Never in our company’s history have so many new growers converged on the market all at once as they will this October. After fifteen years of importing and the last seven years working with 98% direct imports without export agents, we’ve slowly pieced our puzzle together as great opportunities have appeared, and the layers are still wrapping around us. This...[ read more ]
The first time barrel-tasting Vincent Bergeron’s 2022s, he’d just bottled undoubtedly his most successful vintage. His 2021s were a stunning realization of more than a decade of preparation for masterpiece-level wines in Vincent’s uniquely angelic, understated, and humble style. It’s no secret that I greatly admire the man as much as the wine. His honesty, humility and fragility somehow translate...[ read more ]
After representing Dave Fletcher in California and a couple other markets since the 2016 vintage, now we’re proud to represent him throughout the entire United States market. Though the wines have been available in New York for several years, our representation there begins this month. Who would’ve thought that an Aussie who hadn’t married into an Italian family would move...[ read more ]
I will relentlessly contend that Aglianico is one of the world’s most undervalued red grapes, one of its most unexpectedly versatile, and perhaps one of its most misunderstood. Madonna delle Grazie’s range of six Aglianicos is alone worthy of that claim. They are a one-stop shop for a full range of Aglianico options: white, rosé, medium-light red, a black but...[ read more ]
We have a lot of newly arrived wines this month, and we’re going to highlight a few of them throughout the month instead of our typical single-issue monthly newsletter format. Last week we shared a deep dive on Katharina Wechsler’s dry 2023 German Riesling crus, Benn, Kirchspiel and Morstein. Toward the end of the month, we’ll hit Italy to talk...[ read more ]
Delayed by general disruptions and tariff-stalled markets over the last year, the 2023 vintage of Katharina Wechsler’s dry Rieslings crus was well worth the wait. While 2021 seemed like effortless fine wine, sleek, precise, tensile and mineral for days, and 2022 exceeded every expectation for a warm year with charming and substantial density and remains criminally underrated, the 2023 takes...[ read more ]
Domaine Jean Collet et Fils hasn’t changed their US labels for about fifty years. When I presented the “new labels” used in the French market as a possible switch in the US, our team responded positively, and some others thought customers might think of the vintage-style rebranding as contrived. But these are the labels Collet used in the early 1900s;...[ read more ]
Easy vintages don’t always tell us who the great growers are. It’s difficult ones that usually do. This is how it’s been as long as I can remember, and it’s just as true today as it was fifty years ago. Too many wines from critically panned or “difficult” growing seasons are automatically assumed to be inferior to those in years...[ read more ]
Le Puy-Notre-Dame gives me the same feeling I had on my first visit to Brézé in 2010. Its soft vineyard slopes, quiet roads, modest rises in elevation, and fields stretching into the distance without being broken up by cliffside walls or rocks protruding from steep hillsides, as in places like Portugal’s northeastern winescape. It feels calm, even boring, which is...[ read more ]
