from heat. The wines show remarkable aromatics and an approachable character, while still maintaining structure, backbone, and the complexity needed for aging. Comparing 2021 to another year, I’d say 2019 is probably the closest. The 2023 vintage shares some aromatic similarities, but the weather conditions were very different, so it’s not truly comparable in terms of the season. The 2021 Barolo La Morra is a blend of the four vineyards we have in La Morra, all located on what we define as the commune’s occidental side. They are all within less than a kilometer of the winery, near Brandini, and all face toward the Alps on the back side of La Morra. The sites differ in altitude and exposure. Sant’Anna sits much lower than the latter; then there is the lower portion of Brandini, followed by Marmo and San Bartolomeo. They are all adjacent to the property, but each faces slightly differently and sits at a distinct elevation. As always, I harvested and vinified each vineyard separately, creating four individual tanks. After alcoholic fermentation, I combined them two by two, pairing the lots that were closest chronologically. I then submerged the cap for an additional ten to twelve days to complete maceration, followed by the final blend before aging. The wine spent twenty months in barrel before bottling. I have to say that I truly love the 2021 as a vintage, especially for La Morra, because it is unmistakably La Morra. It expresses elegance, finesse, aromatics, lift, and brightness, along with a certain approachability. That is something I value greatly in our work. It’s rewarding to have a Barolo that is ready, open, and softer in character, while still clearly being Barolo. Of course, it has nothing to do with the austerity and introverted nature of Barolos from colder vintages; instead, it reflects sunshine and climatic balance, while still delivering complexity, structure, and depth. All things considered, among the Barolos currently available, the 2021 is probably the one I am most proud of.” Fletcher Langhe & Barbaresco | Non-Nebbs Available From the Source in all U.S. States, except NY & NJ Five of Dave Fletcher’s non-Nebbiolo 2024 wines have landed. Below is a softly edited version of his take on the vintage without daring to touch his charming Aussie colloquialisms. Dave’s Words | 2024 Vintage “2024 is a bit of a mixed bag across producers, a lot like 2022, where there’s a heap of crap out there. I think the journalists are having a go at it because of the rainfall. If I tell you there was a lot of rain, cooler weather, and disease pressure, you can interpret that however you like. What matters is who worked hard in the vineyard. Clearing fruit, dropping it at the right time. I did it four times in some of the vineyards I was working with—opening canopies, treating properly. I still had disease, but that’s where sorting and selection come in. You work harder to get the best fruit. The 2024 Langhe Nebbiolo, 2024 Dolcetto, and 2024 Barbera are, for me, screaming examples of the vintage. At the end of the day, yes, it rained, and yes, it was cool. You can see the hallmarks of a cooler vintage. So whatever gets written about rainfall or whether it mattered or not, I’d say just focus on the wines you’ve actually got in your hand. And the wines, honestly, are frigging great. This year’s Langhe Nebbiolo in particular is something special. I reckon it’s one of the best wines I’ve ever made. It’s bloody delicious. Just taste the wine. Dave’s Words | The Wines 2024 Favorita: Very elegant on the nose, as always. Pear and citrus straight out, with some straw notes coming through from the nine months on lees in old wood. There’s a nice glycerol texture that gives it length, finishing with fine, clean phenolics. 2024 Chardonnay ‘C24’: This is bang on the style I’m chasing. The nose has a really broad spectrum, starting with citrus from the early-picked fruit and moving into that honeydew melon and peach zone. You get touches of honeysuckle and very delicate oak from the 30% new barrels, all low toast. Nine months on lees and a turbid fermentation give the wine real body, balancing the acidity and dragging the finish out for days. 2024 Dolcetto d’Alba: A ripping Dolcetto from a cooler vintage, and it really shows how adaptable this grape is. I haven’t tasted a Dolcetto this floral in a long time. Violets and rose petals jump straight out of the glass, instantly inviting. The palate has proper, age-worthy tannin, but it’s kept in check by the softer acidity, which also helps pull the length right through. You finish with the tongue coated in red berry fruit. 2024 Arcato: (A blend of 75% Arneis and 25% Moscato) This wine never stops keeping my interest piqued. It’s constantly shifting on both the nose and the palate, moving through all sorts of fruit spectrums. One minute it’s all fruits and flowers, the next it’s herbal notes and citrus peel. It’s hard to pin down, but that’s exactly what this wine is about. The low alcohol makes you think it’ll be light, but the three weeks on skins build texture and intensity, adding a phenolic lick on the back palate that gives it real presence. 2024 Barbera d’Alba: Violets, blackberries, and fresh-cut sweet herbs layered on the nose. The use of whole clusters is the perfect way to rein in Barbera at this level of ripeness. It stays pure and elegant, with just the lightest stem character adding intrigue. It’s not heavy on the palate at all, more delicate and poised, with subtle spice sitting quietly in the background. España Pablo Soldavini Ribeira Sacra | Taming the Beast Available From The Source in all U.s. States Pablo Soldavini’s ethereal style of wine resonates deeply with us. Moving through a world of top-flight wines built on finesse, brighter red fruit, and an almost inexhaustible energy, his wines can feel startlingly alive when poured alongside other gorgeously crafted classical reds, wines sculpted in pursuit of deep complexity hidden behind layers of fruit, yet which can taste strangely exhausted by comparison. An Argentine national with a delicate touch in the cellar, Pablo spent many years trying to convince the Ribeira Sacra growers he collaborated with of his direction, Saíñas, Terra Brava, and Fedellos among them. Now, finally on his own and hitting stride, it is all Pablo. His wines echo the flora and fauna of these treacherously rocky high hills, leaving the ruggedness of their steep gneiss terrain to the imagination as much as to the palate. We are fortunate to work with many talented growers across Galicia. But when traveling with other wine professionals along the Iberian route, Pablo’s name almost always finds its way onto the podium when asked about the most compelling wines of the journey. Today, he has built a new winery that allows him to expand production enough to make a better living. Still, he’s made it clear that he will always remain small, choosing to work alone, readily admitting that he is difficult to collaborate with. From our experience, however, he has always been a pleasure to work for, and he deserves our full attention and our best effort as much as any grower in our portfolio. Pablo’s Words | 2023 Vintage “2022 was a very dry and warm year; however, in 2023, in addition to high temperatures, we experienced several episodes of extreme heat, with temperatures close to 45°C for several days. On top of this, there were strong winds that, in the vineyard, acted like hair dryers, dehydrating the leaves and causing the vines to suffer greatly. This caused the vegetative cycle to slow down, and therefore, in some parcels, we had to harvest earlier than usual.” The surprise, and the quiet triumph, arrived afterward. “Curiously, we still achieved optimal ripeness and perfect sanitary conditions.” That paradox, stress yielding clarity, shaped every decision that followed. “This latter point led me to carry out longer macerations, of up to 60 days.” – Pablo Soldavini Details All of Pablo’s ethereal-styled wines ferment naturally with 100% whole-cluster, infusion-style extraction, with macerations lasting 45–60 days, followed by 11 months of aging in 300 and 500-liter French oak barrels (hogsheads and demi-muids). They are unfiltered and unfined, with very low sulfite additions. All fruit is grown on gneiss with rocky, sandy, silty topsoil in the Ribeira Sacra subzone Ribeiras do Sil, at 400–500 meters altitude. Tanis comes from 70-year-old (2025) vines of 75% Mencía, 15% other red varieties (Garnacha Tintorera, Mouratón, and Merenzao), and 10% white varieties, primarily Palomino and Godello. Merenxiao is harvested from 40-year-old Merenzao (Trousseau) vines, while Sabela comes from vines planted in 1912, with 80% Mencía, 10% Mouratón, and 10% Gran Negro. Ponte da Boga Ribeira Sacra | Change is in the air Available From the Source in all U.S. States I talked about this new personal success story quietly brewing in Ribeira Sacra about a year ago, and here we are finally able to get to this organically farmed Mencía from one of Ribeira Sacra’s most historic bodegas, Ponte da Boga. After nearly a year of discussions, and a handful of vineyard and winery visits at Ponte da Boga, I asked Javier Ordás de Villota, their export manager and now our friend, for a meeting with the big boss to discuss the future and a topic crucial to our ethos: true sustainability, ecological consciousness, and a word that, depending on the company, can quickly turn conversations sour: organic farming. Francisco Alabart, a Catalan native, the Senior Director of Estrella Galicia’s wine and cider projects (including organic ciders), and of course, Javier’s boss, quietly listened to my pitch. I presented many ideas, but principally focused on how Ponte da Boga should take a strong position on organic farming in this region, so that they can become true industry leaders in Galician wine. And just like that, we walked out with a 2.5-hectare commitment from vines at one of Ponte da Boga’s Ribeira Sacra vineyard partners. The vineyards where the experiments will take place belong to the owning family’s son, José-Maria Rivera Aguirre (Jr.), known by all as Chema. Born in 1991, the easygoing and extremely personable yet shy Chema explained that he’s always had a strong connection to nature and the outdoors. An avid surfer, he pivoted and turned his love of the outdoors toward the vineyards of Ponte da Boga, where he interned for a couple of years starting in 2017. After that, he decided to spend his time in Chantada to grow grapes on his mother’s 40 hectares of wild land, and organic farming was always on his mind. “I was convinced that organic viticulture was possible. And if it’s possible, it was mandatory to try,” Chema said. It will be tough where he is, but he says that despite its much closer proximity to the Atlantic than Amandi, he doesn’t believe it has a greater mildew pressure, though that will still be his nemesis. He’s all in on 2.5 hectares of the 16 he planted, with five more on the way. As importers, our role is not just to align, but to sometimes guide and give confidence when it’s needed. Generously, the team at Ponte da Boga offered us priority for the first organic wines grown on those gorgeous terraces of shattering grayish-blue slate on the northern tip of the Chantada. The wine is the 2024 Mencia, Bancales Olvidados 'Parcela Trasmonte'. As it’s the northernmost area of Ribeira Sacra, it’s subject to the Atlantic’s coldest whipping winds—exactly what the naturally low acid Mencía needs to preserve its freshness. Tasting various lots of Mencía with Ponte da Boga, the blend dominated by this vineyard was the runaway highlight. The New Prádio Ribeira Sacra | Familia Seoane Novelle Available From the Source in all U.S. States I do love him, but sometimes Xabi Seoane Novelle can be frustratingly stubborn. When forced with the threat of legal action to continue using the name Prádio, he could have chosen something comparably simple. Instead, he landed on a name with too many vowels in a row and a double L that’s almost phonetically impossible for Americans, unless already good with Spanish: Familia Seoane Novelle. That said, the name shouldn’t deter you. Xavi has endured a brutal run of years. He began organic, moved into biodynamics, and then, after losing nearly three seasons’ worth of fruit in four years, faced a hard truth: ideology doesn’t pay the bills, and working for nothing but losing money sucks. On the verge of losing the business entirely, he chose to remain committed to organic farming while allowing himself the flexibility to intervene when mildew pressure threatened everything. He chose a good year to remain open, with 2022 being one of the best and easiest years in memory for both red and white wine across the region; indeed, the rest of Europe baked, but the Atlantic made a big assist here, and the varieties that need that extra sun—like those that make up his top wine, Pacio—were picture and palate perfect. Galicia’s rainfall makes mildew pressure extreme—far higher than in much of Europe—and rigid purity can be a luxury few can afford here. Xavi isn’t compromising quality; he’s protecting it. Growers in Rías Baixas came to this realization earlier out of necessity, and those further inland are now learning from experience rather than theory. 2022 was an exception, and this shows in the balance of the beautiful wines. Before wine, he spent years as a professional futbolista in Spain’s second division, which is still well paid, disciplined, and relentless. Every euro he earned went into this project, along with the rebuilding of his local culture. Xabi is a bit of a local hero, and he’s put his small-time fame to work by building a very cool hotel, buying the local restaurant, and fixing it up to serve not only wine to passersby but also the entire village, who get a great meal for a great price. Failure for Xabi could no longer be an option, and stubbornness tied to ideology in Chantada, the furthest western subzone and perhaps the coldest of Ribeira Sacra, would have been irresponsible. Our support comes from an understanding of the man, the work, and what it actually takes to farm this place without illusions. He’s still farming organically, but he’s now a flexidealista—a new word. He’s still making excellent wines, and his livelihood is no longer threatened by mildew. But hail, drought and frost are another story. 2022 Mencía After all these difficult years that tested his grit in the vineyard and sharpened his mind in the cellar, his 2022 vintage is a breakthrough. The 2022 Mencía is very good—woodsy at the start (like the smell of the surrounding wild forest rather than barrels), a pleasure to drink, complex and genuinely pretty, with a flawless throughline of sumptuous fruit inside a very minerally and metal frame imparted by his architectural contour model set on the convergence of granite and schist that cuts the vineyard in half—dead center. The nose opens with a touch of reduction that briefly holds it at bay, but quickly dissipates. 2022 Pacio Tinto Still, the real story here with Xabi isn’t necessarily his Mencía—it’s his Pacio. He knows it. We know it. Xabi says his dad doesn’t always agree (a big Mencía guy), and neither do most people who think about Galician red wines. Mencía grows best on the ancient acidic soils derived from the Galician–Iberian Massif: 300-plus-million-year-old eroding rock of slate, schist, gneiss, and variations of granite-granodiorite, at high altitudes, to preserve some freshness. The high-end red wines that most resonate with me in Galicia aren’t likely to come from Mencía; there are, of course, notable exceptions, including Envínate, Guímaro, Seoane Novelle, Pablo Soldavini, and a small handful of others. The most compelling wines come from its ancient varieties, which don’t just perform well but more fully define this place and its cultural heritage prior to Mencía’s arrival. Because of its early malic acid respiration and tendency toward rising pH before full phenolic maturity, Mencía frequently requires acid adjustment, either through direct additions of tartaric acid or through blending with higher-acid indigenous varieties. While it’s reliable, productive, and capable of very good wine, it rarely carries the emotional currency I look for. Mencía can be complex, yes—but complexity alone isn’t always enough. It’s a fabulous by-the-glass wine, one of the best for price and quality, in fact; but beyond that (with a few exceptions, like our very own Pedro Méndez’s Viruxe at 11% alcohol grown just three miles from the Atlantic, or the ancient-vine wines made by the top Ribeira Sacra growers), I spend my Galician red wine budget elsewhere, given the alternative red expressions Galicia has to offer. I have deep respect for the growers committed to Mencía, even when the wines they produce, however well made, do not resonate with me in the same way as other Galician red varieties. You may think I’m scoring an own goal here, or kneecapping Xabi and five other growers we work with who have Mencía in their range, but I’m not. I’m being honest about this. Their Mencías are fantastic, and Xabi’s 2022 version is impressive and by far the best one he’s ever made. Mencía’s game is strong here, but it’s Division Two. What matters most at Pradio is Pacio, a wine built from a blend of the four principal indigenous (if one can truly call them that) varieties of the area, Division One. These are all naturally high-acid varieties, all highly aromatic, and they represent the deeper historical and viticultural truth of this place. They’ve been here for centuries. Mencía functioned as a stand-in workhorse variety, valued for its reliability and approachability, and for offering access to a broader, volume-driven market; it can also be very elegant and easy to drink. When it first arrived in Galicia, it was a savior for a wine industry that had largely abandoned Ribeira Sacra altogether. But it’s not the queen or the king—it should be viewed as a steward awaiting the true return of these varieties, which were mostly abandoned because there was less of a guarantee for a crop from them in those days. The ancient varieties I speak of are fine, definitive, world-class, and authentic, with a potential for emotional currency that feels effectively limitless. This is the currency that shapes my daily choices in the wines I drink. The challenge is that mildew, successive wars, industrialization, and the political regime that suppressed continuity for generations broke the line—information lost, destroyed, and mostly forgotten. Indeed, they’re not easy to grow; they’re like Burgundy and Jura varieties: fickle, sensitive, and easy to lose volume to medium-sized weather events. Yet here the high-end wine world remains overly fixated on Mencía. Imagine Burgundy and Jura had the same broken line of passed-down knowledge and were replanted with Merlot, Syrah, and Sauvignon Blanc after the great wars because they were easier, more productive, and more profitable than Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Trousseau, Poulsard, and Savagnin. Imagine if the world came to believe those varieties defined Burgundy and Jura, while the growers themselves quietly understood they were only caretakers, waiting for the market’s interest to return to the varieties capable of producing each region’s highest expressions. First, there is Caíño (of which there are many bearing the name Longo, da Terra, Bravo, and others), a remarkably flexible lead that has not yet found the right voice to deliver this extraordinary character’s monologue. It’s extremely high in acidity, with medium to high tannin and relatively soft color, depending on harvest timing. It can be picked early and still taste phenologically ripe. It can also be picked later and become more rustic while remaining phenologically balanced and deeply complex. Among the varieties discussed here, I believe it holds the greatest potential. Then there is the queen: Brancellao. Brancellao is very light and very pale—comparable to Poulsard or Premetta but with racier acidity. It has a very light phenolic profile and extremely pale color—almost rosé-like. Caíño Longo and Brancellao, in general, produce more red fruit, unless the Caíño is picked later, when it remains red but moves more toward earth and rusticity than toward fruits and flowers. Next is Merenzao, also known as Trousseau. This brings a more purple tonal range and very exotic aromatics—violets, Persian mulberry, that spectrum. It’s aromatically charged and hard to ignore its prettiness. But I’ve often noted that Trousseau as a single variety in both Galicia and Jura often has strong high and low tones but a hollower center. Once you arrive at Sousón, you’re dealing with a very dark grape—a black grape. After just a few hours of extraction, it develops massive color, and the further you go, the blacker and inkier it becomes. Sousón is a wolf that makes Syrah look like a house dog. Massive acidity, massive tannin, massive color—but it’s not innately corpulent; the regional igneous and metamorphic soils, well-drained and acidic, keep it lean and tight, like Daniel Day-Lewis's sinewy but muscular frame as Daniel Plainview or Bill the Butcher. In Portugal, this grape is known as Vinhão, and it has historically played a foundational role in the wines of the northwest. (Notably missing here is the variety Espadeiro, which, while one of Galicia’s most talented indigenous grapes, last I heard, it’s not permitted in wines under the Ribeira Sacra DO.) Backstory Opportunity In northern Portugal and Galicia, when Britain was cut off from French wine—most notably during the long cycles of Anglo-French conflict—drinkers didn’t wait politely for Bordeaux to return in its truest form. They drank what arrived. Many were supplemented with wines from northwestern Iberia: darker, firmer, higher in acid, and stable enough to travel, with freakishly low pH levels. Export volumes of Portuguese wines (including from the northwest) increased when French supply was disrupted, especially during 17th- and 18th-century embargoes, and again when phylloxera decimated French vineyards in the 19th century. Later, during the phylloxera outbreak, a convenient mythology emerged that regions like Cornas, Hermitage, and Côte-Rôtie propped up Bordeaux during its collapse. It’s likely true to some degree, but does the math work? Can the land in the area support such a claim? Does a rise in production there fit the timeline? It’s hard to tell. Stability, firmness, and structural authority were desirable traits in wines, and northwestern Iberian varieties already spoke that language, especially Vinhão (PT)/Sousón (ES). Portuguese winegrowers with a knack for history will tell you that substantial volumes of wine were exported from Galicia and northern Portugal during these periods, not as replacements for Bordeaux, but to contribute to the demand when French supply faltered. Without solutions yet for phylloxera, Bordeaux at that time would’ve needed large volumes of structurally sound wine that could move cheaply and quickly, and northern Portugal already had the infrastructure to do exactly that: rivers feeding ports, and ports feeding the Atlantic straight into Bordeaux. By contrast, the northern Rhône was small in production and would be logistically awkward, requiring slow, expensive overland transport or southbound river routes that made large-scale diversion unrealistic. And that demand rewarded certain grapes. Sousón, the same grape as Vinhão and by far the most dominant red variety in northern Vinho Verde just across the border from Galicia, rose to prominence. I have Vinhão at my home in Ponte de Lima, and the fifteen-minute drive from town to our front gates is like a canalized river held in place by vine-stitched rock walls and massive Vinhão and Loureiro canopies the whole way. Sousón/Vinhão is capable of delivering color, acid, and tensile strength along with big volumes in hostile conditions. Vineyards were replanted in northwest Iberia accordingly, not out of ideology, but out of survival and usefulness. Vinhão wasn’t invasive; it was propagated in its historical home. If a maker wants it, this grape can carry the entire frame of a wine—the pelvis, the shoulders, the legs. Everything structural. That’s not an accident of history. That’s why Vinhão endured in northern Vinho Verde over all its redder siblings. The only things it seems to run short on are redness and gentleness. Back to the Miño That said, Pacio is not built on Sousón; there is only a small amount of this powerful wine in the blend. The majority is Merenzao, Caíño Longo, and Brancellao, with a touch of Mencía and Sousón. That choice shows clearly in the wine and results in something more regionally and historically authentic with respect to pre-World War times. I won’t deny that Mencía transmits terroir quite well; that’s not the problem. The issue is range. Even when it’s grown on great sites, it tends to tell the story in a fairly narrow register, and after a while, that sameness can feel limiting. That’s a misrepresentation of what this region is capable of expressing at its highest level. Mencía was widely planted for its consistency. This wasn’t about garage winemaking or passion projects. It was about survival. Growers needed a grape that wouldn’t fail them after a full season of work. These ancient varieties are more sensitive and require much greater intuition and attention to farm successfully. And that is precisely what makes Pacio so special. Is there any truly great wine that was meant to be sipped like a cocktail? Is there any truly great wine that doesn’t match well with food? And it makes me wonder that if a wine is really designed to be enjoyed on its own, how well does it actually work once food shows up? Some wines demand to be served with a meal, and they have their place, an environment where they fit. They’re wines of ceremony, wines of context. And some wines are not meant to be tasted; they’re meant to be drunk, they’re meant to be enjoyed while complementing richly flavored food. This is what Pacio is all about. Ribeira Sacra Pit Stop | Restaurante Valilongo Restaurante Valilongo sits inside a long valley on a very straight road between Castro Caldelas and Ourense, which may seem unusual for these parts, but it’s outside of the gorge of all the various winding rivers. Inside, people stare like cows in a pasture as you pass by; strangers in a strange land. The place is rustic—a cowboy saloon merged with a pirate dwelling with a deceivingly dull exterior. The guy who runs the front seems to size you up like he’s ready to take you to the table and skin you, but he’s super nice; so is his service team. The first time there, I could read my wife’s mind: “The places you bring me …” We were joining Pablo Soldavini for lunch, and he swore this is the best spot around. The air is thick with the smell and feel of collagen, and you can imagine huge cauldrons of stews in the back, animal parts cooking with garbanzos, tomato, and potatoes. Caldo galego is ever-present, a chunky green soup made mostly of grelos (turnip greens), potato, and almost certainly a bone broth of some sort. It doesn’t look appetizing for first timers, but it’s delicious and perfect for the bitter cold and wet that’s always around these parts. Then they present you with specials, on the spot, with everyone staring back and forth between the front man staring you down and you, seemingly everyone in the place waiting for your decision. I always choose the wrong thing. My wife is the smart one. She sticks with caldo galego and special orders bean or garbanzo stew with the parts, greased up with collagen. That collagen in the air is likely from some form of Cocido Gallego, not quite like what’s in cassoulet, but more like a mirror of Emilia-Romagna’s boiled meat dish, bollito misto. There are all kinds of parts, and not just the meaty ones. Lick your lips, and they’re still coated with collagen, stuck to the surface, instead of how it’s injected in other parts of the world. My wife couldn’t believe the quality of their soup options. She is quite fond of the place, as am I. But I should always stick with the beans; they come with enough meat already, no need to order a plate of it afterward. This is conceptually where these wines belong. Not in pirate bars and restaurants, but not necessarily with a Michelin-star tasting menu, either. For me, this wine really comes alive with grilled and braised meats and deeply savory food—that’s where it makes the most sense, and where it actually gets to be itself. Pacio will indeed suit up nicely for perfectly manicured plates designed to aesthetically wow with their architectural display. But it’s more comfortable and expressive with foods that could use a palate reset before the next mouthful of collagen-rich deliciousness. And even still, without but a touch of Mencía, the older varieties that existed before Mencía’s invasion, Caíño Longo, Brancellao, Merenzao, and a touch of Sousón create a wine with incredibly intense but inviting natural acidity. Metamorphic rock wall from the vineyard A Pacio Experience On January 22nd of this year, the wine started strong out of the gate. I remember tasting it last year at this time. It was brighter, the fruit was redder, the aromatics slightly more lifted. Now it has settled in. It’s deeper, and the color is still quite light for these parts—slightly tinted ruby. And for this blend of grape varieties, it’s just the right balance of taut freshness with a slight green note that works well. I would still argue this is one of the very best Ribeira Sacra wines I’ve had. It’s incredibly pure. There’s a lot of joy here. It’s a breakthrough. That schisty, metallic strength you often find in wines like Côte-Rôtie is prominent, and it has Syrah-like greens but more bay leaf than thyme, more eucalyptus and wild forest than Rhône garrigue. This is not a pile of jewels overflowing off the top of a crown. It’s a massive metal crown with very finely etched jewels—pure, clean, sharply cut and elegantly set. Sometimes, when I try to write tasting notes, it gets complicated because the wines are so fascinating that all the details get bottlenecked in my head. This is one of those times. It keeps pulling me back to the glass. It’s not really a wine to sit around and drink casually. It’s ceremonial and warrants occasion. As for how it compares to the previous years, the 2022 Pacio is on a different level. This is one of the coldest areas of Ribeira Sacra, farthest west before you pass through Ourense and into Ribeiro, and unlike other producers in the warmer zones (like those stunningly picturesque vistas of Amandi) where the fruit smell seems partially baked out, this wine retains fresh, wild fruit shaped by wind and cold influence. The vineyard sits on a very active stretch of river by comparison to Amandi, for example. You feel the mist, the forest air, the depth, the cold, the wet rocks, the hustling river. You feel this current moving past the vines every day, even on the hottest days.

Saint-Aubin vineyard facing Chassagne-Montrachet (maybe En Remilly?) Containers are finally landing As mentioned in last month’s newsletter, wines from Hubert Lamy, Simon Bize, Guiberteau, Brendan Stater-West, and Justin Dutraive are here. Due to the unpredictable delays at the port, Berthaut-Gerbet’s 2018s will unexpectedly arrive in June ahead of many others that were ordered a month earlier! The quality of Amelie Berthaut’s wines continue their ascent, and 2018 will be no exception. As usual, quantities are especially limited on all the wines except the first three Fixin in her range: the Fixin appellation wine, and the two lieux-dits, Les Clos and Les Crais.  Also on the docket are a few Italian goodies. Poderi Colla’s 2017 Barolo Bussia Dardi le Rose is still the Barolo to beat for classically-styled wines with higher tones and a trim but substantial palate feel and structure. While in very close proximity, there is often some separation between Barolo and Barbaresco in overall style and level of success in each vintage. For any of you who already experienced Colla’s 2017 Barbaresco and its beautiful Nebbiolo perfume and quick-to-evolve tannins that everyone is ready for with this vintage, the 2017 Barolo is right in the same line. It was a warmer year, especially toward the end, which these days just means delicious earlier on with producers like Colla, whose sharp winemaker, Pietro Colla, appropriately adapts the program by working around any specific “recipe winemaking” agendas when the grapes are received. It also helps that his father, Tino, carries the family’s three hundred years of passed-down knowledge about how to manage the vineyards to achieve great results no matter what Mother Nature throws at them. And once again, the critics acknowledged the consistency of the work these days at the cellar and have rewarded them with complimentary reviews that continue to demonstrate Colla’s knack for consistency and reliability.  Riecine’s 2016 single site wines (Riecine di Riecine and La Gioia) are here too. It’s a vintage not to miss from the team at Riecine. Once Alessandro Campatelli was given the reins to do as he felt he needed, starting with the very clever move to bring back Carlo Ferrini, the enologist who put Riecine on the map in the 1970s and 80s. He also completely removed any new wood from the Riecine di Riecine wine and went all-in on concrete eggs for three years of cellar aging to preserve and also showcase all that beautiful fruit supported with nuances of savory characteristics. La Gioia is the bombastic wine in the range with unapologetic big red fruit and a sappy palate. The team has a lot of fun with their work and it shows in the wines.  Another real highlight is Chevreux-Bournazel (La Parcelle) is also finally reaching the shores of California. We’ve decided that we will call this Champagne “La Parcelle” because the pronunciation of the last names of Julien and Stéphanie are pretty difficult for most Americans. Rachel Kerswell, our National Sales Manager and New York Lead Salesperson, has the most experience with La Parcelle, outside of the many bottles I’ve been able to drink over the last two years here in Europe. My first taste was while I lived in the Amalfi Coast, in 2019. I asked Stéphanie to send some samples over, and there are few wines in the history of our company that were such obvious no-brainers to add to our list. Rachel has written a teaser on the wines, the allotment of which is extremely limited: 48 to 120 bottles of each of the three wines imported for the US. Champagne La Parcelle by Rachel Kerswell “Biodynamic rules seem simple for us. Working without chemical products, without mineral fertilization, without products in the wine and with life, with our animals, with the wild plants of our land, with cosmological influences …” – Stéphanie ChevreuxAmong the multitude of producers who have been looking beyond Champagne’s initial grower-producer movement—a movement of growers that began to break free of the big houses and to produce their own wines, typically focused on single plots—are two young and enthusiastic winemakers, Stéphanie Chevreux and Julien Bournazel, of Champagne La Parcelle. Since their debut vintage in 2012, they have been laser-focused on a more homeopathic approach, not only in the vineyards, but in the cellar too. Upon the acquisition of their first vineyard, a 0.4 ha parcel on the Côteau du Barzy,  Stéphanie and Julien immediately began the conversion to biodynamic practices, and to the naked eye it’s evident their land is happy and thriving. The cover crop is verdant with an array of wild thyme, carrots, tomatoes, fruit trees and all things life. The grapes are manually harvested during the cool, early morning hours, when it’s eleven to twelve degrees Celsius, before the short trip to their tiny cellar where they undergo a gentle press, followed by spontaneous fermentation in old tonneaux. Following the lunar calendar, battonage is performed regularly throughout the winter months to give the wines more “gras,” a welcome layer to balance the naturally high acidity. The wines are never racked (outside of the necessary moment just before bottling), filtered or fined, and SO2 levels are kept extraordinarily low (between 12-37 mg/L) and added just before bottling. 2017 La Parcelle, La Capella La Capella is a 0.38 hectare parcel on a very steep 45-degree slope planted predominantly to Pinot Meunier (90%). The vines are dense, at 5000-6000 per hectare, with small amounts of Chardonnay and Pinot Gris interplanted throughout. Deep layers of clay cover chalky subsoils at the bottom portion of the slope, while silex (chert), marne and limestone dominate the upper slope, where you can find just 10cm of topsoil in some sections. The vineyard is situated in a small meander that gets some of the most intense and direct winds within the valley, likely contributing to the natural salinity, yellow citrus and wild herbs, supported by a substantially vivacious and linear palate. The dosage is 4g/L. 2017 La Parcelle, Connigis Connigis is Stéphanie and Julien’s second and, so far, latest acquisition. Luckily, it has never been touched by chemical treatments and has been thriving since they bought it in 2016. The subsoil of this southwest facing, 0.28-hectare parcel on a 30-degree slope consists of hard limestone, chalk and marne, and has deeper clay topsoil throughout compared to its counterpart, La Capella. It is protected by natural borders and therefore benefits from more temperate conditions, resulting in a wine that shows more opulence and roundness upfront. After about thirty minutes open, the palate begins to show a fine sea-spray salinity that balances out ripe orchard fruit aromas, keeping this wine straight and delicate. It is composed entirely of Pinot Meunier and finished without any dosage. 2018 La Parcelle, Côteaux Champenois We have anxiously anticipated this wine from Stéphanie & Julien since we began importing their wines two years ago. Their production hasn’t grown since they acquired their second parcel, so it’s been a give-and-take to bring it to life. The give is 850 bottles of 2018 Côteaux Champenois, while the take is from Cuvée Connigis, which will now be even less available than it has been previously. After the must from Cuvée Connigis is racked into bottle for the secondary fermentation, a portion is left in tonneaux for an extra ten months. This extra time in wood brings just enough finesse to balance the natural electrical charge of this purely Pinot Meunier Côteaux Champenois, while maintaining impeccable balance. Pre-phylloxera vines in the Carremolino vineyard of César Fernández July Arrivals We are expecting a slew of Spanish wines to make their way in. From Galicia’s Ribeira Sacra, Fazenda Prádio should be the first in line in July with a microquantity of his top red wine from 2018 called Pacio. Wines from Adega Saíñas, another Ribeira Sacra producer from one of the colder zones, will follow shortly after Prádio. We’ll have a very small reload on some wines from Manuel Moldes, which evaporated in the first rounds in the bag with our sales team in California and New York. César Fernandez will hit too. César is the guy I’ve talked about in the previous newsletters who spent the last five years working with Comando G, in Gredos. He’s definitely one to watch, but the quantities of his wines from Ribera del Duero are minuscule at twenty cases for the entire country. Fazenda Pradio vineyard in Chantada, a colder sub zone of Ribeira Sacra Arnaud Lambert’s wines will be resupplied in July. Arnaud is killing it with his entire range and it’s honestly hard to keep them in good supply. First in will be the new vintages of Saumur wines from Clos de Midi and Clos Mazurique, and the Saumur-Champigny Les Terres Rouges. He continues to set the bar for price/quality/emotion with all three of these, and we have some of the cru wines arriving in the following months. In the past it was an all-we-could-buy supply, but he’s become more famous now (I guess we shouldn’t have done so much promoting!), so while we still get a great allocation because we were the first to bring his Brézé wines into the US, the world has caught on and the demand is very high. Plan for these when they arrive, or you might be waiting another year for the next vintage to hit. Anne Morey, of Domaine Pierre Morey Pierre Morey’s 2018s will also arrive, and the white Burgundies that I’ve had so far from this vintage have been a great surprise. We often think about the relationship between red and white in the same year, but in 2018 the whites fared very well and not too far off the mark from the previous year. I recently spoke with Paul Wasserman about it and he shared that many vignerons have vacillated between different theories about why the wines are so fresh compared to the reds, like the influence of the high dry extract and a year that somehow favored tartaric acid much more than the usual proportion of malic, which made for very little acidity loss during malolactic fermentation. Also, the higher yield slowed ripening enough and may have created a better balance of phenolic maturity with fresher acidity, and, finally, as I’ve been mentioning for a few years now, the vines may be somewhat adapting to climate change. Lifelong Road Warrior I hit the road again for a long trip through Spain, France, Italy, Austria, and Germany the day after my birthday on May 25th and will return home to Portugal just before the third week of July. I’m going solo since my wife decided she doesn’t like these lengthy marathons anymore, which means lots of windshield time with my own thoughts, on my own timeline, things I’m rarely afforded. I think better when I’m walking or driving and often wish I could be writing at the same time! I’m surprised that I can even put together coherent stories (which is still debatable, anyway) having to sit still for hours at a time. I’ve always needed to keep moving, which made going to school six or seven hours a day and two hours of church every weekend hard for me. Which might be part of why I didn’t do any more of that stuff after I turned eighteen… As elementary school kids, my two older brothers and my sister, Victoria, the youngest (who’s worked with us at The Source since the beginning), and I would find ourselves in the back of mom’s early 80s maroon Chevy station wagon (a color choice of which I’ll never understand) driving from Troy, Montana, an extremely podunk, thousand-person mining town in the northwest of the state, down through South Dakota and on to Minneapolis where we’d sometimes stop to see our uncle, Tom. Our terminus was in Eagle Grove, Iowa, for weeks with our other, much older half-brothers, and the rest of mom’s side of the family. It was on one of these trips when we stopped once for the view at Mount Rushmore and the Badlands National Park that I discovered my interest in rocks.  I always saved my money, which I mostly earned by sweeping the floor of my dad’s carpenter shop, for $0.10 an hour; I was clearly cheap labor, and seemingly not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I spent every dime on little boxes with rocks glued to pieces of thick white paper, their names written below them, and every one of these were precious to me. They were my own personal little treasures that no one else seemed to care about. I especially loved fool’s gold, known in the science world as pyrite. It’s a beautiful mineral, worth nearly nothing, and more attractive to me than gold because I liked its angles and shine. Maybe I was a fool. Or maybe I just saw the value in things that others didn’t.  We passed through the Dakotas and what at the time seemed to be a strange desert landscape to kids who grew up in thickly forested, mountainous Montana countryside with wildlife literally at the front door, and then on into the endless cornfields of Iowa and what the folk musician Greg Brown referred to as “butterfly hills” in his live version of Canned Goods, where the car would go weightless for a second like a boat hitting a big wave while we all screamed and laughed and sometimes got nauseous. They seemed to go on forever and we eventually calmed down as they lost their appeal. I once played that Greg Brown song for my mom and by the end of it she had tears streaming down her face; his stories about Iowa in the days after the last Great War really hit her hard. These eidetic on-the-road memories are also fleshed out by a playlist that included Neil Diamond, Pavarotti, Hooked on Classics Part 1 (and 2 and 3 and…), Julio Iglesias, and Willie Nelson, especially Willie’s song, On The Road Again. Also, too many Hall and Oates songs to recount amid a blur of DTV—Disney’s 80s cartoon version of MTV for kids. My mom was a true romantic, and I’ve come to understand that more as I’ve gotten older. The music on those trips is a unique mix for me, and when I spend time with my wife’s mother, Nancy, down in Santiago Chile, we sometimes get a little sauced together late at night and drift back with Spotify to those deeply nostalgic musical moments. Sometimes I have to fight hard to keep the alcohol-induced tears from welling up, and I think she does too. They were such innocent times when we were kids, when our parents were the age I am now, and I’m sure they’re part of the reason why I’m always ready for the next trip. I like to relive those moments in the back of that ugly station wagon with the backseat always down so we could fall asleep whenever we got tired. We had to play games all day to keep busy so mom could stay focused on these long drives of death. At nighttime on the road, out in the pitch-black countryside with only the car’s headlights and the stars above to light the sky, we would rub our heads against pillows to create static electricity to watch the sparks fly in the dark. My brothers are pretty far along in balding, and I’m not terribly far behind them. Maybe we unknowingly created electrolysis with those pillows…  I don’t know how mom did it, but she’d sometimes drive 1,400 miles during endless summer days with these four unruly kids in the back, only stopping so we could go to the bathroom; other than Rushmore, there was hardly a stop along the route. Sometimes mom wouldn’t even make pit stops, she’d just pass back a cup for us to go in… Hungry? Drink a glass of water… She was pretty hardcore on trips, and some who’ve travelled with me on the wine route have accused me of being somewhere close to that—except that I have a lot more fun along the way and don’t hand over cups instead of a proper bathroom break. Sometime before mom passed away in 2017, while Andrea and I were on our honeymoon in Spain (there’s no good time for your mother to die), she made her final, long journey from California to Iowa in the middle of a winter storm, at age 78, alone. Afterward, she casually told us how she had been blown off the highway by a semi and into a ditch during a blizzard. It was freezing and a complete whiteout. She couldn’t see anything. Thankfully she was close to Iowa, so my oldest brother, Steve, went to get her out. Mom always excelled against unfavorable odds; I suppose having six kids in the world can be useful sometimes. Victoria was furious with her and made her promise not to do any more long trips alone. I don’t think she agreed to it, but it very soon lost its relevance, anyway.  About the time this newsletter is published I will have just arrived in Barbaresco to stay at Dave Fletcher’s rail station turned winery. I will have already passed from Portugal across Spain’s Ribera del Duero and Rioja, up into western France’s Madiran for a visit with a very interesting producer (more on that later if everything works out!), across to the Langedoc to visit Julien and Delphine from Domaine du Pas de l’Escalette (always a mouthful to say that name), and a long overdue visit to my friends, Pierre and Sonya, and their massive Provençal country home outside of Avignon, known to the locals as Mas la Fabrique. Surely, I will have eaten loads of white asparagus during my two-day respite there before heading north to say hello to the Roussets, in Crozes-Hermitage.  After La Fabrique and Rousset, I’ll have cut across the Alps, through the Mont Blanc tunnel, popping out into Italy’s Valle d’Aosta and over to Northern Piedmont to visit with our group of four producers there: Monti Perini, Zambolin, Ioppa, and the new one, Davide Carlone. My old friends Daryl and John, Willie, Luciano, and Greg will surely have made many appearances through my Spotify feed before reaching Alba. (I usually save Julio and Neil for those nights with Andrea and my mother-in-law.) You’ll get the rest of the trip’s scoop over the next two months when it starts to get even more interesting as I make my way through Lombardian foothills, Alto Adige, Austria, Germany and back through Champagne, Chablis, Cote d’Or, and finally Beaujolais to conclude my French leg. In the meantime, I’ll post a few things on our Source Instagram @thesourceimports, as well as my own, @mindfullofwine, about things I’m learning along my trip. Until then, drink well! You never know what your last glass will be until after you’ve had it. Better make them all good ones.■

Newsletter November 2025 Stéphane Rousset's Crozes-Hermitage "Les Picaudières Tariffs have slowed purchasing since mid-summer, and we’re having a bit of a lull as we wait for our late November and early December containers. The tariff bills, due upon arrival at the port, are deducted immediately from our bank account, often without prior notice. It’s made staying on top of our cash flow difficult because we need to ensure there’s enough to cover the government's confiscation at a level we’ve never experienced before–and these duties have now been ruled illegal, to boot. (Funny, but not so funny, how the “less-government” right-wing has stepped aside for the government to rule everything.) Coming from France in the coming months, we expect the 2023s from David Duband, Les Infiltrés third vintage, Christophe’s 2023 1er Crus, a pile of Lambert, and a new grower for our California team, the “natural” wine world’s legendary low-alcohol, Languedoc grower, Thierry Forestier, and his Domaine Mont de Marie. Landing in New York from Portugal is a touch more of the immediately legendary (as of last month’s California tastings and the inaugural release of the wines) San Michel and its Colares and Sintra-based wines, Menina d’Uva’s fluttering and charming Trás-os-Montes wines, and Constantino Ramos’s Lima Valley Loureiro (already in massive demand for the temporarily short supply). From Spain, the Augalevada 2023s, Manuel Moldes, Pablo Soldavini, Aseginolaza & Leunda, Michelini y Muffato Bierzos, Mixtura’s 2021 reds and whites (wait till you get a load of these!). Also en route is Prádio’s game-changing vintage and name-changing project for their Mencía and Pacio red, now called Familia Seoane Novelle—slightly more challenging name than Prádio; he had to change the name legally. (Otherwise, face a lawsuit!) Then comes the new organic Atlantic Mencía from Ribeira Sacra’s historic Ponte da Boga. In Italy, more of the highly requested Maneterra 2024 Vermentino, the extraordinary Castello di Castellengo and their deal-of-the-decade Alto Piemonte Nebbiolo range grown on Lessona-like volcanic marine sand, Brandini’s gorgeous 2019 and 2020 Barolos (just tasted all over California this last week), Paglinetto’s salty, beautiful Verdicchio di Matelica, Sergio Arcuri’s Olympic-level Ciró wines (2019 Più Vite & 2021 Aris), and Dave Fletcher’s fresh-take takedown and remodeled Langhe Dolcetto, Barbera and Chardonnay, among others! It’s a massive load all at once that we’ll have to spread over some months. And even though many will arrive at the beginning of November, we always maintain a minimum month-long rest for all new release wines before we begin to sample and sell them. We implemented this company policy when we opened, since wines need to rest after traveling. We don’t want to waste our money and everyone’s time showing wines that are truck and boat-lagged. Since there’ve been no new arrivals this month or the last, I came up with at least something to send out, lest anyone think that my newsletter run that started in March 2021 has died on the vine–quite the opposite. I deeply enjoy writing our newsletter, and as long as I can still see, type and think, I will continue this welcome and fulfilling task until the first of those faculties begins to fail. So in an effort to keep things going, I sent out inquiries to our growers across Europe for a preview of their experiences this harvest. From what I gather, 2025 seems to have been wildly successful all over the territories we work. A unique year with a balance of hot and dry weather in some places, like Galicia, and a slow and steady pace on the east side in Austria and everywhere in between. The common thread? Abundance for many, and quality for all. Lucky us! Michigan, finally! Before we dig into the vintage report, a big shout-out to our new Michigan team at Huron River Wine Co. Doug, Kayleigh, and their driven leader, Chad LeMieux delivered a fabulous and diverse group of wine professionals to keep me extra chatty and on the move during two organized tastings. They’re entirely on board with our entire national portfolio of growers (a true rarity in the distribution world), and all styles of wine seem to fly there. My grandfather was from Ann Arbor, which added a bit of a mystique to the place for me. My recent trip was my first time in the state, and we had to just pass through Ann Arbor on our way from Detroit to Grand Rapids so we could keep charging Chad’s electric truck (Ford). The tasting in Detroit and the smaller but equally interested group in Grand Rapids the next day were well-attended, with a diverse gathering of open and seasoned wine pros and younger buyers. I was encouraged by what seemed to be a solid connection and openness between the younger buyers and those with a lot more experience. There’s a dearth of mentorship in today’s wine culture, but among the attendees of the two Michigan tastings, I sensed a distinct connection between the different generations. Our growers, a collection that includes many progressives among the classicists, are often eccentric, sometimes a little off the beaten path, but these Midwesterners responded with enthusiasm. Even some wines that I thought might back me into a corner as I tried to explain my reasons for bringing in 10.5-11% alcohol, high desert, hot-climate, pale-colored, 40-varietal-blend (both red and white grapes), Iberian reds poured right next to supercharged, multi-varietal, sub-3.0 pH reds (blacks!) with the same low alcohol. They didn’t blink. Despite it being my maiden voyage to Michigan, it felt like I’d met these people before–maybe it was my inner Montanan and my parents' connection to Iowa in the 1940s. I enjoyed tasting our wines at the events, Stateside. Strangely, I don’t get to do that much. When I lived in California, I could taste them anytime to observe their evolution and behavior and compare them to how they were when I first tasted them in Europe, out of barrel, and then in their infantile stage shortly after bottling. At home in Iberia, I’m out of reach from the stock that made the refrigerated trans-Atlantic journey in California, New York, or our distribution partners’ stock in other states. Even if the wines are the same bottlings as those I may have at home, every batch, every case, every bottle, and every taste is different—especially when you work with “living” wines vibrating with active microbial life. We poured the same wines at both tastings and, as expected, they were slightly different from one day to the next. Detroit was sunny and pristine. The next day in Grand Rapids put on a climate-change show in rapid succession—four seasons in two hours with sideways rain, followed by a hard hailstorm, sun, rain, wind, sun, rain, wind, then a cool calm for the drive back to Detroit with the sun at our backs driving through the kaleidoscope of deciduous trees flaunting their fiery fall garments. The travel shock in the Grand Rapids set was notable. Three days removed from Chad’s warehouse to get ahead of the agenda and a three-hour drive between Detroit and Grand Rapids, they came out jittery, clammed up and a little pissed at first before they opened up and smiled for the crowd. The bottles for both tastings came from the same boxes, but different bottles. With a quarter of each bottle poured, they found their harmony but were still more tightly structured with a little less fruit and flower compared to their generous showing the day before, when they had only been out of the warehouse for 36 hours. After years of filling my trunk with the same sample set to show three or four days in San Francisco up from my former home in Santa Barbara, I am well beyond convincing that wines will probably show well in their first and second day of jostling. But on day three and four, their brows furrow and arms cross, like they’re disappointed with the mistreatment. I subscribe to this and recommend that everyone avoid drinking wines that have been moved for three to seven (or ten) days afterward. Sometimes I wonder what we’re all doing, trying to make decisions about purchasing wines on a single taste from a single bottle at all. Rarely do any buyers ask what the wines they’re tasting in that moment tasted like other times I’ve tasted them. One taste? There is a lot to learn from a taste; otherwise, few would blind-taste well. But wines change like the weather on an October day in Michigan, especially the living ones; one day they’re fire, the next they’re ice. The wines did indeed find their footing in Grand Rapids, but the first hour was tight. Generally, they were a little harder, leading with structure, following with nuance—a very different experience than usual. The greatest variability between bottles (outside of the cork influence) is how we treat them. Wines like ours, temperature-controlled from the producers’ cellar doors to our customers’ cellars, even though a highly charged bunch with acidity, are most compelling because of their nuances and finer details, not because of their structure. The structure is there every day, and it's probably more about whether the nuances strut their stuff (gently) and bring balance to the structure; they should be well rested in our wine temples—undisturbed for weeks, if not months, (years!) to get them to deliver the pinnacle of their expression. Our team of 38 wines spanning six European countries showed up in Michigan, but man, I wish the Grand Rapids crew had tasted the same wines the day before in sunny Detroit. What a difference they were. Now for a download on the year and some impressions from a handful of our growers in all six European countries… 2025 Vintage Report (Sorry for the lack of pictures!) Spain Cume do Avia, Ribeiro “The vintage throughout Galicia in general, but particularly in O Ribeiro was extraordinarily warm and dry, reaching average records unseen since data has been kept. There have been years with higher peak temperatures or more intense heat waves, but never such consistent heat combined with so little rainfall from late spring through harvest, which is the period that most influences the characteristics of the grapes. Similar patterns were seen in 2020 and perhaps in 2013, but this has truly been something new. This has meant several things: first, we had an excellent harvest from the “fungus paradise,” and we had access to fantastic raw material. We didn’t vinify a large quantity, since our winery is small compared to our vineyard area, but it was a harvest I truly enjoyed—one of the most enjoyable I’ve ever had—making wines that, while respecting the context of the vintage, still preserve our identity as a winery.” - Diego Collarte, owner and winegrower Manuel Moldes, Rías Baixas “Vintage 2025 was a very rainy winter and spring, and among the rainiest in recent years. The summer was warm and dry, with many days above 30°C (unusual for the area). Because of the wet spring followed by a dry summer, vineyard management was easier than in previous, more humid years. In fact, while many regions in Spain struggled with severe mildew problems, in Rías Baixas, it was a plentiful harvest thanks to the absence of losses from mildew. It was an abundant vintage (unlike much of Spain), and we believe it will also be a high-quality one, as the grapes were very well balanced. Ripening was steady, producing very flavorful grapes. Fermentations are now coming to an end, and the wines are looking very promising.” - Manuel Moldes Pablo Soldavini, Ribeira Sacra “In my area, it was a dry, very dry vintage. This resulted in a very uneven harvest across the different plots. In those with shallow soils, the grapes did not develop properly, remaining tiny and resulting in extremely low yields. We also had to adjust the harvest dates for each plot accordingly. On the other hand, the lack of moisture throughout almost the entire growing season meant that the pressure from fungal diseases was very low, leading to a very healthy harvest with only two treatments. There was a very early onset of Black Rot, which we managed to stop with the first treatment, and about ten days later, another treatment was necessary for mildew, which was also quickly brought under control. Once again, the unusual has become the norm.” - Pablo Soldavini Bien de Altura, Gran Canaria “The 2025 vintage was marked by a warm, dry winter, similar to the rest of the Canary Islands. We had some beneficial rainfall in spring, but also strong powdery mildew pressure throughout the plant’s vegetative cycle. In addition, two pre-harvest heat waves accelerated ripening, and September rains forced us to harvest some plots earlier than expected. Despite these challenges, we observed a higher pulp-to-skin-and-stem ratio compared to the 2024 vintage. This allowed us to work within our preferred winemaking style, carrying out longer macerations that result in finer tannins and deeper wines. Although it’s still early for a definitive statement, we believe that the 2025 vintage will be an excellent one for Bien de Altura.” - Carmelo Peña Santana, owner and winegrower Portugal Quinta da Carolina, Douro “Harvest 2025 was one of the smallest ever. We had lots of rain at the end of winter and beginning of spring, but it was never cold, mild cold, and a wet spring started late, towards the beginning of April, as bud burst as well. A very difficult beginning of the season we had to use copper, the pressure of disease was to high this year (following 2 years without any copper in the vineyard) and even with it the flowers couldn't resist an intense attack of mildew in the end of May, and I believe we (organic farmed grape growers of douro) lost 30-50% of the grapes here. Then the rest of spring and beginning of summer was quite nice, dry and not so warm, but in the end of July hell arrived - we had 37 consecutive days with temperatures above 40ºC, acids dropped, ripening stopped, vines started drinking from the berries and chaos was installed, lucky in the beginning of september we had a bit of rain that was gold for us, but even with this, was a very difficult year. Everything is still fermenting, and the grape must taste good, but let's see! We definitely will have concentration of flavours and low alcohol, but also lower acidity than usual.” - Luis Candido da Silva, owner and winegrower Constantino Ramos, Vinho Verde “2025 vintage was very wet and cold during spring. But from the 15th of June on, it was dry and hot until the end of the harvest. This means that in terms of sanitary conditions, the grapes are amazing. Also, a balanced ripening of the grapes was achieved since there was a lot of water resources underground, which allowed the plant to maintain a steady pace for photosynthesis. The dry weather and no concerns with rain also mean that we could pick the grapes at the right moment without pressure in terms of picking to avoid rains, which would bring rotten and other issues. So, even though the wines are still fermenting, I predict wines more full-bodied than usual and less acidic.” - Constantino Ramos Quinta da San Michel, Colares & Sintra “The winter of 2025 was exceptionally rainy, replenishing the soils and setting up the vineyards for a dry, mild summer. In May and June, strong mildew pressure from high humidity demanded intensive vineyard work–green pruning and leaf thinning to improve airflow. which proved crucial. The grapes achieved optimum ripeness, healthy and well-balanced. After the rainy, foggy summer of 2024 that brought 30–40% losses (Due to mildew) and highly acidic wines with a sharp, citric profile, the 2025 wines show remarkable potential, with greater body and structure.” - Alexandre Guedes Arribas Wine Company, Trás-os-Montes “We compare 2025 to 2019 as we had lots of rain in autumn and winter, but a hot and dry spring and summer. Many producers have complained about loss of yield, but in our case, it was the opposite. Most of the complaints came from producers with new vineyards planted with non-traditional varieties and not with a Goblet style of conduction. For us, a great year. We just hope we can dignify the amazing grapes we got.” - Frederico Machado & Riccardo Alves, owners and winegrowers Germany Wechsler, Rheinhessen “We are looking back, a little breathless but deeply grateful, on this year’s harvest. Vintage 2025 was the earliest and fastest we have ever experienced—in just 18 days, we brought everything in. The yields may be small, but the grapes we picked make us truly happy: excellent quality, vibrant acidity, and plenty of potential for powerful wines. Alongside Riesling, our passion beats strongly for Pinot Noir, and every detail mattered. The fruit showed a beautiful balance of ripeness, aroma, and tension. Every row, every bunch was carefully checked. Berries damaged by the July hail were removed. After Pinot Noir came golden Scheurebe and beautiful Pinot Blanc & Pinot Gris, before we finally turned our full attention to Riesling. The first pick was at Benn – a site that surprises us every year with its distinctive character. Next came Steingrube for estate Riesling and then our Morstein, before moving on to Kirchspiel. The fruit there ripened early, with lower yields, but remarkable concentration and radiance. “Each day was a careful weighing of options: harvest or wait? Rain and sun alternated, and each hour demanded new decisions about the perfect moment. This constant tension made the harvest a balance between risk and patience. But in the end, we were rewarded: Benn, Kirchspiel, Morstein – each site delivered fruit that showed its full class despite all challenges. The qualities now resting in our cellar fill us with joy and pride. These are wines that bear the signature of an unusual vintage–full of energy, freshness, and character, with the potential to tell their story for many years to come. Thanks to meticulous and highly selective harvesting, we are delighted to announce that with the 2025 vintage – after 10 years – we will once again be producing an "Auslese" from our Kirchspiel and Morstein sites.” - Katharina Wechsler & Manuel Maier Austria Malat, Kremstal “The 2025 vintage with very good elegance and finesse and vibrance. It’s on the leaner side only because the alcohol is not high, which is what many of us want. Most of the harvest was completed at the end of the 3rd of October. It was such a promising harvest all season, with rain when it was needed during the hot July, and August was warm, with nice weather. The diurnal shift was perfect this year, with very cool nights and warm to hot days, which not only preserves the great acidity but also the finer aromatics. Harvest started in September with the sparkling wine base. The beginning of September was perfect and dry, then in the middle of September, it began to sporadically rain and cool down. It wasn’t as much rain as last year, when we had severe flooding after five days with 400 liters per square meter. In 2025, there were two heavy rains of about 40–50 liters each. After the first rain, and with the second big rain looming, we decided to prioritize all the top cru Rieslings because the thick skins of Grüner Veltliner can handle more rainfall. I would’ve liked to have more time on the vine, but I’d rather have healthier grapes than riper ones with more challenges. After the second rain, the remaining grapes in the vineyards began to fill with water and burst. An interesting difference between the rains in 2025 and 2024 is that the former was a flood, while the latter had steady rainfall, and the ground absorbed the water well after the dry summer. After the flood in 2024, we went back into the vineyards, and the grapes weren’t very damaged. In 2025, the rainfall was so hard that it actually hurt some of the grape skins. In 2024, there was a late frost that destroyed most of the flatter vineyards with Grüner and eliminated almost all the yield. In 2025, we have good quantity and quality. I could say that the season would’ve been a match in quality for 2021 up until the September rains. But we are still very happy with the results.” - Michael Malat Weszeli, Kamptal This is a paraphrased version of the exhaustive 4-page essay written by Weszeli’s head winegrower, Thomas Ganser. “2025 is a year of balance and restraint. Not a loud vintage, but one distinguished by precision, clarity, and natural elegance. After a year full of weather extremes, 2025 began on a more forgiving note. The winter was mild, and thanks to the previous year’s rainfall, the soils were well supplied with water. Flowering in mid-June went smoothly – an ideal starting point for a vintage that would soon reveal itself as exceptionally balanced. July brought roughly 130 liters of rain per square meter, providing extra water for our soils and a noticeable cooling period, unusual for our region. This slowed vegetative growth: the berries remained small, and the canopy developed in a looser structure – aided by our careful handwork.” “The first harvest began on September 3rd (roughly ten days later than the previous year) with Zweigelt and Müller-Thurgau. For Riesling, this period became a real test. The skins began to show signs of pressure and splitting, and in some vineyards, botrytis developed strongly. We reacted quickly, with selective harvesting, small quantities, and absolute focus on healthy grapes. The reward was that grapes from our best Riesling vineyards, Steinmassl, Seeberg, and Heiligenstein, arrived at the cellar remarkably clean and aromatic, despite the wet conditions. This vineyard, Schenkenbichl, one of our top vineyards, delivered an outstanding lot this year with absolutely healthy Grüner Veltliner grapes–concentrated, with superb texture and that characteristic saline note that makes Schenkenbichl so unmistakable. “Harvest concluded on October 10th in the vineyards at Hasel. The last Grüner Veltliner from our hand-tended minimal-pruning vineyard showed its best side once more: aromatic, dense, and precise. Yield-wise, the vintage is approximately one third higher than 2024 – a very satisfying result after the frost-related losses of the previous year.” “2025 is a year of balance and restraint. It tells a story of attentiveness in the vineyard, timely action, and the ability to listen to nature. Many correct decisions allow us to look back on a harmonious harvest, with a few hectic yet intense moments, ensuring this vintage will be remembered fondly. With gratitude, we look back on a harvest that challenged us yet generously rewarded us – with wines that carry both strength and serenity in equal measure.” - Thomas Ganser Veyder-Malberg, Wachau “I'm only talking about the Wachau, where the weather was at times very different compared to other regions. We were quite fortunate with the weather. Later bud break reduced the risk of late frost. This was very important considering the frost we had the previous year. Consequently, flowering was also later. A pretty perfect growing season followed: balanced precipitation, low mildew pressure, never too hot, and consistently cool nights. Moderate rain in August and cooler weather stimulated shoot growth again, which delayed ripening of the grapes somewhat. Nevertheless, the conditions were good for a very good vintage. Ripening took place in cool weather and cold nights. I then began the harvest on September 8th. The first two weeks were wonderful harvest weather, allowing the grapes to reach the cellar cool. Then came a period of repeated rain every two or three days, which made work and decision-making more difficult. Also, picking became more difficult due to the cleaning of botrytis. The result – until the end of the harvest – was very low pH values ​​(which I greatly appreciate) and low sugar, resulting in light-alcohol wines with ripe acidity. I finished the harvest on October 13th. Many of the wines are still fermenting, and it's difficult to assess their quality. But given the growth cycle, these should be great wines. At the moment, however, I'm still impressed by the 2024 wines, some of which were bottled shortly before the harvest in August and September. These are now in my focus and are receiving good feedback at tastings. In my opinion, this is an ideal style for Grüner Veltliner, with a crisp structure and an almost Chenin Blanc-like appearance.” - Peter Veyder-Malberg Martin Muthenthaler, Wachau At Muthenthaler, harvest is a family affair with most of Martin’s immediate and extended family and a few pickers from other countries. After 21 days, everything was in at the end of October. The weather seemed clearly more autumn than late summer, and ripening slowed down. “It was a very balanced year with enough rainfall and a lot of grapes. There were really many grapes this year compared to 2024, when we lost 75% of the crop to frost. The vines had time to recover and could produce many healthy grapes this year.” At the end of September, the weather changed from a beautiful summer to cooler conditions with periodic rain and big swings in temperature. “That meant the harvest had to start very quickly, so we began on September 23rd. We started with the Rieslings, which is not very usual.” - Melanie Muthenthaler Tegernseerhof, Wachau “The 2025 vintage was markedly different from the previous years. A comparatively late budbreak followed by well-distributed rainfall laid the foundation for an ideal flowering period. Both Grüner Veltliner and Riesling flowered almost simultaneously, ensuring excellent fruit set. However, a severe hailstorm caused significant losses in some vineyards. By late June and early July, the first spell of heat and dryness accelerated vine growth considerably. During the ripening phase, another hot and dry period set in, leading to a slightly earlier harvest than in an average year. The grapes reached full physiological ripeness, and thanks to our ripening-delay measures, we were able to harvest a little later under moderately cool conditions, which is always a great advantage in terms of aromatic precision and balance. Grüner Veltliner shows bright, fresh, and remarkably diverse musts with vibrant energy. Riesling, on the other hand, suffered from the rainfall during the final ripening stage. Through patience and meticulous selection, we brought in only a small quantity of grapes with impressive expression and vitality. In summary, the excellent acidity levels promise a wonderfully defined aromatic profile for the 2025 vintage. As I write this on October 29, 2025, the wines are now fermenting gently in the cellar, and we follow their evolution with great care and anticipation.” - Martin Mittelbach, owner and winegrower Hazjan Neumann, Vienna (a new grower for us starting in 2026!) “In Vienna, 2025 was pretty challenging but overall very good. A very hot June and July, followed by a cooler August and September with cold nighttime temperatures, resulted in wines that seem to be from a much cooler climate than the last years. It seems to me very mature from the phenolic ripeness but not the sugar ripeness, so there’s a much lower alcohol content and high complexity. The high-end wines are below 13% alcohol. It was a little like the old days: very intense, very aromatic, spicy Grüners, moderate alcohols between 11.5 and 13%. Riesling is slightly more concentrated with some botrytis. Reds are surprisingly dark and intense. Overall, it’s a very interesting vintage with very good drinkability, straightforward acidity and fruit. - Fritz Wieninger, owner and winegrower France Arnaud Lambert, Brézé & Saumur-Champigny From our conversation with Arnaud Lambert, we learned that the 2025 vintage in the vineyard held a perfect equilibrium between warmth and rainfall. There was no water stress and no heat spikes, and the grape ripeness and quality were remarkably even. Harvest began early, on August 25. Yields were fairly low, a result of poor flowering in spring 2024 and a bit of hail in Brézé at the end of July. Arnaud described the vinifications as pure pleasure. Both the white and red fermentations were easy to follow, and the malolactic fermentation occurred during the alcoholic phase without any rise in volatile acidity. The wines should be well balanced, with alcohol levels of 13.5 to 14%, matched by strong acidity (5.5 g/L TA, pH 3.1–3.2). The reds are fleshy and structured. Overall, the season had an impressive harmony between the climate, the vines, and the limestone subsoil that helped preserve the freshness. 2025 is a vintage to accompany rather than to shape. Fabrice Esnault (Domaine de la Guiraudière), Brézé & Saumur-Champigny Fabrice Esnault describes the 2025 harvest as “a fairly traditional start to the year,” though the early heat and dry air triggered rapid flowering and hinted at an early harvest. “The sunshine was abundant and with low humidity through the summer.” Yields were down about 25% from a full vintage but the quality is excellent. The harvest unfolded under ideal conditions with sun throughout and no rain. Toward the end of the Chenin harvest, all of which comes from Brézé, he brought in very healthy fruit for his two sweet Coteaux de Saumur cuvées: L’Aube de Brézé (17.5% potential alcohol) and Le Lingot de Brézé (21% potential alcohol). “Thanks to the weather during harvest,” Fabrice said, “the Cabernet Franc grapes [all from Turquant and Montsoreau on sandier soils] were extremely healthy too, and the macerations and fermentations went smoothly. The wines already show deep color with round, silky tannins.” Some cuvées are now finishing alcoholic fermentation, with malolactic fermentations already underway for the reds. This vintage will also allow him to rebuild stocks of his core cuvées after several short years. It appears to be a rich and promising year marked by purity, depth, and balance, with the quiet confidence of a classic Brézé and Saumur-Champigny harvest. Carole Kohler (Jardins de Fleury), Anjou “At Jardins de Fleury, pruning stretched across three long months—a demanding and solitary task, but one that deepened the bond with the vines. The horses grazed every parcel throughout the winter, and the gentle spring required almost no treatments. The harvest was exceptional, with stunning fruit and a wildly enthusiastic team that brought unforgettable energy to the picking days. In the cellar, juice of remarkable purity and precision unfolded through effortless fermentations and perfect balance. 2025 was a vintage shaped by mastery and perseverance, brimming with promise. We can’t wait to see how it unfolds.” - Carole Kohler La Lande, Bourgueil & Chinon François Delaunay explained that after a wet winter, Bourgueil experienced a near-perfect year. A warm spring brought an early start to the vines, and unlike previous years, there was no frost risk—no need even to bring out the frost-protection gear. The modest budding and cluster counts foretold balanced yields that were later confirmed at harvest. Flowering occurred quickly, and with clean canopies and little disease pressure, the season advanced under ideal conditions. A hot summer followed by well-timed rain in July and early September kept the vines in good health, maintaining their early pace and leading to a record-early harvest starting on September 15—the earliest in the domaine’s history. The grapes were flawless, ripened evenly, and required almost no sorting. Fermentations ran smoothly, though a few tanks moved through alcoholic fermentation quickly when the fruit arrived warm. Malolactic fermentations followed shortly thereafter due to a naturally low acidity. The wines now rest complete and serene—rich, round, and supple, with remarkable balance and depth. For François, 2025 stands as a generous and composed year, a welcome return to ease and abundance after several challenging seasons. Vincent Bergeron, Montlouis-sur-Loire Vincent Bergeron described 2025 as “a piece of cake.” The season unfolded smoothly from bud break onward, followed by clean flowering under beautiful weather and, most importantly, no disease. The work focused mainly on cover crop management, alternating between passes with Estelle’s horses and time on the rotary tiller. Despite a few small scares—a tank tipping over with Gauthier Mazet inside, and a burst of rain—the vintage remained steady and calm. The grapes arrived in perfect condition, and the juice from the press was consistent and pure, with no deviations. Red fermentations sped through both the alcoholic and malolactic phases, while the whites were slower, with some minor fermentation issues that are now resolved. Vincent expects the wines to be rich and perhaps soft, as the summer heat likely burned off a bit of acidity—but it’s still too early to tell. After the disasters of 2023 and 2024, he admitted that 2025 might have been his last vintage, but as he put it, “Mother Earth gave me another chance… so let’s go.” Jean Collet, Chablis Romain Collet described 2025 as a season of contrast that ultimately worked in the grower’s favor. Winter was mild and steady, with no frost or cold events, and the vines awoke in excellent condition. Budbreak came early after a calm, balanced spring followed by warm and dry conditions through summer. This advanced ripening and brought some local water stress, reducing yields but concentrating the fruit. Rain returned at the end of August divided the harvest into two profiles: fruit picked before the rain shows greater precision and energy, while later-picked parcels express softer, rounder textures. Harvest began August 26 with the Crémants de Bourgogne, followed by Chablis on the 29th. Around 70 millimeters of rain fell during week 34, increasing the risk of grey rot, so they prioritized the most sensitive parcels before the next storms. The last fruit came in on November 10 and 11 with the reds from Irancy. In the cellar, the musts were clean and pressed easily. Settling took longer than usual (a typical trait of warm years) and fermentations unfolded gradually and without issue. Romain said the results show the resilience of the vines and the steadiness of the cellar. The wines are complete and balanced, already open and expressive but with the structure to age gracefully. Rodolphe Demougeot, Côte de Beaune Rodolphe explained that 2025 was a steady, healthy growing season from start to finish. June was warm and sunny, July turned cooler and wetter, and August brought intense heat and even a brief heatwave until the 25th, before a return to stormier conditions. The vines remained balanced and strong through it all. Harvest ran from August 29 to September 6 under excellent conditions, producing clean, healthy fruit. The red wines already show beautiful color, expressive fruit, and generous texture. The Pinot Noir looks particularly promising, carrying both elegance and depth. The whites are still fermenting, revealing lovely aromas at this early stage, but not yet settled enough to assess completely. Given the natural balance of the fruit, Rodolphe is confident that 2025 will yield outstanding reds and whites alike with harmony and poise. Cartaux-Bougaud, Jura Sandrine and Sébastien Cartaux-Bougaud described 2025 as harmonious from vineyard to cellar. The vegetative cycle unfolded under steady conditions, aside from a touch of coulure on the Savagnin during flowering that slightly reduced yields. Disease pressure remained moderate throughout the season—only nine tractor passes were needed to protect the vines from mildew, an excellent result given the shifting weather. Harvest stretched from August 26 to September 16, longer than usual, which allowed each parcel to reach full maturity. The grapes were of impressive quality, yielding around 30 hL/ha. The atmosphere was warm and lively: a team of 18 pickers filled the vineyards with laughter and camaraderie, highlighted by the celebration of Jacqueline’s 80th birthday—a loyal picker since the beginning of the domaine and a symbol of its continuity. In the cellar, fermentations began quickly and progressed smoothly. Most wines are now dry, and malolactic fermentation is finishing gently in the calm of the cellar. Everything points toward wines that are balanced, expressive, and pure. The Cartaux-Bougauds believe 2025 will offer both beauty and longevity—a complete, harmonious vintage full of promise for those who follow their work closely. Dutraive, Beaujolais From Ophélie and Lucas Dutraive, we heard that 2025 was an intense and demanding year in the vines. Frequent rain required nearly as many spray treatments as in 2024, but flowering went well, and hail never appeared. The vines suffered mild drought stress in mid-August before a timely rain arrived as harvest began, helping the berries regain balance and volume. Harvest took place from August 28 to September 4. Despite the season’s challenges, the fruit was exceptionally healthy, and no sorting was needed. Average potential alcohols ranged between 12–12.5°, matched by beautiful natural acidity, promising a lively and fresh profile. Thanks to the good acidity levels and sufficient nitrogen in the musts from the rainy season, fermentations started quickly and ran smoothly. Macerations lasted about 15 days, resulting in wines with fine structure, brightness, and energy. The Dutraives expect the wines to show finesse and delicate fruit—a year that was difficult in the vineyard but effortless in the cellar, yielding wines full of freshness and balance. Rousset, Crozes-Hermitage & Saint-Joseph For Stéphane and Isabelle Rousset, the 2025 season began with a cold, rainy spring that made flowering difficult. By late June, temperatures rose sharply, bringing brief heat spikes. Disease pressure stayed moderate thanks to careful vineyard work. July was stable, followed by an extremely hot August when the vines stayed strong despite the stress. Some berry dehydration occurred, but the team managed it by maintaining a generous canopy to shield the clusters. Harvest began on August 25 with the whites and continued with the reds on August 27, running three weeks ahead of the 2024 season, and picking wrapped up by September 4. The fruit was exceptionally clean and concentrated, but yields were slightly reduced from smaller clusters and lower juice volumes. Ripeness was excellent, and fermentations proceeded smoothly, aided by the quality of the fruit. The team carried out two pump-overs daily during fermentation, later reduced to one, with gentle punch-downs to release sugars from slightly candied berries. Macerations lasted around 25 days, resulting in deeply colored wines with fine texture and structure. The Roussets expect 2025 to be a vintage of finesse and concentration, with firm and refined tannins and wines showing both density and balance—an expression of precision and restraint. The year’s shifting weather—heat peaks in late June and mid-August, alternating with brief storms—compressed the season and shortened harvest to just seven days instead of eleven, as ripeness arrived rapidly. Though yields were down, the resulting wines promise freshness, generosity, and fine definition. 2025 will deliver elegant, vibrant whites and structured, refined reds that reflect the year’s challenges and rewards. Sadon Huguet, Bordeaux & Iroulegy Mathieu described 2025 as a year that began with intense pressure and constant vigilance. The early months demanded daily attention, but by May conditions shifted and the season turned dry and stable. “The precocity was unprecedented,” he said. The white grapes were harvested at the end of August, followed by Merlot and Cabernet Franc on September 13–14. The drought and heat brought concern in the cellar, as fermentations had been difficult under similar conditions in 2022. This time, however, balance prevailed. Mathieu credits biodynamic farming for the resilience of the vines and the natural equilibrium of the juices and called 2025 a vintage of extremes, yet one of remarkable harmony—a year that captured both concentration and freshness. His use of plant-based preparations proved essential in helping the vines adapt to the season’s stress. The result is a set of wines he describes as juicy, poised, and deeply expressive of their terroir. Italy Sette, Nizza Monferrato “We will remember the harvest 2025 as one of the hardest and most dramatic ever! Average production for all growers in the southern Piedmont is down 30% from last year’s average. At Sette, we had flowering that came two weeks early last spring, due to an abnormally hot winter. This type of event has become more common over the last 15 years, and it increases the risk of losing part of the fruit if rain falls during the flowering, but we didn’t have this problem last Spring. Everywhere in the southern Piedmont, we had a lot of rain at the end of May/beginning of June, with hard attacks of downy mildew in vineyards, with no exception in our vineyards in Nizza Monferrato. The main problem for us was that we hadn’t had any kind of alert, because we had the downy mildew attacks directly on the clusters, while normally this kind of problem starts on the leaves. All the treatments we did after discovering the problem only helped us to limit the damage, but we lost between 50 and 70 percent, depending on the various grape varieties. We had the greatest losses on the Barbera grape, universally considered a rustic grape that loves a hot, dry climate; it seems to suffer greatly from the heat waves of recent years. The quality of the wines in the cellar is incredibly high; this increases the regret for the beautiful harvest that has been largely lost.” - Gino Della Porto, owner and winegrower Luigi Spertino, Nizza Monferrato “The vintage 2025 is the best since 2005, 2012, 2019, 2021, but I lost between 30 and 50 percent of production! Until August 5, it was probably the best vintage ever, but 10 days with extremely high temperatures, from August 6 to 15, have created great problems for the vines, with many grapes completely dried out. In the cellar, I have an incredible sparkling wine base 2025, an outstanding Grignolino 2025, and a (only) good Barbera 2025. My Barbera vineyards suffered so much from the high temperatures in August.” - Mauro Spertino Sofia, Etna “The vintage 2025 is characterized by good climate conditions, with abundant rain in Winter that helped make up for the water deficit after a very dry 2024. The water in the soil allowed the vines to sprout and develop vegetation quickly. On the other hand, it made it difficult for us to manage the leaf wall, and consequently, it has made it more difficult to give copper and sulfur treatments to prevent downy mildew. For this reason, downy mildew has spread, damaging clusters in pre-closure and causing the loss of 30% of red grapes. No problem for Carricante, for which we were able to increase production, thanks to the young vines planted in recent years. Due to the low production of red grapes, we decided to make only around 3000 bottles OF Gioacchino Rosso from the grapes of our old bush vineyard and from the grapes of our vineyard “Contrada Torreguarino” on soil very rich in clay.” - Carmelo Sofia Manaterra, Liguria “The last harvest is the second in a row, characterized by very strong thunderstorms at the end of August and September. I remember we used to pray for rain in summertime to break the Summer drought. Now we pray that the rain will not turn into hail or that it will not be so violent as to ruin the grapes or cause landslides. Climate change is presenting us with the bill! Despite everything, I’m really satisfied with the high-quality grapes and the quantity I brought to the cellar. What about the wine?…everything looks like it’s going in the right direction, but I always prefer to wait for winter to understand the real quality of the wine, because wines are more complex than a sum of chemical parameters.” - Claudio Felisso, owner and winegrower. Castello di Castellengo, Alto Piemonte “It’s very hard to define the last vintage. Everything looked great in spring, even though the weather was rainy, we had a lot of good grapes, but due to a hailstorm at the beginning of Summer, we lost around 30% of our bunches. The Summer continued with great climatic instability, two weeks of extreme heat in June and August, strong thunderstorms, and low temperatures with snow above 2500 meters! Last September was the worst in four years, and we had uneven maturation. Despite everything, the musts look good with a nice aromaticity and a low alcohol content, around 12,8%.” - Magda Zago, owner and winegrower Fabio Zambolin, Alto Piemonte “As far as I'm concerned, the 2025 vintage initially looked to be free of any risk of damaging frost, compared to the previous two years. However, the season subsequently continued with frequent and heavy rainfall, which jeopardized production. The work in the vineyard was therefore particularly demanding, but after the experiences of 2023 and 2024, I managed to get to the second half of June with excellent results. Unfortunately, however, on June 21st, a tornado with a hailstorm severely damaged a promising 2025 harvest. To date, I feel like saying that the small quantity of Nebbiolo harvested thanks to the continuous and determined work carried out in the vineyard has led, in my opinion, to an interesting vinification also due to a notable lowering of nighttime temperatures in the week preceding the harvest. For the rest, we just have to wait. The Nebbiolo is still macerating today, and while it won't be a vintage with high alcohol content, we certainly expect great aromas.” - Fabio Zambolin Mauro Marengo, Barolo “After we wrapped up the 2025 harvest, we can already say that the vintage shows excellent quality—especially for the Nebbiolo-based wines. It was an early year: we found ourselves rushing to grab the shears and crates to pick the Nascetta as early as August 26th, about two weeks ahead of schedule. The other varieties soon followed, confirming that the entire season was roughly ten days early. Fortunately, the weather in the second half of September and early October was ideal, with clear days and significant temperature swings between day and night. This allowed us to calmly choose the perfect harvest day for each Nebbiolo plot, achieving excellent tannin and aromatic ripeness in the grapes—very similar to the 2021 vintage.” - Daniele Marengo Brandini, Barolo “I think 2025 was a great vintage. What I mean by ‘great’ is that it was very balanced. We had a mild winter with a lot of rain, which granted good water reserves for the beginning of the season. Compared to previous years, June was very good, with balanced temperatures and sunny weather, which helped quality cluster formation. Summer was definitely on the warmer side, and that brought us to a pretty early harvest starting on August 21st, with everything in the cellar by October 2nd. So far, the wines are generous in aromatics and balance, and the quality of tannins for Nebbiolo was perfect, given that the yield wasn’t so high. Regardless, we will always prefer quality over quantity, so I think it’s been very good—especially with the extremely clean fruit through a sunny September. As far as vintage similarities go, it’s closest to me to 2023, but we have to wait and see.” - Giovanna Bagnasco, owner and winegrower Giacomo Baraldo, Tuscany “2025 was a classical year for the Baraldo area, much like 2018. The pattern holds that evens and odds split the same way: the even years are rainy and wet with mild summers, the odd years of ’19, ’21, and ‘23 show more body, more structure, and less rain overall. Their zone always receives more precipitation than the rest of Chianti Classico, averaging about 950 mm compared to 700. There’s been no snow in winter for the past two years. 2025 was a rollercoaster. Spring was rainy, with a dry June but wet April and May. July remained mild with the nights cooling to 17–18°C. August and September heated up. Grapes started coming in early—Chardonnay always first—harvest began on August 18. There were hailstorms in il Pozzone, and September ran hot, with warmer nights than usual—normally 8–10°C, this year higher. Everything was in by September 20. The wines are vibrant, marked by good acidity. The top crus reach 13%, lower in Pozzone, which was harvested immediately after rain, before the berries swelled. The profile is classical with red fruits, flowers, and that familiar red-orange lift in the higher-altitude wines.” - Giacomo Baraldo

The mostly abandoned historic center of Masserano in Alto Piemonte New Terroir Maps One of the obvious requirements of being a wine importer is that you really need to know as much as possible about the wines you import, the regions they come from, and who’s who in the region—especially if your principal customers are the top culinary restaurants and fine wine retail shops in the US. I knew next to nothing about Iberian wine five years ago, but I’ve been determined to learn as much as I can and have benefited greatly from the experience of people in the industry who paved the way in this landscape long before me. My preoccupation with preparation has pushed me deep into the two Iberian countries where we are now focusing much of our attention. Through the process of trying to catch up on these regions I hadn’t really noticed over the last fifteen years, I began to create educational material for my coworkers at The Source to pass on to our buyers. Shortly after starting this compilation, I realized that there was a serious shortage of really useful information on these areas so that many of our customers could connect the dots as well. A basic list for the new additions to our producer roster, including general data, vinifications and terroir overview in bullet-point format extracted directly from the growers would’ve been easy, but such oversimplification would have left too much unsaid. As is common when seeking answers about wine (and life), each path led to endless opportunities for learning and lessons in humility. This insatiable curiosity led me to embark on a year-and-a-half long terroir map project with the young University of Vigo MSc Geologist and PhD student, Ivan Rodriguez, and my wife, Andrea Arredondo, a Chilean whose career focus has been on graphics and web design. The first series includes seven maps with details on climate, grape varieties, topography and geology. On the list so far are Portugal’s Douro, Vinho Verde and Trás-os-Montes regions, as well as Spain’s Jamuz, Bierzo, Valdeorras, Ribeira Sacra, Ribeiro, Arribes, Monterrei and Rías Baixas. Our general focus will mostly be on regions that are currently less well-covered. I put out a teaser in our April newsletter for our Trás-os-Montes map, but the first official release will be the map of Ribeira Sacra, along with a relatively extensive essay on the region that I researched and wrote last year. The text is based more on my own findings than from other printed or web resources in the way of input from local vignerons and highly-involved and knowledgeable restaurant professionals. The most notable source from this last category aside from a group of vignerons, was Miguel Anxo Besada, a complete insider and the owner of two restaurants, A Curva and Casa Aurora, located in the coastal Galician towns of Portonovo and Sanxenxo. There is often not enough credit given to the influence skilled wine professionals have on winegrowers, how much they expand everyone’s exposure to and context with global wines, often playing a major role in the development of a winegrower’s palate. Miguel is a sort of guru in Galicia, a sounding board where local growers can bounce ideas to help them develop global perspectives. There are others with whom I’ve spent time with as well, such as Fernando and Adrián, from Bagos, in Pontevedra, who wield tremendous influence by way of their extensive global wine lists and their strong desire to share and spread the word on good work from any region. And I absolutely must include the globe-trotting duo from Bar Berberecho, José and Eva, who have a medium-sized but very well-curated list. I met Miguel on my second trip to Galicia and wanted to go back to soak up what he had to say about a number of the great wines from the top producers there. After he opened a full case of wine for us to taste, he refused to give me the bill for them or the dinner! That’s what it’s often like with the crew in Galicia. These maps and our work to support the winegrowers we import along with the rest of the entire region’s wine community are the fruits of my travels here, and my hope is that I can be helpful in spreading the word and clarifying a few things about the region. New People At The Source The well-known former sommelier, winery and restaurant owner, Kevin O’Connor, has joined The Source. Kevin and I worked together at Spago Beverly Hills back in the early 2000s where he initially assisted the late Master Sommelier, Michael Bonaccorsi, and eventually took over the program for many years. During his time at Spago he started a winery with Matt Lickliter called LIOCO, and after he moved on from there he returned to the restaurant arena for a while, but has now signed on with us as our National Sales Manager, among many other things that he is well equipped to do, what with his deep experience in the industry. We are lucky to have him on board. We have another fabulous new addition with Australian former sommelier and wine buyer, Tyler Kavanagh. Tyler worked for numerous spots in California, most recently at San Francisco’s extremely well-curated, Italo-centric program at the wine shop, Biondivino. I’ve known Tyler for nearly seven years as he moved through various spots in California from San Diego, Tahoe, Santa Barbara, and San Francisco. I’ve always been interested in working with him because of his extremely friendly demeanor and thoughtful approach to wine. He will be holding the post as our wholesale sales representative in San Diego and Orange County—lucky for us and for the buyers in those markets! New Arrivals France Pierre Morey’s 2018s will be available at the beginning of July. As mentioned in a previous newsletter, 2018 is a wonderful vintage for Chardonnay. The white Burgundies I’ve had so far from that year have been a great surprise. I recently had dinner in Staufen im Breisgau, Germany, with Alex Götze, from Wasenhaus, who used to be a cellar hand at Domaine Pierre Morey for quite a few years. We opened a bottle of 2014 Meursault Tessons and talked about Morey’s wines and how their typical path after opening starts with a concentrated wine that after an hour or more it opens remarkably and rewards the patient drinker. Layer after layer of finely-etched minerally nuances and palate textures begin to slowly overtake the more structured elements that are initially dominant. 2014 is obviously a very good white Burgundy vintage and this wine direct from the domaine didn’t disappoint. David Moreau continues his upward climb within his Santenay vineyards. Santenay is not an appellation one thinks of immediately when they think about Burgundy, but it says something that it used to be the home of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti and there has to be a good historical reason for this. So maybe it’s time to check out a wine from one of the top producers in the appellation. David’s wines lead with aromatic earth notes and fruit as a secondary and tertiary element, which, for me, makes them the ideal type of Burgundy with food. My tasting with him in the cellar last week showed once again that he’s still on the rise. It’s been too long of a long dry spell with regard to our stock of wines from Thierry Richoux. If you ever came to my house in Santa Barbara before I moved to Europe, you’d know how regularly I drink his wines, because I truly love them. The 2015 Irancy Veaupessiot and the 2016 and 2017 Irancy appellation wines are about to arrive. The 2016 is deeper and perhaps more concentrated because of the extremely low yields, while the 2017 is perhaps brighter and more ethereal than any Irancy I’ve had from Richoux before, an influence no doubt from his two boys, Félix and Gavin. These young and very cool dudes are taking the domaine in a slightly different direction. Their approach is a lighter touch with the extraction, more stems and more medium-sized oak barrels (as opposed to mostly foudre) for the vineyard designated wines, lower SO2s and with a later first addition—all common in today’s global movement of many small, sulfur-conscious winegrowers. Nothing of this offering is to be missed, especially the 2015 Veaupessiot, perhaps the most compelling wine yet bottled at this extremely talented Burgundy domaine that has developed a strong cult-like following in recent decades, and a very long history with private customers from Paris who drop into his tiny village on weekends and scoop up as much of his product as they can. Anthony Thevenet is staying his course in producing a more substantial style of Beaujolais while maintaining high aromatic tones. It’s impossible for Anthony to make completely ethereal wines because much of his range is from one of the deepest stables of old vine vineyards in the region, which naturally means huge complexity potential but a touch more ripeness and concentration. I’m not sure of the average age of his family’s vines, but they are all very old—the eldest planted around the time of the American Civil War. We brought in the 2018 Morgon and Chenas appellation wines, and the 2019 Morgon Vieille Vignes from 85-155 year-old vines, and the 2019 Morgon Côte de Py “Cuvée Julia” from 90 year-old vines and named after his daughter. All are worthwhile considerations, but the latter two wines in particular shouldn’t be overlooked, especially for anyone interested in a little exercise in terroir soil and bedrock comparisons: both wines are made exactly the same way in the cellar with the Morgon V.V. grown purely on granite bedrock, gravel and sand, and the Morgon CdP on an extremely hard metamorphic bedrock and a thin layer of rocky topsoil. They’re both impressive, especially in 2019 with all their bright red tones. Some other goodies landing soon are Corsica’s Clos Fornelli and the Rhône Valley’s Domaine la Roubine. Clos Fornelli is one of our fastest-selling wines, so don’t wait on those. They offer stellar value out of Corsica and they’re such a pleasure to drink. We don’t talk too much about La Roubine because there are loyalists who typically snatch these wines up as soon as they arrive. Sophie and Eric from La Roubine make small amounts of Sablet, Seguret, Vacqueras, and Gigondas, and their wines have been notably absent over a couple of vintages because we’ve missed our opportunities to procure some. Their organically grown grapes, certified as such in 2000, are all whole-bunch fermented for at least a month in concrete and up to forty-five days with the top wines in the range. Tightly wound (a good thing for Southern Rhône wines) and without a hair out of place, they’re also chock-full of personality and emotion. Spain It’s great to be on the road again in the more familiar territories of Italy, Austria, Germany, and France. I’ve been so focused on and excited with what’s coming out of Iberia and what luck we’ve had curating a collection of producers there that I can’t seem to get enough of. My wife and I drink wine every day with dinner, but these days, when it comes to reds, we often opt for wines from our neighborhood of Galicia and Northern Portugal with low to moderate alcohol levels. Unlike with Iberian wine regions, there seems to be less territory to “discover” (or rediscover) from a terroir perspective in countries like France, where the new ground seems to mostly be in exploring different cellar techniques. In Iberia, it’s not really about cellar tinkering, despite some trending toward more elegant wines there (as is much of the world), it is often a full reboot of nearly forgotten terroirs or entirely overlooked regions with bigtime potential. Finding new things in Iberia gives me the same feeling of joy as when you I someone who has some ordinary job walks onstage on one of those TV talent shows and within seconds makes my jaw drop as a small tear wells in my eye because I’m just so damned happy to watch an unknown talent emerge onto the world stage right in front of my eyes. New wines from deeply complex, multi-faceted terroirs seem to pop up every other week in Iberia, often with the reworking of a patch of land abandoned by a family one or two generations ago. It’s exciting, and the infectious energy of the winegrowers has influenced me to sink a ton of my energy in their direction for many years now. I get an adrenaline rush from this place and it has increased my already uncontrollable enthusiasm for wine. On the docket is a small batch of Ribeira Sacra wines from Fazenda Prádio and Adega Saíñas, the long-awaited arrival of Cume do Avia’s 2019 Caíño Longo (along with more from them), Manuel Moldes’s Albariño “As Dunas,'' grown on pure, extremely fine-grained sandy schist soil, and César Fernandez’s “Carremolino," a red wine blend from Ribera del Duero from pre-phylloxera vines and others planted more than eighty years ago. There is so much to say about each of these wines and there will be a lot of information coming down the pipeline throughout the month. Italy In the first eight years of our company’s existence, we brokered a couple of Italian wine import portfolios in California and fell behind on that front as an importer. After parting ways with the last of the importers, importing Italian wines directly starting five years ago was slow going because importer competition in Italy had already reached a fevered pace, what with the exploding popularity of the backcountry, indigenous wines that appeared center stage on progressive wine lists about a decade ago. Social media’s influence has been a huge part of this because it opens opportunities to completely unknown growers who sometimes become world famous in a very short time. The good news is that the people we’ve found with the help of our many sources (the true origin of our company’s name) have yielded some fabulous opportunities. We start this month with Basilicata’s Madonna delle Grazie and one of their top Aglianico del Vulture wines, Bauccio. Every call with the family winemaker Paolo Latorraca (and there are many) ends up in a conversation about Bauccio; they’re obsessed with it and I understand why. It’s one of two wines they produce only in the best years when there’s an even longer growing season in what is already one of the world’s latest regions to harvest grapes for still wines. It comes from their finest, old-vine parcels and it’s a steal for the quality and price. It’s very serious vin de garde and drinks amazingly well now too. The new release is the 2015, a spectacular vintage with perfect maturity, balanced structure, full volcanic dirt textures on the palate, and gobs of flavor—well-measured gobs, but gobs nonetheless. The soil here is black volcanic clay mixed with blond, soft, sandy volcanic tuff rock uplifted from the bedrock below, and the genetic material from ancient Aglianico biotypes originating from the region tie it all together. Their entry-level Aglianicos, the Messer Oto and Liscone, are getting restocked as well. These two are in constant demand and represent as good as we have for serious wine, at an approachable price for the everyday-wine budget.  A couple of years ago in Andrea Picchioni’s tasting room, I saw a label that immediately grabbed my attention, a one-off for a special cuvée from years ago. I asked if he would consider putting the same label on the wine he calls Cerasa, a delicious Buttafuoco dell'Oltrepò Pavese with more solemn graphics that contrasted the pure joy and generous flavor inside the bottle. Without more than a second of thought, he agreed to the change and also changed the wine’s name to Solighino, a reference to the valley where his vineyards are located. Just look at that label now! It’s beautiful, and you will see when you taste it that it reflects the wine itself. We will also get a micro-quantity of his top wines that are soon to become culty collector wines, Rosso d’Asia and Bricco Riva Bianca. People who are crazy about Lino Maga should pay some attention to this guy. Italians in Italy, who know Andrea and his wines, say that he is Lino’s spiritual heir. His wines find the same level of x-factor as Lino’s, which come from vineyards quite literally just over the hill from Andrea’s, even though Andrea’s are not as rustic. In Alto Piemonte, Fabio Zambolin continues to capture pure beauty with his Nebbiolo vineyards planted on volcanic sea sand. His Costa della Sesia Nebbiolo (actually grown entirely within the Lessona appellation, but it can’t carry the appellation name due to the cantina’s location just a few meters outside of the appellation lines) is simply gorgeous and always a treat. Unexpectedly, Feldo, his blended wine composed of 50% Nebbiolo along with equal parts of Vespolina and Croatina grown just next to one of the vineyards he uses for the Nebbiolo wine, jumped a few full notches with the 2018 vintage. A month ago, when I tasted it in the cellar for the first time, I was almost speechless (yes, I know that’s hard to believe for anyone who knows me) because it may as well have been a completely different wine from any of the past vintages. It seemed like more of a special cuvée-type wine even though it’s still just a Feldo. Mauro, from Azienda Agricola Luigi Spertino I love what all of the growers in our portfolio have to offer. Some are less experienced but still make very honest and pure wines that clearly speak the dialect of their region, while others don’t fit into anyone’s box but there’s nothing off putting about the space they occupy. That’s Mauro Spertino. Mauro, who I fondly refer to as our “alchemist,” is simply one of the most creative minds in wine that I have come across. He makes a range of completely unique wines that all carry the hallmark of his gorgeous craftsmanship and completely authentic persona. Perhaps Mauro’s success and openness to try new things can be partially credited to the fact that he is in Asti rather than Barolo or Barbaresco. Asti is a region with nearly no expectations other than its low price ceiling. Spertino’s wines embrace the inherent qualities of their grapes and terroirs; he accentuates and even somehow cleverly embellishes their talents the way artists often do with the subject of their work, leaving their deficiencies so far from view that they seem to not even exist. Only two of the wines within his range are hitting our shores on this container: Grignolino d’Asti, a wine that redefines this category and has already become a cult favorite for those who’ve had it, and Barbera d’Asti La Grisa, an unusually elegant but concentrated Barbera that is much more substantial than expected. Led by the variety’s naturally high acidity and low tannins, Mauro finds a way to weave in an unexpectedly refined, chalky texture into La Grisa, with a sleek and refreshingly cool mouthfeel. Later this year, we will have his Cortese orange wine (a smart move on making that grape orange), zero dosage Blanc de Noir bubbles made entirely from Pinot Noir on calcareous sands (of which I bought a six pack to share with our winegrowers along the route I’m currently on in Europe), and his amphora-aged Grignolino, another redefining wine for this grape and totally different from the other one in his range.  Sadly, a few days before my recent arrival to Mauro’s cantina, his father, Luigi, passed away. Luckily for many of us at The Source, we were making our way through Piemonte the week the pandemic took hold of Milano in late January/early February of 2020. After our visit with Mauro, we asked to meet Luigi; this, of course, was before we understood how serious the pandemic was and how vulnerable the elderly would be. He extended his large, soft hands for a shake—the hands of a retired winegrower—and he seemed as thrilled to meet us all as we did him. Knowing that it would be a rare and possibly unrepeatable opportunity, I snapped a few quick photos that may have been some of his last. I knew him for only a few minutes, but when you have the pleasure of knowing his son Mauro and his two grandkids, it’s easy to deduce that he was a great man. Luigi Spertino Travel Journal 2021 by Ted Vance At first, I thought it was a little crazy to drive alone from Portugal to as far as Burgenland, Austria, and back home after six weeks of winery visits, but after I got past the long haul through Spain and into France it seemed like maybe I should do it this way every year; I felt freer than I ever have on the wine trail. I packed my pillow (which I unfortunately left at a hotel in Germany three weeks in), a picnic basket full of useful silverware and kitchen knives (not one AirBnB will provide you with a decent knife, even if the kitchen is fabulous), a microplane (I’m obsessed with lemon zest these past few years), oats and nuts, Portuguese canned sardines, corn nuts, Snickers bars (most of which are melted now because it’s been hot!), a drying rack for my clothes, foam roller, yoga mat, a few small weights, a huge pile of Zyrtec pills (it’s high allergy season in June and I promised myself that I wouldn’t travel anymore in June because they are so intense at this time, but I threw that one out of the window because it’s been too long since I made my rounds). I have bags full of photography, video, drone, and sound equipment that seem far too heavy now to get past even the carry-on checkpoint and into the overhead compartments on a plane. Maybe I could get a camper and hit the road in comfort and take my time. It seems like an interesting way to live and I’m sure it would be a lot of fun to do it that way at least a couple of times. You know, #vanlife, but with wine as the guide and the destination. Three weeks after I started to consider this option, my wife called. I thought she had no idea what was going through my mind, but it turned out that I think she somehow suspected. She asked if it was my plan to keep doing it this way moving forward, and the tone of her interrogation changed in a way that I immediately decided it would be best to forget the idea. At least for now. I’ve played the band London Grammar more than any others since I’ve been on the road. Their music, led by the intimate and deeply emotional voice of Hannah Reid, keeps me in a pleasant dreamstate as I develop ideas while staring out the windshield on the long legs of the trip. I mentioned in last month’s newsletter that there were a number of songs my mom used to play when we were on the road when I was a kid, but I never expected that while having breakfast this morning at the Malat’s hotel in Austria’s Kremstal region that Michael’s mom, Wilma (who cooks the best omelets: soft, partially runny, perfect eggs with streaks of the dark orange yolks not completely blended with the whites, asparagus, tiny carrot cubes, and thin and tender cured skillet-fried pork) to put an old Neil Diamond album on their record player. He was one of my mom’s favorites and it occurred to me that Austrian and Iowan moms are not as different as I would have thought. As I fully indulged in their ridiculous breakfast spread (I mean, who serves sautéed chanterelle mushrooms in a buffet style breakfast? The Malats do, that’s who), I never realized until that moment how intense and almost urgent the tempo of a lot of Diamond’s songs feel. I suppose that kept my mom up on those non-stop overnight road trips from Montana to Iowa. On this trip, everything from everyone tastes better than I remember almost any of their wines tasting out of barrel and tank, and I have to remind myself that it’s not just because I was cooped up like everyone else for twelve of the last eighteen months; the world of wine is simply getting that much better from vintage to vintage. It could be that the wines are emerging out of their winter slumber, and like us, they are smiling and feeling more comfortable with the energy and warmth of spring and early summer. I usually tour in the fall, winter and early spring because the summer is often too difficult; it’s tourist season and hotels and restaurants are all booked or unreasonably priced for what you get. But as the world is still recovering, traffic is lighter than normal right now, and I’m taking advantage of that. Andrein, France, a week after restaurants reopened Staufen im Breisgau, 20 June. I’m just a short drive across the border from Alsace. It’s mid-June, but it’s so cool that it feels like the last week of May. Grape season started late this year after a cold and frosty spring brought disaster to the many crops in Europe. The vines were hit hard, but so were many other plants, such as the apricots in Southern France. Two days ago when I was at Weingut Wechsler, a new producer for us in Germany’s Rheinhessen, they said that over the last week the weather changed from cold to hot in a twenty-four hour period. The vine shoots have been growing more than three centimeters a day over the last week now, so fast that it’s like you can stand there and see it happening. The same thing seems to be going on everywhere. I started off this long trip by passing through Douro, in Portugal, and on into Tràs-os-Montes, the country’s most northeastern region, a place that gave me a lot to think about. I stared off into its colorful high-desert landscape covered in oak trees, bright yellow mustard-tipped shrubs that extend at least all the way to Austria, then drove through small canyons of multicolored slate walls carved through low hills in order to make some parts of the highway a straight shot. I usually travel with one or two or a few people (that sometimes rotate out to be replaced by others), but this time I’m alone on the road for more than five weeks, before my wife, Andrea, joins me in Provence on the first of July. At other times I often find myself corralling a group, organizing accommodations, talking to my companions the entire time in the car (don’t get me started on wine, obviously), and making sure they are getting the most out of the experience. I had almost forgotten how to be alone on the road. This year, Andrea was in Chile for a month in January and stayed an extra month because she had an opportunity to get vaccinated there. So I was alone in Portugal for two months during the pandemic, which turned out to be perfectly fine. In fact, I really enjoyed it. I did a lot of things I’ve been meaning to do for some time, a two-week juice fast, read a ton of books (absolutely devoured Matt Goulding’s works on travel and food), dug in on Spanish five days a week with my new teacher and now friend, Fabiola, did more research on wine and science, and wrote a lot. Trying to look on the bright side of things, I’d like to say I did the best I could to make it a personally enriching pandemic. Chablis, 22 June. I didn’t spend that much time in France visiting producers on my way to Italy. I stopped by to visit a guy in the southwest who has agreed to work with us, but after learning the lesson about counting unhatched chickens the hard way, I decided to keep the details of who he is to myself until we actually have his wine on the boat, because things sometimes take unexpected turns. La Fabrique, the French countryside home of my dear friends, Pierre and Sonya, was even more on point than ever. Sonya retired a couple of years ago and she’s gone mad in the kitchen, cooking feasts for a party of two during the pandemic, as shown on her social media posts. We had white asparagus for days, served with Pierre’s perfect mousseline, late spring and early summer delicate vegetables, heavily anchovy-dressed red leaf lettuce (my original favorite salad), cherries, (apricots were sorely missed after being almost completely lost to frost this year). They were massive and overindulgent lunches and dinners with Sonya’s unstoppably evil deserts. The problem? I couldn’t run outside to burn it off because the allergies this year are especially horrible because of the late cold and very wet spring, so I definitely gained some weight. The day before I left La Fabrique Sonya and I went to an uncultivated field to pick wild thyme that is now drying at her place, waiting for my return at the beginning of July.  Wild thyme The next day I left to visit Stéphane Rousset and his wife, Isabelle. As mentioned in last month’s newsletter, they’re doing a new bottling, labeled Les Méjans, and it’s exciting wine. I also asked them to put the vineyard name on their Saint-Joseph, which they said they’ll do; having just Saint-Joseph or Crozes-Hermitage without much else on the label isn’t helpful considering the tremendous diversity of terroirs with very different soil types and exposures there, even if the reds are entirely made from Syrah, and the whites a blend of Marsanne and/or Roussanne. I passed through Savoie after my visit with the Roussets for a night with my friends, also in the wine distribution business in France, Nico Rebut and his wife, Laetitia. The next morning I passed through the Fréjus tunnel into Piemonte with no one waiting at the border to see the negative Covid test I was ready to proudly produce. I wasn’t surprised. It’s Italy… Andrea Monti Perini (left) and his enologist, Cristiano Garella, tasting the 2018 Bramaterra I visited our four producers in Alto Piemonte, and hung out with my friend of ten years (time is flying!), Cristiano Garella, a well-known enologist in the area. And I had nice meetings with Andrea Monti Perini, in Bramaterra, with his crazy-good Nebbiolo-based wines out of wood vats. As mentioned earlier in this newsletter, Fabio Zambolin knocked it out of the park with the 2018 vintage. The changes the guys over at Ioppa have made in recent years are finally coming to the market. Their 2016s are impressive, and the 2015s are right there with them, but they’ve recently really gotten a more measured hold on the tannins and texture of the Ghemme wines. The biggest surprise in my tasting at Ioppa was the 2016 Vespolina “Mauletta.” I’m almost sure that it’s the best example of a pure Vespolina wine I’ve had, except perhaps the Vespolinas from the newest addition in the portfolio, Davide Carlone. I made the visit to Davide with Cristiano and we tasted through a bunch of wines in vat from different Nebbiolo clones that are vinified separately, and what an enlightening experience that was. The differences between clones is much greater than I expected. We don’t talk about genetic material so much in old world wines as we do with the US and probably the rest of the “New World” wine regions, but we should. It greatly impacts the wine. Volcanic rocks from Davide Carlone's vineyards in Boca, Alto Piemonte, and the hands of Cristiano Garella. After Alto Piemonte, I dropped down to Langhe and crashed at Dave Fletcher’s train station turned home-and-cantina. I love this place. Dave said that before he started the process to buy it from the city, no one else was interested in it. His friends said he was crazy, but when word got out that he was serious, the interest increased, and Dave had to hustle to get his name on the title before he was wedged out. They live in a sort of dreamworld inside that old station; when I’m in it I imagine the antique setting and how so many people passed through it long ago; it’s beautiful, and almost joyfully haunted by their spirits. Dave and Eleanor (Elle), his wife, wisely kept most of the interior space the same, with the ticket counters and the coffee and wine bar. I took full advantage of the opportunity to cook so as to control my food intake, which completely backfired because I think I ate even more food there than I would’ve in restaurants along the way. We enjoyed lamb on the barby (said with Dave’s Australian accent), marinated with anchovy, garlic and some of the French thyme from our friend’s place in Provence, and I turned Elle on to high quality canned anchovies from Cantabria (which she never liked before) and salt-packed ones from Sicily on top of cold, salted butter and fresh bread with a paper thin slice of garlic, dried oregano, lemon zest and a little red pepper—a recipe I picked up from Aqua Pazza, a fabulous restaurant in the Amalfi Coast’s truest Italian fishing village (where residence actually live and work all year round), Cetara. It was exactly what I needed after a week straight of decadent eating on the road. Monti Perini's vineyard (surrounding the small white house at the bottom center) in the Brusnengo commune of Bramaterra, in Alto Piemonte, with the Alps in the background. I met the Collas for lunch at their house up in Rodello, a beautiful village that sits on a long, narrow ridge well above the cold and fog of Alba. On a clear day at their house, you can see the Alps perfectly to the west and north, the Ligurian range to the south and to the east and the northernmost expanse of the Apennine Mountains, which from there run all the way down to Sicily. Bruna, Tino Colla’s wife, makes fresh pasta in a room for doing just that, next to their small cellar, which is loaded with antique wines that Tino has stashed for more than fifty years. This treasure is hidden below the main floor of their four-story house that sits on the top of the hill, situated above all the other homes with just the nearby church blocking a small slice of the view. The cellar is filled with a lot of old wines from the Colla’s Prunotto days and from Cascina del Drago, an estate that covers the better part of a hill, just on the border of Barbaresco, where Beppe Colla used to make the wine and which the Collas ended up buying from the previous owners who insisted that they would only sell it to his family. While our team was on tour in Piemonte when the pandemic first hit Italy, Tino opened up a series of old, irreplaceable Prunotto wines (1980 Barolo Bussia, 1978 Barbaresco Montestefano, and 1968 Barbera) and a red from Cascina del Drago, a Dolcetto wine with fifteen percent Nebbiolo, stole the show. It was a 1970, and it virtually crushed the field of already fabulous old wines. Cascina del Drago is a story that needs to be told because it is an unusual historical wine made from exactly the same blend of grapes from that hill for generations (long before the IGT blended wines were a thing), but the best way to understand it is to taste old bottles. They seem to be indestructible, easily competing for the top position in any range of old Piemontese wines they come up against. Yes, they can be really that good. One of the unexpected highlights of my time with the Collas came in the form of a unforgettable vinegar for a simple, greenleaf salad Bruna made to accompany the zucchini flan, carne cruda di fassone buttuta al coltello (knife-cut beef tartar), salsiccia di Bra, a small raw beef sausage made only in Bra (it’s so wonderful, and also a leap of faith considering it’s raw sausage, but the butchers have done it cleanly with all of those I’ve had so far), and a Bruna-made fresh pasta, tajarin con sugo di carne e funghi, a very thin, flat pasta that takes literally one minute to cook and serve with a meat and mushroom tomato sauce that takes nearly a day of cooking to find the right consistency. This vinegar is the continuation of a vinegar mother started in 1930, a profound experience that they’ve been topping up with mostly Nebbiolo over the years. I asked for a bottle and Tino looked at me as though I asked to be written into the family will for an equal portion of the estate. Sometimes in life you simply need to ask for what you want and you will get it. It would have been an audacious ask if it were anyone but the Collas, but they are like family to me, and I think they often feel the same way.  Beaune, 25 June After a weekend intended to be a respite from excesses of food and wine that turned into a full-blown cooking-and-drinking fest at Dave’s station, I reluctantly left their warm hospitality and headed toward Asti for a morning visit with a cantina whose wines I briefly sold about ten years ago in Los Angeles for one of the Italian wine importers I used to work with. La Casaccia is located in Cella Monte, a village in the Monferrato area of Asti, and is run by Elena, Giovanni and their kids, Margherita and Marcello. Upon my arrival I was greeted by Margherita, a woman in her early thirties who looks barely a shade over twenty, with a big and welcoming smile and an extremely comforting demeanor. She proposed a walk through the vineyards, then a tasting and lunch. Little did I know that many of their vineyards are surrounded by wild cherry trees that were ready for picking. In their vineyard that makes the Barbera, Bricco dei Boschi, Margherita pointed to a tree and said that they were probably too sour still. I picked a cherry anyway and gave it a try. It was one particular cherry tree intertwined with others near the top of the vineyard. The first cherry exploded with flavor and aromatic complexity, like a great Mosel Kabinett Riesling. I couldn’t stop eating them, nor could Margherita. Small, with delicate skins colored from light red to pink to orange and yellow all on the same cherry, I know that they were the most incredible cherries I’ve ever had. The acidity was through the roof, as was the sugar. The only other fruit comparison I can think of is a perfectly ripe and ready to pick white wine grape. It smelled and tasted like a mixture of rieslings from JJ Prum and Veyder-Malberg. Should I have a better cherry in my life, it would be an unexpected surprise. The epic cherries and Margherita's hands After our walk through the vineyard with conversations about their family and other non-wine things, like yoga, vegetarianism and the organic life (not just organic vineyards), she felt so familiar, like we’d been friends for years. The weather was overcast, slightly warm and lightly humid, just perfect for an outdoor tasting and lunch. After working through Giovanni’s range of authentic and emotion-filled reds (most notably the entry-level Grignolino, Freisa and Barbera wines) and a racy, undeniably delicious stainless-steel raised, vigorous limestone terroir monster of a Chardonnay grown on their pure chalk soil (think: a trim Saint-Aubin sans oak aging but dense in that limestone magic along with the exuberance imparted by a fanatical, fun and quirky winemaker), we sat for a lunch prepared by Elena. It started with an egg and vegetable tart, followed by fresh cheese-stuffed raviolis made by a well-known local pasta maker just a few villages away who used to own a restaurant known for excellent pasta. He has since closed it to focus only on pasta making—lucky for everyone in the region because these raviolis were special. Next stop, Spertino. I could contemplate and try to write about Mauro Spertino’s wines all day, but the only descriptions of what he renders with each wine that would truly do them justice would be in poetry, a skill that I haven’t even attempted to develop. Bottled under his late father’s name, Luigi Spertino, all are almost completely different from other wines around him—perhaps not only in Asti, but in all of Italy, or even the world. He lives in a middle of nowhere part of Piemonte, but in his lovingly rich family surroundings he finds what appears to be the same inspiration and genius-level creativity found in the countryside by many former city-dwelling Impressionists of the late 1800s; his ability to imagine and realize his dreams in liquid form is that rare. I imagine him lying awake at night staring into the dark thinking about how he should move a hair here and a hair there to next time outdo the marvel (at least for me) that he has just put the finishing touches on and bottled. In this July newsletter, I’ve written more about Mauro and the wines I tasted during my visit. It was truly inspiring, and if I should classify the wines we work with on artistic flair and originality, his are so far out of the box and perfectly tuned that I may have to consider him to be one of the most important in our portfolio. Next stop was with the Russo brothers in northwest Asti, Federico, and the twins, Marcello and Corrado. I always seem to be in a rush when I see these guys and I often feel like I’ve missed something they wanted to share with me, or show me. Maybe it’s just that they have so much to share. They are as generous in spirit vis-à-vis food and drink as anyone I know, and spending just an afternoon, evening and the following morning once a year never seems like enough. When I arrived to visit them it was already late. An early summer storm was imminent and I wanted to get some drone footage of their vineyards while there was a dash of sunlight and a pregame of drizzle in the air before the downpour. I didn’t want footage from up high because Crotin’s are not particularly exciting vineyards; I wanted to show how they are different from most of the region because their vineyards have mostly recovered from the abandonment that began after the last of the great wars. They are some of the closest Asti vineyards to Torino, so they are some of the last to be recovered. Their vineyards are surrounded by wild forests, open pastures, and diverse agricultural fields, mostly hazelnut and fruit trees, which all seems to be felt in their lively wines. What I thought would be some easy shots of flat vineyards ended up with me taking a twenty minute drive to look at a new Nebbiolo vineyard that sits around 480 meters (higher than Giacomo Conterno’s Cascina Francia vineyard in Serralunga d’Alba, for example), on white, calcareous sands with blue-grey marl. The vineyard is spectacular and not at all flat, and their desire is to produce a wine from it that should be drunk younger, a sort of equivalent in style to a Langhe Nebbiolo raised in steel. Regardless, I expect a very special wine from this vineyard, especially with the mind of one of the world’s most talented young Nebbiolo whisperers, enologist Cristiano Garella, as a strong influence. Exciting! Next Newsletter it’s a continuation of my loop around the Alps through Italy’s Lombardia and Sudtirol, then up into Austria and over to Germany en route back to Champagne and Burgundy. Ciao for now.

An Incomplete Collection of Observations and Considerations. Round One. The Ribeira Sacra is complicated. There is so much more than what is readily apparent beyond the breathtaking imagery of vertigo-inducing vineyard terraces towering over the silvery, slow-moving rivers far below. Broken up into five general wine regions, it has a greater diversity of grapes, expositions, altitudes, slope angles, bedrock types and topsoil compositions than many other wine regions. This subject is expansive and thankfully, there is now increasingly more useful information about it, thanks to Spanish wine journalism that has begun to focus more heavily on Spain’s backcountry. Luis Gutiérrez, from the Wine Advocate, the team at spanishwinelover.com blog, and the website of importer, Jose Pastor Selections, are some of my go-to references written in English. One challenge of delving deep into this region comes from the fact that much of its history has been lost for generations to hard times and nearly complete abandonment. The bulk of the historical and cultural details are in Spanish, or even the far more challenging Galician—also called Galego, a regional dialect that combines elements of Spanish and Portuguese with its own individual twist. My goal here is to offer a better understanding of the Ribeira Sacra by highlighting some unique elements within each of the five subzones from a broad, terroir-oriented perspective. Climatic Considerations The Ribeira Sacra represents Galicia’s climatic middle ground, with a large variation throughout the appellation that ranges from one extreme side to the other. The climate dictates the “success” of grapes’ growth with regard to the degree of balanced phenolic ripeness they attain. It may seem unusual, but in Galicia there are many different grape types that find balanced phenolic ripeness in a great range of potential alcohol levels, some as low as 10.5%, and others well above 13%. This leads to a multitude of different expressions of wine here, as well as elsewhere in Galicia. Satellite 3-D imagery has been a game changer, but it may be easier to reference topographical maps rather than Google Earth when it comes to climate, since they better and more simply illustrate in the physicality of the landscape, and therefore the source of potential climate influencers. On the west and north end of the Ribeira Sacra the climatic influence is more impacted by Atlantic winds and precipitation due to the absence of any significant mountain range. Toward the west, between the Atlantic and the Ribeiro and Ribeira Sacra regions, some small mountains curb the influence of oceanic winds. Over where the Miño river valley flows south through the Chantada and Ribeiras do Miño subzones of the Ribeira Sacra all the way to the Atlantic, the northern Atlantic winds are freer to blow through the river valley and into the region. Then, toward the south and east the mountains rise to higher altitudes and maintain a much stronger continental influence. None of the mountains in Galicia would be considered big, like the Rockies, Alps or Himalayas—although the Galician range is believed to have been comparable, hundreds of millions of years ago. Now they’re short and rounded, topping out at 2,124 meters (6,969 feet) at Peña Trevinca, perhaps just a dozen or so kilometers to the east of Quiroga-Bibei, the easternmost subzone of the Ribeira Sacra. It snows in the higher elevations in winter, a possibility I hadn’t considered until I found myself driving through an unexpected blizzard from Bierzo to the Amandi on my way to an appointment. It can be downright cold here in the wintertime, and blazing hot in the summer. And the differences between the seasons in the Ribeira Sacra have become particularly extreme of late, with some years overburdened by drought, while also suffering unmanageable mildew pressure, and even torrential hailstorms at the worst possible times, often just before harvest. A Land of Many Rivers The influence of the main rivers in the Ribeira Sacra is not quite the same as it used to be. Since the introduction of hydroelectric dams as early as the 1940s, when Central Hidroeléctrica dos Peares on the Miño River broke ground in ‘47, and with dam construction continuing today along some watercourses, each river’s influence on vineyard microclimates has changed. In the past, rivers brought the advantage of faster moving airflow, especially during spring runoff that likely helped curb frost issues around bud break by basically pulling the cool air further downstream before it could settle in the vineyards. These dams have also brought notable change to the landscape where the deepest sections of the river now run through areas once covered with vineyards, farmland and housing. This modification also undoubtedly altered the local flora and fauna to some degree, as well as untold other factors in the surrounding microclimates. The river currents of old also likely helped to balance temperatures during summer months with their continuous flow of cooler water and fresh mountain air through the valleys on hot days. In some locations rivers now resemble thin, meandering lakes, or mini-fjords, where the water is mostly idle, particularly on the reservoir side of the dams. Today, this dynamic along with the fog it creates increases humidity and encourages mildew’s free run into vineyards on the river valley hillsides, often forcing frequent intervention from growers, inhibiting more efficient and ecologically-sound methods. Rivers alter the topography and create diversity by cutting hundreds of meters deep into the earth, exposing complex geological formations that would’ve otherwise been buried far below the surface. Flatter vineyards have less dramatic variations, and the topsoil often doesn’t correlate exactly with the underlying bedrock as much as it may on steeper hillside vineyards. With other nearby geological formations, the topsoil of vineyards below them can be easily altered with sedimentary deposits from those at higher altitudes. But in the Ribeira Sacra’s river gorges it doesn’t take but a meter or two to shift back and forth from igneous bedrock to metamorphic, just as it does in so many other Galician vineyard areas further into the countryside, away from the Atlantic and the Rías Baixas wine region. What’s more is that inside river gorges like most of those in the Ribeira Sacra, there is an abundant supply of exposures and slope angles. This may be a saving grace for the vineyards near these rivers because as the climate changes the growers can shift from the hottest exposures to cooler ones, while maintaining the same superb bedrock, topsoil and all other characteristics imparted by the local terroir. This practice has already taken hold in the area, with many growers exploring potential vineyard sites that in the past would not have been advantageous. But in the coming decades, these more sheltered sites may provide enough refuge to keep businesses afloat instead of being choked out by the sun. The Grapes There is a lot more insightful information out there on the grapes of Galicia, so I won’t spend too much time in this section. However, I would advise that any interested parties do their research with a wide variety of sources, as I’ve found some inconsistencies in places that I thought would have been more accurate. (Perhaps Jancis Robinson’s book on grapes is the most ideal source.) I will focus on just a few grapes that I find particularly compelling options that regularly demonstrate that they can compete at a very high level. In the right hands and the right terroir inside the Ribeira Sacra, Mencia can render a high- quality wine. The proposed descendant of Caíño and Merenzao (a hard parental pair to imagine, given how dramatically different those two grapes are to Mencia from a finished wine standpoint), it can be dark in color, depending on the vineyard exposure: when well-exposed it can get darker, while with greater protection from the sun the grapes tend to be more red than black—as with most red grapes. It can be suave, supple and convivial; it can also channel the terroir with clarity, as demonstrated by so many examples from the better producers in the region. While Mencia is the most commonly planted grape in the Ribeira Sacra, it is also the most commonly criticized by winegrowers. Their beef with it seems to revolve around its inability to maintain acidity when it reaches its optimal phenolic balance. I’ve been told that its point of origin is likely on the other side of the Galician mountains in the Castilla y Leon, an area where it seems to thrive and maintain solid natural acidity at much higher altitudes. It’s around the Jamuz area where the vines are ancient (more than eighty years old) and grow at altitudes of eight hundred to over a thousand meters, similar to in some higher-altitude areas of Bierzo, where it can also do very well to maintain a decent amount of natural acidity. It’s commonly said that Mencia was not planted in the Ribeira Sacra before phylloxera, but gained ground because of its reliability as a grape, year in and year out. And in a wine region historically as poor as the Ribeira Sacra has been for more than a century, it made complete economic sense—just as when many low-producing grape varieties were ousted all over Europe for other grapes that could generate crops worth growing during hard times. Sadly, many growers feel obliged to manage the low natural acidity of Mencia by adding tartaric acid from a bag—no thanks. The clever ones dose the blend with other quality grapes naturally high in acidity; or maybe they do it the old-fashioned way and work diligently to find the right hour in the right day to catch the grapes in a moment of perfect natural balance. Best to stick with the top growers to get the real deal. If natural freshness is a cornerstone in one’s wine preferences, look for those grown in cooler subzones and microclimates. Other Glorious Ribeira Sacra Grapes We begin with the reds, those with a naturally lighter hue, resulting more often in wines with brighter red tones. They are grapes with greater natural acidity and aromatic lift that when blended with Mencia can take it from a wine on the border of being drab and turn it into a real symphony, with great lift and complexity—that scene in the movie “Amadeus” comes to mind, the one where Mozart makes changes to Salieri’s composition, transforming it from something melodic but also mediocre, to a much more invigorating composition. (watch here) First we will just touch on the whole of the Caíño family, of which there are numerous biotypes, all with the prefix, Caíño. Caíños are intense. Sometimes they can be snuggly acidic when bottled alone (and even more aggressive in cooler areas, like Ribeiro and Rías Baixas) and will serve well when added to a wine that is missing strength in its acidic spine. That said, I believe this grape has serious untapped potential, and in the face of climate change—coupled with a better understanding of how to grow it—it will surely rise up in the ranks and find more balance. It has everything a truly great family of grapes possesses: naturally good if not obscene acidity in some cases, a fullness in the palate, good core concentration, quality phenolic maturity at lower alcohol levels, and a rare talent for not only channeling its terroir, but giving it thrust. Then there are the dazzling Brancellao and Merenzao—exciting prospects with a more inviting and gentler acidity than the Caíño clan. Brancellao is perfumed and subtle while maintaining a mouth-filling freshness on a delicate frame; it’s also known in some parts as Albarello. There is mega promise with this grape, as with Caíño. Merenzao is the same as Trousseau, one of the Jura’s fuller-bodied reds (but only fuller within the context of the Jura) and it thrives well in Galicia. Merenzao seems to me more pungently perfumed than the Caíños and Brancellao. It renders extremely inviting wines that are well balanced and lively in freshness. It’s another grape that deserves a big share of land inside a quality vineyard. The darker grapes such as Garnacha Tintorera (one of the rare grapes with red pulp), Mouraton (a big, dark cluster), Tempranillo (Spain’s most famous red grape, responsible most famously for the wines of Rioja and many of the Duero River appellations), and Sousón are an interesting bunch. Sousón has become a favorite of mine within this category for its virile, beast, dark berry and spicy characteristics; it seems like a giant in waiting for someone to fully unlock, if they can also control its intense power. Known in Portugal as Vinhão (and probably a number of other different names within Iberia), it makes a slightly sparkling, mouth-staining, delicious wine traditionally served cold. This wine is not for everyone, but I happen to love it and believe there is a tremendous potential in parts of Galicia and Northern Portugal if it’s done with great care, higher viticultural precision and with some financial motivation—that is, a good selling price! (There are plenty more red grapes out there that I have little or no experience with, and when more information comes my way, I will work it in.) Outside of Albariño, many of Galicia’s white grapes have a hard time standing on their own; some would argue that the same is true for most of the reds too. Without the addition of complimentary grapes in a blend, many expose gaps in the overall balance of single variety wines. Thus far, Ribeiro and to a much greater extent, Rías Biaxas, seem more suitable than further east appellations in Galicia (save the fabulous white grape Godello), and this likely has much more to do with climate than anything—in the Ribeira Sacra, we have to accept, at least in this moment of the region’s evolution, that not all wine regions are endowed with red and white wine of equal talent. Admittedly, I have a relatively limited personal experience with the white wines of Ribeira Sacra, so I’ve yet to find an abundance of compelling examples to warrant in-depth exploration or explanation. If I have the option I always tend to gravitate toward wines largely composed of, or reinforced by, grapes with higher natural acidity, such as Godello, Caiño Branco, Agudelo (Chenin Blanc), or even Albariño, but the latter finds its peak within sight of the Atlantic, especially in Salnés. Perhaps the challenge is that many of the great red wine producers grow white wines in the same vineyards with reds instead of more suitable terroirs that naturally retain freshness without too much trouble. On the optimistic side, maybe it’s just a matter of time before they really begin to hit the mark. Geologic Setting and Considerations As I frequently mention in my wine exploration writings, geology is an extremely important factor, and once we are able to isolate specific characteristics in the taste and texture, and perhaps to a lesser degree, aroma, the similarities between geological formations become more apparent. However, it’s important to keep in mind that many of these specific nuances may subtly exist, and sometimes are abstract and personal for most people. These nuances often rest in the background, acting as a secondary support to more pronounced wine traits coming from the grape(s), the conditions of each particular season, and the stylistic influence of the winemaker. That said, in Galicia the geologic setting seems to strongly mark the resulting wines as much as anywhere in the wine world. Galicia is geologically diverse and home to some of the oldest rock formations within Europe’s wine regions. This range of rocks is credited with what is known as the Variscan/Hercynian orogenic belt—an apt description of how this geological formation is shaped. Hundreds of millions of years ago a somewhat small but long continent called Armorica (which makes up today’s European massifs: Iberian, Armorican, Central, Rhenish and Bohemian) was sandwiched between the two mega continents Laurasia (home to today’s North America, Europe and Asia, minus India) and Gondwana (Africa, South America, Antarctica, Australia, India) in a forceful collision that lasted for tens of millions of years. The bottom of the ancient oceans of the larger continents were driven below everything (geologists call this subduction) as they lifted and mangled Armorica until it resembled a partially uncoiled snake, or belt. During orogenic processes (mountain-building events), preexisting rocks can be lifted, subducted, twisted, deformed, and altered in mineral composition due to the extreme heat and pressure in what geologist refer to as “violent events,” although, with the exception of volcanic eruptions, these processes are extremely slow. Those rocks altered by severe heat and pressure are categorized as metamorphic rocks. Depending on the type of metamorphic rock, they may have a particular influence on viticultural and enological practices. On color-coded geological maps of the Iberian Peninsula there is a unique curvature in the northwest and western parts that starts in the direction of the north and nicely curves toward the east; this is the result of the Variscan orogeny. This collision that joined these three continents created Pangaea, the last of Earth’s supercontinents. Pangaea began to separate about two hundred million years ago. A Brief Explanation of the Ribeira Sacra Formation from Master of Science in Geology, and PhD student at the University of Vigo, Ivan Rodriguez The formation of the Ribeira Sacra began about two hundred million years ago. During this period, the northwestern part of Spain and northern Portugal were part of a large island, while what would be the rest of today's Spain and Portugal didn't yet exist. During the Alpine orogeny, the Cantabrian Mountains—a range that extends from Galicia across the north coast of Spain to the Pyrenees, the mountains that separate Spain and France—began to form sometime between forty to sixty million years ago. These mountains produced changes in the landscape of the surrounding areas resulting in the formation of new watercourses that developed along old tectonic faults. These watercourses, today's Miño and Sil, are the main rivers of the Ribeira Sacra. Interestingly, granite and slate, two contrasting rock types with very different levels of hardness dominate the Ribeira Sacra landscape and influence the topography of each river valley. In areas dominated by slate, the far softer of the two rocks, the watercourse eroded the landscape to create wider valleys with less steep hillsides. By contrast, the sections of river composed of granite eroded into deeper valleys with steeper, more abrupt rock walls. The Geologic Connection with Wine As one might imagine, a lot has happened since the breakup of Pangaea. Some of the Variscan Mountains remain above the water line but are severely eroded, and while we don’t see them named on today’s global maps, their remnants connect many European wine regions in France (Muscadet, Anjou, Alsace, Beaujolais, Northern Rhône, Corsica), Austria (Wachau, Kamptal and Kremstal), many western German wine regions, and Western Iberia (Portugal, and parts of Western Spain, including Galicia and the Ribeira Sacra). The geological connection between wine regions (not only those remnants from the Variscan orogeny) often shares specific characteristics regardless of the influence of the grape(s) and winemaking. There are indeed likely more characteristic differences between wines grown in different regions, but there are some unique similarities as well. The most notable connections being—at least for myself and many of my wine professional cohorts—the intensity of mineral/metal impressions expressed through palate textures and weight, and the perception of residual pressure and potency of textures on specific locations of the palate. For example, wines grown in granite-based bedrock and topsoil often carry more strength and localized textures in the frontal area of the palate on the finish, while metamorphic bedrock and topsoil can often be the opposite, with textures more weighted toward the back palate. Both of these influences in one wine can bring balance to these perceived strengths, likely making for a wine with a more diverse array of palate textures, and perhaps a perception of greater complexity. The Ribeira Sacra bedrock is less uniform than what is found further to the west, close to the Atlantic in the Rías Baixas, a wine landscape dominated by igneous rocks, most notably granite and granodiorite, and topsoil derived from these bedrocks. The Ribeira Sacra bedrock is principally composed of igneous (those most common here are granite and granodiorite as well) and foliated metamorphic rocks (most common, from low to high grade, are slate, schist and gneiss). This ensemble of mixed bedrock and soil types can render wines from one place to another quite different, while still remaining true to the overarching regional characteristics of their terroirs. And within these wine regions, there are varying degrees of soil grains, from clay, silt, sand, and gravel, to much rockier terrain. The soil grain seems to influence the shape of a wine (whether it can be described as round, or angular) in a different way than the influence of the bedrock and topsoil mineral composition. Indeed, in the science world ideas and theories that link taste to rock type are considered pseudoscience. But perhaps one day someone will be able to coherently and scientifically explain the mechanics of these perceived differences. The makeup of the dirt that grapevines are grown in is complicated and there are few regions as complicated in both bedrock and topsoil under a singular cohesive appellation as the Ribeira Sacra. Thanks to the complexity of each microclimate and geologic setting, and the conundrum of Galicia’s lost knowledge for what grapes are most suitable within each specific spot makes for a fun adventure that we have the privilege to watch blossom in our lifetimes. MsC Geologist, Ivan Rodrigues, in the Valdeorras D.O. Terroir Overview of Ribeira Sacra Subzones There are five Ribeira Sacra subzones and each one is as internally diverse as it is expansive. With these subzones the climate is perhaps much more easily understood than the geologic setting. There are no concrete differences from one subzone to the next, rather gradual changes. In fact, much of the geographical separation is based on their respective monastic histories. Because of the chaotic arrangement of different rock formations and the overall size of the entire appellation, specific vineyard sites within each subzone takes greater precedence (a general rule to follow in the entire wine world rather than adhering to broad generalities, not only with the Ribeira Sacra) because even within many vineyards the bedrock and topsoil can completely change only a few meters apart, especially inside river gorges with deep complexities as those of the Ribeira Sacra. And the difference between wines made from the same grapes and techniques in the cellar on differing bedrock types can be starkly clear to more experienced tasters, but this is nothing new to the wine world. Starting in the furthest east of the appellation, abutting another Galician wine region, Valdeorras, is the subzone Quiroga-Bibei. This subzone is the most influenced by what can be described as either a Mediterranean sub-humid climate, or a continental one, due to its predominantly mountainous terrain. It has drier and hotter summers, cold and even potentially snowy winters, high average altitude, and a multitude of rock types between granite and a large range of metamorphic rocks, with the dominant one slate, and to a lesser degree black schist, quartzite and the glandular gneiss known as Ollo de Sapo—named after its appearance like a “toad’s eye.” There are also four notable tributaries (Bibei, Jares, Lor, and Navea) to the Sil River. Within these five river valleys and the surrounding lower altitude hills offer a large range of ideal exposures and quality viticulture land. This subzone seems to be a sleeping giant within the Ribeira Sacra; its only real challenge is that it’s even further into less charted territory and far away from a strong commercial center. Amandi is the most famous subzone in the Ribeira Sacra. Here, this central subzone has a concentration of successful bodegas that started to garner greater global attention in the mid-2010s. Its notoriety is a combination of breathtaking vineyard land inside the Sil River gorge and high quality production due to a lot of consistent ripening (at least historically), with an assortment of privileged positions compared to other areas in Galicia. This makes for a large range of wine styles, many of which are surprisingly accessible. But the most important element is the strong and energized collection of progressive winegrowers with a desire to create clear identities, along with a history of proactive local commerce handed down through generations. These restaurants and stores make a concerted effort to sell and deliver their wines directly to the main non-wine producing city areas, like Santiago, Lugo and A Coruña. Ribeira Sacra wines still maintain favorable commercial positions in the larger urban areas because they had already established their wines in those markets before global interest in the area increased significantly. This extra effort from the previous generation gave the Amandi a head start over the other subzones. Located only on the north side of the Sil River, the Amandi is slightly farther from the mountains than Quiroga-Bibei. However, the continental climate still prevails in the extremes of the season, with big summertime temperatures that can bring dryness and more treacherous weather, and at the worst times of the year. Spring frosts and summer hailstorms can clip the region’s already naturally low potential crop. And the Atlantic can force its way in, increasing mildew pressure by bringing in more humidity and rain. Climatically, this subzone is on a two-front battle with nature, and these growers undoubtedly feel the fiscal brunt as a result. Like all of the subzones of the Ribeira Sacra, Amandi has a variety of igneous and metamorphic rocks—Ollo de Sapo (gneiss), slate, quartzite—but doesn’t have a large presence of schist compared to other areas in Ribeira Sacra. Inside the Sil river gorge many terraces are precariously steep. The topsoil depth is shallow, making for greater susceptibility to the effects of drought, but in wetter years it has an advantage over vineyards with deeper topsoil that may have naturally higher water retention. It’s also harder to work, not only because of the physical difficulty, but the lack of help; if people are even available, few are willing to participate in the backbreaking work on the hard hillside vineyards—a common problem in all steeply pitched wine regions, everywhere. Not all of Amandi’s vineyards are on such precarious hillsides. In fact, only about 40% are inside the river gorge, while much of it is outside on more manageable land where mechanization is easier—or at least possible—and those vineyards still worked by hand can be a little less backbreaking. The range of altitudes in this subzone varies greatly, somewhere between two-hundred-and-fifty to six hundred meters. Deeper topsoil vineyards are often at higher altitudes on flatter areas—a relative term for the area. For comparison, think France’s Northern Rhône Valley appellation, Saint-Joseph, where there are many vineyards on steep hillsides, but there are also those within the appellation at higher altitudes on much flatter terrain. These diverse vineyard settings create a greater variability in the overall impression of Saint-Joseph. Those on steep, rocky hillsides are typically more concentrated, muscular, dense, angular, and “vertical” (one of the few common and abstract ways some use in the wine trade to assign an actual sensory impression descriptor that often relates to vineyards grown on very rocky terrain with little topsoil, like a steep hillside). Wines grown on deeper topsoil and higher up on the hills behind the main slopes are likely more “horizontal” in shape, and often render rounder wines with softer lines and less angularity. But once again, the specific site and the skill and stylistic choices of the winegrower take precedence over all things here, just as it does in the Ribeira Sacra and elsewhere. Amandi on the left, Ribeiras do Sil on the right Across from Amandi on the Sil is the subzone, Ribeiras do Sil. As one might expect, much of the geological terrain in this subzone is the same as Amandi on the other side of the river, except for its largely northern vineyard expositions inside the river gorge. Also, there may be a greater degree of erosion on the Amandi side of the Sil because of thousands of years of cultivation. Today, as in the past, the Ribeiras do Sil side is often at a disadvantage when it comes to ripening, compared to Amandi. However, it may become the place to be, what with the unrelenting temperature increase and extreme weather patterns due to climate change. Many of the great producers within the Amandi also have vineyards here—undoubtedly a smart move for the future. Farthest west and north, on the opposite side from Quiroga-Bibei, are the subzones, Chantada and Ribeiras do Miño. With headwaters around seventy kilometers north of Lugo, the Miño River meanders through this old Roman settlement and continues toward the southwest, finally spilling into the Atlantic after its final eighty-kilometer stretch as a natural, physical border between part of northern Portugal and Spain’s Galicia. Only thirty or so kilometers south of Lugo the subzones, Chantada (on the right/west bank) and Ribeiras do Miño (on the left/east bank), follow the Miño south and end near the merging point of the Sil and Miño. Just as it is with the Sil, the Miño has many hydroelectric dams and is one of those places where some spots have the appearance of a long lake rather than a river. Fazenda Prádio vineyards in Chantada Adega Saíñas’ vineyard, O Boliño, with Pablo Soldavini What is most notable about these areas compared to the other three subzones of the Ribeira Sacra is the increased influence of the Atlantic Ocean. This results in cooler temperatures and much more precipitation, with an average of about two hundred millimeters of rain more than Amandi and perhaps even more than Quiroga-Bibei. The wines here should have a greater potential for higher tones and fresher acidity with fully ripened grapes than the other subzones—leaning in style more toward the neighboring appellation to the west, the Ribeiro. However, much of this depends on the stylistic choices of the winegrower and what limits are imposed by any given year. The cooler areas are in the north, but the temperature differences inside this fifty-something kilometer stretch of land are not dramatic, and again have much more to do with each specific terroir. Both generalizations and concrete truths are difficult to make in the Ribeira Sacra, and Chantada and Ribeiras do Miño are no exception. While a lot of the vineyard land snugs up to the Miño, there is an abundance of factors that can change the overall impression of the wines: the proximity to rivers, the rock and dirt, mildew pressure, grape selection, slope, altitude, topsoil depth and composition, ripening due to exposure advantages (which in some cases can now be disadvantages with the chaotic weather from one vintage to the next), bedrock and topsoil composition. Yes, a lot to consider, but it all shows up in the wine. The Miño traverses a series of diverse geological systems. And with one look at a color-coded geology map it’s easy to see that it’s a complex topic, which helps us to avoid generalizations in any of the subzones (beyond “it’s complicated”) when it comes to bedrock composition. Perhaps if all the land were planted it would be easier to say what dominates, though there does seem to be the potential to find just about every metamorphic rock (with a great diversity even within each category of slate, schist and gneiss) and intrusive igneous rocks (granites, granodiorites, etc) under the sun with a lot of sedimentary depositions (sandstones and perhaps even some limestones from the Cantabrian mountains) along the Miño, but it depends on each specific location. To make things more complicated, most geological maps are color-coded by different geological time frames, not actual rock types. Sometimes the only option in determining a general idea of what rocks were most likely created during a given geological time period in a specific location is to make an educated guess. Final Thoughts, For Now When in pursuit of quality wine, there is one simple suggestion to follow in the Ribeira Sacra, as in the rest of the world: Follow the producer. By following specific producers you will begin to understand the story of each wine’s vineyard or vineyards, how, and even more importantly, why the winegrower made the specific choices they made in their vineyard and cellar work. Compelling wine is made by serious people, period. Every vineyard has its own unique setting, and serious growers take into account as many factors as possible, from the big picture down to its molecular mechanics. The problem in the Ribeira Sacra is that there are not yet very many serious growers like there are in the world’s most famous and well-established wine regions. However, this renaissance has just begun, and those who are at the forefront are some of the wine world’s most interesting minds. What is most interesting and exciting about Galicia wine is that there are no laurels to rest on. Like so many wine regions being rediscovered, these curious Galegos have returned to a wild backcountry to rediscover lost ancestral knowledge. They must enter with inexhaustible diligence and perseverance to continue learning and growing to even achieve economic survival on this path. They have to live with open minds, and to think deeply about what they are doing, and why. This is why we are in a special time for Galicia. This is why I am drawn to these people and this ancient place. They are living their dreams and they do it with infectious and relentless energy and enthusiasm.

(Download complete pdf here) An ancient Vihno Verde vine used for Constantino Ramos’ JUCA tinto “Please send me some good news, buddy!” This was our Barbaresco producer Dave Fletcher’s response to a market update email sent to our growers, one that outlined some potential pitfalls we might experience in 2025. In the face of recent surreal events, the concept of “good news” feels almost detached from reality, even though we all know there’s always something to look forward to on the horizon. In mid-January, I sent out an inventory of the damage already done and a look ahead for 2025. The report was, as they say, realistic. As often happens, hard truths land differently for each of us. For those with experience and a family war chest built and tucked away over generations, the ebbs and flows of business are an old song and expected to come around now and again. But for us relative newcomers, idealists, and those still bound by the ink on the fifty we-own-you-now bank documents, the weight of it all can be enormous. We all had a load on our minds, including the East Coast and Gulf port strikes planned for January 15th that were thankfully pushed off for six years. The only remaining specter seemed to be the ominous import tariffs proposed by the world’s most famous narcissistic terrorist—a generational talent in his own right. Apparently, for some, our new ruler’s stance represents all of us Americans, as one of our French growers pulled our US allocation because that guy was reelected—which is as dumb as Freedom Fries. These two potential events incited a mad importer dash to bring in as much product from all business sectors as possible in the short term, resulting in another supply chain log jam of post-pandemic proportions. (Like we needed that.) But we here at The Source did it too. What importers couldn’t? We’re damned if we do, replaced if we don’t—or something like that. But while we endeavored to engage these challenges, nothing could prepare Angelinos for the unimaginable speed and scale of the fires that descended on their city. Of every possible outcome of January 2025, nothing hits home like an unstoppably fast tsunami of fire. On January 6th one of the world’s great cities ignited and burned like hell; unlike all the other fires before that burned mostly forest, this one included an unprecedented quantity of structures. There are few more humbling moments than if your house burns down. Or those of your friends and neighbors. Someone with whom we’re close in the Los Angeles wine community has lost everything: Mike Ulanday, a longtime supporter and one of the most gracious people we’ve had the privilege of working with, escaped with nothing more than his wife, three kids and three dogs. While it’s easy to be generous with kind words, they don’t rebuild homes. If you’re able to help, please consider supporting the Ulanday family through their Givesendgo.com link. They’re by no means the only ones affected, but we don’t yet have names of others in the mega-loss department. Please let us know anyone else you might know who is, and we’ll add their information to our next newsletter. SANTA BARBARA Tuesday, March 4th The Factory, 616 E Haley St, Santa Barbara, CA 93103 SAN FRANCISCO Wednesday, March 5th La Connessa, 1695 Mariposa St, San Francisco, CA 94107 SAN DIEGO Monday, March 10th Vino Carta, 2161 India St, San Diego, CA 92101 LOS ANGELES Tuesday, March 11th The Wine House, 2311 Cotner Ave, Los Angeles, CA 9006 Please contact your salesperson to reserve a time. The tasting will take approximately one hour. We normally feature a series of newly arrived goods each month in our newsletter, but due to extensive delays in ocean freight and the California fires, we’ll hold off until March, when we’ll have wines from all our European countries. Diego Collarte from Ribeiro’s Cume do Avia Coming off the 2023 film industry strikes and what we knew would be a long recovery, 2024 was the kind of year that wears you down. (It was my busiest travel year since 2004 when I cycled across Europe for a six-month tour of many wine lands and almost every major European city I had read and dreamed about for years.) I thought my travels would wrap up quietly at the end of September, with Denmark tacked on as a last-minute stop. By then, I had already hit all the big European wine regions where we work. However, due to my extensive summer tour in the US during the perfect time to visit wineries, I decided to push Italy and Germany into early 2025. Somehow, we still managed to squeeze in firsts like the Canary Islands and Morocco, and the latter wasn’t about wine (for once), just something different. Add in two months of wine work coast to coast to coast (including the ever-overlooked coast of Lake Michigan) and family time in California’s Sierra Nevada to Montana’s Rockies and Iowa’s cornfields. It was one for the books. The last months of 2024 had glimmers of the high notes we hit in 2022, with the team growing stronger and some new colorful and already globally anointed feathers to add to our cap, growers at the top of their respective region’s game, with Bien de Altura (Canary Islands) and Muthenthaler (Wachau) for our national program, and Federico Graziani (Etna), and Camin Larredya (Jurançon) in California. There were others added to our national program who are not yet well known but already on their way up in the ranks: First, there’s Frédéric Haus’ Les Infiltrés Saumur wines, and Carole Kohler from Jardins de Fleury, grown on the geological transition from ancient acidic metamorphic Pangean remnants to the younger Cretaceous sandy limestones, and her Anjou wines will make their US debut in March! There was also a relatively new national grower for us from the microscopic and quietly legendary sandy Portuguese oceanside appellation of Colares, Quinta da San Miguel, which while intended for last year was pushed to this one. An upper zone of Colares I’d convinced myself that I’d catch my breath in the final quarter of the year, that I’d at least have some time to properly brace for what was shaping up to be a January for which it seemed impossible to prepare. Looming strikes and lurking tariffs, each threatening to scramble any promises and forecasts we made to growers for 2025. It was my opportunity to regroup and maybe even sleep. But greater opportunities than sleep don’t fall into your lap every day–in fact, they never do. When you see one or create one, you can’t sit back and enjoy the view, you have to take it in hand. They’re sometimes a result of your will and always in sync with the luck of timing. While in California, I phoned a well-connected industry friend to catch up during my trip. A few days later after our dinner in his California outpost on my way to San Francisco, I reached out again when I arrived to ask if he knew anyone in New York who might be a good fit to represent us. He had a name, and one I knew well. A person I also admired, a young talent I believed shared my wanderlust and passion for wine and culture enough to get the ball rolling to start his own import or distribution company. He hadn’t quite gotten there yet, but how lucky for us! Now Remy Giannico will be our new boots on the ground in New York. Remy Giannico We’d settled on Remy’s start date for mid-January. While I was ready for a lengthy breather (which often takes just spending a month getting into the same bed each night), Remy had other plans. A few days after we’d agreed to make a go of it, he pitched me a changeup that could only come from someone who knows where he wants to go, someone who, when making a decision, doesn’t want to waste another minute. “What if I come to visit all the growers in November and December instead of January and February? This will help us properly launch in January. You don’t have to pay me for this time but can you cover all the expenses?” It was a devil’s bargain against the health of my mind and body, but I couldn’t refuse an offer of his immense commitment. 2024 would no longer be remembered as just an intense travel year, it would become my year of personal odyssey—a season where I unexpectedly visited 60% of our growers twice, racking up over 150 domaine visits in total. And when I visit our growers, it’s not in areas with the grower density of Burgundy, where you can cram two or three tastings in before lunch and the same or so after because all you’re doing is tasting in the cellar. Each visit on my route is, no matter how many times I’ve seen it, often a full vineyard and cellar tour, extensive tastings out of vat and bottle, a lunch together or a late night of great wine and conversation, and always an early rise. The trip with Remy was the most exhausting forty days of wine travel in my life. He was turning thirty-three on the road and I was a year and a half away from fifty. I was already feeling fatigued by the year, and this trip would test the consumption limits of this organism in which my consciousness was trapped. To make things even more challenging, on our so-called “days off,” I set up fifteen to thirty wines at various stops to prep Remy for the coming visits—because he’d tasted so few of our wines destined for New York before signing on. To leap from a secure living at a strong company in New York into the relatively unknown of The Source? It was indeed a humbling vote of confidence for us. Forty days of visits and tastings through six countries, five flights and nearly 15,000 miles of windshield time on highways that stretch out like endless ribbons and others that tightly slalom from side to side on steep grades, once the conversations are temporarily exhausted (which was rare between us) there were as a lot of podcasts, and Speechify, a dangerously productive new toy to listen to anything and everything with eyes fixed on the road in front of us. I already knew Remy mostly had his Spanish down, thanks to nearly a decade in Argentina, where he lived with his Argentine father. Once in his early twenties, he returned to his roots in Santa Barbara, fell into the restaurant grind, and—like all of us who would dare to read such a lengthy newsletter as this—caught the wine bug. But what I didn’t know was just how effortlessly fluent he was, but with a warm, melodic Gaucho-inflicted Spanish accent that was sometimes harder for me to follow. When we hit France, he unconsciously started rapping in French as if it came from a past life, and if anyone has had one of those, it’s him. In Italy? Well, his Italian came out of nowhere, like yet another secret stash he’d been hiding until we’d crossed the border from the Côte d’Azur to Liguria. In Austria, somewhere in the marrow of his bones, he found some words (surely, again, from another life), and not just ja, nein, and some numbers. For all the driving and planning I did, it often felt like I wasn’t on my trip at all, I was on his—a passenger behind the wheel. He was on-point, all the time, except when he wasn’t nodding off in the car after putting too much energy into every waking hour. He read about and studied the growers, every day, the night before or on the morning of each visit. Speechify was often cued up on the long drives beforehand, narrating some report on the region or grower we were visiting. He’s one of those artistic lefties with a penchant for microscopic handwriting—not the smart guy you want beside you in class if you need to borrow an answer for a test. He’s great in the kitchen with cooking and cleanup, known to ride a horse like he was born in the saddle (former Polo player, and his father and brother professionals), current on every new piece of tech like a millennial savant, and damn near qualified (and motivated) with his various university studies in Geography to map the world. He shot videos on-site and edited between visits; he’s good with his camera (though not always mindful of its fragility; there were a few drops and a broken lens). He illustrates well, designs wine labels, and devours culture for breakfast. But the best of him? He’s a giver, endlessly curious, and a great travel companion. He also unexpectedly pops off like a scholar on many topics besides wine. I often thought it and occasionally even said to our growers along the way: How the hell does he know all this stuff? When I think back to where I was at thirty-three? Well, we all have our path. Those who want to move fast are only limited by their natural pace. But when I think about where I was at thirty-three on so many of our shared interests compared to where he is now? Farm League. Manuel Moldes in the old-vine schist vineyard for his Albariño “A Capela de Aios” What was most unnerving about our trip were the flowers. Remy flew into Porto the night before our first field day. The itinerary was tailored mostly for only growers with whom we have national exclusivity. After crossing the Minho River from Portugal’s Ponte de Lima, our first stop was Salnés, the heart of Rías Baixas Albariño, and a focal point of our Iberian roster. It was November 12th, and flowers that normally begin their bloom in the spring were blossoming. Even buds on shoots that had yet to be pruned were already burgeoning. Galicia would not be our last stop where springtime flowers stippled the countryside near the end of fall and the start of winter. November is typically Galicia’s rainiest month. Yet unexpectedly good weather can be welcome in the right setting. Pedro Méndez wasn’t there but the week before I invited him for dinner, and he brought wines for Remy to taste on his first night of the trip before we headed north. It was an impressive start, and while Pedro’s Albariños are clearly special, his reds haunted Remy the entire trip and one of them made his top five wines of the journey. Manuel Moldes was on point, as usual. He has a new winery and a few new toys to ratchet things up even further. Xesteiriña’s soul-packed, core-dense, sulfite-free Albariño from their single plot on metamorphic rock was staggering and, as usual, in very short supply. The range of Val do Salnés grower, Pedro Méndez Our visit was too short for this ocean-seasoned, high-voltage wine territory, their generous makers, and the best fall weather I’d ever witnessed in Salnés. But we were off to Ribeiro, the spiritual and most historic wine center of Galicia, and then to Ribeira Sacra, the sacred riverbank. Indeed, there are talented growers from Ribeiro other than ours, but I wouldn’t trade our two for any of them. As many have already experienced, Cume do Avia’s 2022s are gorgeous and without a doubt their best effort to date; the reds bring me back to my first tastes in their barrel room in early 2018 and represent my inspiration for the vines I intend to one day plant on my tiny little Portuguese terraces (Caíño Longo and Brancellao, the muses) so I can craft some wine again. I was already generously offered vine cuttings from their regional massale selections. Their low-alcohol red wines remain some of the most frequented at my table, with their glorious high tones and enviable delicacy, armored with their metamorphic and igneous bedrock and the Atlantic’s freshness. Iago’s Augaleveda wines continue to climb, and now his newly released 2022s are at the edge of outer space. This man’s an astronaut on a solo flight to Mars. Late afternoon Galician Tai Chi performed by Cume do Avia’s Diego Collarte Our two main producers in Ribeira Sacra are churning out the best of their careers. First, Prádio, a name easy to pronounce, must change because of an unexpected lawsuit. Now it’s called Familia Seoane Novelle—good luck pronouncing that middle word, the family name. So many vowels! Xabi Seoane (pictured with Remy) could’ve chosen something easier for the mouth to wrap around, but he has a habit of doing things the hard way. Regardless of the phonetic challenge, and loss of the entire 2021 vintage due to mildew ravaging the area, Xabi made a jump between 2020 to 2022, almost completely redefining his style. I guess a missed vintage gives one time to reflect. Of course, he does the best he can still using organic treatments, but when he says he can’t lose it all again for the sake of ideology, I get it. 2022 was a warmer season with almost no mildew pressure, by comparison, they are the finest wines he’s produced and some of the finest in Galicia. Endowed with greater tension and purity, they’re also paler in color free of unnecessary weight, density and richness. With the finely plucked chords of his 2022s, the Cistercians who rooted both Burgundian and Galician viticulture would be proud. Pablo Soldavini Our real-life Ribeira Sacra Wolverine (well, minus the superpowers and biotechnological implants, though the attitude is fully intact), Pablo Soldavini is not only up to mischief in this land of herbicide, but he’s also up to good: whether it’s rain, shine, or fungus for days, he works all-natural viticulture all the way—at least as natural as copper and sulfur sprays can be. His wines’ high, fragrant tones are intelligent but a bit intentionally unpolished—like their maker. Pablo has more vineyards to tend to this year, but he’s a one-man show with a herniated disk, so he’s limited in how much he can take on. Though a wonderful and hospitable friend, he admits he doesn’t work well with people—so, naturally, a limited production is always to be expected. During our visit, he shared a recent disturbing development in his region’s subzone (Ribeiras do Sil, on the south side of the Sil, across from Amandi, the most famously pictured) as yet another generational round of abandonments. Vineyards are being left to the wild. I guess we’re running out of heroes for this so-called, “heroic viticulture.” So, for all aspiring natural winegrowers, it’s time to get to Ribeira Sacra! Well, it’s a cool fantasy anyway. You can buy a house for 7,000 euros and vineyards and land for a great price. But it comes with drawbacks: don’t buy before you see it. Or: best to leave it to Xabi and Pablo. A new personal success story is quietly brewing in Ribeira Sacra, though not without some scorn and understandable skepticism from a few of our Galician growers. After nearly a year of discussions, and a handful of vineyard and winery visits at Ponte da Boga, I asked Javier Ordás de Villota, their export manager and now our friend, for a meeting with the big boss to discuss the future and a topic crucial to our ethos: true sustainability, ecological consciousness, and a word that can quickly turn conversations sour: organic. He was skeptical of our probability of pulling it off but he teed it up for me anyway. “As importers, our role is not just to align, but to sometimes guide and give confidence when it’s needed.” Francisco Alabart, an extremely professional and polite Catalan native, the Senior Director of Estrella Galicia’s wine and cider projects (including organic ciders), and of course, Javier’s boss, quietly listened to my pitch. I presented the idea of Ponte da Boga taking a strong position on organic farming in this region, one that’s notoriously difficult to work in this way so that they could become true industry leaders in Galician wine. Their success could have a ripple effect in the region, instilling confidence in more growers that there’s a market for their wines and that it can be successfully done on a somewhat larger scale. I also pointed out that their higher-end wines could fetch higher prices, not only because they can be called organic, but also because they’d be better wines; it’s always good to mention an increase in profits in a pitch. And just like that, he said: “Well, we were the first major Spanish beer company to grow our own organic hops, and we have an organic cider program,” Francisco said, “so I don’t see why we can’t do this with our vineyards.” One of the most fulfilling feelings in what we do comes out of participating in progress. While it seemed a difficult task to ask a grower working in a conventional way to consider organic farming, we walked out with a 2.5-hectare commitment from one of Ponte da Boga’s Ribeira Sacra vineyard partner’s vines. The vineyards where the experiments will take place are those of the owning family’s son, José-Maria Rivera Aguirre (Jr.), known by all as Chema. Chema already had this idea brewing and now he’s got our commitment to get behind it. This reaction was another reassurance that as importers, our role is not just to align, but to sometimes offer guidance and boost confidence when needed. It’s obvious to me that greater ecological progress will come from encouraging growers who haven’t yet embraced less invasive methods to uncover the untapped potential in their wine through more natural processes. Changes like this thrive on openness, not an “us versus them” predisposition. And if we want to affect real change, we must walk into new places with capable and reasonable people to have an open and gentle dialogue about important things. Chema and the new organic vines Born in 1991, the easygoing and extremely personable yet shy Chema explained that he’s always had a strong connection to nature and the outdoors. An avid surfer who loves the ocean, he pivoted and turned his outdoorsmanship toward the vineyards of Ponte da Boga where he interned for a couple of years starting in 2017. Since it’s always been complicated to navigate working among other members of this seventh generation of successors to the founder of Estrella Galicia, he wasn’t able to get further involved in the operations of Ponte da Boga. So, he opted to spend his time in Chantada to grow grapes on his mother’s 40 hectares of wild land, and organics was always on his mind. “I was convinced that organic viticulture was possible. And if it’s possible, it was mandatory to try,” Chema said. It will be tough where he is, but he says that despite its much closer proximity to the Atlantic than Amandi, he doesn’t believe it has a greater mildew pressure, though that will still be his nemesis. His first go at it was three years ago with a tiny plot, but now with our interest, he’s all in on 2.5 hectares of the 16 he has planted with five more on the way. His dream? For everything to be organic, and maybe even biodynamic or regenerative farming. Generously, the team at Ponte da Boga offered us priority for those first organic wines grown on those gorgeous terraces of shattering grayish-blue slate on the northern tip of the Chantada. As it’s the northernmost area of Ribeira Sacra, it’s subject to the Atlantic’s coldest whipping winds—exactly what the naturally low acid Mencía needs to preserve its freshness. Tasting various lots of Mencía with Ponte da Boga, the blend dominated by this vineyard was the runaway highlight. Slate bedrock and soil for Chema’s Chantada vineyards On a high from our visit to Ponta da Boga’s new organic vineyard tour with Chema and his French native viticultural guru, Dominique Roujou de Boubee, we found our way back through Portugal with our first stop, Portugal’s most remote corner of the mainland, Trás-os-Montes. It’s nice to see our adventurers from all over Iberia who’ve rediscovered some nearly lost terroirs and come into their own over the last five years. I’m truly proud of them. And when I think of some of those I’m most proud of, the continued perseverance of Aline at Menina D’Uva, and Arribas Wine Company’s Fred and Ricardo are simply second to none. We didn’t approach one of Portugal’s most obscure and sparsely populated time capsules of a region with the expressed goal of planting our company’s flag like we wanted to grab credit for establishing it as the next viticultural hot spot. But when artisans make compelling wines, I don’t care where they’re from and how many of them are there, I’m gonna go after them. Aline, the Menina d’Uva What differs most between the wines of these two growers is probably the influence of their cultural heritage and university studies. Aline’s parents are Portuguese but she’s Parisian-born and raised. She has three master’s degrees (notably in Molecular Biology and Fermentation Science). She’s largely influenced by natural wines of the Loire Valley and Burgundy, and with her new life partner from Italy’s Marche, Emanuele, she’s gotten more into Italian wines now, as well. The Arribas guys are from northern Portugal and have viticulture, enology, agronomy, and biology degrees. They’ve traveled the world to work various harvests. And these two camps certainly grew up eating and drinking different things! Then there are the differences in the topography of the land they work, with Arribas being far more backbreaking with shallower and sandier soil beds in their steep igneous and metamorphic bedrock vineyards than Menina’s softer rolling hills with deeper clay and sand soils largely on metamorphic bedrock. Of course, they both deal with many varieties, with dozens more in Arribas. Aline has a new cellar, which eased the constant kinks from navigating her previous one—a virtual crawlspace built for smaller people in the Portuguese countryside. Like our other relatively new Iberian upstarts, her new releases reached her highest marks. And the guys are downright maniacs, fully committed to the Sisyphean task of something well beyond heroic viticulture. One of Arribas Wine Company’s “easier slopes” that goes into their entry-level range, Saroto On this trip, Fred showed us some of the steepest parcels where they carry 15-20-kilo boxes of grapes up an unterraced hills on their shoulders, spending all the diesel in their legs on what appeared to be about a hundred meters up a 50-meter vertical climb—like I said: they’re beasts. Ribeira Sacra and Douro seem more difficult and more aesthetic, but I think their work is as hard as anywhere: no carts on rails, no terraces, no stairs, nothing, just steep, either freezing or scorching hills without a spot at the bottom to load a truck and drive them up. All that labor goes into their Saroto wine—the starter kit range for by-the-glass programs! This year they beat me to the punch with their 2023 Saroto Tinto by highlighting the fruit and pleasure over the mineral and seriousness still tucked in, but further back. As I suggested he might want to develop some of these characteristics going forward, Fred set what I had just asked for right in front of us. It was like I’d ordered a wine from the replicator on the U.S.S. Enterprise! Get ready for a deliciously spry new Saroto Tinto. Quinta da Carolina’s Luis Candido da Silva (left) and Remy in the ancient-vine vineyard for Luis’s Xis white Constantino Ramos in his ancient-vine vineyards for his JUCA tinto We finished up in Douro with Luis Candido da Silva’s Quinta da Carolina and Vinho Verde’s Constantino Ramos before we flew to Austria. These two guys pay the same attention to detail but have completely different results. Luis’ wines are a mix of extremely progressive, tightly wound rock channelers meticulously detailed and grown on the north faces or the highest altitudes in one of the hottest and driest viticulture areas in Portugal, yet with tones so high and alcohol levels so low it’s often offensive to the local palate. Constantino’s are a nod to the history of Vinho Verde, the reds are perfectly rustic yet tame “green wines” with terse acidity and fresh wild fruits and foresty, damp, green earth notes and the full-flavored whites are grown in some of the coldest and wettest areas of Portugal, Monção e Melgaço, and the Lima Valley. This year we’ll go as far as Constantino will let us with his Loureiro Branco. As Remy says, “For its price, it’s a gift.” Wachau’s Spitzer Graben I never miss flights. After a couple of static days with tons of pre-game tasting for Austria, Germany, France and Italy, we left Sant Feliu de Guíxols with plenty of time to spare. Oops, construction. Plenty of time. Divert! Wait, navigation wants to send us to the same spot! Go this way! It will surely lead us to the highway because it’s in the same direction! Right? We’re good … Wait, we need to turn around. Defeat. But we still have enough time … Thirty minutes down the road and back on track with an hour before we reach the airport, a text: “We’re starting to board.” The text was from Manuel Moldes, our Val do Salnés luminary. It’s always fun to include some of our growers on trips to regions they’ve not been to before. He and Angel Camiña Seren, one of the long-time winemakers at Forjas del Salnés (one of the true greats of Rías Baixas), were meeting us at the Barcelona airport to join our short Austrian leg. This region was ideal to include Galicians (Forjas del Salnés is not one of our grower partners, he’s a friend) who make ripping white wines on similar acidic soil types as the Wachau, given the bedrock and soil types largely come from the same geological era, Pangea. It took a second. Did I read the ticket wrong? My eyesight is getting worse every day. I saw a 2:40 but had clearly missed the 1 before the 2. F … Remy was on the phone in seconds with Vueling. A chance to make it or not? We don’t have bags to check! Non-committal. Finally, the agent said, “You won’t make it.” At the curb fifteen minutes before the closing gate time. Remy ran. I conceded. I had my car. There was no more time to park. “I’m in!” he texted. Sweet relief. He needed to get there in time to help these two Spaniards who didn’t speak more than a lick of English with their arrival in Vienna for the first time. Eight hours later, after taking the last flight of the day from Barcelona to Vienna—plenty of time to reflect—we were driving to Kremstal. Angel Camiña Seren and Manuel Moldes in the Spitzer Graben on their maiden voyage to Austria With an early breakfast date with Gerald and Wilma Malat, followed by a tour of Gerald’s private schnapps stash at 9 am. I left the gang for the Wachau and a quick pre-lunch visit with Martin Mittelbach from Tegernseerhof, whom they had dinner with the night before coming back to the airport to pick me up, and whom I’d already visited earlier in the year. Martin has always worked with a consciousness toward nature in his vineyards, and his conversion some years ago to organic farming was his next and most logical step. A long-time purist against allowing any amount of botrytis grapes in his Smaragds, his wines have always reflected purity and focused expressions of their terroirs. Already making world-class wines through the 2010s, the last five vintages have found new gears. To taste his 2022s next to the 2023s demonstrated how underrated 2022 is and how obviously in great form are the 2023s. Martin Muthenthaler Prior to Tegernseerhof unexpectedly signing on with us in New York a few weeks before the trip, the main reason to visit Austria was for Remy to meet Martin Muthenthaler to help him better understand how this truck-driver-turned-winemaking luminary rose to the top of Austria’s wine scene. After shaking one of his thick, stained and torn, icy vice-like hands and looking at his wafer-thin frame seemingly built of steel, it’s easy to understand that work ethic is one of his cornerstones. His others are his organic farming methods, meticulous attention to detail in his vineyard work and his bond with nature’s ebbs and flows. In the cellar, his technique is simple and direct. No games. Nothing to do but shepherd each wine to a precise outcome. Along with his now world-famous neighbor and Wachau disruptor, Peter Veyder-Malberg, only a few can match the level these two are achieving and I know of none in Austria who stand above them. After our two Spitzer Graben tastings with its two legends, we hopped on an early morning train, heading from Austria to the sunbathed, wind-whipped and freezing limestone slopes of Rheinhessen’s Grand Crus to visit mutual friends with our Austrian growers, Katharina Wechsler and her newly wedded, culinarily gifted husband, Manuel Maier. Greeting us like old friends, they cooked us up a storm of pizzas the first night, showed us their prized vines in the morning, and had a lengthy lunch prepared after the cellar tasting and served in their makeshift popup wine bar. Every year, they up the ante, delivering classic dry Riesling from Germany’s modern-day dry Riesling hotspot, with Kirchspiel and Morstein their headliners, and a range of deliciously fun and equally smart natural wines, both ranges just a little more fine-tuned from one year to the next. Sometimes in many things we do, all it takes is one small correction, and BOOM, next level. There’s a third mastery of craft coming into clearer view: Pinot Noir still wine. They’ve been working on it for years, but what we thieved this time from the new collection of old barrels was more solid than ever, and some of it was downright outstanding. The second leg of this trip with Remy through France and Italy will have to wait until next month—there’s too much to cover, and I’m running out of time for my deadline. But here’s a preview of the jaunt: it was a doozy. We began early on a Monday morning along Catalonia’s Costa Brava, and from there, it was a marathon in full sprint. But at least on this leg, we were in the comfort of my car, and better equipped: thick and long Yoga mat, foam roller and weights for much-needed exercise, extra winter clothes and jackets (which we needed!), umbrellas, mud boots, running shoes, drone, cameras, and plenty of room for wine (and the unexpected gift of a classic cassoulet clay pot given to me on our first visit!) First stop: Cahors, followed by a quick hop to Bordeaux. From there, we raced up to Muscadet, crossed the Loire to Chablis, then headed to Les Riceys before a sharp two-hour rollercoaster ride up north to Reims and a faster descent into Jura. We zigged to Côte d’Or, drifted down the Rhône, zagged across the Côte d’Azur into Liguria, took a left at Savona, climbed over the Ligurian range and into Italy’s viticultural promised land for stops in Barolo, Barbaresco, Nizza, and Monferrato Casalese. After that, it was up to Caluso and Alto Piemonte, then we boomeranged to Oltrepò Pavese and back and sped westward toward the coast. From there, we screamed across southern France with a stop in Jurançon, finally wrapping things up back in Navarra, where we parted ways during a firehose-level downpour. Remy was off to London to meet his girlfriend (but even with forty days on the road together, he kept from me that he planned to propose!), and I had an eight-hour drive home to Portugal—eta: midnight. I think I made it there alive, but I’m not sure …

The Source’s Most Important Recent Arrivals Welcome to the first official Source monthly newsletter. Yeah, it’s been a long time coming! After a tough economic year for all of us in this métier reliant on hospitality, food and wine, we are gearing up for what we hope will be a strong return before 2021 comes to an end. Hopefully you’ve made the best of a pretty dismal situation to expand in positive directions, and not too much in the waistline, like some of us have. During this quiet time, two of our star cohorts at The Source, Rachel Kerswell and Danny DeMartini, separately brought two new arrivals into the world, offspring that will undoubtedly continue their parents’ positive impact on all of those around them, and judging by our Zoom calls, little Simona and Vienna are happy and healthy kids. I’ve often pondered these pandemic-era newborns and young kids stuck at home, showered with so much love and attention from both parents during their most formative years. I think they’re going to be special kids worldwide, and probably like no other generation in history, who alone may make the troubles we’ve globally endured worth it. By comparison, I suppose we can recall the progeny that sprung from the US during the Spanish Flu, World War I and The Great Depression, those who became known as the “The Greatest Generation.” This new one might be the generational catalyst that provides a strong pivot for mankind and its relation to the earth, led by a deeper well of care, love and gentleness—another thought in the utopian dreams of my optimistic side. As luck would have it, it’s actually been one of the most personally fulfilling years I can remember, on top of so many others that preceded it, ever since I started snooping abroad for wines to send back home to our friends and customers, so they can pass them on to others as well. We’re happy you’ve managed to hang in there and I hope to see some of you back in the States in a couple of months. New Arrivals This month we have the 2017 Poderi Colla Barbaresco Roncaglie and our first red wine from the new and exciting Portuguese producer, Arribas Wine Company. The 2019 Arribas Wine Company Saroto Tinto, a blend of a multitude of Portuguese grapes that most people have never heard of, carries a modest price tag for this low alcohol, high energy, ancient-vine glou glou with some serious trimmings. Quantities are limited, with only 50 cases imported to the US. Next year we will get a bit more. 2017 Poderi Colla Barbaresco Roncaglie The Collas have the potential to produce a lot of wine from their 6.5 hectares of Roncaglie and 8 hectares of Barolo Bussia Dardi le Rose, alone, without even counting the other two historic estates they own. But to keep the quality as high as possible, they sell quite a bit of wine made from what they deem to be lower-tier parcels from each specific vintage. This keeps the Barolo and Barbaresco sourced from the best interior plots. Sometimes all the plots render gorgeous wines but some will still be sold off to negociants because the Collas haven’t built a market to support the sale of the potential maximum quantity from their Barolo and Barbaresco vineyards. While I know what I am about to say goes against every sales pitch containing an illusion of scarcity for a particular wine or producer to build demand, I will pivot with Colla when I say that it is my personal goal to make sure that not a drop of this most-deserving of family’s gorgeous wines is ever dumped into the river of innocuous bulk wine from the negociant industry.  The Collas are the quiet family who makes the least noise at industry gatherings, who humbly waits for someone to step away from the growers behind the loudspeaker and into a different scene where the wine does all the talking, after which they thank you for stopping by to take a taste. These wines are available to us and it is our unapologetic intention to get them in as a regular fixture within many restaurant wine programs where we want to ensure that they have reliable opportunities to reorder as much as they need, instead of sticking them with only a single case. We want these wines to be solid workhorses in as many places as possible, to spread the joy, and so that those that are in fact relatively rare aren't depleted too quickly. Poderi Colla has been such an important part of our identity, not only within our Italian selection, but our entire company culture and wine preferences. While 2016 is a hard follow (as are the Barbarescos from ’15, ’14 and ’13, on their own merits) this softly sun-touched 2017 Barbaresco Roncaglie will keep up the Colla’s winning streak and surprise most who haven’t yet realized that they are an institution of consistency. My last personal bottle of this wine that I opened just a week ago was simply stunning. A bright and upfront Verduno-esque nose jumped out of its extremely inviting, high-toned, pale reddish/orange color. It was so captivating that it took some time to simply unhinge my nose from the glass to even take my first sip. But, take my advice when I say open it up thirty minutes ahead of time and draw out a touch of wine to get a little microoxygenation working before serving (without necessarily decanting the entire bottle) to let it find its footing on its high profile Barbaresco cru tannins, which seem very stern initially but somehow quickly resolve into refinement with a newly found supple mouthfeel that is hardly even recognizable from the first sips. This is simply a wine not to miss if Nebbiolo with more pleasure than pain is on your horizon—if you can leave it alone for that first half an hour! The aromas of the 2017 Barbaresco are reminiscent of the best of the lifted nuances of the 2011 and 2012 vintages but with even more taut and generous fruit. Within only a short time after opening (while being served with the right food, as it should be with any wine like this crafted for a place at the long lunch or dinner table) the palate and nose begin to become one. Pietro Colla is an impressive young craftsman and his grape-growing team, spearheaded by his father, Tino, continue to deliver on the promise of their historic family’s success. I’m simply impressed by this wine and like so many other Colla wines before, it surpasses my already high expectations for this spectacularly talented Barbaresco cru. Every year the Collas do superb work. Their wines are clean and aromatic, appealing in their youth, but without sacrificing their cellar worthiness to mature, to stretch, to broaden in complexity and narrow each nuance into a harmonious ensemble of finely struck chords. The critics also took notice in 2017, and they seem to have come to understand that Colla’s wines always show up no matter the hardships and complaints of any given year. There’s three hundred years of passed-down knowledge at play with the Collas, and it’s obvious year in and year out. 2019 Arribas Wine Company Saroto Tinto The new and youthful Portuguese winegrowers, Ricardo Alves and Frederico Machado, are at the beginning of their lifelong path to play their part in the rediscovery and redefinition of the unique Portuguese wine region, Trás-os-Montes. In two short years they’ve already made waves with the local administration by creating wines dramatically different from the rest of the region, with very low alcohol, low extraction, high-altitude field blends with sometimes as many as thirty different indigenous grape varieties, as it is with the red wine we started with, Saroto Tinto. Interestingly, just last month they were awarded with “Revelation Producer of the Year” by Wine Magazine. They have other very interesting wines in the range, but Saroto sets the pace for pleasure, intellect and authenticity, at an extremely fair price. The demand for their wines in Japan and Scandinavia is already gobbling up their stock faster than we can get around to buying it. Look for Saroto’s release toward the end of March. The quantities are limited, at 50 cases for the entire US market, and the new vintage won’t come in until much later in the year, which will include their white (orange wine) and a few other higher-end very compelling wines—tastes you may not have experienced before with this enormous mix of grapes and talented terroirs. We’re extremely excited to be a part of their story now. Further On The Horizon Iberian Dreams What a time to turn over rocks in Iberia! You’re going to see a lot of new things continue to roll out of this area in our upcoming offers and sample bags, and our selection of wines from its colder parts in the north has particularly blossomed. Personally, I feel extremely lucky to have the opportunity to represent such wonderful people making such compelling wines so new to me in a multitude of ways. The benchmarks are all spoken for, so naturally we’re hitting the next generation of winegrowers. The youth in these parts seem infected with a generational ailment whose cure seems to be to get out of the city grind and into the countryside that many of their parents and grandparents vacated in that last century, to get away from the relentless economic woes Spain hasn’t seemed to be able to shake since the sixteenth century. And they’ve come to restore ancient abandoned or neglected vineyards, or in other places reset with new plantations of ancient masale selections of hundreds of grape varieties most of us have never heard of. Over the last four years, we went from one producer in this area to four, to eight, to now fifteen and counting; my sample room is constantly full of new things to explore and most of them are suggestions from the growers we already work with! The camino we walk along in Iberia was paved by the hard work and belief of so many importers before we set foot here, and to them we give great respect and thanks for their groundbreaking expeditions. In all the years of doing this work I am pleased to report that I have never been happier with where we are (despite some of the pandemic’s ramifications) and where we’re going. I’m genuinely excited and ready to return with the spoils given to us by our supporters, those who believe in our efforts and “finds,” and to do our part to contribute to the narrative of Northern Iberian wine. We are learning so many new things that we want to share, just as we’ve always done. Some new names to add to our exclusive national portfolio: Augalevada (Ribeiro, ES), Fazenda Prádio (Ribeira Sacra, ES), Bodegas Gordon (Jimenez de Jamuz, ES), Menina d’uva (Trás-os-Montes, PT), and César Fernández Díaz (Ribera del Duero, ES; previous job was at Comando G). There’s too much to say about each of these new producers in one newsletter, but when they start to arrive you will certainly hear more. Iberia has some of the most exciting depth of discovery in the wine world, and most of the heavy lifting is being done by the most recent half of the Iberian Gen Xers, followed closely by some Millennials. Italia We’ve also picked up some new and thrilling growers in Italy for California and some other states. In Alto Piemonte, we’ve scored with Davide Carlone, from Boca. There is a new horizon for this already talented and continuously evolving winegrower, and that is that Cristiano Garella, our longtime friend and cornerstone of this entire region’s mega growth spurt over the last fifteen years, is now advising Carlone. Carlone brings our tally in Alto Piemonte to four, with Ioppa (Ghemme), Zambolin (Lessona, but labeled as Costa della Sesia), and Monti Perini (Bramaterra). Carlone’s wines will arrive in the late summer/early fall. Up in the alpine foothills of Lombardia, Enrico Togni, a former law school student who left man’s academia for nature’s bounty, is crafting some very interesting naturally grown wines on steep, acidic rock terraces. The first two wines I tasted, a 12% alcohol, dainty but deeply substantial and aromatic Nebbiolo, and a lightly extracted rare red grape, Erbanno, were an exploration into another dimension of alpine red wines. Enrico’s earlier years were marked by a more untamed naturalness and have now matured into something quite nuanced and cleanly crafted. The high CO2 content at the start, left in place during the aging and bottling so as to use as little SO2 as possible, takes some management by decanting, or with a vigorous aeration and some patience to follow. Once through the gas, the wines are striking, emotional and original. The Erbanno is an almost entirely new idea, with its pale colored rendition of a dark grape; think somewhere in the same vein of Grosjean Premetta, Emidio Pepe Cerasuolo, or a light, but non-flor-heavy Jura Poulsard—a pale red, almost more of a rosé. I tasted the wines over two days and the second day was even as good with both, although it was hard to stop drinking them on the first day to save a little for the next for curiosity’s sake. He also makes two different sparkling wines, one from Barbera and the other from Erbanno; both are interesting and, not surprisingly, very good. All of his wines are bottled under a combination of both of his parents’ familial names, Togni and Rebaioli, and will arrive in the third quarter of the year. The quantities will be very limited. An Austrian Reunion We’re happy to announce that the nicest guy in a country of some of the nicest people on earth, Michael Malat, will be rejoining us (in the California market only) after a year and a half away. We’re going to reboot the program with his 2019 vintage, a stellar year for Austrian white wines and clearly Michael’s new gold standard. In this year he added Pfaffenberg to the roster from across the river, on the north side. I had a bottle and Andrea (my wife) and I almost snuffed it inside of an hour before we realized that we were well outpacing our dinner. Everyone on staff is excited to have this special guy back on our team. The first set of wines should arrive at the start of summer. Staff’s favorite wines from February It’s long been an aspiration of ours to bring the voice of our talented wine team to a broader audience. With a strong passion for wine, food and European culture, they are all well traveled in wine country and speak from their own personal experiences on wines that were love at first sight, and many others that slowly grew on them over time and then developed into some of their favorites. All of us wine people are on a constant path of evolution and the things that interest us today may not be as interesting tomorrow. Our team has been invited to write each month for our newsletters about any wine that was a true highlight for them over the last month. 2018 Quinta do Ameal Loureiro by Rachel Kerswell National Sales Manager & New York Lead Salesperson It’s been some time since I cracked a bottle of Loureiro from Quinta do Ameal. While impatiently enduring this New York winter, I often find myself reflecting on this special yet unpretentious Portuguese white wine. One could say it’s simple in some ways, but its versatility around food and profound sense of place can set this wine up to be as deeply meaningful and emotional as any other. In 2018, during a sunnier-than-usual Iberian Peninsula autumn, I was visiting Ameal’s restored, ancient quinta in the Vinho Verde’s Lima Valley. Over lunch—a perfectly premeditated assortment of deeply-flavored fare, clean and full-of-life local vegetables and an abundance of fresh Atlantic seafood —we shared several bottles of Loureiro dating back fifteen years. I’ve been fortunate to experience vintages of this wine as far back as the early 1990’s with the now former winemaker, Pedro Araujo, and though they are all captivating in their own unique way, it is typically the younger vintages that steal the show for me. In its youth, Quinta do Ameal’s Loureiro is etched and incisive but its natural tones of sweet fruit keep it from being abrasive. Pedro raises the wine entirely in stainless steel vats, which keeps its purity and maritime salinity intact. 2017 Fuentes del Silencio “Las Quintas” by Danny DeMartini Northern California Lead Salesperson Fuentes del Silencio’s Las Quintas hails from villages on the high plains surrounding Herreros de Jamuz, an area with ancient abandoned vineyards with many that predate phylloxera. It’s made predominantly from Mencía, with a little Alicante Bouschet (Garnacha Tintorera) & Palomino. Mencía from Jamuz enjoys a very long growing season, high altitudes (the highest average elevation where Mencía is planted in Spain), cold air currents, and poor soils composed of fine grained silty sand. The combination renders balanced wines with stunning elegance and complexity. Light tannins and expressive fruit are perfectly juxtaposed with raw, earth-driven spice and aromatic lift. Las Quintas stands apart for its immediate appeal and elegance as well as underlying depth and brooding complexity. This wine perfectly illustrates the felicity of Mencía within this region. 2017 Poderi Colla Nebbiolo d’Alba by JD Plotnick Southern California Lead Salesperson I recently had the pleasure of taking out samples of Poderi Colla’s current releases, and while I expected to be enamored with their excellent Barolo and Barbaresco crus, I was reminded just how fantastic their “basic” Nebbiolo d’Alba is. Several years ago when I was tasting and buying wines with Lou Amdur at his eponymous wine shop in Los Feliz, we were constantly searching for affordable nebbiolos that were expressive, floral and aromatically compelling. Things that, to us, tasted like “real nebbiolo.” Most affordable nebbiolos, it turns out, are rather boring. Not necessarily bad, just not exciting. An annual favorite of ours was always Brovia’s Nebbiolo d'Alba, but the problem with that wine (and every other nebbiolo we seemed to fall in love with) was that we could only get one to two cases per year; clearly not enough to work with year-round. When I started working with The Source and tasted Colla’s Nebbiolo d’Alba for the first time, I immediately thought that this was the wine I had been looking for: an organically farmed, beautifully expressive nebbiolo that is actually affordable and in decent supply, it’s uniquely approachable when young, and bursting with all of the savory, umami nuances I look for in great nebbiolo. Quiet European Adventures In A Pandemic Year by Ted Vance Andrea (my wife) and I moved to Portugal two Decembers ago after a chaotic and eternally memorable year in Italy’s Campanian coast. We got out of Italy just in time for the pandemic to drown the world in despair, starting with where we’d just left. Our Italian friends said their parents regularly commented that Italy's draconian confinement was like the confinement during wartime years, and there’s still a big group of old Italians who know all about that, firsthand. We miss the ferry rides from Salerno to all of the Amalfi Coast fishing villages and the warm, salty Mediterranean, the endless supply of anchovies and spectacular seafood, bufala mozzarella and fresh ricotta from Vanulo; and then there’s the epic summer infused pastas and the real deal Napoletana Margherita pizzas for 3.50€ to 4.50€—so basically, free. Food and wine writer, and dear friend, Jordan Mackay, regularly says, “It’s hard to get a bad meal in Campania.” There were too many good ones to count and there’s hardly evidence of a bad one within the neurological scramble of my brain. We couldn’t have picked a more civilized modern country to hide out during what has been for so many a difficult and cruel time. The Portuguese took it in stride and without panic; the middle-aged and senior population of the country just got free from a terrible dictator fewer than fifty years ago, so they’ve seen much worse, in different forms. The Portuguese are special people (as are their ancient, gentle kin across the border up in Galicia) and they’ve done nothing but welcome us to their country and help, help and help some more. We’ve already made great friends—true lifers, these ones—in the wine industry and outside, too. This year was my most academically focused year to date. Italy was a solid gearing up to my output, but I feel I’ve found a stride on some new level. So much study and research, and boundless time to work uninterrupted on my writing and English and local language skills, which have been as enriching as anything I’ve done before it. (I never went to University, but I very much crave education.) I know I’ve progressed from where I started six years ago when I penned my first short essay about a thirty-hour awakening through a bottle of 2009 Pierre Overnoy Poulsard I nursed alone that finally ended in disaster—that is, the bottle was eventually empty… But with the turning of each page in books by literary luminaries, a lifetime of strong headwinds has been revealed to me, an endless—and welcome—intake of humble pie all the way to the end. Language has always been of interest to me. After flailing with Portuguese for the first six months, I knew I needed a stronger base. One day, after envying Andrea’s easy assimilation (she’s from Chile), I asked her how much of Portuguese is only slightly different from Spanish. “Maybe 80%?” She said. So I was doing it wrong… That prompted me to immediately dive into Spanish, a language I knew would be the easiest for me after many years of studying French, followed by some dabbling in Italian. It was the right move. Portuguese will likely be a painful slog, but the Spanish is already breaking through the Portuguese cloud in my head. Reading Portuguese is easy if you have a decent grip on another Latin language, but as I try to make sense of the spoken word, it could just as well be Ukranian. People—non-Portuguese people—say that Portuguese is like a drunk Russian trying to speak Spanish, with which I would heartily agree. Andrea and I got out a few times when Europe completely opened up to countries inside the EU. We know that restrictions have been different everywhere, and during this last year in Portugal we’ve been on lockdown for nine out of the last twelve months with everything proposed to continue until the end of this April. Once California’s restaurants shut down, our company’s cash flow did the same, and we all hunkered down and began the hibernation. Thankfully our growers have been patient and supportive because they are all in the same boat; plus, we all need each other as the gates begin to open. Trying to pay bills during this time was like trying to propel a dingy without a paddle, and because they weren’t small, I didn’t think it wise to post our meanderings on social media; otherwise my new strategic location could have been a terrible oversight: it’s a lot easier to reach me during a pandemic from France when I live in Portugal than when I’m in California! All of us needed some refuge from the pandemic, and when we were given permission we took advantage of it. The highlights of our brief opportunities to get out while the restrictions were lifted across Europe started with a twelve-day drive across Spain’s north coast in July. We started in Galicia, and then made our way through Asturias, Cantabria, País Vasco, and the Costa Brava for a week in Sant-Feliu de Guíxols. Between Sant-Feliu de Guíxols and S’Agaró, on the Platja de Sant Pol beach, there’s a restaurant with a decent wine list and fabulous food with the little bay in front, a perfect Spanish stand-in if Fitzgerald had chosen to set Tender Is The Night in Spain instead of the Côte d’Azur. The restaurant tour along the north coast was altogether wonderful, and felt like one generous gift after another in both food and wine. The dream candy goes to the Asturian coast, a place that is unique and almost surreal; some places felt like you were the first and only person to ever set foot on that section of the beach, crag or cliff. If there were ever a countryside that could give me courage to extract a novel within my lifetime, that coastline might be the place. One could be brought to tears, just as my sister, Victoria, was the first time she walked into the piazza of Italy’s famous Amalfi Coast mountain town, Ravello, with the limestone cliffs and the view of the turquoise sea far below; the sheer natural majesty of some places in the world can sometimes be overwhelming. While the EU lockdowns were lifted and the borders still open until early October, we went to visit our good friends, Max Stefanelli and Francesca Sarti, from the Terroni Restaurants in Los Angeles, who unexpectedly committed to a yearlong sabbatical in Bologna with their three kids in tow—so young they are, all five of them! Sadly, they decided to close their downtown location permanently and were in need of a moment away to reset. The tickets were already booked before we got off the phone with Max when he broke the news. It was the first time for both of us in Bologna (what a terribly overlooked city!), Modena and Venice, and we didn’t want to leave as Max drove us back to the airport some days later. We stayed at the famous Hotel Principe, close to the train port, in Venice. The clerk’s light blue eyes nearly fell out of his head when we passed our two American passports underneath the newly installed protective glass. Aghast and giggling like a schoolboy meeting the couple on a poster in his childhood bedroom for the first time, he explained that these were the first American passports he’d seen since March. He got emotional; we couldn’t see anything else on his mask-covered face but his slightly welling eyes—they somehow expressed relief, and even more, hope. It was the end of September, and this was probably the first six-month stretch in any Venice hotel since before the spring of 1945 without a single American occupying a room even for just a night. We saw the world’s most famously overrun tourist city—the world’s living museum—with only the company of European tourists; no boatloads or droves of busses with foreigners on a speed tour with all their memories being captured in their phones instead of their minds. On the streets it was calm and surreal at night, and quite busy during the daytime. It seemed like a different pandemic already wiped out a lot of Venice before we arrived, and that I was the only American (Andrea is Chilean) in the entire centro storico. I felt a little like I wasn’t supposed to be there, like I’d entered a new Forbidden City. Even the gondoliers, suited up just like the postcards promised, were begging us to take a ride. On one of the three nights there, only two people and a couple bands of pigeons shared the entirety of Piazza San Marco with us under the moonlight and the platinum and gold reflections of the piazza lights on the wet rock floor with the fresh, muggy, and salty Adriatic breeze. Venice is almost an unbelievable place, like something out of fiction, like it can’t possibly be real. Like many cities at night during this pandemic, at some moments Venice was all for us, and that was even more unbelievable. ■

(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.

We can see the light, but we’re not out of the woods yet. One of the most important wine business headlines for us importers happened on March 6th, with the suspension of the tariffs on wine, among other products. The day the news dropped, a steady stream of messages from our producers flooded my phone, along with all my other receptacles of communication—the variety of which is head-spinning these days… The tariffs had kicked off a series of unfortunate events for many of us in the businesses of fine food and wine. While we’ve all eked out some wins, starting with the presidential election (I’ll be happy not to get more grief from our winegrowers about Trump!), followed by the surprisingly rapid distribution of Covid vaccines in the US—a stark contrast to what’s happening in the EU; here in Portugal they’re projecting that at this rate, people my age won’t get the vaccine until September. With the tariff suspension we can see the light, but we are far from out of the woods. Naturally, after a couple steps forward there’s inevitably a step back: right now, containers outbound from Europe are so backed up that it’s basically impossible for any wines to run a proper route in decent time. Many shipments are scheduled to take two to four times longer than they normally would—another dinghy race with a broken paddle. Firsthand Europe News Sadly, some parts of the EU are struggling even more than expected right now, especially in the bigger countries, such as Italy and France, where there’s a resurgence that as of mid-March has forced them back into lockdown. Over here in Portugal, we had a startling uptick that went down just as fast, and now we are opening up after Easter weekend, along with Spain. As has happened in many places in the States, it’s been a rollercoaster in the EU; improvements as a result of draconian rule enforcement were undone by sudden and severely relaxed enforcement over summer, fall, and into the holiday season, all of which led to the massive and unchecked return of the curve. Restaurants have been completely closed here in Portugal, except for takeout, but in the countryside it’s not quite the same experience as in a city… Next week may possibly be my first restaurant-cooked meal since I had one in early October of last year, in Bologna, Italy—not a bad place to leave off. The Missing Links A strange reality for us in this extensive pandemic period is that some of the vintages allotted for the US have yet to make it over, and many may not make it at all. As an importer who tries to visit around 90% of our producers each year, these days I can feel a little lost with regard to how some of the new vintages of wines we’ve regularly tracked for more than a decade have currently evolved, from cellar aging to their current state, now that they’re in the bottle. This opportunity to know these kids while they’re young and undeveloped is a unique opportunity for perspective that gives us confidence (or not) about a wine’s future. We know that many of you share this sense of vacancy in the understanding of what’s really going on with many of the wines we’ve kept tabs on all these years—a vacuum of knowledge and experience for these latest vintages. Hopefully we can all catch up together soon and try to continue the streak of understanding our wines from one vintage to the next, and through many of the most formative years that help us with our outlook on where the wine may go based on where it’s already been. While it may seem that living in Portugal should’ve made it easier for me to get samples from our producers and try the wines, it’s not that simple. One doesn’t really propose to have wines shipped—even from producers who are great friends—knowing there is not yet an intent to buy… The only exception I’ve been able to make is with some of our Iberian wines whose makers are relatively nearby, and just a few of our most historical friends, like Arnaud Lambert. We’ve gone national! In California, recent developments seem promising and we hope that trend continues. However, it might come as a surprise to some that we’ve expanded our company outlook to a national platform. Toward the second half of last year, Rachel Kerswell, a beloved member of any wine community blessed with her presence, moved to New York, had a baby right as Covid started to take shape in the US, and then came back into the fold with some serious motivation to develop our national import agenda. Going national was never really part of the plan in the beginning, but Rachel asked for the shot so we could keep working together despite her move across the country, and we sure are glad we bet on her. We now work in nearly fifteen states, and our national portfolio has taken on quite a different focus compared to our California selection: it’s almost an even split between Iberia and France, with some solid Italian and Austrian wines. It really is exciting to progress in new directions, and I’m happy to report that all of our Spanish and Portuguese producers thus far (except Quinta do Ameal) are national exclusives for us. There’s a new geologist at The Source…  I stayed quite busy during the pandemic with many other projects other than the daily effort of bailing water out of our company boat and plugging the holes with every finger and toe (with the help of a few deeply committed members who didn’t miss a day of work since the start of the pandemic). About six years ago, we began to work with geologist, Brenna Quigley, at the start of her now flourishing wine career. These days she’s focused on her fabulous podcast, Roadside Terroir, and along with her efforts at a number of California wineries where she helps them better navigate the ground they work to optimize their potential and encourage the voice of their terroirs. So for a while we had a vacancy in the position of resident geologist. In 2018, while fooling around inside the caldera of Basilicata’s famous extinct volcano, Monte Vulture, with the talented and scientifically astute brothers from Cantina Madonna delle Grazie, I finally had a phone call with a Spanish MSc geologist and PhD student from the University of Vigo, Ivan Rodriguez (pictured above), a guy whom I’d been stalking on the internet for a couple of months. Vigo is about a forty-five minute drive from where I live in Portugal, so the proximity was perfect. I was looking for another talented and young (I do prefer the open minds of young scientists), to help me continue to push my Sisyphean wine’s-relation-to-geology-curiosity-stone up the hill of nonstop roadblocks, curves and, sometimes, complete dead ends. I’ve not given up on trying to better understand the links between the wine and the rock, but I’ve begun to focus more on documenting information with greater accuracy so that maybe someone smarter and more talented than I am will be able to take real data and narratives that are peer-reviewed by historians, scientists and winegrowers, and make more sense of it. Upcoming Geological Map Series We have a series of geological maps that I developed with Ivan and Andrea (my wife), that we will begin to circulate soon. We started with the lower-hanging fruit of Galicia and Northern Portugal because of its lack of more in-depth coverage on the subject (at least in English), its need for illumination on its geology and grape varieties, and because it’s now my backyard and a major focus for our company. Some of the maps will have essays that go into greater depth on specific regions with mostly a technical vantage point. The maps may seem simple (by design), but they take a great deal of work to develop the finished products. Is anything actually going to arrive in April?? Yes! But we should’ve had a full boatload (literally) of wines arriving from Europe this month, but clearly haven’t received them due to all the massive delays. Some of the top-tier goodies include the 2017 vintage wines from Simon Bize, which I’ve tasted here, in Portugal, thanks to the Wasserman’s coordination with Chisa Bize to get some wine over to me to enjoy; it’s a truly breakthrough vintage for the Bize team with a slightly gentler disposition than the entire range had in the past few years since the passing of Patrick Bize. There’s also a big mix of vintages from Guiberteau as well as the wines of his partner-in-crime, Brendan Stater-West. There’s a lot more on order, but they probably won’t start to hit the warehouse until May. Making the rounds this month We’re extremely happy to add a new producer from Bramaterra, in the Alto Piemonte, to our roster of Italian gems. Our collaboration with Andrea Monti Perini (pictured above) has been in the works now for more than a year and a half, though we’ve obviously had a little trip-up along the way. (Most of our San Francisco and Los Angeles sales team visited this true garage-sized cantina exactly one week after landing in Milan on the Sunday the news broke about Italy’s pandemic surge!) Andrea, a one-man-show, is crafting perhaps the most understated and subtle Nebbiolo wines within his region; of course, this means that his wines could be a top contender for the most understated and elegant young Nebbiolo wines in all of Italy. The production is tiny (200-250 cases annually) and his winery project has barely hung in there after the devastating season last year when a major hailstorm left Alto Piemonte, particularly his area, just on the border of the Lessona appellation, in ruins. During our visit with many of the great cantinas of the Langhe (team visits for perspective with G. Conterno, Brovia, B. Mascarello, Burlotto, Cavallotto, and more) of the most compelling wines we tasted out of botte was Andrea’s 2019 vintage Bramaterra—simply stunning and an experience we dream about when we taste what many on our team consider the king of all Italian grapes. Around the end of the month, we are going to get a small dose of wines from Riecine, a historic, organic Chianti Classico producer located in the highest altitude zone of Gaiole in Chianti. It’s been a little crazy with these wines because the basic Chianti Classico often seems to evaporate by the end of their first month in stock. Why, you ask? Well, because it’s simply delicious and breaks out of the common must-add-food-to-fully-enjoy Chianti Classico mold. Riecine makes a more upfront fruity style with the entry-level wine, and then there is the Riserva (which isn’t on this container, though we should have it by the fall of 2021), cut from the from old-school cloth: deep, with a broad range of red and dark fruits, foresty, fresh, savory to the bone, and almost unbeatable with backcountry, high-altitude Italian cooking—think Sean Connery in tweed hunting quarry in the Alps. But, in this first offer of 2021 we have the two most sought-after wines in the range. First is Riecine di Riecine, a mean blind-taste for industry professionals because of its regal red-hued, high-on-the-slope Vosne-Romanée nose (minus any wood presence at all because it’s aged for three years in concrete eggs)—think Audrey Hepburn in a black turtleneck with light red lipstick. The other wine, La Gioia, is the most unapologetically delicious and voluptuous red in the range and has all the trimmings that drive tasters— those who want a lot of personality, curvature and sensuality in their wines—utterly mad; it does have a bit of newer oak too, but it wears it like Sophia Loren wore red dresses in the 1950s) utterly mad. Oh, and La Gioia and Riecine di Riecine are both 2016s! Quantities are very limited, but midway through last year I asked our friends at Riecine to hold some for us so we didn’t miss this gem of a vintage while we waited for things to begin to open up again. Lucky for us, these wines are almost here. In Portugal, we have another gem from Trás-os-Montes, Menina d’uva. The resident maker, Aline Dominguez (pictured below), a French native with Portuguese parents, found her way back to her parent’s familial countryside after years of extensive education in a multitude of universities along with experiences working wine bars in Paris and wineries in Burgundy. Her wines are a new take for the region, just as those from the nearby Arribas Wine Company (a new producer we just introduced last month with immediate success, i.e. overnight depletion of the single pallet of wine we had for the US), that follows the line of “natural trimmings,” but with more of a finishing touch to keep them from the funk often associated with wines made in this style. Strongly textured in the palate, the aromas are lighter and brighter, with some elements of reduction at first after opening, and this is by design, in order to enable her confidence with using much less sulfur than is often used with normal still wines. With some air and patience they deliver an authentic array of characteristics from this unique corner of Iberia. Aline is a special one. What the heck is happening in Chile and its Itata Valley?! There seems to be an explosion of interest in the area, and I’m happy to say that we got there early (thanks to my Chilean wife and our visits to her family over the years), and I think we have one of the very best in Leonardo Erazo, with his A Los Viñateros Bravos range of wines and his estate-owned vineyard wines bottled under the Leonardo Erazo label. Leo recently quit his activities working double time with his project as well as being the primary wine director for the Altos Las Hormigas project, which has a fully working program in Cahors, France, and another in Argentina’s Mendoza wine region. Leo’s Itata Valley wines were already superb, but with his full attention solely on his own project, it has truly found another level. Last year, Andrea brought home some of Leo’s wines from Chile for me to taste, which of course found their way to blind-tastings with a bunch of top winemakers in Galicia and Northern Portugal. I thought it would be interesting for them to blind taste wines (included in the mix were those of Pedro Parra’s delicious wines from Chile) grown on the same type of granitic bedrock and topsoil that many of these winemakers work on. Almost everyone guessed that these wines were Beaujolais—no surprise… Beaujolais is largely granitic too, just like many wine regions in Galicia and Portugal (same geologic era, too), and from some mineral and textural profiles they’re nearly identical. Don’t miss out on this new batch of Leo’s wines. They’re stunning, and for the price they’re unbeatable for terroir-driven wines that are superbly crafted and deliver a great amount of emotion and pleasure. New Producers On the Horizon I don’t know why this is all happening so fast (well I guess I do…), but we continue to amass almost an entirely new portfolio of exciting wines. In Spain, we’ve just snagged a great winery partnership in Navarra. Yes, I’m aware of the reputation of good-but-rarely-compelling wines from Navarra, but for good reason the guys over at Aseginolaza & Leunda have captured the attention of Spain’s new generation of growers, sommeliers, critics, and wine journalists. The recognition these two environmental biologists are getting is not surprising because they masterfully capture the essence of Garnacha (and other local, indigenous varieties) reminiscent of in-balance Châteauneuf-du-Pape wines of old, with a solid Spanish flare. This is exciting and authentic stuff, and doesn’t carry CdP prices. Others new Spanish additions mentioned in last month’s newsletter are Fazenda Prádio (Ribeira Sacra), Augalevada (Ribeiro), César Fernández Díaz (Ribero del Duero), and Bodegas Gordón (the wines of the famous Castilla y Leon steakhouse, El Capricho). Another next-generation Portuguese project is Quinta da Carolina, taken over by the son of the family winery, Luis Candido da Silva, one of the winemakers at Dirk Niepoort’s empire. A random search online for producers from the Douro led me to send Luis a message, while he had already been advised by the guys at Arribas Wine Company to contact me—serendipity! A lunch together at my place with a salt-roasted, wild Atlantic sea bass (called branzino in Italy, robalo in these parts) was knocked out of the park with the accompaniment of Luis’ off-the-hook Portuguese white wine, with its perfectly balanced mineral drive and Richard Leroy-scented reduction (but far cleaner, refined and completely measured), along with an Arnaud Lambert-like refinement and energy. I am certain that this white wine was the most compelling unfinished (at the time, bottled at the end of March) white wine I’ve tasted in Portugal. However, the majority of the production is a range of reds that maintain that wonderfully cool, slatey mineral and metal freshness on the palate. Once Luis took over the family estate just five years ago (although he’s been working in the vineyards since he was eight), organic conversion began and all the wines started their baby steps backward in alcohol and extraction—a wise move to not upset the family with too dramatic a change so quickly, and a good long-game strategy to not have the age old tension between father and son come into play. There are wines that are experimental, but most are more in the vein of the classically-styled European wines with a lot of personality from both the terroir and its cellar and vineyard master. His wines will be a welcome balance to our Portuguese collection. Falkenstein, perhaps Italy’s most famous Riesling producer, has been on my radar since I first tasted a Riesling about eight years ago over dinner with Matilde Poggi, from Le Fraghe winery, in northeast Italy, near Lago de Garda. Matilde is the rare producer who doesn’t just taste her own wines during a meal with her customers, but also pours other inspiring juice. I was smitten at first smell and taste; the wine bore the mark of a familiar bedrock type that immediately transported Donny (the co-owner and co-founder of The Source) and me to Austria’s Wachau. To test our theory, Matilde phoned Franz Pratzner, her good friend and Falkenstein’s visionary, to ask about the bedrock. We were right: these wines are as much Austrian in style as they are Italian in the sense that the bedrock is indeed mostly gneiss and other hard metamorphic rocks; and not surprisingly, Pratzner worked for some time in Austria’s Wachau wine region, too. Even better news is that the Pratzners have now worked organically for some years, which clearly upped their game to another level, and I’ve continued to drink the wines every time I have seen them on Italian wine lists over the years. Stylistically, think of the Wachau’s Veyder-Malberg Brandstatt Riesling for purity, mineral characteristics and freshness, with the gusto of a dry Rheingau Riesling from one of Robert Weil’s top sites. For all of us on the sales side (both wholesale and direct to consumers), Riesling indeed remains a labor of love. That said, we’re extremely excited that we have the opportunity to represent this family’s seeming mastery of Riesling along with other great surprises in their range, like their gorgeously compelling Pinot Noir (this wine you’ve got to taste!) as well as their other whites, Pinot Blanc and Sauvignon, which are enriched with the same backbone, mineral drive and electricity as the Rieslings. Staff favorites from March 2018 Mittelbach, Federspeil Grüner Veltliner by Leigh Readey, Santa Barbara My first introduction to Grüner Veltliner was around 2009 while I was selling wine for a different company who partnered with a small Austrian importer. In Santa Barbara, I was mostly knowledgeable about (and drinking) classic California grapes, and my tastebuds were blown away by this not-so-fruity and spicy dry wine. With Grüner you can still have a multitude of expressions within a relatively modest price range. I’ll find myself drinking an array of wines but then realize I’m missing something. Then I remember... Grüner. And I realize that’s exactly what my palate is craving. When I found out that we were bringing in a Wachau Grüner from fifth generation winemaker Martin Mittlebach (pictured above) of Tegernseerhof that retailed for around $20, I already loved the wine without even tasting it. This wine delivers the spice in the form of Asian pear and cracked pepper, and the citrus is all things lime and lemony, lemonheads, preserved lemon, and lemon zest. The textural sensation is an experience, the acid so lively it dances around your tongue. It’s become my go-to wine, pairing extremely well with my plant-based diet. This is such a pure expression of Grüner that if it had been my first introduction to the grape, the bar would have been set very high. 2017 Demougeot, Pommard, 1er Cru Charmots, Le Coeur des Dames by Donny Sullivan, The Source co-founder and General Manager Anyone who is fascinated with Burgundy or has had an exceptional bottle of it will find great appreciation for this pick. It’s a true standout that stood tall in a tasting over a year ago, upon the wine’s release, and was considered by many to be the top wine of the day.  I have touted the humble and quietly brilliant Rodolphe Demougeot as one of the best hidden-gem producers in the prized Côte d’Or, for years. It’s partially because he is not on the board with top cru vineyards, though his address in Meursault sits amongst some of the biggest names in Burgundy. And he’s not the kind of guy that’s gonna be tootin’ his own horn, so he stays quietly known by those who know.  He’s a reserved man who lets his wines speak for themselves and although they don’t shout at full volume, they communicate with intense clarity, detail, meaning, and authenticity. The tastings I’ve had in Demougeot’s cellar remain some of my greatest experiences in Burgundy. Every time I leave the cellar I think to myself, “How could the rest of the world not already know of and covet these wines? I am so fortunate.” Although he doesn’t have a full lineup of top crus, he has this one, his best, and it’s nothing shy of one of the finest parcels of land for Pinot Noir in all of the Côtes de Beaune. Pommard, often known for more sturdy or even harder wines, Charmots is somewhat wedged into a valley crease, where access to water and limestone bedrock is more substantial and in balance with the clay topsoil. This vineyard offers, as suggested by its name, a very charming, expressive and beautiful wine contrary to Pommard’s generalized reputation.  Les Coeur des Dames (The Ladies’ Heart), Demougeot’s monopole lieu-dit inside of the Charmots premier cru, is the crown jewel of the domaine and is handled with exceptional care. For many years now it has been plowed by horse and worked by hand with only a minimal intervention of organic or biodynamic treatments.  The concentration and intensity in its lifted, somewhat lighter-bodied and fine-tannin structure deliver the juxtaposition we seek in great wines. The spectrum, precision, weave and evolution of aromas is intoxicating, as are the bevy of flavors on both the savory and sweet side of the palate.  This wine offers a huge opportunity to food, and to the patient and contemplative taster.  Sometimes the stars simply seem to align, and while Demougeot’s cellar has a sky full of constellations, this one is exceptionally easy to pick out! 2018 Christophe et Fils, Chablis By Jon Elkins, Cayucos (Central Coast) California Sharing so many great wines from Europe with my restaurant and retail customers is always a joy. Many of them haven’t really been shown a wide selection of imports, and I love to be the bearer of enlightenment. One of my absolute favorite consultations is the one where I help the buyer choose which of the Chablis producers that I present suits their business the best. Of course I’ve made up my mind as to which direction they should take, but it’s really up to them to decide. There are more than a few things to consider, such as the cuisine; is it forward, minimal, simple but sublime? Or, is it classic, complex, rich and comforting? What’s the vibe like in the dining room? Who are the clients? Recently I found the ideal restaurant to offer the 2018 Christophe et Fils Chablis. The wine buyer is also the chef and it is especially fun for me to present a wine the way a chef would construct a dish, breaking it down into its components and discussing how and why they work so well together, and I find this wine to be so much like a dish that I really want to eat. Sebastien Christophe creates a Chablis that is remarkable in its restraint, its subtlety, its demure elegance, and yet because these characteristics are so thought-provoking, the wine leaves a powerful impression. These same characteristics are what makes the wine such a pleasure to pair with a dish composed in the same fashion. The wine has great clarity, with just the faintest tinge of golden-green hue that shines for you as you swirl it in your glass, the color is that of freshly pressed Chardonnay that never deepened beyond that process. The aromas are all classic Chablis, at their freshest, their most lovely. That flinty wet stone. It’s there, but it’s not so overtly developed to be the first thing you notice, and all the other expected mineral components are present, including crushed oyster shells and fine sea mist, hints of chalky coastal bluffs. The texture is very much alive with that same sort of sea salt and mineral-tinged acidity that escorts the fruit across your palate. The fruit component of this wine? Well, it’s Chardonnay. It tastes like really fine, well-raised Chardonnay from brisk Chablis vineyards. It’s odd to have so much to say about a wine, but when you get to the part about all the expression of various fruit components, there just aren’t loads of comparisons to make. It is what you’d expect, a bit of that just-a-moment-away-from-ripe apple, a bit of lemon, a bit of lime. Together they form a very delicate and lithe little lemon drop candy that sits itself right in the center of your tongue. Savory components, herbs like fresh lemon thyme bring an earthy note. Then a very familiar Chablisienne bitter, almost unripe green almond component comes through on the finish. It’s quite classic, but quite modern in its interpretation. The chef was inspired and prepared a little nibble for us. A crudo of scallops with a splash of a very light and gingery ponzu, a sprinkling of pulverized lemon grass, and just a bit of Thai chili and lime zest. I thought that Christophe et Fils was probably the right choice for this restaurant. Oh yes. ■