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As this hits your inbox I’ve hopefully caught a bus from Barcelona to meet my wife in the Catalan seaside town, Sant Feliu de Guixols. This historic fishing village doesn’t make it easy to curb excessive consumption, with its daily outside market of dozens of local farmers who have all the seasonal fruits and vegetables you could want, three fish markets brightened by the glass-clear eyes of the freshest fish and the famous local Palamós red prawns and the cheese purveyors inside the historic Mercat Municipal building and half a dozen butchers with an immense selection of beef cuts from all over Spain (including the famous Galician beef chuleton), Iberico pork (cured and every fresh cut you’d ever want), all only 150 meters from our door. With only a few days to run off the well-earned weight I’ve gained while in Piedmont and Southwest France, I won’t make a dent before I’m off to Sicily for producer visits and the Catanian restaurants responsible for some of my most memorable meals. My last trip to Catania was five years ago. It was short and I missed my shot at attending the frenzied fish market down by the port. It’s been more than a decade since I savored the perfect and simply prepared fresh seafood in a cozy spot in the middle of the chaos—I think the place was called “mm! Tratoria.” It’s a touristy area, but if there’s one place to have extraordinary seafood in a touristy spot, it’s there. I’ve had a lot of noteworthy food experiences in my life, but Catania and its market have become part of my personal food and culture mythology. We have a new producer from Etna that I’ve yet to meet in person. My usual modus operandi involves a visit to the cellar and vineyards before working together, but the Nerello Mascalese wines of micro-producer, Etna Barrus, were emotionally striking every time I drank them over a few months, so we skipped protocol. When I get to Sicily I’ll dig into the sands of Vittoria and turn over some more Etna tuff to see if there’s another Sicilian grower waiting for us. This last wine-country sprint started in Milan and ended in Bordeaux two weeks later and put me on that bus to Sant Feliu de Guixols. Our close friend and longtime supporter Max Stefanelli joined me. Our first stop was with future legend (mark my words) Andrea Picchioni and his historical but esoteric, unapologetically juicy, and deeply complex Buttafuoco dell'Oltrepò Pavese wines. Fabio Zambolin and Davide Carlone were the next stops up in Alto Piemonte, and just to the south in Caluso we visited Eugenio Pastoris, an extremely intelligent and skillful young producer featured in our next newsletter this month. Monferrato was a quick stop to visit our four-pack of growers Spertino, Sette, La Casaccia, and Crotin, and finally the Langhe to visit Dave Fletcher and two new inspiring Barolo producers: Agricola Brandini, run by the young and ambitious sisters, Giovanna and Serena Bagnasco, whose wines we officially launch next month, as well as Mauro Marengo, run by an even younger talented wine wizard, Daniele Marengo. Andrea Picchioni A snow-capped, eye-candy alpine train ride from Turin to Chambéry kicked off my first French visits of 2023. The ride was beautiful but on the French side of the Alps the Savoie’s Arc River was concerningly low with little spring runoff. I had a stop with one of Savoie’s cutting-edge growers, then dashed across France through the Languedoc to another new addition, Le Vents des Jours, a former Parisian sommelier crafting wonderfully pure and expressive Cahors wines without any added sulfur. Jurançon had two stops, Imanol Garay, and another exciting new prospect who will remain a secret until our first wines are on the water. Finally in Bordeaux, I visited Mathieu Huguet and his Demeter and AB certified micro-Bordeaux project, Sadon-Huguet, with its full-of-life, pages-of-tasting-notes Merlot (60%) and Cabernet Franc (40%), Expression Calcaire—à la Saint-Emilion! I admit that I’ve always had a soft spot for the old right bank Bordeaux, particularly Pomerol, but, of course, when someone else is buying! Those I loved are well out of my range and older than I am. California kicks off in May for my second 2023 trans-Atlantic jump. I’ll get two weeks with our team, my family, Giovanna Bagnasco, the newest Barolo revolutionary at the helm of Agricole Brandini, and attend the wedding of one of my lifer-friends (who’s also my literary editor). Upon my return to Costa Brava, I’ll crack a bottle or two of Champagne with my wife before bed, then jet lag will kick off the usual cycle: Death. Rebirth. Repeat. New Arrivals This month we have something from about almost every country we work in Europe, with our newest addition from Champagne’s Les Riceys area, Taisne Riocour, Beaujolais wines from Anthony Thevenet, Portugal’s preeminent Vinho Verde garagiste, Constantino Ramos, Spain’s Navarra renaissance men, Aseginolaza & Leunda, and Italy’s premier Riesling producer, Falkenstein. New Producer Taisne Riocour Les Riceys, Champagne I have this obsession now, this little addiction to Les Riceys, its bubbles and still, and Élise Dechannes is to blame. These Pinot Noir wines grown an hour east of Chablis are hallucinogenic, hypnotic, more fun and fantasy than reality, cherubs with love-poisoned arrows, irresistible enchantments of high-toned red fruit and fields of dainty but potent spring strawberries, hints of cranberry, and dry as a bone but with that inexplicable, irresistible limestoney, fairy dusty, powdered-sugary, stardust twinkle. After being open for days they run out of gas but never go entirely flat, often remaining charged, pure with pink and red fruit and fully expressive post pop they can be even better than their former bubbly selves. If there’s a Champagne as good, sans bulles, it might be from Les Riceys. This makes sense of the fame of its most historical wine, a rosé made entirely from Pinot Noir with its own appellation, Rosé des Riceys. Rosé des Riceys is a bit of a unicorn, hard to get your hands on more than a bottle at a time, and it’s expensive. After all, it’s part of Champagne’s Aube and right on the border of Burgundy’s Côte d’Or department—no chance for a bargain! Our interest in Élise Dechannes was timely. With gorgeous new labels inspired by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry illustrations (Le Petit Prince), people were drawn in and discovered Élise’s soft touch and talent, and interest in her seemed to explode overnight. This forced us to search for more sources in Les Riceys, and one just happened to knock on our door when I was in Austrian wine country last summer. Taisne Riocour is a new venture by the historic Les Riceys grape growing family, de Taisne. In 2014, the five boomer-aged de Taisne siblings decided to bottle their own wines for the first time since the maison was established in 1837, “not out of necessity, but more of a project to go deeper in the previous work of our parents in the vineyards,” Pierre de Taisne explained. “We also had the will to reveal one of the greatest terroirs of Champagne. Instead of selling all our grapes to be blended away into big house cuvées, we want to show the character of our vineyards.” A visit to the de Taisne family and their vineyards is ecologically encouraging and rich in familial comfort. While all are parents, and some now grandparents, the three brothers and two sisters de Taisne are addressing the agricultural challenges and ethical necessities of our time. Since taking on this new project, they embraced biodynamic treatments (three of their 21 hectares were converted to biodynamics in 2020 as a trial with the advice of Jean-Pierre Fleury) and a plan for full organic conversion began in 2021. Open to other progressive ideas, they like wind-powered ocean freight liners and want to adapt payment agreements to facilitate this slower but more ecological transit. It's a small contribution, but everything counts! The de Taisnes speak of greater biodiversity objectives by incorporating more non-vinous plants into their land and between rows, though Les Riceys is more heavily forested than many French viticultural areas. Here, it’s not like other famous Champagne territories with vines on every hillside and a vast expanse of other single crop fields that begin where the vines end. Les Riceys and the surrounding vineyards bear some resemblance in topography and town positioning to the neighboring Auxerrois regions. Similar to Chablis and Irancy, the three hamlets of Les Riceys were individually fortified centers with their own churches less than a kilometer apart. Ricey-Haut, Ricey-Bas and Ricey Haute Rive sit in the center of the appellation with numerous hillsides on all sides of the villages, carved out by erosion. But unlike Chablis, where vines grow on all sides around the village with even more Chardonnay vines for Petit Chablis on the plateaus above, all surrounded by endless crops, Les Riceys has many more vineyards scrunched together between wild forests. Les Riceys has little in relation to the heartland of Champagne, and the Google Earth images below demonstrate the dark green forested areas (which are the greatest sources of biodiversity and soil life) in two Champagne areas, Chablis and Les Riceys. All are roughly the same scale on the Google Earth. Les Riceys and the elusive Rosé des Riceys When asked why Pinot Noir is preferential instead of Chardonnay, Pierre de Taisne says that though it’s geologically linked to Chablis with similar Kimméridgien marls, more Pinot Noir has been planted in Les Riceys since the 11th century. Les Riceys is Champagne’s southernmost area, known as the Barséquanais, and borders the Côte d’Or with vines just next to the official lines. Les Riceys changed hands between Champagne and Côte d’Or many times, which helps explain its history of still wine production and Champagne, and the possibility for three different appellations of wine: Coteaux Champenois, Champagne and Rosé des Riceys. Initially the Aube, where Les Riceys is located, was not included in the greater Champagne appellation. Pinot Noir was most suitable in Les Riceys (the monks knew!), and this predates the adoption of bubbles in wine by more than five hundred years. Biodynamic culture dynamiser Les Riceys Pinot Noir first captured the attention of France’s royalty which led to greater European celebrity—particularly notable are the courts of Louis XIV and Louis XVI. The rosés of Riceys also gained widespread fame thanks to strong wine merchants, with the notable example of Jules Guyot, who published a study in the 1850s about French vineyards and noted the high quality of Les Riceys terroirs—pre-local Champagne production. But in 1927, after a strong revolt from growers who were able to sell their Les Riceys grapes to other Champagne regions for Champagne production but were not allowed to make their own Champagne until after 1911 (wineterroirs.com; 2009) and classified as Champagne Deuxième (second), the Aube was finally included in the Champagne appellation (albeit with second-class citizenship), and were now permitted to make their own bubbles. Since there was (and still is) more profit in Champagne than a dark-colored, full but taut, slightly tannic, sharp rosé (the opposite of Provence rosé in almost every way), Champagne production became the focus. The Team Because of their centuries of building relationships, the de Taisne family was able to move from grape growing cautiously and carefully to bottling their own with the help of friends. Cellar Master at Taittinger, Alexandre Ponnavoy, helped launch their new project with confidence by helping them define their core principles based on historic terriors that have richer soils than most of Champagne, a warmer climate, and strongly fruity Pinot Noir. The de Taisnes describe their wines as having “regional character with the richness of Pinot Noir aromas, freshness, and an elegant finish.” Pierre and Charles de Taisne are the family members in charge of the vineyard work, and they’re supported by Enologists Jean-Philippe Trumet and Laurent Max in the vineyards and the daily cellar work. Taisne Riocour also has oversight and other advice from Enologist, Cécile Kraemer, and well-known French Sommelier and Champagne specialist, Philippe Jamesse. What a team! Limestone in Les Riceys The Vineyards The geological bedrock classification of Les Riceys is Kimmeridgian, the same as Chablis, though not exactly the same dominance of the famous miniature oyster-like fossil limestone marls of Chablis. Les Riceys is more similar to Chablis and Côte d’Or than the north of Champagne where bedrock was formed during the Cretaceous and Tertiary and is most famous for chalk. Les Riceys is limestone marl and calcareous mudstones from the Jurassic age, with a more geometric rock appearance than the flaky, friable, fossil-rich Chablis Kimmeridgian limestone marls. Les Riceys’s topsoil is rocky with calcareous clay and silt and very little sand. Taisne Riocour’s twenty-one hectares of mostly Pinot Noir have an average age of 35 years (the oldest around 65), are on different exposures throughout the appellation on slope gradients from Côte d’Or-gentle to Mosel-steep, range between 250-340m in altitude, and are on both sides of the northbound Laignes River. Tillage is done lightly to a maximum depth of 5-10cm, only to undercut grass roots and is done a few times each season—the same as most limestone-and-clay Burgundy areas. As mentioned, they work some parcels organically and biodynamically, with organic certification processes that began in 2021. The Wines Cellar practices are simple and direct, especially in the earlier years to better discover their terroirs and to adapt the direction for each parcel. Fermentation in steel lasts 10-15 days, with neutral Champagne yeasts, and all go through malolactic fermentation. Sulfites are added during the pressing, again at the end of malolactic fermentation, and at disgorgement, with a total that ranges between 40-60ppm (mg/L)—low for Champagne. Everything is aged for approximately five months in steel (25k-200k hectoliter vats) with the exception of about 1% in old oak barrels for the Grand Reserve. The wines are filtered and aged in bottle for three years, with riddling done one month prior to disgorgement. Taisne Riocour’s Grand Reserve (NV), is composed of 15% vin de reserve, 85% vintage wine with 65% Pinot Noir and 35% Chardonnay—dosage 6.5g/L. These grapes originate mostly from a site known as Val Germain on the right bank of La Laignes (a tributary of the Seine, the same one that passes through Paris), southeast of the appellation, at the highest altitudes in the appellation of around 340m with a multitude of exposures on a medium slope. The topsoil is deeper (50-80cm) due to the flatter slope and the composition of more than half clay and one-third silt. The average age of the vines is fifty years and is usually the last of the appellation to be harvested. Other vineyards include La Fôrets (1ha), La Velue (0.4ha), and a little bit of the famous Tronchois (1.4ha). Made entirely of Pinot Noir and with a dosage of 3.5g/L, the Blanc de Noirs comes predominantly from Tronchois, one of the most celebrated vineyards in the appellation known since the 11th century when under the direction of the Abbey of Molesme. Here is one of Les Riceys’ most exposed sites with a direct south face, capped by wild forest around 275m and met by forest at the bottom at 215m—perfect grand cru and premier cru altitude if one considers similarities to Côte d’Or. The slope is extremely steep and the topsoil is thin, with 40cm on average. It’s also one of the warmest sites in the appellation. The vines were mostly planted in 1970 (with 50 ares replanted in 2019), and the rest in 1973, 1982 and 2007. Anthony Thevenet Beaujolais, France I’ve said it for years: Thevenet is one to watch. His first vintage, 2013, was wonderful but in very short supply. The following was fabulous for Beaujolais: great overall balance of yield and quality. While Anthony’s 2013s were very good, the 2014s were even better. 2015 was hot and he still delivered—they have punch, but are contained and fine. 2016 was hit or miss for everybody, but his hits were solid. Then it was back to the heat in 2017 and continued on through 2018, 2019, and 2020. 2021 was different with a cold season that led to big mildew pressure after a loss of half the production to frost. 2021 is hit or miss too, but Thevenet did not miss. We’ve been waiting for this. The difference today between vintages teeters on a knife’s edge between too much or too little. With extreme changes in short periods, wines easily overshoot their mark in a day or two. 2021 is short in supply, but the results from Thevenet are absolutely wonderful. Thevenet Cellar Notes All the wines are vinified with a carbonic maceration without any sulfur added until just before bottling, and they ferment at temperatures no lower than 16°C. There are no added yeasts, and the fermentations are done in a gentle, infusion style, and can last between eight to thirty days, with the latter more rare and only employed for the top wines. There is no fining or filtration, and the total sulfite levels are under 15mg/L (15ppm). The purity and clarity of each wine’s terroir expression under Anthony’s supervision due to very spare sulfite inclusion are a testament to his laser-sharp attention to detail and instinct. We were able to nab a few more boxes of the 2019 Chénas Village and 2019 Morgon Vieilles Vignes, so don’t sit on your hands here. This season created full and delicious wines and these are two highlights of the vintage (the reasons we asked for more!). Like 2020, the 2021 Beaujolais-Villages presents an opportunity to see the merit of Thevenet’s lovely Beaujolais range and what a perfect year for a wine with streaky red fruit and tension. Thevenet’s 2021 Morgon appellation wine comes mostly from Douby, a zone on the north side of Morgon between the famous Côte du Py hill and Fleurie, and the lieu-dit, Courcelette, which is completely composed of soft, coarse beach-like granite sands. Many of these vineyards are on gently sloping aspects ranging from southeast to southwest. There are also rocky sections, but generally the vineyards are sandy, leading to wines of elegance and subtlety, also endowed with great length and complexity from their very old vines. The average vine age here is around 60 years, not too shabby for an appellation wine! Thevenet’s Morgon Vieille Vignes Centenaire vineyard in Douby Once it’s in your glass it becomes obvious why Anthony bottled his newest cuvée, 2021 Morgon “Le Clos,” instead of blending it into other Morgon wines. Discrete and fine with a north-Chambolle-esque structure, body, color, and lifted perfume, its red fruits, citrus and a touch of stemy green lead the way for this young wine born from twenty-year-old vines on granitic bedrock, clay and sand. After ten days of carbonic fermentation, it spent six months in older (with just a hint of fresh-cut wood), fût de chêne (228l barrels). This effort by Anthony is his ninth vintage since he first started bottling his own wines in 2013, and his fifteenth or so vintage in all (including work with Georges Descombes and Jean-Marc Foillard over five or six years) demonstrates his mastery of craft and maturity as a winegrower. Anthony makes the 2021 Morgon Vieilles Vignes Centenaire exclusively from the ancient vines in his Douby property just above the D68 on the north side of the hill across from the fields surrounding his family’s home and old cellar. This latest release is the continuation of wines from extraordinary survivors that date back to the American Civil War! What an opportunity to taste wines with such history, and what a vintage to do it. Like the Morgon Vieille Vignes, it’s aged in 600-liter demi-muids, but for around ten months. It’s spectacular and offers a different view into how vine age can truly influence a wine’s overall character. If wine critic Neal Martin says the 2017 version “would give many a Burgundy Grand Cru a run for its money,” then imagine the 2021… It’s off the charts. Elegant and profound. Bright to garnet red, great texture. With clear potential to last forever and improve with cellar aging. Once open it’s fresh for days and builds on its strengths. If Thevenet’s Le Clos is Chambolle-like, this is Ruchottes-Chambertin fruit, tension, and caliber. As one would expect, supply is very limited. Constantino Ramos Vinho Verde, Portugal Shortly after our first contact with Constantino Ramos, his wines exploded in Portugal; we clearly got in at the right time. At the beginning of last year, he left his post as Head Winemaker at Vinho Verde’s most famous and progressive producer, Anselmo Mendes, and these days he’s touring the country consulting for half a dozen growers in Dão, Bairrada, and Azores. He can also be found on television cooking shows, doing wine events, wining and dining with inspiring wine writers, winning new fans all over, including us and our customers in the States. Only twenty-five minutes away by car from our apartment, there is no person in Europe, other than my wife, that I spend more time with than Constantino. Cooking and wine tasting and drinking is an every other week event for us, at least when I’m home. There are two new wines we’re importing from Constantino. Guided by the region, his former mentor and boss, and his passion for Spanish Albariños, particularly from Salnés, it was natural for him to start his winemaking project with Alvarinho (aka Albariño). His is called Afluente, which is in reference to a stream passing by, not because it’s made solely for affluent people, or because it’s expensive—it’s not. I’d tasted many vintages of this wine before and all were good, but the 2020 Alfuente Alvarinho turned a corner and we had to bring some to the States to further share his talent, despite the miniscule quantities available. Constantino describes this season as balanced, with good sunlight and the right amount of much-needed rain at the very end of July, which helped a lot after a dry June and July. It’s harvested from a single vineyard situated 200m altitude in Melgaço’s Riba de Mouro hamlet, all part of the greater Monção y Melgaço subzone of Vinho Verde, and generally much higher in altitude than Monção. Constantino believes this to be his best effort to date, and while the others were also very good, I’m as convinced as he is. Once pressed, the juice is settled for a day then barreled down in 500l old French oak barrels with no added yeast. In the barrels the temperatures peak around 20-21°C, which develops wines focused more on mineral and savory characteristics than fruitiness. Because this is further inland than Albariño areas like Salnés in Rías Baixas, which is almost entirely within view of the Atlantic, the wines are more influenced by a continental climate, resulting in a full-bodied white with broader shoulders. In 2020, Constantino sculpted and trimmed these shoulders into a much more delicate wine for this famous Portuguese Alvarinho region. Sadly, we were only able to squeeze him for about nine cases this year because we were very late to the game on this wine. Despite the amount of time we spend together, we don’t talk a lot about his wines or my import business, as there are so many other interesting things and other wines to talk about. When my staff visited with him this last spring (and became the newest members of the Constantino Ramos Fan Club), they pleaded with me to buy his new wine, 2021 Juca. Juca? Great name. Great label. Never heard of it… I thought, “Seriously, Constantino? Not even a mention over the last six months of dinners together?” (Obviously not acknowledging what I just mentioned about our usually not talking shop.) Once I tasted it, I understood the plea from my reps: it’s delicious. It also comes from a surprisingly special source, and for the money, that makes it an even more ridiculous deal. In August 2021, one month before harvest kicked off on the white grapes, Constantino’s cousin told him about a vineyard high up around 400m (about as high as it goes in these parts to get ripeness, especially with red grapes) with what they believe has 100-year-old vines. Surrounded by forest and well away from any highway and accessible only by foot or small tractor, he bought the fruit; he simply had to. Instead of putting this intriguing new vineyard’s bounty into Zafirah, Juca, named after Constantino’s wife’s grandfather, was born. It’s a field blend of Caiño Longo (Borraçal in Portuguese), Brancellao (Brancelho/Alvarelhão), Espadeiro, and Sousón (Vinhão), and has one week of soft punchdowns by bare hand one time per day during one week before being pressed and followed by 7-8 months in 30% old barrels and 70% steel. While Juca was harvested on October 8th, the grapes were collected for 2021 Zafirah from its five different parcels between 200m-250m also in Riba de Mouro, on October 5th. It spends a single day of skin maceration before being pressed, followed by seven to eight months in 30% old barrels and 70% steel. 2021 was a very cold and wet summer with a lot of cloud cover. Constantino describes the reds as more vertical in style, more savory and with balsamic notes—both typical of the red wines here. Zafirah is also roughly the same blend as Juca but expresses its terroir in a more discreet way than the nearly flamboyant and stronger flavored  Juca. I guess in the vineyard parcels they had a formula long ago that worked well with these four varieties that are co-fermented with bits of other grapes. Aseginolaza & Leunda Navarra, Spain Environmental biologists and former winemaking hobbyists, Jon Aseginolaza and Pedro Leunda, have taken on the colossal task of trying to better the image of Navarra and bring back its former notoriety, when it was once considered the equal of Rioja, centuries ago. They are indeed making strides, but the Tempranillo tide that washed away most of the Garnacha in this part of Spain, and the ubiquity of Garnacha in Spain and France, makes it a tough fight. Grenache seems to perform best in the market as either cheap and cheerful on one end, or serious wine in need of cellar time. In between seems like no man’s land, even if the wines are very good. Those made in a simple way with higher yields are fruity and sometimes have less alcohol. And those in search of cellar immortality from places like Gigondas and Châteauneuf-du-Pape can be simply mesmerizing with lengthy cellar aging, especially when alcohol levels are modest when compared to today’s alcohol monsters. It’s much easier to understand the true greatness of this noble grape after decades of cellaring when its youthful vigor and solar strength gives way to nuance and refined elegance; it’s no accident that Châteauneuf-du-Pape was France’s first official AOC. Most young Grenache wines between value and vin de garde seem lost in a sea of full-bodied, strong reds that lack compelling distinction. Not an exception to these conditions, Jon and Pedro’s wines tend more toward the vin de garde category, though they’re approachable compared to many of today’s sun-soaked top wines of the Southern Rhône Valley. The fruit quality of their wines between 13.5%-14.5% alcohol is fresher and more savory than sweet, and still full in flavor—ideal for full-flavored fare. Jon and Pedro approach their wines as a project of rediscovery more than one of brand-building to sell more and more boxes. Even though they hadn’t made wine prior to their project, their wines have been impressive from the start, and they continue to build on their early success. Jon describes 2020 as a warmer vintage than the average year, but a wet spring gave much needed water reserves to the start of the season. June was cool and rainy, July was dry, and August returned to gentle rains and higher humidity, defining the 2020s as full yet fresh, with tense, energetic fruit. The 2020 alcohols range between 13.5%-14.5%, the same average found in Italy’s top Nebbiolo appellations, and even lower than many 2018-2020 Côte d’Or Pinot Noirs. When I visit Navarra, Rioja, and Provence, I pick and fill my car with bags full of wild thyme to dry and separate later. Thyme here is more powerful and gamey compared to the wild thyme I’ve picked in Provence—like the full flavor of jamón Iberico compared to French saucisson—and it often smells as much of lavender as thyme. I love lavender but it’s hard to incorporate it into recipes because of the bitterness and texture of the buds. (That said, I suggest putting the stem, buds, flowers and all inside of a whole duck set to be roasted; it works for chicken too. The duck fat is infused with clean and intoxicating lavender scents, and lavender duck fat on roasted potatoes is the next level.) This thyme is so strongly scented with lavender that it’s a perfect, though subtler, stand-in. All of Jon and Pedro’s wines are marked with this gorgeously pungent and aromatic thyme/lavender and other wild aromatic bushes—French garrigue on steroids! The first of the four is the 2020 Cuvée, made from 85% Garnacha and 15% Tempranillo from several vineyards at 445m-535m altitude, grown on clay, sandstone and limestone conglomerates. It’s fully destemmed for fermentation and afterward pressed and aged ten months in old French oak barrels. Jon notes that this wine’s general disposition is a mix of black and red fruits, garrigue, and good mineral drive. The 2020 Cuvée Las Santas is made from 100% old-vine Garnacha from several plots (445m-655m) on calcareous clays. 50% whole bunches are included for fermentation, followed by nine months in old French oak. It has lower alcohol than the others, at around 14% (the other three are 14.5%), and is dominated by red fruits (love that red-fruited Garnacha!), spices, aromatic herbs (you know the ones!), and it has a distinctly minerally character. Aseginolaza & Leunda ancient vine surrounded by life—wild grasses, thyme, lavender, y mas The two top wines come from very old single parcels. There are others too, but to have them side by side is interesting and perhaps more distinguished because they are led by different grape varieties in their blends. Camino de la Torraza (2020) is made of 70% Mazuelo (Carignan) and 30% Garnacha grown at 380m with vines planted in 1960. The soils are very poor (perfect for complex wines) and composed of clay, silt, gypsum, and conglomerates—similar to some top terroirs of Italy’s Nizza Monferrato. Whole clusters (25%) are incorporated and after pressing it’s aged for ten months in stainless steel. Jon notes that it always has Mazuelo’s classic purple flower aromas and slightly higher impression of saltiness, perfect for food matching. Because La Torraza is mostly Mazuelo, it’s quite different from all the other wines in this Garnacha-led bodega. Last in the lineup but always first for me in the range is Camino de Santa Zita (2020). It’s 100% Garnacha grown at 545m from vines planted in 1926 on two calcareous clay terraces. It’s x-factor heavy and has the greatest depth with elegance in the lead role. It’s also the vineyard that started their project, and I can see why they would want to make wine if this vineyard was that genesis. If vortex energies tied to locations are real, Santa Zita surely would be one of those places. Its wine is aromatically lifted a touch with the 20% whole bunches in the fermentation followed by eight months in old French oak. Jon notes that it is usually filled with scents of aromatic herbs, balsamic hints, and is round, fruity and minerally. That’s a serious oversimplification, but a good start. This wine is deep. Falkenstein Südtirol, Italy An Italian cantina with Austrian heritage, Falkenstein is in Italy’s Südtirol/Alto Adige and produces many fantastic different wines (Weissburgunder, Sauvignon, Pinot Noir—all grapes that have been cultivated here for centuries) and many consider the Pratzner family the most compelling Riesling producer in Italy. The vineyard and winery are in one of the many glacial valleys in the north of Italy’s alpine country, with a typical relief of a flat valley floor surrounded by picturesque steep mountains, which creates starkly contrasting shades and colors throughout. Vineyards in these parts need full exposure on northern positions with southern exposure to achieve palatable ripeness. The vineyards here are some of the world’s most stunning, and it’s surprising how many are tucked into the valleys of Trentino (the bordering region to the south) and the Südtirol. We’re taking in two vintages at once of Riesling because of the small quantities allocated to us with both years. The 2019 & 2020 Rieslings show the skill of the Pratzners and how they manage in difficult and warmer years. Sauvignon from these parts can be intense with a strong and compact core encouraged by the strong diurnal swing from day to night during the fruit ripening periods of summer and fall, making for a 2020 Sauvignon with clean fruit lacking any off-putting pyrazine varietal notes and more focus on shades of lemon preserves and zest with aromatic and sweet white mountain flowers.

After two exhausting days on the Corsican wine trail I passed on our first two visits of the third day to try to catch up with some work while I had good access to wifi. It was a tough decision because the first one was a tasting with Sebastien Poly, a young biodynamic vigneron, followed by another meeting with Abbatucci at the new vineyard. Last year, Sebastien was a riot to visit. His personality and wines matched perfectly: playful, smart and energetic. His wines are some of my favorites on the island. I was sorry to miss them both, but the first meeting with Sebastien started at seven o’clock and it was just too early. Manu picked me up at 9:30 and we drove about forty-five minutes south toward Sartène and into one of Corsica’s most picturesque valleys, la vallée de l’Ortolo. Our first visit was at a beautiful organically farmed vineyard (which I won’t name for now) where the vigneron (who I’ll refer to as François) wasn’t sure how to get the wines where he wanted them to be. I had been along for the ride last year on Manu’s first visit with François and at that time there were a lot of barrels that weren’t so nice to taste. Before our visit Manu said that he will need about three years before the wines start to take a more clear departure from where they were. I didn’t have much expectation for them and Manu wasn’t sure of how they would taste. The question was whether François took his suggestions and ran with them, or fumbled and fell back into the same routine as last year, which is often the case. I consulted for a winery for a number of years, and if they did half of what I asked each year, I considered it a success. Consultants merely serve as council to producers; they are not the ones who make the wine, or final decisions. They can only express their opinion about the vineyard and cellar and explain the adjustments that will bring about improvements. The advice is not always taken, which can make the progress slow and painful. Our first task with François was to taste the 2016 blending material, a vintage that was harvested before Manu was onboard and they tasted a lot better than my memory of last year’s wines. The health of the fruit that year was good and all François had to do was protect the wine and not heavily mark them with bad taste (too much new wood) during the aging. François’ estate is one of the most beautiful polycultural properties we would visit in Corsica, with numerous fruit orchards, olive groves, vineyard parcels and gardens. There aren’t many monocultural zones anywhere on Corsica, which makes it somewhat unique to much of France’s most well-known vineyard areas that have every suitable hill covered with vines alone. This estate’s potential is great; the quality of their fruit combined with a few fundamental changes to their program should bring good results, right? The 2017s were unrecognizable from the previous year. The whites were definitely better but not a smashing success, which I thought was due to a combination of a warmer vintage that got ahead of them in ripeness and too much newer wood. The reds, however, were shockingly pure and delicious. His entry-level 2017 red was perfect gluglu (a French term used for a cheap, gulpable wine you can drink by the pitcher) and by far better than any of his others from 2016 and 2015. The 2017 Sciacarello out of tank were wonderful and I asked to retaste them to confirm that I wasn’t tripping out. I was so pleasantly shocked by François’ progress that I’m excited to go back to see what happens next year. I used to work in a winery making wine with Adam Tolmach, from The Ojai Vineyard, in California. In 2002, I went wine tasting in the Santa Ynez Valley to a number of other wineries. I came back enthusiastic about what I tasted out of barrel, even from some estates who I thought didn’t always make such memorable wines. Adam smiled and told me one of the truest statements about tasting unfinished wine: “There is a lot of great wine in barrel, but getting them into the bottle with the same quality is a difficult skill that few have.” I’ve made plenty of mistakes as an importer, but if I’d imported all the wines that tasted great out of barrel before I tasted them in bottle, I’d probably be out of business by now. After our visit, François invited to lunch in Olmeto, a village perched high up on a hillside about fifteen minutes north of Propriano. The name was Restaurante la Source—how fitting! We parked next to an ancient (and long since retired) stone public bath house, crossed the road and entered this rustic joint perched on a cliff with a perfect view of one of Corsica’s most stunning inland areas. At the entrance is a huge wood-fired oven where they were piecing together some pizzas. I still hadn’t recovered from the dense food of Northern France the previous month and again was desperate for some vegetables. But upon seeing the wooden pizza oven, my dream of a light lunch disappeared instantly. We sat outside at about a thousand feet above sea level with a perfect view of the valley below and the range across it. The wind was brisk and chilly, but we stuck it out to marvel at the dreamscape of steep mountains and the fields below. If there were ever a place I should’ve had my camera with me this was it, but I left it in the car and decided to just enjoy it for myself. Still longing for some vegetables, I ordered a vegetable pizza with some local saucisson. What I didn’t know was that I was getting a pile of regional charcuterie thrown on top with a dense portion of local cheeses with a few slices of onion and zucchini. It ended up being one of the best pizzas I’ve had in Europe, and I’ve been on the hunt for them for years. The crust was a perfect balance of crunch and stretch, and the wood fire gave an alluring aromatic accent. It was spectacular. Manu ordered a “small” steak and it arrived on a big cutting board with a salad and fries. The fries were fantastic and looked like they were cooked in animal fat (the only way to do it right) and topped with the perfect amount of flaky salt, which for me means a lot. The steak was Argentinian-like in immensity and though Manu looked at me with disbelief at the size, he managed to get all the way through it. Neither of us had any expectations going in, but now we can’t wait to go back. Our first stop after lunch was with one of the most promising producers in Corsica whose owner is concerned about the prospect of discontinuing the use of chemical herbicides. Manu and the winemaker are pushing to make this final change and it was supposed to happen this year. This last step could result in the filling out of their range of wines that are already quite good. The herbs and grasses on the drive up to the property showed some promise of change. Last year they were a rainbow of orange and yellow, the colors of death by herbicide—a common site in most of Beaujolais and Champagne—but this time, I was hopeful. Once in the door, we were greeted in a kindly fashion by the winemaker, who I’ll refer to as François II (to protect the identity of the domaine during this time of transition), one of my favorite guys in Corsica. Manu went straight to the point and asked him if they bought the machine to plow this year so they didn’t feel obliged to use herbicide. François II’s shoulders rolled forward and disappointment clouded his expression; the owner hadn’t made the purchase, so it was going to be another year of herbicide. What we had seen were grasses still alive because they hadn’t been sprayed yet due to the season’s late winter storm followed by a month of rain. I asked about other chemical treatments and was happy to hear that they had abandoned pesticides three years ago and systemic treatments (the ones that aren’t visible) two years ago, so there was only one more major step to go. Francois II explained that he had done a test of foregoing pesticides in the vineyards years ago and was met with great success, which helped spur the change. Inside forests, untamed land and natural farms (which are all abundant on Corsica) the insect population teems with a wide variety of tiny predators and prey. Pesticide is not preferential; it kills everything, which throws off an ecosystem that’s equipped to manage itself. When he held off on spraying pesticide and used pheromones instead (to confuse the pests during mating season), the diversity of the pests within the brush surrounding François II’s vines proved to be enough to maintain the vineyards without any sprays. Systemic chemical treatments, in particular, concern me. Many vineyards and crops are plowed, manicured and look great, but what’s not visible are the chemicals that are applied to the soil which go through the root system and into the plant’s tissues, including the parts we eat. It’s a big topic and those who use them don’t want to talk about them. This is different stuff than a topical application of herbicide or pesticide because you can’t peel or wash them off. The only way to know if systemic treatments are being used without testing for them is to ask the farmer, which I always do with my growers who are not organically certified. It’s a question that often catches them off-guard, and I’ll know by their non-verbal reaction before they even say a word whether they use them or have in the past. Systemic treatments are not allowed in certified organic farming in Europe. I’ve tried to find out if they are legal in USDA organic farming, but I couldn’t find a definitive answer one way or the other. We tasted through François II’s range of bottled 2016s as well as the 2017s out of stainless steel tanks and they were all beautiful. Ugh… This kind of moment kills me because I don’t want to like this herbicide vineyard wine. François II is the saving grace at this domaine because he is an excellent vigneron. The good news is that the intention to make the change is there and it seems to be only a matter of time. My fingers are crossed, but we will have to wait another year. Like the use of pesticides and systemic treatments, I consider the unconscious, habitual and regimented use of herbicides malpractice. Indeed, there is a tremendous amount of truly inspiring wines that use these unnatural treatments but my personal preference is to not drink or import them. Our next visit at Domaine Pero Longo was a stark contrast to the previous. I was excited to see Pierre Richarme, the owner and vigneron and all of his vineyards, which bustle with life and have been under biodynamic culture for many years. We drove down the highway for some time and pulled into a dirt road with deep potholes full of water from the previous night’s heavy rain. It was a slog and even a good test for Manu’s new 4 x 4 to get through. Moving to higher ground we rose to meet Pierre’s gorgeous vineyards with the backdrop of the cliffs of Ranfone, one of the most striking hills in Corsica and Europe. (Ranfone is in the opening photo of this article.) From the west, it looks like a giant mythological lion (perhaps Corsica’s Lion of Roccapine) scratched massive dark vertical gashes down Ranfone’s pale granite cliffs, giving it a unique and mysterious appearance. Pierre’s winery rests up on a foothill of Ranfone with a perfect view of its southern end. Surrounded by vineyards and a cow pasture to the south, the winery is made from slabs of local granite, all put together by Pierre’s hand, as were his house and bed and breakfast. My memory of the visit with Pierre the previous year was still vivid, so as we arrived it seemed like only a couple of weeks had passed since I was there last. His smile is warm, like sunshine, and the gap between his two front teeth makes it even more charming. The creases in his weatherworn face reel you into dark eyes that show humility and honesty. His nearly 70-year-old body is worn but still strong. His hands are dense, thick and dry, like an old cowboy’s leather gloves. His handshake is firm and welcoming, and reminded me of my dad’s old hunting buddies. As much an artist as he is an artisan, Pierre’s creations are rustic, practical and original. In his winery he built sideways concrete eggs, which I’d never seen before, and when I asked why he built them sideways instead of upright, he said that if you set an egg down it will always fall on its side. Pierre finds his own harmony with nature and nothing in his process is taken for granted. He’s the kind of person who will only be satisfied by learning through his own adventures as opposed to taking someone else’s word for it—an approach I can relate to, for better or worse. He’s a self-made man and authentic, and this is what draws me to him; I’m sure they’re the same reasons that Manu is so fond of him as well. Yet Manu admitted that Pierre’s search for truth on his own terms often undercuts Manu’s suggestions, though Pierre will come to those same ideas on his own after a number of years. When we arrived, Pierre wasn’t there. We were greeted by his son, Quentin, a tall, wiry, steel-cable of a young twenty-something. Without an ounce of slack on his frame it’s obvious that he’s a hard worker, like his dad. He’s come to work with his father now after going to wine school and Manu believes that his influence and assistance will help to further the quality of their wines. Pierre was more than an hour away and we didn’t have much time, so we started the tasting without him. Just like last year, not everything at Pero Longo was a hit, but when they were on, they could easily be put at the top of the class of reds from the island. Manu and I thought the best wine we tasted was the 2016 red in the sideways eggs. Compared to numerous other lots of the same wine being raised in square concrete tanks a few feet away, it was as straight as an arrow, more high-toned, fresh and refined. Manu and Pierre have the same theory about the egg and its potential contribution to a wine. If placed properly in the winery (away from water currents, electricity and metal) it can communicate a wine’s story with more purity and focus than in stainless steel, or concrete tanks—just as it did on this day and in the cellar of Jean-Charles Abbatucci the day before. After almost a month on the road with a lot of dreary weather, this day was by far the top for photography and I took advantage of it before the sunset. I snapped some pictures of Manu and Quentin with the constant soft blue-gray haze that sits in front of every mountain view on the island. Then we finally jumped in the truck and headed to Porto Vecchio for an interesting night with twenty or so of France’s top vignerons. Next Week: Of Corse, Part 8 of 9: Porto Vecchio and the Shrinking World

As the meeting with the Chardigny brothers came to an end, Ted and Andrea were talking softly about needing to get back on the road for the hundred and fifty mile ride to Chablis. After some quick goodbyes, Ted was again at the mercy of the white wagon’s fickle navigation system, so we got lost in a maze of tight roads on the way out of Beaujolais while he looked around the car for a hammer to smash the dashboard screen. When we finally broke free into the countryside, we passed through Beaune again on our left and Ted pointed out Savigny-lès-Beaune on our right, an underrated AOC with great pricing (for Burgundy). “Savigny-lès-Beaune producers don’t get the respect they deserve compared to other appellations in Burgundy; the region is extremely diverse, so I think it confuses some people. There are a lot of different aspects, that is, the way the slopes face—in many direction. The two main hills are completely different, one is north to east and the other east to direct south.” These features lead to wines with widely varying attributes, so it’s hard to define them with an easily accessible label, which is unfortunately what most consumers need. Flying down the Autoroute du Soleil, the sky opened wide over rolling hills filled with beige cows on bright green grasses in every direction. We were in a rich dairy land, the home of Époisses, a very soft, gooey cheese with a washed rind that I love. As we got closer to Chablis, the temperature dropped to seven degrees Celsius, down from twenty-eight back in Provence (or eighty-two to forty-four, Fahrenheit.) On entering the tiny medieval town of Chablis, we passed the Saint Pierre church, a simple Gothic structure surrounded by a crumbling graveyard and dated to the twelfth century. It’s just one of many ancient churches in the town and surrounding areas, and though I’m not religious, these buildings always hold a certain fascination for me. Probably because all of the money and architectural efforts throughout the ages went into them instead of the peasants’ mouths, which of course makes me feel more than a little conflicted on the topic and sure that they're all haunted. Little storefronts for boulangeries and cafés along the main drag look like they haven’t changed for hundreds of years. Then you see slick, modern glass-front wine shops here and there, jarring in their shiny newness. We were running a little late and finding a spot on the street took longer than anticipated, and when we stepped out of the car, the air was a shock of freezing cold in the gray-blue dusk. The restaurant for the night was a new place called Les Trois Bourgeons, run by the same group who owns the famous Au Fil du Zinc, a few blocks away. It being a Tuesday, Zinc was closed, so Bourgeons picked up the slack. Our table wasn’t ready, which was fine, because our dinner companions were even later than we were. Then the notorious Romain Collet finally made an appearance. Another vigneron Ted frequently refers to as one of his favorite guys in France, Collet is the son of Gilles Collet, a quietly preeminent Chablis producer over the last few decades. In recent years Romain has taken the reigns from his father, and is continuing to make some of the finest wines in the region—with a little help from his family’s large holdings of Grand and Premier Cru parcels. When he’s not applying his inexhaustible energy to vinification and farming, he does the same to eating and drinking and partying—to having as much fun as possible; the stories of his all-night hijinks are legendary. But that evening he seemed tired, for reasons that he would get into later. Romain Collet looks remarkably like a young, mustachioed Timothy Dalton from Flash Gordon, but with a Franco nose, a tangle of teeth and (at the time) a wild and wavy head of shoulder length hair. He smokes incessantly, which I thought strange for someone with such a highly-tuned pallet and sense of smell—abilities he clearly depends on for his craft, and apparently this contradiction is not uncommon in France. At one point he said that he smokes a pack a day and his breakfast consists of just a cup of coffee and a cigarette. Of course, as a non-smoker and habitual square meal breakfast-eater, I was utterly appalled. Yet he won a national blind tasting event when he was just twenty-one, and has only gotten better at it; he can still detect the minutest differences between cuvées. It is true that he was born into his family’s business, but he is one of those rare cases where his extraordinary natural talents fit the bill perfectly. He introduced his girlfriend Charlotte, who smiled politely, shook our hands and smoked as vigorously as he did. She worked the desk at a hotel in town at night and helped Romain with office work during the day. They were planning to buy a new house together soon, and she had every intention of quitting the hotel to work with him full time. They looked at each other, dropped their cigarettes on the ground and stomped them out in unison. Romain looked around at everyone with a wink, slapped his hands, rubbed them together and said, “Hungry?” We took a seat at a table near the door, the only one available in the room with just nine others. I was closest to the entrance, and every time someone came in, they brought the quickly plummeting temperatures in with them. I kept my jacket on the entire meal and pined for the thicker coat I had left in the car. The décor was simple, contemporary and unremarkable, with cold, bright overhead LED lighting. But Romain said the place was getting some buzz and he’d been looking forward to checking it out. He deferred control of the wine list to Ted, who ordered two wines that he imports and a champagne that he wished he could add to his book. He picked up a glass from the table, took a sniff, and immediately said they needed a rinse. He does this at every meal, but this was the first of the trip to fail the test. Usually it’s the smell of wet dog that comes with old water or a dirty drying rag, but this was a case of the opposite: too much sanitizer in the wash. The server came to pour and I was surprised when he didn’t mention the glasses; he always has them replaced when they come flawed. It occurred to me that he was making an effort to curb his fastidiousness in this new place with this old friend. Instead, he nodded over at a tall man with gray hair a couple tables away and said, “that guy ran a tasting at a restaurant where I worked in Arizona, twenty years ago. Small world.” I thought, yeah, small world—and you have a hell of a memory. As the door opened and closed again behind me, chilling me every time, Romain talked about being up all night the night before in an effort to save his crops, the reason for his apparent fatigue. The unseasonable cold was posing a real threat; if the thermometer dropped below negative two degrees Celsius, frost would form and destroy the new buds that were just starting to appear. So the producers in the area resort to extreme measures: teams of workers lay out hundreds of cans of fuel (like big cans of Sterno) between the rows of vines, which they light if the temperature falls to that dreaded number. Romain pulled out his phone and showed us a video a friend had posted on Facebook the night before, footage of darkened hillsides alight with orange blossoms of thickly smoking flames as far as the eye could see. It was a stunning sight, made horrific by what it meant for this to be happening, the difference between making wine the coming season, or not. As with what happened to Dutraive after the hail in 2016, vignerons can buy grapes from other growers to produce something, but resulting wines are just usually not the same. In the case of guys like Collet, it is not an easy thing to replace fruit from Grand and Premier Cru vineyards. He has lesser valued parcels, but of course it is these top plots that get first priority when the threat of frost looms. He had so far dodged the bullet, but he would be watching the temperature carefully on a phone app as dinner stretched later into the night. His guys were already out in the fields making preparations, and he would join them again if and when the time came. The stress of these times turned the talk to the gambles producers make every year, the careful balancing act of keeping a company afloat. He finds that the hardest part is deciding whether to bottle all the wine once it’s finished, or sell a good portion off to negociants (who will bottle it under their own label) to make ends meet, but at the cost of losing distribution of his own product. Vignerons will have to do this in lean years, if the financial standing of the winery is shaky. Families sometimes need to make the quick sale to negociants even in solid years, to help them prepare for the disastrous ones. Just a few bad seasons in a row without proper preparation can burn up financial reserves and break their business. Talk like this really reminded me that we weren’t in Bordeaux, where wineries are owned by endless supplies of old money and new corporate backing. People like the Collet's are artisans who live at the mercy of nature like any Midwestern farmer. I was hungry. Though the starter list included what I was informed was a local favorite, “oeuf en meurette,” I ordered the sautéed trout “Prégilbert,” to be followed by the roasted pork loin with creamy mushroom polenta. The trout was tender and delicately spiced, dotted with orange trout eggs, a little too like the salmon eggs I used to catch fish when I was a kid. The pork was good, and with the polenta, just like something I could have ordered at any number $$$ Yelp restaurants in the States. I also realized that my tepid impressions were probably being cooled by the freezing wind at my back. The 2013 Rousset St. Joseph, on the other hand, was delicious. I drank less than my fair share, but a little went a long way. Ted recently started carrying the label after pursuing them for quite a few years and kept raving about it. The server was a cheerful Japanese émigrée whom Ted had also as a server over at Au Fils du Zinc in recent months. The two cooks in the open kitchen were Japanese as well, and Ted went on to say that there’s a decent Japanese population in France. Apparently a lot of the chefs at Au Fills are also Japanese. Romain started in on a story about a good friend from Tel Aviv, a professional soccer player who drank very little and was a very careful eater at home, but when he came to France, all bets were off. He ate and drank all day and night and was a comrade-in-arms during many a forty-eight-hour fête. Since I was still feeling under the weather and taking judicious sips, and had passed on ordering desert, I didn’t think I was imagining it when I caught Romain giving me the suspicious side-eye during the story. I might have been just trying to ward off his appraising gaze when Ted’s chocolate crème brûlée came and I stole three quick bites that garnered a glare and growl from its owner. The dinner wrapped up pretty quickly, but we knew we’d see Romain a few times more in the coming days. We all stood shivering on the street by the white wagon as Romain waited for the temperature to update on his phone; he still didn’t know if he’d need to man the fires again. A big digital sign in the town square right above where we were standing read zero degrees Celsius. It didn’t look good. Ted took us onto a dark country road outside of town to the neighboring village of Préhy, a tiny cluster of ancient cottages, population 129. We entered the main street and blew right by our Airbnb in the very first building, the front of which had been converted into the only modern glass facade around. It was late and freezing and it had been a very long day, but I paused in the middle of the street to notice the black sky packed with stars, the local light pollution nil. Then we stumbled into the two story apartment full of Ikea furniture, and tromped up a rickety metal spiral staircase that seemed to be made from a kit, like all the other stuff. Ted mentioned that the building was owned by the daughter of a famous biodynamic producer in the area. The three of us were to share the one big bedroom with an accordion door and an exposed bathroom sink and shower, while their friends Geraldine and Arnaud Lambert, who were joining us the next day, would take the other one for themselves. But the place was much smaller than advertised. By this time, my loud snoring had become a bit of a joke, and with the prospect of sharing a room with me, it suddenly wasn’t funny to Andrea anymore. Everyone was tired and tensions ran high for a few minutes, until Ted came up with the idea to book another place in town for his friends. I was left in the big room, where I had already settled, and was relieved that I wouldn’t be sharing it. I felt both guilty and grateful that my sleep difficulties had afforded me some much needed solitude.

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

Alfredo Egia's Txakoli vineyard New Education Materials After doing tons of research, Spanish geologist Ivan Rodriguez and I finished our latest terroir map, as well as a short essay on some of the geological story between Navarra and Rioja, both of which are downloadable here. Also, on our website profile of Navarra producer, Aseginolaza & Leunda, there is a deeper exploration of how Navarra, even though it has an equally compelling terroir, began to fall behind Rioja more than a century ago, despite that both regions were once highly celebrated as one. It also compares Garnacha and Tempranillo, which you can read about here. New Arrivals Spain New Producer: Arizcuren, Rioja Oriental Good timing for the Tim Atkin report on Rioja! Atkin was very favorable to Javier’s wines and he was a regular in his extensive feature about producers filled with good information, and good wine! The report is a must read for anyone interested in what they should be looking for during this European wine region’s renaissance. Rioja is Spain’s most historically important red wine region, and, if you believe in the merit of terroir, you can’t ignore this one. Most of the red wine regions that dominated the fine wine marketplace over the last decades are now registering much higher alcohol contents. Côte d’Or is often beyond 14% (though many won’t change the labels to reflect their true numbers), and places like Barolo and Barbaresco regularly clock over 15% now, and also stay quiet about their numbers. Châteauneuf-du-Pape has been simply shameless in producing wines well beyond 15% for decades now because critics saw monsters with balance and gave monster scores (and gave most of us monster headaches). I remember discussing with Emmanuel Reynaud, from Château Rayas, in his cellar about low alcohol wines. He smiled and explained that while this trend is happening, he wonders if people know, or care, that his wines regularly hit 16%, but remain balanced. They do, and, yes, they are balanced, and that’s what should count, no? You just need to measure your pregame wines before you dive into the Rayas range because they’re worthy of the experience and are always better served slowly than a rapid glugging before moving on to your next bottle. Javier Arizcuren One of the longer-term assets (by climate change standards at least) in the face of our planet heating up in Rioja is its altitude and potential for planting and replanting in even higher zones. While lower-lying areas are bound to suffer more from the heat and spring frost, Rioja has many locations that sit well above 500m, and as high as 900m; in the past there were a lot of vineyards planted above 800m, especially in the southern mountain range of the Systema Ibérico, in Rioja’s Oriental subzone, where Javier Arizcuren grows his grapes at high altitudes.   Javier Arizcuren is one of Rioja’s most exciting new talents. He’s also a very well-known and highly respected architect, and his cellar in Logroño is just next door to his very successful, but modestly outfitted architectural firm. With the help of his father, Javier spends his “spare time” focused on rescuing high-altitude, ancient Garnacha and Mazuelo (the local name for Cariñena/Carignan) vineyards that managed to survive both phylloxera, and the trend of replacing these historic vines with the popular Tempranillo, an early-ripening grape that is only a small part of this region’s long history despite its dominance today. (Tempranillo is expected to have more trouble with climate change than Garnacha and Mazuelo due to its more precocious nature.) His experience with architecture and his insatiable curiosity (a trait many of us in the wine business can relate to) leads him down rabbit holes of possibilities with broad experimentation (a rarity in this often predictable and extremely conservative wine region), so that he may better understand the aesthetic of each site and build on its strengths using various fermentation and aging techniques, and different aging vessels, from concrete eggs, porcelain, amphora, and, of course, oak. During a dinner with him last month, we discussed architecture and interior design. He explained that spaces have a particular personality and that you must be open to collaborating with them as much as dictating what you want them to be. I can see that he approaches his wines with this same respect and openness. Arizcuren's 750m, pre-phylloxera Barranco del Prado vineyard He’s in his early fifties, and with just over ten harvests made in his cellar, there are few who show as much promise as Javier. He’s sharp and his eyes reveal a state of constant contemplation and openness, and he earnestly and humbly listens to everything said without interruption, like he’s downloading your words to his hard drive. I expect big things from him in the coming years because his back isn’t against the wall to make financial compromises to stay afloat due to the financial backing of his architectural career. While he’s an entirely self-made man from humble beginnings in a very competitive field (and is friends with many of the region’s legends for whom he’s helped rebuild houses and bodegas), it remains a true pleasure to have an exchange with him. Hanging around guys like Javier makes me realize how little I know about what I do compared to what he knows about his primary trade—he’s truly cut from the same cloth as our friends, Peter Veyder-Malberg, and Olivier Lamy.  Javier feels that the higher altitude sites in Rioja Oriental are a solid bet for the future of Rioja for many reasons: they are later to ripen and are also later to start the vegetative cycle (which helps to avoid spring frost); the Serra de Yerga mountains have a lot of limestone-rich terroirs in higher locations; he continues to find ancient, pre-phylloxera vines and nearly extinct varieties that made it past the regional homogenization phase with Tempranillo. The Tempranillo he grows is good, but the historical varieties here are Garnacha, and before that, Mazuelo. The 2019 Rioja “Monte Gatún” clocks 13% alcohol, a very modest figure considering the heat of this vintage; it’s generally the direction he wants to go with his wines, showcasing their balance with a duality of roundness and angularity. It’s a blend of Tempranillo with 15% Garnacha and 10% Graciano. It’s a straightforward, full-flavored Rioja with great freshness—an impressive starting block for Javier’s reds. I had a Graciano sample out of barrel with Javier just three weeks ago that was simply riveting. I’d never tasted Graciano on its own (and if I did, it wasn’t memorable enough!), and man, what promise that grape has! Graciano could be the grape of the future regarding climate change. It’s so insanely balanced for such high acidity, and that’s the kind of thing that gets me fired up. The only problem is that he made a single barrel each vintage… Come on Javi! What a tease! As mentioned, curiosity drives Javier, and his 2019 Sologarnacha Anfora—as you guessed it, only Garnacha and raised in amphora—needs to be tasted. I’ve never had Garnacha/Grenache in new oak barrels that have agreed with my sensibility with this grape (and most other wines, too), and have always enjoyed it out of more neutral aging vessels. Amphora Garnacha is another new and enjoyable experience for me. It’s aged for only five months to preserve just enough of the fruit aromas while allowing it to take on more earthy notes. It’s another lower alcohol Rioja wine at 13.5%. The 2017 Solomazuelo is, you guessed it again, made entirely of Mazuelo, the historic, historic grape of Rioja. Before phylloxera, Mazuelo was the dominant variety in Rioja, but when it came time to replant, Garnacha was favored (for what reason I don’t know), and since the 1980s, these two grapes were both ousted by the mass proliferation of Tempranillo in all places Rioja. Mazuelo has incredibly good balance considering the juicy wines it can create. It’s a solid transmitter of terroir (very important to us) and maintains great class and complexity for a fuller throttle wine. I think that many see our wine selections in the more racy, even austere overall profile, but it’s not always the case. We have long pursued wines with great acidity and also focused on regions that will manage the climate crisis well during our generation’s time on this earth. Mazuelo and Javier’s project is in line with ours: the future is always met better with the preparations of today. Javier is headed to the hills to prepare for the onslaught of climate change, and places where the very late ripening and high acid varieties of Mazuelo, Graciano and Garnacha are his guide. New Producer: Alfredo Egia, Txakoli “Above all, I want my wines to express sincerity. Aromatically, I like that they show more organic notes of a real nature associated with fermentation, never “synthetic” aromas. But that doesn't stop me from looking for the complexity that I think my terroir can achieve. I like that the vegetal rusticity of the Hondarrabi Zuri, Hondarrabi Zerratia and Izkiriota Txikia integrates perfectly with a more complex matrix framed by mineral notes and a more or less oxidative evolution without the use of sulfur, offering the wine a natural path to balance. “I consider acidity to be a natural part of our wines, being much more integrated when the wine is less intervened. But I think that wine is made above all to be drunk, ingested, and so it should feel good—a like-it feeling that the body is in tune with it, and that is easily digestible. I want them to leave a good memory, combining that part of a certain indomitable nature with the part of elegance to which we want to take it in its upbringing. But I would also like it to reflect the particularity of the vintage, both climatic and the eventual intention of the vineyard in its evolution as a being.” –Alfredo Egia Alfredo Egia The wines made in Txakoli by Alfredo Egia are radical for the region but not for the world, since he is committed to biodynamic farming and natural wine methods in one of the wine world’s most difficult places for this practice. And with the influence of Imanol Garay, the highly intense and fully committed Basque naturalist living in France whom he refers to as his mentor, he’s determined to harness the intense energy of Izkiriota Txikia (Petit Manseng) and Hondarrabi Zerratia (Petit Courbu) to give them a different expression, shape and energy, with a constant evolution upon opening that can last for days. These white wines grown on limestone marl walk the line with no added sulfur and I would suggest that they should be consumed earlier in their life to ensure captivity of one of their best moments. Whether they can age well without added sulfur or not remains to be seen, but since they have very low pH levels that usually sit below 3.20, and ta levels that can be well above 7.00, and are bone dry, they should be insulated for a while. Rebel Rebel (12.5% alc.) is the solo project of Alfredo, and Hegan Egin (13.5%) a joint venture between Alfredo, Imanol and their other partner, Gile Iturri. Imanol Garay My first interaction with Alfredo and his wines was almost exactly a year ago. The weather in Balmaseda was clear and crisp but icy cold. Thankfully there were moments in the sun that gave us a thaw, but in the shade it chilled us to the bone. My wife and I spent the morning with him in his vineyards and I returned again alone to taste the wines later in the day. I simply couldn’t get enough of Rebel Rebel and Hegan Egin as we worked our way through bottles of the 2018s and 2019s, while camped out in his vineyard and freezing our buns off. I’m convinced of Alfredo’s imminent stardom; his wines channel the spirit of the Loire Valley luminary, Richard Leroy, via Imanol Garay who spent time working with him prior to starting his own project, and now Imanol’s project with Alfredo. Rebel Rebel and Hegan Egin both start with the Leroy-esque, indescribable x-factor, reductive/mineral pungent aromatic thrust (but much more delicately than Leroy's) that somehow imparts textures into your nose and throat. They are both imbued with citrus notes and fresh, sweet greens and herbs of this verdant countryside, but after open for more than an hour they begin to grow apart in style with Rebel Rebel remaining more strict and Hegan Egin softening and broadening its mouthfeel and fleshiness. 2019 Rebel Rebel is a blend of 80% Hondarrabi Zerratia and 20% Izkiriota Txikia, while the 2019 Hegan Egin is 50% Hondarrabi Zerratia and 50% Izkiriota Txikia. Both shouldn’t be missed, but these wines have the familiar story of extremely low production. There were only 360 bottles of Rebel Rebel imported, and 120 bottles of Hegan Egin for the entire country. Hopefully more in the next vintage! Cume do Avia Suffice it to say, 2020 was a painful harvest for many European winegrowers. The mildew pressure was so high through most of the year leading up to harvest that there were tremendous losses. Cume do Avia continues their commitment to organic grape production, which they’ve done since the very beginning, but the losses in 2020 were more than 70%, a staggering and demoralizing number that shook their belief in the idea that organic farming is a financially sustainable philosophy in this part of the wine world where more than seventy inches of rainfall each year is the average and the mildew pressure knows few European equals outside of Galicia. I continue to do my best to encourage them to keep their heads up, but I know it’s hard. The good news is that what they did pull off the vines was in good health and, despite the challenges, they have topped their previous efforts with the four different wines bottled this year.  Cume do Avia vineyards Cume do Avia’s 2020 Colleita 8 Branco has every white grape they harvested this year, as there are no single-varietal white wine bottlings due to the massive losses. 2020 was a cold year in general for the region which plays very well into the overall style of their white wines. This year’s version is as charming and serious as ever and warrants pursuit for those of you who have already fallen for their white wines over the last two years.  Arraiano Tinto comes from grapes the Cume clan help to farm with some of their relatives near their estate vineyards. It is also another step up from last year’s, if not with a little more cut to it while maintaining its upfront appeal, and Colleita 8 Tinto must be the best to date. Granted, I’ve said that every year since we’ve imported their wines, but it’s always true… The 2020 version (No. 8) has everything in it, except about sixty cases worth of Brancellao they bottled separately. It still has a load of their Brancellao, all of their Caiño Longo, Sousón, and Ferrol, and all the other micro-bits of whatever other varieties they have among the fifteen or so planted on their small patch of extremely geologically diverse bedrock and dirt. Normally there are two other single-varietal wines (Caíño Longo and Sousón), and their Dos Canotos Tinto, a blend of all the best parts into one wine. This year, it’s all there in Colleita 8, and that makes it one heck of a wine for its price. The 2020 Brancellao, when young, was the best to date I tasted in barrel. Aromatically striking, it had even more x-factor than the previous years. Materials were a problem to get this year in time for bottling—a challenge that started across Europe in 2021 and remains a problem. They bottled a few months later than usual, but perhaps it will serve the wine well by softening its approach. It shows a little more earth than sky this year (maybe that’s the x-factor?) and exhibits a broader range of nuances than the previous years. This grape is special and this vintage shows its capacity for diversity while maintaining its quality.  Portugal Constantino Ramos While you might never see a picture on the cover of Wine Spectator of a Vinho Verde micro-producer who makes 11% alcohol reds with razor-sharp edges and deeply earthy notes, Constantino Ramos, one of my great friends since we moved to Portugal, was just voted one of the four Enólogo Revelação do Ano (the winemaker revelation of the year) by Revista de Vinhos, an important Portuguese wine publication. Constantino is hitting the road with me and my team a little bit this year to explore more wine regions outside of his region, Monção e Melgaço. Already well traveled after working a harvest in Chile some years ago for the DeMartino family, he’s always interested to learn and experience new things and made numerous visits all over Europe to some serious addresses with his former boss and continuing mentor, Anselmo Mendes; Constantino went totally solo at the beginning of this year with own projects. He’s also crazy in love with Nebbiolo, which is one of the many reasons we get along so well—he has taken over as my Nebbiolo drinking buddy! His new release of 2020 Zafirah is, like last year, in short supply. Best served slightly chilled, it’s another one of those northern Iberian reds that feels as much like a white as it does a red, except its tannin and dry extract. It’s a blend of ancient vines at very high altitudes grown exclusively on granite bedrock and topsoil from many micro-parcels of local, indigenous grapes, like Brancelho (Brancellao), Borraçal (Caíño), Espadeiro, Vinhão (Sousón), and Pedral.  Constantino Ramos While it’s hard to sometimes connect wine regions using maps of specific countries because they seem to end at the borders, there are many that are just across the river from one another in Spain and Portugal, but between other countries there are often large separations of land around national borders. Here, these vineyards are within sight of the Rías Baixas subregion, Contado de Tea, and only less than twenty miles south, as the crow flies, from Ribeiro, the center of one of Spain’s most historic wine regions. Each of these regions share these grape varieties, and Zafirah is more closely related to Galician than to Portuguese reds. I have come to understand that in Portugal many of the young winegrowers look up to Constantino and greatly appreciate his Zafirah red. It’s stylistically by itself within his region. Most of the other reds here in Vinho Verde are dark and meaty (which I also love), but are made primarily with Sousón, a beast of a red, known here as Vinhão. France Thierry Richoux Richoux Thierry Richoux makes it impossible for me, no matter how distraught I am at certain times with certain French winegrowers, or nasty French drivers riding my butt like we’re in an unwanted game of Super Mario Cart, to make any generalizations often made about the French (which is done mostly by reductive people who’ve been rubbed the wrong way by them). I know no kinder, gentler and earnest man in the world than Thierry Richoux. I adore him, and sometimes I think this is mutual. Every time I talk about, write about, think about, and finally drink wines from the Richoux family, I get excited. I have cellared a ton of them, but they are still not drunk without a proper special occasion. Thierry and his boys, Gavin and Félix, are in a league of their own in Irancy, a small, steep amphitheater that opens toward the west and is plastered with Pinot Noir grapevines grown on limestone and clay (the same basic soil type as Chablis, but not precisely a mirror of it), garnished with cherry trees. In the center sits one of France’s most ornate, ancient villages, with its narrow, adjoined, grayish-white limestone houses and sagging lichen-filled, dark orange roofs. Only two of his wines have finally arrived, and, believe it or not, both were ordered last summer! Others will be on their way this summer, including the magical 2016 Veaupessiot!  Facing toward the east end of Irancy's amphitheater with the Irancy town center in view A very special arrival indeed is Richoux’s 2012 Irancy “Ode à Odette”. I’ve tasted this wine for years during its three-year élevage in new, 600l (demi-muids) French oak barrels before it was bottled and released last year. This is a once-in-a-lifetime bottling; it sounds absolutely crazy to be saying, right now, “I think the next one is scheduled to be the upcoming 2112 vintage.” At the time of the 2012 harvest, it had been a hundred years since Thierry Richoux’s grandmother, Odette, was born. She used to go to a particular parcel on the far northeastern corner of the amphitheater and work it by herself; can you imagine the meditative work during the years before iPhones or headphones and even battery-operated radios? I don’t even think I’m capable of that anymore without driving myself completely mad with too much inner monologue… Time to dedicate some time to mediate? Yeah, probably… This is the parcel Thierry has chosen for this very special wine. Through the moments of tasting in barrel, which I am sure I did at least six times, it always had a fabulous day, and this is what makes it so promising! While it’s young, at only ten years old, the new oak nuances are present but with some time open they get swallowed by the wine and—as embellishing as it sounds—a high-altitude, Vosne-Romanée-style Burgundy emerges. I know that sounds far-fetched, all things considered, but it carries that noble, voluptuous, clean and pure red fruit of those higher Vosne sites on rockier soil that stare down at some of the world’s most precious vineyards. Maybe it’s more of an emotional similarity than a directly comparable one, nevertheless I’m extraordinarily pleased that you will have an opportunity to snag a bottle, or two, of this wine. We imported just over three hundred bottles. Richoux’s Crémant de Bourgogne is here now too. This has been a fan favorite since the first Richoux wines we imported ten years ago (man, has it been that long?) and we finally procured a good load of it. In the past we always needed to order well in advance because they mostly bottle for export markets by request. Made entirely of Pinot Noir, it’s a charmer, and if tasted blind you’d swear it was pink. There’s an anxious line of Richoux disciples queued up for this one, so let us know if you’re interested before it all gets snatched up.  Chablis 1er Cru Vaillons on the right of the central road, Chablis Village vineyards to the left going up the hill and 1er Cru Montmains on the far left as the hill once again slopes down toward the south. Reload: 2019 Jean Collet Chablis We have another anticipated load from the family who introduced me to Thierry Richoux some years ago. The 2019 Collet 1er Crus are officially reloaded and ready to begin to circulate again. We have more of the Vieille Vignes, and the premier crus, Montmains, Vaillons, Forets, Mont de Milieu, Montée de Tonnerre, and Butteaux. It sure is hard to pick a favorite between them, but I’ve listed them in order from the most minerally to the most corpulent, with those in the center perhaps a tradeoff between these two particular characteristics. Now you only have to decide what shade you want/need over the next months. Just don’t forget that summer is coming soon, and it is tragic when there’s a shortage of Chablis during high Chablis-drinking season. La Madone, Fleurie Justin Dutraive’s 2020s Justin Dutraive sure is making notable strides in his style. I think we all can acknowledge how difficult it’s been in Beaujolais to manage every vintage since 2015, where every year was a different variation of a mess. 2020 was no different. The weather was nuts, vacillating between intense heat and dryness, to cold and wet, then to monster heat and drought conditions. Well, at least the grape here is Gamay, one of the wine world’s jack-of-all-trades reds. Its versatility is enormous and almost unparalleled in the red grape world (in white, there are few that can match the versatility of Chenin Blanc and Riesling whose only restrictions are that they can’t be red!)… Gamay can take a solid knock to the face during the growing season and still smile through the glass at you. Justin managed very well this year and his overall style is much more elevated and nuanced than before. In 2019, there’s a nice uptick in overall quality and style, with a notable departure from denim and toward more lace. During my visit last summer, I was surprised, and openly admitted to the Dutraives, to the pride of his dad, Jean-Louis, that within the context of all the 2020 Dutraive family wines during that day I tasted (drank) with them, Justin’s were my favorites, and that’s never happened before between these two Dutraive ranges. I’m sure that since then, the Grand’Cour wine have, at the very least, stepped up. During the second to last week of February (just as I started to write this newsletter), Justin sent me a note that our quantities of the 2021 wines are severely cut due to another year of tremendous losses. 2021 was the opposite of 2020, except the similarly low yields. It was a cold and dismal, mildew heaven that required an intense triage. 2020 is, in my opinion, Justin’s best year so far by a pretty good length. The three that are arriving are his Beaujolais-Villages “Les Bulands”, a wine that will not exist in 2021 because the entire harvest was lost. These vines are on a flat area with deep soils—prone to frost and greater mildew pressure, as it was in 2021, but ideal for the hot years, like 2020. Justin’s Beaujolais-Villages “Les Tours” on pure granite rock with almost no topsoil stands in opposition to Les Bulands. Les Tours is the kind of ankle-twisting vineyard where you must really watch your step because the granite bedrock outcrops here and there, camouflaged by shards of granite rocks scattered about. His Fleurie “La Madone” is on the famously steep hill below the chapel, La Madone, and is sundrenched and on spare soils. La Madone quantities are miniscule, so there won’t be much to go around. Italy Riecine The new releases of the top wines from Riecine have landed. I know 2016 is a hard follow, but every vintage has its merit and 2018 and 2017 are no exception. Like most of Europe (including Piedmont and Burgundy), 2017 was warmer around harvest and made for extremely clean picking. 2018 was also warm, but maybe a little readier in their youth than the 2017s? 2017 was a perfect year for La Gioia given this wine’s typical lead of a full red fruit spectrum that buoyed on its deep, earthy core. La Gioia is one of Tuscany’s seminal IGT successes with its inaugural 1982 vintage, designated as a “Vino da Tavola di Toscana.” While past iterations had 15% Merlot added to them, today they are composed entirely of Sangiovese since 2006 and is designed in the cellar for the long haul. Aged for thirty months in a mixture of new, second and third year 500-liter French oak barrels, it’s clearly not the same type of wine as any of Riecine’s wines because it’s notably more flamboyant and unapologetically full, decadent and loaded with flavor.  Continuing with Riecine’s less traditionally-styled wines is the Gambero Rosso “Tres Bicchieri” winner, 2018 Riecine di Riecine, a pure Sangiovese that transcends the appellation as a singular expression of the grape in the Chianti hills. It can test one’s notions of high-end, blue chip European wines—particularly those from Burgundy (minus all the new oak), and my first taste of the 2013 vintage was perplexing because the wine evoked the feeling of high-altitude red Burgundy from a shallow and rocky limestone and clay topsoil on limestone bedrock. It was supple but finely delineated with high-tension fruit, earth, mineral impressions and a sappy interior. Its beguiling aromas were delicate but effusive, and very Rousseau-esque, in a higher-altitude-sort-of-way (think Rouchottes, without the bludgeon of new oak upon first pulling the cork from that wiry but full beauty of the Côte d’Or). While similar to the Côte d’Or in some ways, this wine is grown at a much higher altitude of 450-500 meters—about 200 to 250 meters higher than most of the Côte d’Or’s grandest sites. To preserve the wine’s purity, and in opposition to La Gioia, it’s raised exclusively in concrete egg vats for three years, which serves this wine well; not all wines of pedigree can thrive so well raised solely in this neutral aging vessel. The vines planted in the early 1970s further its suppleness and complexity and concentrate its fresh red fruit characteristics. The 2018 is juicy and lip-smacking good, and I was surprised when we hit the bottom of a bottle over dinner long before the dinner was done.  After jumping from one opposing style to the next, we find ourselves with Riecine’s traditionally made, savory-over-fruity, 2018 Chianti Classico Riserva. It’s the third wine in a line of Riecine’s top-flight range (though soon there will be a fourth in the form of the new Chianti Classico classification, Gran Selezione) and clearly demonstrates the skill and versatility of Riecine’s wine director, Alessandro Campatelli. Harvested from vines ranging between the ages of twenty-five and forty years old, the wines are aged for twenty months in large, old oak barrels. With old vines grown on limestone and clay, this terroir imparts more roundness and a fuller mouthfeel than Riecine’s starting block Chianti Classico. At a tasting in Los Angeles with the most discerning palates from many of the city’s top Italian restaurant sommeliers and wine buyers, the merits of this wine, due to its more classical and expected style for a Riserva, were immediately evident and it was a true highlight with the more traditionally-minded Italian wine buyers. Indeed, it will age well in the cellar, but it can also be enjoyed early; just give it a little air before diving in and remember that it’s best drunk with the right meal—just like every traditionally-made Chianti Classico. Inside Source Blog Post A Musing Faced with some recently arrived samples from a new project in Rioja with a lot of buzz around them, and so many thoughts swirling in my head, I began to write to encourage myself to be open to what sits in front of me. Countless times in my wine career (and my life), including the moment minutes ago that I began to cut the foils on these samples, I’ve come face to face with my own ignorance, and sometimes narrow mind, especially when it comes to wine. I confront myself and my predispositions more now than any other time in my life, and I’m sure (and hope) it’s only going to become more frequent. Change can be good, and many good things can pass by if we refuse to look outside our box. I took on the French language about twelve years ago after dabbling in school and many years of trying to memorize phrasebook words and sentences on flights to French wine country. I understood the translations but not the actual roots of the words or grammatical structure, so any conversation beyond ordering food and securing lodging was impossible. Then, a few years ago, I focused on Italian during our short-lived stay in Campania. Once my wife and I discovered that Italy wasn’t our spot for the long haul, we went to Portugal. Portuguese has been brutal for me; it may as well be Martian. I think the seemingly insurmountable speed bump is a result of the void of Portuguese culture in the States compared to other European cultural influences. Spanish is my focus now, and I’m not surprised that it’s improving my Portuguese. It’s the easiest language I’ve studied, and it even reinforces what other foreign words still float in the dim lightbulb of my brain.  New styles and ideas with wine—especially twenty-five years in—are sometimes hard; as with the benefits of cultural immersion to learn a language, they sometimes have to be a little forced at first in order for any progress to be made. Our wine community can be brutally critical, especially when one is thought to be stuck in the style of wine they are open to, and I think you can tell when you run across someone who is set in their ways because the excitement is gone; the love lost. As I move forward in this wine life, I am as equally distraught by the enormity of it all, as much as I am excited and satisfied with where my path has led me and the things ahead that seem mostly clear.  Iberian wine appeared on my radar in 2013 when an old friend and quasi-mentor, the late Christopher Robles, recommended what was our single producer in Portugal for many years, Quinta do Ameal. These days I am tackling many new wine regions (for me) that seemed completely foreign in my recent past. In my early years when I had more energy to burn and healed faster, I had no problem sorting out big-hitter Spanish wine, like Priorat or Ribera del Duero. My most recent “old interests” remain, but the regions I fell deepest in love with are now bearing less resemblance to what they were with the stage of climate change even just a decade ago. Today it’s clearly advancing quicker, and it’s already worrisome that some wines are almost unrecognizable, not necessarily in the entirety of a terroir’s expression, but in their nuances developed through longer, cooler seasons, resulting in perhaps fresher fruits and more subtle things, with less concentration, and noticeably less alcohol.  I feel, at the very minimum, obliged to remain open because I see the burned-in impressions of the world’s historical regions slowly fading away from my palate memory: the taste of young, vibrant new vintages from blue chip regions and the excitement about their potential with longer cellar aging. In the past, wines from the most celebrated regions were designed for the longer game from the start, not to be sold and prematurely consumed during their formative years when the complexities in a more subtle form would take center stage. I love low alcohol wines, crunchy fruit and zippy acidity; not only do they keep my mouth fresh, they keep my mind wound up, my energy and enthusiasm zooming and my heart pounding. They’re more invigorating, vibrating, goosebumping, and exciting, no? Bigger hitters are now saved for a once-in-a-while night, and most of the time Nebbiolo is the lead contender for my liver’s high-content alcohol allocation, and my I-know-but-I-don’t-care-if-I-feel-it-the-next-morning monthly limit. Andrea mostly opts out now when the label reads more than 13.5%. Like me, she likes to drink wine and doesn’t want to do it so sparingly. Now it’s a choice between two glasses of 12% or less, or a single glass of 13.5% or higher, for her. Sadly, I can hardly even get past the first glass of some of my old favorites that now clock in (and clock you) at a walloping 15.5-16.5%, when they used to be 13.5-14, tops; ok, maybe 14.5—but rarely! There is one producer I won’t mention by name (whose initials, M.G., may offer a small clue) who is the greatest recent loss for me in this way, and their older Nebbiolo-based wines remain in my private stash. While lamenting the absence of my in-home, Nebbiolo drinking companion, I’ve come to realize that there may be a third glass inside an epic Barolo or Barbaresco that I wouldn’t have gotten in the past!  I sure as hell won’t kick Vin Jaune off my list of annual needs, and many of you won’t either. But there’s a time and place for every wine and going bigger has become more of a special occasion because at forty-five (still young!), I can’t do 14% every night anymore. Simply from a sustainable perspective—if I want to continue to enjoy wine everyday—it must be lower alcohol on average, especially on weekdays. Of course, if they are big, they must also be balanced to enjoy—not so interested in big, wobbly wine caricatures. We all have different calibrations, sensitivities and interests when it comes to our own definition of balance. Indeed, one size or style does not fit all. To find balance within low levels on the alcohol spectrum today is just as hard for those on the opposite end. We import many wines that hover around 10.5-12% alcohol that are often too intense for some but exciting and riveting for others like myself who aren’t deterred by vibrating acidity and freshness. (At the moment I’m actually drinking my daily quota of lemon water—a new experimental treatment for my skin challenges.) The same is true for the higher alcohol wines. If one decides to pick earlier in the season on the account of high alcohol concerns, to find balance there needs to be adjustments not only in the cellar work, but also with anticipation in the fields. All the world’s historical benchmark wine regions—with very few exceptions—are beginning to tip the scale too far in the wrong direction, and the growers are obviously not happy about it and are scrambling for answers. I imagine they feel stuck in a flavor/phenolic/balance calibration en masse by their neighbors and their region that makes it hard to make necessary concessions in favor of less alcohol and ripeness, while others on the opposite side of the spectrum have also gone too far—sounds like today’s politics! Winegrowers are doing their best to adapt quickly, but are struggling to keep pace with climate change.  I often contemplate whether or not traditionally famous wine regions will become a generational thing for the elders of the wine community that still hold tight to what used to be instead of a pivoting toward a sort of philosophical shift in greater favor to open-mindedness and continued learning and the acceptance of the ongoing and rapid evolution of our global winescape. But yesterday’s heroes should not be forgotten (or chastised by the alcohol police!) as they do their best to navigate solutions that can make the difference for their survival. Should we begin to accept (and mourn) that our favorites from Burgundy, Barolo, Barbaresco, Wachau, Mosel, and other places will never again be exactly like they were just ten years ago? Does this sound like climate change doom and gloom? Maybe… But I’m trying to look at what is happening in a more positive light, and as an importer looking for my own necessary solutions for the future. What we’re seeing is newly emerging talents born into historically (at least in the last generations) second-rate regions (considered so mostly due to climatic limitations and/or locations far from big local markets and easy transport systems) who now have the potential to move into the top tiers of quality when in the past it only happened once every twenty years, not with enough frequency to gather attention and momentum. Another of climate change’s positive collateral effects is that it shakes up the system by opening opportunities for historical growers in colder regions who fought hard for generations to simply achieve ripeness with balance. Our new organic and biodynamic Champagne grower, Elise Dechannes, says that climate change makes it much easier for her and her neighbors to fully commit to these methods, when in the past there were much greater consequences for people using her practices. While climate change is indeed very disturbing and a real threat to humanity, today’s wine world seems more exciting than ever. As I sink my teeth into Rioja and some other Spanish regions with higher alcohol levels than I usually gravitate toward, I’ve been surprised to find out that they may have a brighter future than many other historical high quality wine regions. Since we posted the new terroir map on Rioja and Navarra, solicitations from Rioja producers have poured in. There are many out there who want to break into the US market, and the Spanish wine critics are certainly rolling out some hefty (and sometimes overly generous scores) to get the region out of second gear. Once the growers figure out and accept what the upper tier of the fine wine market wants today, these areas will come alive with a clearer sense of what to do, and they may stir some serious waves. Today, there are only a few mostly small-scale producers who are changing the game in some of these areas, but their success will pave the way for those who are worried that they might be stepping out of line; I’ve heard many stories about members of the new generation making almost unnoticeable changes in family cellars, on the down-low, so as not to upset their families, those who did the groundwork for them to have the opportunities they have today. Obviously, I’m excited about these wine regions and the growers who want to reach beyond the historically self-imposed confines that many believe exist.  Two hours later and a mess of red wine on my table… I don’t know how Tim Atkin does what he does. I certainly couldn’t. In his report, (along with the fantastic section, “The Ten Things you Need to Know About Rioja 2022”), there are 132 pages of tasting notes with about six to eight wines reviewed on each page, mostly with in-depth notes—not quite John Gilman-level depth, but still thorough. Of the wines I just tasted, three of them were awarded 94, 95 and 96 points, and Atkin’s notes are detailed and enthusiastic about them all. The wines are clearly well made, though I think they’re tailored for a different generation than my own. The extraction is gentle, but the ripeness is still bordering on too much. All of them have a blockade of that slightly pungent reduction/new oak characteristic—that too many days-old, raw, oxidized ground-beef-in-butcher-paper smell, and the burdensome oak tannin to match. The best scenario for me is to write to the producer to have them give me the “hard news” that they’ve already found a new importer—letting me off the hook easily… Indeed, Rioja as a general region has a long way to go (at least for my taste in wine), but when it gets there, it’s going to be exciting. The region has too much going for it to prevent its advancement, even in the face of climate change.

Pommard’s south-facing hill. (Download complete pdf here) New Arrivals We have a lot of goodies arriving in the second half of November. First is Rodolphe Demougeot’s 2020 Côte de Beaune range. Demougeot’s quantity this year is extremely limited, as is the case with the rest of Burgundy. As we’ve professed many times, we love Rodolphe’s unadulterated style. His wines are precisely crafted and lifted with balanced delicateness and dense core strength. While some reds off the main face into more forest-dense zones—Auxey-Duresses, Monthélie—are a little reductive (sometimes the Beaune appellation wines further down the slope are too) at first, they fully blossom with enough time to reward those Burgundy specialists who understand that patience rewards, especially with more savory Pinot Noir like Demougeot’s. What percentage of truly great wines give it all up in the first ten minutes anyway? Others, like his Pommard, Pommard “Vignots,” and 1er Cru Charmots, are often ready to go relatively quickly, with the latter two showcasing brighter red notes typical of the northern side of the appellation, and the Pommard village wine with more earthy, slightly darker nuances. The whites? Well, let’s not talk about those until we get a year with some quantity to sell! A new set of Riecine’s pure Sangiovese wines has arrived. Made entirely inside of the Chianti Classico DOCG area, all the vineyards are in the higher altitude (450-500m) of Gaiole, an area with a great range of vineyard altitudes, from 300 to 600 meters. Principally composed of limestone and clay, there are also some parcels with galestro soils (though not noted on their website). Most of the higher altitude areas of Gaiole are heavily forested, lending the wines gobs of savory nuances and freshness to balance out the sunny, red fruits. This new collection is a strong continuation of this cantina’s renaissance and a clear demonstration of this young team’s openness and capabilities with different cellar aging processes. On the docket: 2020 Chianti Classico, aged 14 months in 900l old wood casks, 2019 Chianti Classico Riserva, aged 24 months in large, old Grenier botte, and their two iconic “Rosso Toscana,” the 2019 Riecine di Riecine, aged 36 months in egg-shaped concrete vats, and 2018 La Gioia, aged 30 months in equal parts of new, first- and second-year wood, 900l barrels. We also have reloads from Stéphane Rousset with the 2019 Crozes-Hermitage “Les Méjeans” and 2019 Saint-Joseph “Côte des Rivoires.” I have written extensively about these wines in our September 2022 Newsletter. Click (here) to read more about them. La Casaccia, our hot new organic Monferrato producer creates wines far too good for their price. New arrivals include a reload of the finely etched 2021 Grignolino and the new release of their 2021 Freisa. These wines are special and so is the family. You can go deeper on our website (here) with much greater detail along with a geologic snapshot of the area. We are also hopeful that four new Champagnes from our new organic-certified producer from Montagne de Reims, Pascal Mazet, will arrive in time for the holidays. Fingers crossed! This is a fabulous addition to our collection and I’m extremely excited to represent this wonderful family and their collection in the US market. More on them next month! Südtirol (Alto Adige), Italy. Special Feature Fliederhof – Südtirol, Italy Our second, highly anticipated order from Fliederhof has finally arrived after much delay. Highly anticipated, you say? Yes. Surprising, I know, but not for me. The few who tasted Martin Ramoser’s Südtirol wines, particularly the Schiava/Vernatsch-based ones (labeled as St. Magdalener Classico DOC), in the first go around recognized their high quality immediately and became fans. They have new labels now that are something entirely different and fun than the last ones: elegant, linear, and with some curves though not full bodied. The wild hair represents a fliederbusch, a local bush with bright flowers from which their winery takes its name. After all, the wines are a mix of German and Italian cultures: Straight but with rich personality! Most importantly, our staff loved the wines, and they are the tastemakers in their respective markets. A visit this last summer to the cantina with two of our many talented team members, JD Plotnick (LA sales) and Tyler Kavanaugh (SD sales), met the family. It doesn’t take long to be charmed by them, along with the gentle and humble but extremely motivated and intelligent Martin Ramoser, another special twenty-something who took over the direction five years ago after university, promptly converting their tiny parcels to organic and then biodynamic farming. Astrid and Stefan, his parents, are fully behind his renaissance undertaking at their cantina. Though Stefan did have reservations at first about this youthfully electrifying and lifted, ethereal direction, a move away from his more regionally styled wines, he’s since become a convert of his son’s vision. Martin and Stefan Ramoser Martin added the Sauvigon Blanc “Stella” to the range in 2021. I was skeptical at first, not because of Martin, but because of my personal ambivalence toward this variety. I shouldn’t have been surprised that Martin’s first go at it is already knocking on the nobles’ door.  The best from this grape are considered noble (especially when properly aged), but the rest, even those considered “very good” don’t usually get me fired up. Stella is different. Grown further away from their homebase on Santa Magdalena, the terroir sits on the western end of the valley at 450-480m on a mix of dolomite limestone and porphyry (volcanic) bedrock, both glacial depositions. Because of its east face and close proximity to the western cliffs carved out by glaciers, the sun sets here three hours earlier in the summer than on the Santa Magdalena hillside. The sun also hits the Sauvignon vineyards one hour earlier in the morning. Stella is electric and she brings more joy in the form of a stronger fruit presence and grace to this sometimes solemn, herbaceous variety. The main focus at Fliederhof is Schiava (Vernatsch) grown on Santa Magdalena, one of the wine world’s most spectacular hillsides. Their 2021 St. Magdalener Classico “Marie” is composed of at least 97% Schiava (mostly because in the past every tenth vine or so in the row was Lagrein, so they’ve kept this tradition while slowly replacing them with Schiava) grown on three different plots composed fully of massale selections from this ancient hill with an average age of around thirty-five years: one lower down on deeper soils with a lot of rocks which brings riper fruit and smooth tannins; another on a very loamy spot with a steep aspect; and the last further up the hill behind their house at around 350m in a windy spot with rockier soil that imparts greater tension. The grapes are mostly destemmed with around 15-20% whole clusters included. Alcoholic fermentation typically ranges between eight to twelve days, and the malolactic fermentation begins naturally shortly thereafter. Due to the variety’s typically reductive nature, the wines are pumped over during fermentation to minimize this (instead of numerous rackings during aging that can exhaust its freshness, which is very common in the area), and they’re tasted each morning and night to observe their evolution. Martin explained, “If you wait too long to aerate the grape must during fermentation, you may never get the reductive elements out of the wine.” It’s aged in big, old oak casks for nine months prior to bottling and stored for an additional few months prior to release. Generally, this wine is joyful and soft on intensity outside of its aromatic profile that, at Fliederhof, is laced with pleasant red fruits and flowers and a soft but tightly sculpted palate accented with volcanic rock spiciness. We squeezed the Ramosers for more quantity this year but given that they only have a little over three hectares in total production, the increase wasn’t as much as we would have liked. St. Magdalener Inspired by Ceparello, a wine made by the famous Tuscan vignaiolo and enologist, Paolo de Marchi, from Isola e Olena (which I’ve been a fan of since my earliest years in the wine business, though I’m a little out of touch these days given that it’s been almost a decade since I’ve tried a newly released vintage), Martin and Stefan crafted the 2020 St. Magdalener Classico “Gran Marie” from a selection of small clusters and berries from the family’s oldest Schiava vines to have a more concentrated wine—not a bad idea given Schiava’s tendency toward lightness and transparency. Vinified the same as the first St. Magdalener in the range (8-12 days with a natural fermentation), it’s aged entirely in a single old 15hl French oak cask for nine months followed by nearly a year of bottle storage prior to release. Gran Marie is named after Maria Ebnicher Ramoser, Martin’s great grandmother, who first brought the family to St. Magdalena. The 2019 and 2020 vintages of this wine are lovely, and if one were to call the first St. Magdalener Classico in the range a “village” wine, this would be their premier cru due to its wonderful balance of body, palate weight and minerally texture. Despite the selection of smaller berries and clusters from oldest vines, it maintains a tight but fleshed-out profile that highlights the elegance of the top wines made from this historic hill. This next wine I debated putting in our newsletter. My staff has requested that I not include things in such limited supply such as this one because we only have 48 bottles for the entire US market! But I can’t help myself because people need to know that this wine happened, and so therefore it’s going to happen again; it’s one of my favorite wines of the year, bar none, and needs to be recognized. Also, you need to be apprised of its inevitable rise! But really, how epic can Schiava be?? Well… Fliederhof’s 2020 Santa Magdalener “Gaia” is a MEGA-breakthrough Schiava made with 100% whole clusters and almost no extraction during its maceration and fermentation. Our first encounter (for JD, Tyler and myself) was this summer. We were all surprised by its depth, significance and profound pleasure. It topped my charts on both pleasure and seriousness and made my top 15 wines of the trip (likely in the top 5 of the 15, and surely one of my new favorites in the entire portfolio), and it made JD’s top five—tough choices all the way around on that trip with so many good wines! The young Martin Ramoser nailed it with this one, and he’s still got a few more years to go before he even crosses thirty! Don’t worry about missing this one this year. I told him that he needs to ransack more Schiava from the Santa Magdalena wine and dedicate it to this style instead. He’s significantly increased the quantities in 2022, but still with less than 1000 bottles in total. I’m excited about this guy and what he’s doing. His mind is open, all the way, and with the loving support of his family and their daily work together in the vines, this kid’s going to be a regional legend. Lagrein often renders wines that are menacingly beefy. In contrast, Martin’s agenda with this muscular, rustic and mineral-dense wine that seems to express the fire of the ancient magma that became its bedrock nearly three hundred million years ago, is to shed a little bit of the excessive weight it easily takes on, to keep it lighter on its feet. Gently extracted during its natural fermentation through daily pumpovers for eight to twelve days (always with a watchful eye on its even greater tendency for taking on reductive compounds than the already reductively inclined Schiava), it’s pressed and then aged in 12-25hl old oak casks. Whole bunches are used sparingly (15-20%) in years where the grape skin tannin is gentler (like 2019 and 2021, but not in 2020). Lagrein is easy to ripen, and all too often becomes overripe, and Martin does his best to reel it in on the hotter years, like 2018. His greater preference, like ours, is for cooler years, like 2019, 2020, and 2021. The 2020 Lagrein “Helen” embodies the spirit and rugged feel of the rocky mountain area where it’s grown, and one should think about heart-warming, rustic mountain-style food as the perfect match. No matter what’s done in the cellar, Lagrein will always remain on the dark side with strong wild blackberries and savory but inviting green characteristics. While dark chocolate and red wine is almost always a food and wine pairing misfire, Lagrein is one of the few that pairs quite well. With Martin and Stefan’s soft touch on tannins, the first Lagrein in their range (there is a Riserva as well) benefits from a slight chill. If you want to learn more about Fliederhof, you will find an exhaustive account on our website at https://thesourceimports.com/producers/fliederhof/ You can also virtually meet Martin and learn more about his wines directly from him at https://thesourceimports.com/videos/ Rodolphe Demougeot in his top Pommard vineyard, Pommard 1er Cru Charmots “Le Coeur des Dames.”

Piemonte and the Alps I’ve finally returned for a couple-month stay in California and was greeted yesterday by a torrential downpour that the state has desperately needed. Meanwhile, the wine industry freight woes continue with the constant touch-and-go challenge of extensive delays. I waited until the last moment to write this newsletter until I got the go ahead from my sister Victoria, our company office manager, to let you know that a container from Italy is finally landing after more than two months of holdups. It’s filled with some exciting new releases from some of our favorites in Piemonte. There isn’t a lot arriving for a typical November, however some Burgundies may also arrive from David Duband (Côte de Nuits), Rodolphe Demougeot (Côte de Beaune), and Domaine Chardigny (Beaujolais and Mâconnais), as well as some from Germany’s latest cult wine producer, Wasenhaus, and Katarina Wechsler, a young producer out of Germany’s Rheinhessen who has fabulous Riesling vineyard holdings, including Kirchspiel and Morstein. New Italian Wines Poderi Colla - Langhe, Piemonte I doubt there’s another importer worldwide that beats the drum of Poderi Colla louder than we do. We just can’t seem to get enough of them. And it’s partly due to the fact that during the many changes in trend over the last few decades, the Colla family has stayed the course on the traditional approach since the late 1950s, when Beppe Colla owned Prunotto until the early 1990s. Once Prunotto was sold to Antinori, the Collas put all their money into only a few specific estates that Beppe and his brother Tino thought were as good as it gets in the area: Barolo’s Dardi le Rose, Barbaresco’s Tenuta Roncaglie, and Cascina Drago, a high altitude estate just across the road from Barbaresco-classified vineyards where they produce their Nebbiolo d’Alba and Bricco del Drago Dolcetto-based wine, along with other atypical higher-acid varieties that thrive best in cooler climates, like their sparkling wine made from Pinot Noir, a Pinot Noir still wine, and a dry Riesling. We’re fans of everything they make, but as one may expect, our focus is on their traditional local varieties. Aside from a restock on the fabulous and underrated 2017 Barolo and Barbaresco (which are now being reassessed by some critics in a more positive light), the single most exciting new Colla wine on this container is Colla’s 2019 Nebbiolo d’Alba. The reviews of the finished bottlings of 2016 Barolos and Barbarescos started coming out about the time that the producers were harvesting a vintage that appeared to be one of the most important in recent decades: 2019. While discussing the 2016 vintage in Piemonte at the start of the pandemic in Italy during a visit to the Collas (among about a dozen other top estates visits in Barolo and Barbaresco) in February of 2019, Tino Colla (pictured here), who has seen more than fifty harvests as an adult, basically skipped over 2016 and jumped right into the merits of 2019, a vintage he felt would be one of the most important of his lifetime. Their Nebbiolo d’Alba is a preview of that oncoming quality, and it’s gorgeous. Colla nails it every year with this wine, but 2019 is a little different. As always, it’s made just as a Barbaresco would be with one year in old botte to soften the edges while preserving its delicate aromas, but the 2019 Nebbiolo d’Alba is notably more suave and with profound depth for this classification of wine. Aside from the balance of the vintage itself, the high altitude of this vineyard—370m on average—imparts vibrating tension and snappy-to-the-tooth fresh fruit. During the last three years that I’ve lived in Europe, I’ve had the opportunity to taste many wines from different producers before they reached the states. (Of course, I’ve tasted a lot of others we don’t import, as well.) The quality demonstrated in this broad sampling of 2019 Nebbiolo wines from great producers is convincing enough to suggest that you should buy as much as you can, not only from us but from everyone who’s selling them. All of the best examples will improve in bottle for a long time, despite this classification’s less reliable reputation for doing so, compared to Barolo and Barbaresco. Look out for the great Nebbiolo vineyard sites outside of the limits of Barolo and Barbaresco that can only be labeled as Nebbiolo d’Alba, instead of the declassified young-vine Barolo and Barbaresco fruit bottled as Langhe Nebbiolo. In Nebbiolo d’Alba vineyards there are characteristics imparted by old vines, which, in Barolo and Barbaresco appellation vineyards are all reserved for their top bottlings. If Nebbiolo is one of your passions and you need a price break without sacrificing quality, go deep on 2019 entry-level Nebbiolos. Barbera always needs more heat than Nebbiolo to reach its peak. This may not be music to the ears for those in search of lower-alcohol wines but with the top producers exceptions can be made. While visiting Giacomo Conterno in 2019, perhaps the most unexpected and mind-bending wine in the bunch was the 2017 Cascina Francia Barbera, out of large oak cask. The layers of depth were simply extraordinary, and our entire group walked away from that visit with a newfound respect for big-hitter Barbera, even with its high alcohol well over 15%! (The reality is that many Barolo and Barbaresco are labeled 14%, but are well over 15% nowadays with the continued increase in solar power each year.) Almost every vintage in the last twenty-five years (save a few, like 2002 and 2014) has brought greater credibility to Barbera as a world class variety, and 2019 has kicked it up a couple notches. It was a long growing season with steady weather all the way through, and despite the lack of extremely high temperatures in the previous two vintages, it ripened perfectly, and its naturally high acidity relaxed just enough to bring its stockpile of complexities into balance in this slow growing season. What’s more is that Colla’s Barbera d’Alba “Costa Bruna” is sourced entirely from the Barbaresco cru, Roncaglie, on what would typically be a Nebbiolo exposition facing south, and with very old vines with most of them planted in the 1930s. It offers a diverse combination of fruits, from bright red to dark, with sweet red and purple flowers and spice. It’s absolutely another Colla wine to pepper into your annual wine schedule. Crotin's new high altitude Nebbiolo vineyard - first vintage 2021! Crotin - Asti, Piemonte Just north of the Collas is the Russo family, who are also extremely big fans of the Colla’s wines. Their wines are labeled under Crotin, the Piemontese dialect name for small cellars under the main cellar, used for keeping the best wines for long-term aging. The Russos have been churning out some of the top values in all Piemonte now for nearly a decade, under the assistance of the well-known prodigy enologist, Cristiano Garella. Their organically farmed vineyards are in some of the coldest growing sections of southern Piemonte. Here, the frigid temperatures offer grapes a long growing season, ideal for the high-toned aromatic Piemontese varieties. In these parts it’s all about punching power inside of this lightweight division. Crotin is most known for their Barbera d’Asti wine but these days a major uptick is Grignolino, a variety with bigtime aromatic pleasure and a fruity and round but tight mouthfeel laced with scents of Aperol and sun-dried red and orange flowers. Crotin’s Grignolino has become a big call item for our restaurants, and we buy all that we can from this cantina. Everything Crotin makes is priced exceptionally well, and their Grignolino offers profound value for those with a hankering for wines from this part of Italy. Freisa, a nearly forgotten grape variety ubiquitous in Piemonte only three decades ago, is found today mostly in the region’s backwater areas. It lost its footing to the rise in popularity of Nebbiolo-based wines and hasn’t yet found enough Langhe cantinas to be its modern-day champion on a larger scale. However, there are still compelling examples to be found at cantinas like Brovia and Giuseppe Rinaldi. Perhaps with the ever-increasing demand for Barolo and Barbaresco, it won’t regain footing in the Langhe anytime soon. Nevertheless, it should be on anyone’s radar looking for more of the identifiable but difficult to describe Piemontese characteristics imprinted on all of its red wines. From year to year, Freisa can vary in its tannin levels and if not managed well it can be a beast, but at Crotin they’ve tamed it and it brings great pleasure with only a slight tilt toward more rusticity than their Grignolino. There’s a new and perhaps polarizing wine in the Russo brothers’ range called Ruché, a grape variety I was unaware of until two years ago when I had my first one at their cellar. They made one for a well-known producer of this variety and after it permeated my nose with Piemontese potpourri aromas, I was sure there would be takers in today’s market filled with highly aromatic wines; in this style, Ruché seems like a shoo-in. The problem—one I realized after Federico Russo sent me a mixed box of some other producers from the area along with one they produced for another label prior to bottling their own—is that most of them are above 15% alcohol and hard to enjoy because they overindulge in strong, perfumy, caricature-like aromas that can be wonderful for some, but downright cloying for others. Their 2018 was delicious enough for us to give the 2020 vintage a whirl, their first vintage bottled under Crotin. At 13.5% alcohol, their 2020 is lovely and not at all overwrought, but rather subtle for a wine that can sometimes be suffocating. If you are in search of pleasure and fun in your Piemontese wine experience, Crotin’s Ruché should be on your list. The first drone video I did (which was more of a practice effort) is a regional teaser for our new producers in Spain’s Rioja and Txakoli areas, a short piece of eye-candy that covers some interesting ground from earlier this year. It’s fascinating how different the landscape in Rioja is compared to Txakoli, which is barely a half hour drive away from the northern parts of the region. The shots were filmed within a day or two of each other, but the drastically different environments make them seem like they are hundreds of miles apart. One of Fabio Zambolin's vineyards Fabio Zambolin - Alto Piemonte Going north into Alto Piemonte, the alpine foothills are home to Nebbiolo’s most historic roots. We’ve established a good foothold there with four winegrowers: Davide Carlone, Monti Perini, and two who have new arrivals in this container, Ioppa and Zambolin. Fabio Zambolin has a garage-sized operation and only a few very small plots of land in and around the most historically celebrated region in Alto Piemonte, Lessona, and an appellation that covers a lot of peripheral territory near the most famous DOC appellations known as Costa della Sesia. He also has a bureaucratic challenge in that his winery is in the Costa della Sesia appellation but his vineyards are inside of Lessona’s borders; this makes his wine labeled as Costa della Sesia Nebbiolo “Vallelonga” ineligible for the Lessona DOC, despite its fruit being grown entirely within Lessona. (This is the cue for savvy buyers to look a little closer at this bargain-priced wine that drinks as well as many wines bottled under this appellation.) Fabio’s wines are a favorite among our wholesale staff so it’s often hard to keep them in stock, especially given that we are allocated fewer than a hundred cases of all of his wines for the entire US. The overall style is one of finesse over power, a combination of the sandy volcanic soils of Lessona and Fabio’s stylistic preferences. Vallelonga is made entirely from Nebbiolo with extremely serious trim and represents one of the top values in the region. Zambolin’s Costa della Sesia “Feldo” is a field blend of old-vine Nebbiolo, Vespolina and Croatina, and it flies out of stock upon arrival. I never imagined that a blended Piemontese wine without a dominant grape variety would be one of our top sellers, but Feldo has proven me wrong with every delivery, and I don’t expect anything different this time. It has gobs of festive aromas and flavors (at least compared to other wines in an area known for often producing more solemn, strict wines in their youth), with not a single dash of pretension—it’s well-made Northern Italian glou glou. Rustic and playful flavors evoke those of an ancient Italian festive culture and are perfect for full-flavored food, like cured ham, braised meat, pasta, and pizza. There’s a lot of seriousness tucked in there too—no surprise considering the perfectionism with which Fabio organically farms his vineyards and his meticulous work in the cellar.  When I am able to finally unplug myself from the unusually high quantity of new producer profiles I need to write for our website, I will get to the left bank of Chablis, along with dozens of other videos I plan to create from the drone footage I shot on my two-month trek through Europe, which only really missed the Loire Valley and Central and Southern Italy. Ioppa's Santa Fé Ghemme vineyard with the Alps in the background Ioppa - Ghemme, Alto Piemonte Since the first day we started to import Ioppa, the 2016 vintage of single-vineyard Ghemmes were greatly anticipated. 2016 marked the first year of their collaboration with Cristiano Garella, a Piemontese enologist with a knack for slight alterations in philosophy, cellar work and final blend decisions that can significantly improve a wine. Interestingly, I used to sell Ioppa’s wines back at the beginning of my import/distribution career in 2008 and 2009 when the wines were imported by a progressive Italian importer of the time, Matthew Fioretti, through his company, Summa Vitis. I visited the cantina in 2009 and I would’ve never guessed that almost a decade later I would be importing the wines myself. The first vintages we brought in from their crus, Balsina and Santa Fé, were 2012s, wines that were built to show their best at least a decade after their vintage date. Cristiano had a hand in finishing them and they and the 2013s are just now beginning to open up. Ioppa turned a corner starting with the 2015s, moving away from a bigger, more tannic style that, when young, required food, to wines with more immediate accessibility that at the same time are still very ageable. The cantina also began conversion to organic farming around that time, which also seems to have softened the overall impression of their entire range. Ioppa’s 2015 Ghemme is simply wonderful, and six years after the vintage date the tannins are softening and this alpine Nebbiolo beauty is expressive immediately upon opening. The 2016 Ghemme DOC is the same overall quality as the 2015 that just arrived, but will come in next year. This Ghemme is composed of 85% Nebbiolo and 15% Vespolina and is aged for 48 months in 25-30hl Slavonian oak botte. The single-cru 2016 Ghemmes, Santa Fé and Balsina, are stunning. I tasted them this summer at the cantina with Andrea Ioppa, the eldest of the family’s progressive generation of thirtysomethings, and Cristiano. The results between the two were simply stunning. With the proper time given after pulling the corks, they will greatly reward the patient drinker. And with even more patience for cellaring, there is no doubt that they will last decades, improving along the way.  The majority of the most important Alto Piemonte wine regions are set upon igneous rocks in geological origin (Bramaterra, Boca and Gattinara on the volcanic porphyry, and Lessona on volcanic sand), while Ghemme is mostly alluvium. However, not all alluvium is the same. Ghemme’s unusual bedrock mostly consists of incredibly friable granite cobbles brought in from the Alps by way of both glacier and river. These rocks, or what appear to be rock, can be crushed into sand with a gentle squeeze of your hand. This granite sand and completely decomposed bedrock is one of the keys that elevates Ioppa’s wines to higher tones. It’s more present in the topsoil of the Balsina vineyard which makes the more elegant of the two cru wines. Mostly composed of iron-rich clay topsoil, Santa Fé is more muscular and has deeper balsamic notes. But in the case of the Ioppa’s vineyards, no matter what lies on top, they all rest on granitic alluvium bedrock. If Santa Fé is brutish power and earth, Balsina is elegant power and plays slightly more in the ethereal realm. For the collectors and cellar builders, you might not want to take Balsina without Santa Fé. They are a match that shows greater strength together. Both of these Ghemme wines are composed of 85% Nebbiolo and 15% Vespolina, and are aged for 48 months in 25-30hl Slavonian oak botte. Lastly, an unexpected thriller is Ioppa’s Vespolina “Mauletta”, which I tasted this summer along with the 2016 cru wines. It was the wine of the day for me among Ioppa’s power quartet of 2015 and 2016 Ghemme DOC wines, and 2016 Balsina and Santa Fé. However, it didn’t take the day because it was the best, it was simply the most stunning because I’ve never had a pure Vespolina wine of this caliber. Vespolina is a fabulous grape credited as contributing genetic parent material to the Nebbiolo. In recent years there’s been new focus on this ancient variety; much has been discovered about how to manage it in the cellar, and few have more experience vinifying it than their enologist, Cristiano Garella. Cristiano, Andrea and the other Ioppa boys, Luca and Marco, truly unlocked the key to this noble variety with their 2016 Mauletta. The answer for working around Vespolina’s often green tannins when the rest of the grape is phenolically ripe is simply to vinify it for a shorter time in the cellar separate from Nebbiolo instead of co-fermenting them together, followed by 48 months in botte to further sculpt it through a slow maturation. When Vespolina hits its balanced ripeness, its tannins are still green, so shorter fermentations may be preferred while extremely long ones often significantly reduce the impact of the wine’s primary fruit. Ioppa plays it in the middle with eighteen to twenty days on the skins and the 2016 Mauletta is a breakthrough performance and should not be missed by anyone interested in Piemontese wines. Monte Vulture, Basilicata's extinct volcano Madonna delle Grazie - Basilicata, Italy Madonna delle Grazie’s entry-level Basilicata Aglianico wines, Messer Oto and Liscone, are some of the most sought after in our portfolio for restaurant by-the-glass programs. Since the first wines were imported five years ago, they were immediately scooped up by the half-pallet by many of our top restaurants. The Latoracca family, with their extremely astute and well-educated sons, Paolo and Michele, in the cellar and in the vineyard with their father, Giuseppe, were relatively new wine producers that started bottling their own wines only fifteen years ago but have been growing grapes for generations. Initially, they simply couldn’t keep up with our demand—mostly because Immacolata (Irma), aka mamma, couldn’t hand label every bottle herself fast enough. These days, they’ve given Irma a break with a new labeling machine, and our ability to get stock on a larger scale is easier, despite the massive port delays. (Though these wines were supposed to arrive three months ago!) I snuck down into the cellar for a shot while Irma was hand labeling bottles. So cute! The two-hectare parcel of Aglianico that makes up the 2017 Messer Oto comes from the family’s youngest vineyards in Venosa’s Fiano di Camera district, inside the Aglianico del Vulture DOC in southeastern Italy. A location 420 meters above sea level on volcanic soils full of limestones bears this highly expressive and bright wine. The grapes are a massale selection of small berries with more polyphenols in the skin, which brings more color to this wine. These grapes are usually picked in the middle of October and are the first in for red wine production. Climatically it is the same as the other vineyards in their range, but the soils are better drained which results in earlier ripening than the Liscone, Bauccio and Drogone, all with richer volcanic clay soils. Raised in stainless steel, Messer Oto is a charmer and perhaps their most versatile wine, able to appeal to a broad range of wine lovers. The aging in steel preserves the wine's aromas and freshness, revealing impressive levels of bright acidity, earthiness, and an ethereal nose filled with red and purple fruit.  Paolo Latoracca paid us many visits during our year in Salerno While Madonna delle Grazie's Agliancio del Vulture 2016 Liscone is the second Agliancio in the cantina's range of reds, it can easily rival many cantinas’ top wines. It’s very serious wine with equal charm and punches so far above its weight class it seems silly for the price. (I’ve told as much to the Latoracca family, followed by tongue-in-cheek threats to dissuade them from increasing it!) Liscone is made from thirty-plus-year-old vines that sit at 430 meters. Three kilometers away from Messer Oto, it’s harvested a week later at the end of October because its soil is richer in volcanic rock-derived clay, not because the temperature is dramatically different. The plants are ancient biotypes different from Messer Oto and have larger berries and clusters because of the great water retention of its clay soil. The average yield here is 50-55hl/ha (70-80 quintale; ~2.8tons/acre). Grown in a sub-parcel of the Liscone vineyard, the grapes for 2015 Bauccio are grown entirely on black volcanic clay with a soft volcanic tuff layer about 60-70cm below the surface. Tuff is a combination of sand compacted with pyroclastic material, and each volcanic region and subzone has its own combination of minerals and bedrock structure. In contrast to sections used for their Liscone bottling, the topsoil here has little to no tuff in its black volcanic clay topsoil. Despite growing beside all the vines for Liscone, it takes a week or so longer to ripen due to the topsoil depth and the temperature influence of the nearby creek. A perfect marriage of volcanic and Aglianico flavors, Bauccio will age effortlessly for decades while maintaining very good accessibility in its youth. The grapes are picked at the end of October and if the ripeness is not there, its grapes are blended into Liscone, which has a shorter fermentation that doesn’t extract hard tannins. Bauccio is a noble wine with a fine balance of Aglianico power and elegance with both dark and bright fruit and savory characteristics. Every wine in every price level from Madonna della Grazie presents as good a value as can be found the world over, and Bauccio in a mid-range price is no exception. From a classically styled wine standpoint, Madonna delle Grazie’s 2013 Drogone d'Altavilla takes its place at the top with the best of all we have to offer in our portfolio. The 2013 checks the boxes of a great wine: impeccable balance, powerful yet refined, both gritty and suave, a deep well with elevated lift, and enjoyable young but destined to grow old with grace and polished nuance. It's made only in the best years when the Liscone vineyard's oldest vines find optimal ripeness. Usually it’s blended into Bauccio or Liscone on other years, and the only vintages bottled thus far have been 2003, ‘04, ’07, ’09, ’13, and ’15. What makes Drogone special is a combination of vine age (planted around 1960) and its genetic makeup. It’s a unique massal selection of Aglianico with a more compact cluster and more red than black tinted grapes. The deciding factor each year if Drogone is bottled is whether this extremely late-ripening ancient cultivar achieves the extra phenolic maturity to properly ripen the seeds to withstand its 40-45 days of fermentation without the tannins overwhelming the wine. For this length of time, the Latoracca’s need the seeds to be perfectly ripe, or the tannins may be slightly too coarse for what they expect out of a wine that will take the top spot in their range over Bauccio. Paolo, the winemaker of the family, explained that it has little to do with the concept of whether it is a “great” vintage or not, but only if the seeds can reach maturity in that last week on the vine, which is usually harvested the first week of November. Drogone is made the same in the cellar as Bauccio, except for the additional time of the post-fermentation maceration on the skins. Drogone remains one of the great wines in our portfolio. It’s a big win for me on authenticity and emotional value and transports me straight back to the Basilicata into the view of Monte Vulture, the extinct volcano that gave dramatic birth to this rich land with its black and beige volcanic soils, and the Latoracca’s bountiful vineyards. Drogone tastes, smells, and feels like this ancient land whose vinous history is as old as any in Europe, all with the added touch of the heart-warming spirit and generosity of the Latoracca family. During this unique moment in history, we greatly expanded into Iberia and picked up a few other producers in Italy, France and Germany along the way. Many of our new producers are not even close to arriving and I wanted to play them close to my chest until they got to the States because I’ve had bad experiences where people changed their minds and pulled out after we had already started to promote them. But given that this month all our new arrivals were already covered over the last two monthly newsletters, it’s a good opportunity to talk about some great new things in the market, and what’s more exciting than that? Many of Venosa's streets in this ancient village's centro storico are paved with massive slabs of black volcanic and white limestone rock found throughout the area.

That question again... Is it possible by taste to assess what type of bedrock and soil a wine comes from? I am aware that extensive, abstract or technical wine writing doesn’t usually sell wine, but I don’t care. I view short, oversimplified marketing strategies with catchy, punchy and clever comic book-style writing too short and shallow, word salads that don’t mean much, only intended to attract attention. I prefer the longer form with wine because wine is not a small subject, unless you are a beginner or just drink it because you like it and nothing more; I wish sometimes I could do that too! Short form writing is the same as a quick wine tasting, while the long form is the exploration of wine as one drinks a bottle and really digs in. Many of you subscribe to us because we sell delicious wines made with sound philosophy, practice and a lot of heart, but also because we continue to adventure deeply into the conversation of this utterly fascinating subject. With this offer, I want to share something with you that (like many others in our field) I can’t seem to get enough of. That is, the search for clues to the currently not fully understood organoleptic link between wine and the composition of its bedrock and topsoil. Science can’t yet explain all the processes for what makes a wine taste the way it does, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t possibilities to be considered; we just haven’t found the answers to everything yet. But when we do find answers, will it diminish the thrilling mystery of wine? When one mystery is solved, another will inevitably emerge. So we’re safe to share our ideas outloud, even if they are not completely right; exploration and searching are always at least half the fun! In what I hope will be the first in a series of offers that follow a specific theme, today we focus on wines that grow on landscapes developed more than three hundred million years ago. They come from a world we would hardly recognize today, a time long before the dinosaurs: The Pangaean Era. A Short Preface to the Wines Each of these wines comes from land formed in what geologists refer to as the Variscan orogeny. This mountain building event took place 370 million to 290 million years ago and formed an ancient chain of mountains that connected North America to Eastern Europe and were likely comparable in size to today’s Himalayas. Now they are squat, rounded and extremely short by comparison after hundreds of millions of years of erosion. These mountains were formed during the collision of two supercontinents, Gondwana and Laurussia, and once connected they formed Earth’s last supercontinent, Pangaea. The remnants of this ancient belt-like chain of mountains is connected to today’s ten wines that come from Spain and Portugal’s Iberian Massif, France’s Armorican and Central Massifs, as well as central and eastern Europe’s Bohemian Massif. All of the land that separates these massifs today developed over the last two-hundred million years as Pangaea broke apart and the Earth’s seven continents drifted to where they today. There is no doubt that a wine’s bedrock and soil composition influences certain elements of taste. We can start with the soil’s grain size, meaning whether it’s clay, silt, sand, gravel or a mix. This aspect of the soil imparts a different shape to the wine, which we sometimes describe somewhere between angular and round, or vertical and horizontal. It’s commonly accepted that sandier soils typically veer wines toward elegance and lift, where clay-rich soils make them more broad and muscular. This is an influence of soil grain, not as much as what the soil is derived from. A wine’s palate-weight and the strength of where it finishes with the most intensity and length appears to be more often associated with its bedrock and soil composition, especially if there is a particularly dominant rock type, like a limestone, granite, schist or slate. This is where we will focus on in this somewhat short essay. With today’s current trend of less is more in the cellar, the perception of these characteristic traits from specific rock types has become even more evident to those who spend time observing this particular characteristic of a wine. Indeed this seems like some seriously advanced wine assessment, but once the concept is grasped, it’s digestible. Don’t worry, you’re going to get this. That said, there is one little tedious technical detail that needs to be addressed before we get started. That is that there are two basic categories of igneous rock: intrusive and extrusive. Both were once liquid magma, but an intrusive rock slowly cooled below the earth’s surface, while an extrusive rock was expelled by volcanoes and cooled on the earth’s surface quickly in minutes, hours or days. The resulting wines from these two igneous rock types are extremely different, and volcanic wines have been excluded from today’s conversation, because most volcanic rock on the earth’s continental crust appeared there after the time of Pangaea, and it tends to influence wines quite differently than intrusive igneous rocks, like a granite or gabbro. Finally the Wines! Intrusive Igneous Rock Whites Our first wine is close to home—literally… I live about ten minutes from Quinta do Ameal, which sits along the Lima River in Portugal, a magical place where our dream to live in Portugal started. Ameal’s Pangaean connection is the Iberian Massif, and we are located in the far northwestern area of Portugal, inside the Lima Valley of the Vinho Verde, the latter is Portugal’s coldest wine region, and the former it’s coldest subzone. The bedrock and topsoil at Ameal is 100% granite, an intrusive igneous rock. Granite wines are almost always front loaded in the palate, no matter where they’re from. And you can especially feel this palate pressure about fifteen seconds after you swallow the wine and observe the finish. Granite imparts elegance to its wines and a lot of salty freshness too, which this wine has in spades. This is especially useful for grapes with naturally high acidity, like Loureiro, which constitutes the entirety of this wine. I’ve drunk my way through a lot of Portugal and quite a few of its good restaurants and have asked sommeliers and waiters for their suggestion on wines from the Vinho Verde region just to see what they have to say. Without exaggeration, if Quinta do Ameal is on the list, it is always recommended; and for the price and versatility it always wins. At Ameal, everything is carefully controlled and organically farmed. This wine is raised exclusively in stainless steel and goes with almost any kind of food, especially seafood, fish and full-flavored pork dishes— barbeque included. And it’s a wine for absolutely any occasion. There are only a few vineyard rocks I’ve held that are as heavy and hard as the gabbro found at Morandière's Muscadet vineyards, in the Loire Valley’s furthest west major region. Gabbro is an igneous rock, like granite, that was formed underground before it was plunged to the surface hundreds of millions of years ago with tectonic movements. By sight, the gabbro in his vineyard has a slightly green/grey cast and sometimes some faded white splotches. What it delivers to the wine is a tremendously dense core and front palate power on the finish, similar to what granite imparts. Muscadet is a cold region and is part of France’s Armorican Massif, named after pre-Pangaean mash up when Gondwana and Laurussia played a rough game of bumper plate tectonics with the smaller floating continent Armorica sandwiched in the middle, forming a long, crumpled up, snake-like mountain range. During this period the vineyard land of Muscadet used to be connected by land to the Vinho Verde, through northern Iberia, and there are similarities between the way these wines feel—especially in the palate aftermath once you’ve swallowed the wine. The grapes from these regions are very different; both are super fresh, but the Loureiro is extremely lithe but angular, while the Melon de Bourgogne, the grape in Muscadet, often carries more density, texture and deep mineral and metal characteristics; but the mark of their similar bedrocks is evident, leaving pressure on the front palate of the finish. Metamorphic Rock Whites The Bohemian Massif, another Variscan remnant, is what makes Austria’s Wachau river gorge special. The Danube River carved out this narrow, picturesque gorge now covered in steeply terraced vineyards atop soft, short riverbanks filled with vines and small villages. If it weren’t for the Danube slicing through this area, it would be a very different geological setting—a continuation of the relatively flat plateau covered in forest next to the Pannonian plain toward the east. The Danube exposed, gneiss, a beautiful metamorphic motherrock with colorful earthtone mineral bands that give the impression of a bunch of strings bunched up, compressed together and turned into rock. Tegernseerhof's Superin vineyard is planted to Grüner Veltliner and sits just next to the Danube, though not on a terrace. It’s in a unique position compared to other vineyards down by the river in that it's butted up against a hard gneiss outcrop that the village, Durnstein, was built on. As the river rushed by, it stripped the topsoil from the rock, leaving a shallow covering of river sediments on top of this gneiss bedrock. Here, in classic Tegernseerhof style (mineral, crystalline and pure), we jump into the metamorphic wine world. Unlike the first two wines, this one digs deeper in a way that, as the famous Chilean soil scientist, Pedro Parra, says: “it drills into your back palate.” While the igneous rock wines hits hard and continues to weigh heavily on the front palate after the wine is gulped down, here it rests on the side and back palate, often leaving the mid- and front-palate finish nearly non-existent by comparison to what an intrusive igneous rock imparts. Continuing on with another metamorphic white wine, we jump back over to the Armorican Massif, not too far east of Muscadet, and into likely the oldest exposed rock formation in France—at least according to Patrick Baudouin, the maker of this wine who, like me, spends a lot of time shooting the breeze about minerals, smashing rocks and sipping wines with geologists and asking too many questions. Here we find some pretty nice schist, a metamorphic rock formation about five hundred million years old. Baudouin's Coteaux du Layon "Les Croix" is an organically farmed vineyard within a complex valley stitched together with a wide variety of rock formations, largely from volcanic and metamorphic origin. I don’t know what it is with these metamorphic rocks, but they also make wines especially salty and with strong impressions of metal even more than mineral; the grape, Chenin Blanc, is a fabulous transmitter of terroir and really lets these features fly. Put a Baudouin Chenin from the Layon or Savennières, next to a Chenin grown on a limestone terroir just toward the east, in Saumur, and if you don’t know Chenin well, you may not believe that they are even the same grape, let alone grown so close to each other. Like other wines grown on metamorphic bedrock and soil, Patty’s salty and fresh Les Croix drills into the back and side of the palate, especially on the finish, somehow leaving you quenched while at the same time still wanting your next sip. Intrusive Igneous and Metamorphic Rock White Last for the whites today is the 2018 Bodegas Paraguas "Atlantico." Here we have a blend of different motherrocks, and you’re going to feel it. We’re back to the Iberian Massif, more specifically the Galician Massif in northwestern Spain, and a wine region I believe to be one of the greatest future prospects in all of Europe, the Ribeiro. Why such a seemingly cavalier claim for this mostly unknown wine region? We’ll get to the geology, but first we have to note its history as one of Spain’s most celebrated wine regions of yesteryear (the other being Rioja, which never fell out of favor) before more than a century long series of problems, listed here (in order to the best of my knowledge): powdery mildew, phylloxera, downey mildew, WWI, Spanish Civil War, dictatorship, WWII, continued dictatorship, post-war industrialization and the abandonment of the countryside by poor farmers in search of work within nearby bigger cities. From a geological standpoint, the Ribeiro has no limits to its potential with its blend of a wide range of metamorphic and igneous rocks. And in the three parcels that make up this wine we have a blend of schist and granite. Taking into account where these wines strike and remain with pressure on the palate (intrusive igneous in the front, metamorphic in the back and on the sides) you can imagine the level of impression on this wine. It’s more diverse but still strong on the palate, making for a wine with more dimension in some ways than the others. That doesn’t make it better, it just makes it different and perhaps more full and rounded, and without dominance of either schist or granite. The primary grape here is Treixadura, one that lends itself to more richness and softer acidity. I guess one could say it’s kind of like the Chardonnay of Galicia, but if it’s not managed well in the vineyard it can lose its freshness more quickly; but at Paraguas it’s done quite right and surprisingly taut for this grape. If you buy this mix of ten wines, try this one after you’ve gone through the other whites so you are more familiar with the way the individual rock categories feel in the palate before you get the one-two punch here. Intrusive Igneous & Metamorphic Rock Red Continuing on with the igneous and metamorphic vineyard mix, and because our first red is from the Ribeiro and extremely elegant, I put Cume do Avia's Colleita 6 as the starter in the lineup of reds. The vineyard for this wine is not far from Paraguas, deep inside the Galician Massif. As mentioned in the last white, many factors are at play in the Ribeiro. But there is also the proximity of the land to the Atlantic, the constant whistle of fierce winds that bring in fresh air and help grapes to stay somewhat dry in this pest-rich environment. And of course, there is the richness in diversity of the bedrock and topsoil composition. The bedrock and topsoil in Cume do Avia’s vineyards add great breadth to their wines and from one meter to the next they can quickly alternate. Here you’ll find a kaleidoscope of different intrusive igneous rock, metamorphic schist and slate. The soil grain is equally diverse and randomly shifts back and forth between sand and clay. The soils are dark orange, white or brown, depending on the mineral makeup. It’s an extremely complex area within only twenty-two acres. What is incredible about this wine made principally from the grapes Brancellao, Caiño Longo and Souson, is that it is so sleek, elegant and low in alcohol (11%) and looks like it won’t feel or taste like anything, but nothing could be further from the truth. When this wine hits your palate, and the weight of all we spoke about—the front palate from the intrusive igneous rock, the side and middle of the metamorphic rock, and now all the different grains of soil from sand to clay—flood the palate with an unexpected weight and pressure, like you have a mouthful of buckshot (the small metal balls inside shotgun shells) resting on all points of your mouth with the added electricity that metal brings to the tongue. It’s really quite fascinating how this level of complexity happens with such a humbly-priced wine, but for me these elements point to the rock medley the grapes are grown in. Metamorphic Rock Reds We have two wines on this offer from Breogan Rodriguez, the one-man show at Terra Brava. Breo’s wines come from three hectares of steeply terraced vineyards in the Amandi sub-region of Galicia’s Ribeira Sacra, on Spain’s ancient Galician Massif. The vines face south and southwest on shallow decomposed gneiss and slate terraces with topsoil derived from the bedrock and kept in place by the terraces. Cool air from the Atlantic and warm air from the Mediterranean influences the climate, creating a tug of war that usually brings beautiful balance to the growing season. However, this is extreme wine country in every way—hot summer days, cold nights, heavy rains, unexpected hailstorms in the summer, etc. And it’s the most fun place to bring someone who hasn’t been there before to hear the gasps and oohs and ahhs as you drop into the gorge from seemingly a mildly hilly country road—just like many of the entry points to Germany’s Mosel River Valley. It’s an impressive place and it’s impossible to capture the literally breathtaking intensity of it in a photo. I admire Breo and his fine craftwork in the cellar and organic practice in this extreme and sometimes brutally harsh work environment. Terra Brava's "Xastre" could easily be mistaken for a wine from France’s Northern Rhône in taste, were it not for this mix of indigenous Galician grapes that bring their unique stamp unlike any others outside this part of the Iberian Peninsula. This is no surprise because most (some would say all) of the best vineyards in the Northern Rhône Valley are remnants of Pangaea's Variscan mountains. They share a similar geological history and makeup, with their intrusive igneous and metamorphic rocks. This wine, made of 85% Mencia, is seductive with fresh berry and earthy nuances along with a natural propensity for being a strong transmitter of mineral and metal impressions, associated with the bedrock it's grown in. The textural grit is expansive and the pressure of the finish is clearly weighted in the back and side palate on the finish. The next wine is the Terra Brava "Lagar do Breo." It’s made with 95% Caiño Longo, an indigenous grape specific to this area of the Iberian Peninsula that will catch your full attention with the first taste. It can be freakishly acidic for a red wine, but it delivers a full range of complexity that is undeniably noble, and somehow balanced. This must be the most overlooked mega-talent on the list of the world’s great grapes, at least from what I’ve tasted. I guess one could criticize Caiño Longo for not being so subtle, but the wine as a whole can be layered for days and may in the future stand tall next to the world’s elite grapes. There is some kind of beautiful rage inside Caiño Longo and its naturally high acidity hums like an overhead power line, much like a Chenin Blanc from the hill of Brézé, in France’s Loire Valley. And, like a great Côte Rôtie or Cornas that shares some likeness to this wine, you must take your time to see all it has to offer, and you surely will have the same effect on the finish of the wine's mid and back palate. There are layers and layers to discover here and given that there are so few wines made with almost 100% Caiño Longo, it would be a waste (but not entirely) to gulp it down and not give it the time to fly as high as it will go. Finally, we jump to Beaujolais. We are now entering France’s Massif Central, home to so many great wines of France. I saved Thevenet for last in the discussion because of the power of the 2015 vintage. Sure, 2015 has its detractors because of this power, but when we speak about balance, it can exist on all levels, whether gentle and soft, or brutally strong. 2015 Beaujolais is no exception to this. It is indeed a vintage of impressively high natural acidity and higher alcohol than usual, but it also has a profound well of complexity that could help its wines ride as far and long as any vintage before it. The detractors? They are mostly Beaujolais drinkers newer to the game in search of wines that must be under 13% alcohol to be worthy of their appreciation. Sadly, this perspective pretty much shuts the door on many of the world’s epic red wine regions. Wine’s diversity, not its uniformity, is what keeps it interesting. So, we finish with two Gamay wines in Beaujolais grown not more than a few kilometers away from each other, same grape, weather, vinification in old oak barrels, cellar aging, low SO2 regimen and organic farming, but different bedrock and dirt. I’ve not found greater confusion about the geological composition of any other famous wine spot than the Côte du Py. I’ve been on the hill with the geologist Brenna Quigley, talked with winegrowers, looked at everything I can find on the Internet with very little consensus. There are a lot of different explanations that include igneous intrusive or extrusive (volcanic) rock, and metamorphic rock; it’s most often referred to as either a schist (metamorphic rock) or andesite (an extrusive igneous rock, so a volcanic rock formation). Recently I asked Brenna what her general conclusion is for the Côte du Py. Her safe bet is to say that it is likely a mix of meta-diorite (the "blue granite" people refer to), meta-basalt and likely some granite; so likely dominated by metamorphic rock. The Côte du Py is a rounded, freestanding lump of a hill with these rocks scattered about ranging in color from orange to light and dark shades of teal. Important to note is that whatever the rock is, it's incredibly hard and the vineyards are often spare in topsoil, making for straight and powerful wines with more defined lines and a deeper core concentration than what is typically found from wines grown in granite. Wines grown on metamorphic bedrock showcase pronounced unique stony, mineral and deeply metal nuances in the aroma, taste and texture. The most palate impact with this wine rendered from 80+ year old vines is to be found toward the back and sides of the mouth—in the palate it has always felt more like a meta wine to me. Intrusive Igneous Rock Red There is no doubt whatsoever that granite completely dominates Thevenet's Morgon Vieilles Vignes vineyards. The mix comes mostly from vineyards in Douby, with semi-coarse, shallow topsoil and exposed bedrock on the north side of Morgon between the Côte du Py and Fleurie; and the lieu-dit, Courcelette, where his parcel is on soft, coarse beach-like granite sands. Much of these vineyards are on gently sloping aspects ranging from southeast to southwest. There are also rocky sections where the bedrock pokes out, but generally the vineyards are fine-grained to coarse sands. This leads to wines that exhibit elegance and subtlety, but are endowed with great length and complexity from its ancient vines that range between 85-150+ years old. If you’ve read this entire essay on these wines, it may seem redundant to say that you can expect a little bomb on the front palate and remains strong for a good length on the finish. That concludes this extremely oversimplified (though complex) idea that I have observed and discussed at length with wine lovers, wine specialists and scientists, for quite a few years now. I hope you enjoyed it and take the leap to give these wines a swirl. Thanks to MSc in Geology, Ivan Rodriguez, for his assistance on the geological story of Pangaea and the Variscan orogeny.

We just wrapped on a two-week tour in California with our talented new Barolo winegrower Giovanna Bagnasco, from Agricola Brandini. It was a great first showing for us with their wines, and the best is yet to come! She and her sister, Serena, took the reins in 2015 and quickly recalibrated their style to one of even greater fluidity and elegance. While many other producers are releasing their exciting 2019s, Brandini is selling their 2017 and 2018 Barolos, both undervalued vintages that show this duo’s versatility and thoughtful approach to these two very different years. We have another star Italian winegrower to introduce. One from deep into the outskirts of Italian wine country, a place to which no one accidentally arrives: Calabria! Friendly importer Olivier Rochelois, from Petit Monde Wine, in Oregon and Washington, rang me last year to know if I would be interested in a range of esoteric but extraordinary wines. Sergio Arcuri’s Cirò wines are densely cultural and emotionally packed, even if they are extremely elegant, quasi-rustic wines. My first moments with his two Cirò red wines were enchanting, so intriguing that ten minutes quickly passed before I was able to finally move from the aromas to take a taste, the latter of which certainly held up its end of the deal. Some people in California are already familiar with Sergio Arcuri’s range of Cirò wines made from Gaglioppo. This grape, especially suited to the calcareous clay soils grown only paces from the Tyrrhenian Sea, has been celebrated since Roman times and used as an Olympic Games celebratory wine for the champions. Yet, in more recent decades it’s been nearly forgotten. Sergio and his Cirò colleagues at the Cirò Revolution have begun to reestablish Gaglioppo and its mighty potential. I tried to keep the narrative of my recent profile on him short, but the joy of a new personal wine discovery in an unfamiliar territory, one led by clearly one of Italy’s super-grapes, Gaglioppo, made it impossible to cut it further. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed the adventure in Calabria with Sergio, the filming, the research, the collaboration, and the writing. New Producer Sergio Arcuri Cirò, Calabria “People should feel something unique though traditional with my Gaglioppo wines, but far away from the standard wines they drink. Some have written to me that there is a fury and energy in my wines, and I want people to discuss and even argue to better understand them.” – Sergio Arcuri With two glasses cleared of all but the remains of the Gaglioppo primers and a freshly poured two ounces, ten mesmerizing minutes passed as I sniffed and pondered the meaning of wine before the spell broke and I finally took a taste. “But can the taste compete with this nose?” I thought. The aromas were so enticing that I didn’t want to risk downgrading the experience, because they had set such high expectations. Once I tasted them, both revealed polish and subtlety, depth and affability akin to the world’s most beguiling wines. Perfectly imperfect, Sergio Arcuri’s bottled art effortlessly flowed with intention and artistic signature tailored to the strengths of Galioppo’s individuality, highlighting its terroir with clarity: wafts of iron, blood, salt, and earth; boundless hills of dry grasses, sunbaked and pungent resinous plants and flowers, parched orange blossoms and dried peels, Persian mulberry and microscopic, sweltering wild strawberries, salty sea breezes dancing with hot, dry winds. Pale and rust-tinged garnet reds, Aris, the younger, is darker, punchier, coarser, and the Più Vite is the elder: wiser, more nuanced, and refined. Both express the Gaglioppo’s mercurial nose and deep interior well, with naturally forceful tannins that quickly melt away in the glass. Sergio Arcuri One of History’s Greats It rolls playfully off the tongue: Gall-ye-ohhp-po—long A, quick ye-ohhp, hesitation mid-P, and a little pop before the O. Though relatively unknown, Gaglioppo seems to this taster to be a serious contender for one of the future great red wines of Italy, and Sergio Arcuri is already making noticeable waves —at least to those who know his wines. Through the wines of Sergio and other Cirò revolutionaries, like Francesco Maria de Franco, from A Vita, Gaglioppo adds a Calabrian link to the chain of Italian super-grapes that start in the north with Nebbiolo and drop into central Italy’s Sangiovese and Aglianico regions, just before crossing the Messina Strait into Sicily with Nerello Mascalese, one must pass close through Calabria’s Gaglioppo country. It may be a surprise to drop this relatively obscure grape into the hat with these vinous juggernauts, but the potential for sublime balance of finesse and power is there—even if fewer examples exist than with other super-varietals. Some grapes in certain terroirs simply have what it takes, and Gaglioppo is definitely one of them. If the past has anything to contribute to this perspective, the future looks good for Cirò’s Gaglioppo as it was once highly respected and one of Italy’s most important wines all the way back to the Romans, as was the neighboring DOC, Melissa. (Imagine what kind of resilience a wine needed to travel from Cirò to Rome two thousand years ago!) Despite being nearly forgotten, Galioppo has always been and will remain one of the longest-standing, unshakable pillars of Italian red wine—the last great gladiator in the coliseum. In the face of climate change, its ability to thrive in the dry and hot conditions in Cirò is the vote for longevity of this ancient style. It appears that conditions haven’t and won’t change as much as in other top-quality regions, and Sergio says that the alcohol levels today are more or less what they were decades ago. While it’s hard for the most celebrated historical continental climate wines to maintain lower alcohols and the freshness of the past (areas like Wachau, Langhe, Burgundy, Rioja) Sergio says that Gaglioppo hasn’t changed much over the years except that budbreak can come a little earlier, and he even insists this is not definitive. And of course, it’s not at all a continental climate; some of Sergio’s vines are ten steps from the beach. Extremely susceptible to mildew pressure because of its thin skins, Gaglippo’s ideal home for millennia has been on this arid Ionian seaside stretch of hills and beachfront property. Google Earth Map Because of the Sirocco winds that cross the Mediterranean from the Sahara and the northern Tramontane winds that pass through the dry Basilicata directly north, combined with the Sila Massif to the west, there are years where no treatments for mildew are needed. Having no foreign inputs into the vineyards at all is as natural as farming gets! When there is the rare high mildew pressure year, Sergio says they apply one or two treatments maximum, and only in specific plots, not the entirety of his vineyards. He explains that those not practicing quality farming, even the worst of them, spray only as much as six times in a season—lower than most famous wine regions, and half that of what many organic vineyards in other regions require. Gaglioppo’s potential for greatness lies in its genetic material and its perfect situation in Cirò. There are many different claims to its genetic relations, which include Sangiovese, Aglianico, Nerello Mascalese and Frapatto as offspring or parent—three of the four named superstar Italian grapes. Yet it has the most in common with Nebbiolo: naturally paler color, fresh acidity, big tannins (if they’re not tamed), and incredible durability that could match history’s superstar wines. So, what’s holding it back from the big game? Perhaps the first hurdle could be Calabria itself. The Shackles of Calabria Calabria is the poorest department among Italy’s twenty. It was last place in GDP per capita as of 2017, and not much has likely changed. But one might say that parts of Piemonte, including the Langhe, were also at rock bottom before Barolo and Barbaresco led the entire region to world celebrity and immense wealth. Could Cirò do the same? The financial incentive to make great wine in Calabria is low, and the consumers of these wines, crafted with quality over quantity, are not local—they aren’t even in Italy. They’re in Northern Europe, or overseas in markets such as that of the US. Calabria is also at the end of the Italian peninsula, so no one passes through on their way to somewhere else. It was a maritime crossroads centuries ago, but by car it’s a slog, and any European flight not originating from Rome can be a day of travel to one of its small airports. To get to this ancient, chaotic civilization on the southern fringe of Italy, you must want to be there. Sergio was born in Cirò Marina in July of 1971, two years after the Cirò DOC was created—one of the first in Italy, along with today’s greats, like Barolo and Brunello di Montalcino (the latter two eventually became DOCGs in 1980 with the G upgrade). He grew up making traditional Cirò with his father, “Since he was three,” he says, and from early on he knew he wanted to make wine. “It was always in my head, even when I was busy with other work.” At age 38, after working some years in Sardinia and Milan (though never missing a harvest in Cirò), he came to a point where he knew he had to make the leap back home to follow his calling. He bottled his first vintage in 2009, commercialized his first rosato in 2010 and rosso in 2011. Today he leads the family’s winemaking and vineyard efforts with his brother and nephew. As we walk out of Sergio’s dimly lit cul-de-sac onto Via Roma (SP5) that’s a straight shot down to the marina before hanging a right to the south, he glides through the chaos like a summer breeze, or like water, at the rapid pace of this central Napoli-esque village. It’s cinematic, almost exaggerated in its setting, with people from central casting in their places. Action! Pedestrians swarm in the dimly lit streets (crosswalk anyone?), cars zip by (if you don’t walk in front to get them to slow down to cross you’ll be on that corner all night!), old Italian guys huddle outside snacking, smoking, drinking, talking. You also feel others watching you but you don’t see them; Calabria, is one of Italy’s most notorious mafia hothouses, so everyone has eyes in the back of their head. As Sergio’s arms and hands gesticulate wildly in the national language of the body, his eyes dart around like a spy keeping watch for a KGB tail. Sergio points to the wall of buildings ahead of us as he crosses the street, his Italian being translated by his friend and our impromptu guide, Marco Salerno, a part time local winemaker living and working in public health full time in New York City—like I said, straight out of the movies. “When I was a kid, those buildings didn’t exist,” Salerno relays from Sergio. “My mother’s house was here, but all this was agricultural fields. Can you imagine that?” Cirò Marina and the surrounding residential areas were slapped together like France’s bombed-out village centers after WWII, creating one of the strangest juxtapositions of beautiful and horrific architecture in such a magical country. Except here in Cirò the buildings weren’t bombed. There was/is little money, and it desperately shows in the dilapidated buildings and ubiquitous tombstone-like, hollowed out concrete buildings half-started decades ago that uglify such gorgeous natural coastal beauty. (Don’t go to Calabria for posh accommodations, unless you know the secret spots only the locals know.) Here, it’s all about the countryside and looking into the dreamy blue and green shades of Tyrrhenian Sea on Calabria’s northside, the Ionian to the south (Cirò country), and the gorgeous ancient mountain landscape, with stretches that seem untouched by mankind, though it has been well trodden by humans since before the world’s first known alphabet. (a) Geological map of the southern Apennines-Calabria-Peloritani chain (modified after Amodio-Morelli et al., 1976 and Bonardi et al., 1988b). (b) Schematic lithospheric cross-section from Tyrrhenian Sea to Apulia (modified after Guarnieri, 2006). Cirò DOC pedological map and Sergio Arcuri’s vineyards Before Written History The mountains of Calabria are remnants of Pangea, Earth’s last supercontinent, a time when all of today’s continents were scrunched together. They’re what is referred to as the Variscans, an ancient mountain chain that once connected France’s Massif Central and Massif Armoricain, the Iberian Massif (including the Galician Massif), the Bohemian Massif, two-thirds of Corsica and almost all of Sardinia, and believe it or not, the Appalachian Mountains of the eastern US—formations that predate all the famous limestone wine regions of Western Europe by more than 100-million years. Though this ancient formation is dominant in Calabria, Cirò’s soils have very little to do with it. Cirò’s vineyards are in more recent geological deposition from between the Miocene, Pliocene, and Quaternary—23 million years ago to today. They are the same age as many wine regions, such as France’s Southern Rhône Valley (as well as parts of Crozes-Hermitage and Hermitage), Languedoc and Italy’s Langhe–-home to Barolo and Barbaresco, but they’re composed of different materials. Despite Cirò curious similarities to Nebbiolo (especially those with longer cellar aging before bottling), the depositions that make up the better soils are different, and so is the overall terroir of the Cirò DOC. Most of the vineyards of the region extend from only meters above the sea and few reach beyond three hundred to four. There are areas with higher quantities of calcareous materials than others (like Langhe), with the majority either south, southeast and west of the hilltop village, Cirò, and on a flat area above the beachfront of Cirò Marina. On the northside of Cirò, there are less calcareous materials between the two townships and the areas toward their north side—note on Google Earth (see image) where the soil is whiter toward the south (on the left side of the image) and the darker soil in the north (on the right side)—it’s as clear as brown and white! Google Earth Map The Story of Cirò, According to Sergio “The history of Cirò is very long, and viticulture in Calabria is thousands of years old. It’s not known precisely since when grapes and wine were produced, but certainly when grapes were first produced in Calabria, the rest of Italy had nothing. In fact, Calabria was named Enotria, “land of wine.” Though the Cirò DOC was born in 1969, other viticultural areas of Calabria were abandoned and many Calabrians emigrated to northern Italy and abroad. In the last decade, the recovery that started from Cirò finally began. I am one of the pioneers along with other winemakers who started bottling the real Cirò, we call the group the Cirò Revolution. Today Cirò is growing as it was in the past from 1950 to 1990, thanks to the Cirò Revolution. Even the historic cellars, the ones that made the Cirò decline in recent years, have regained their motivation and are growing. There are two visions among the producers, given that the DOC disciplinary allows the addition of 20% other grapes, including international ones, which certainly loses the true characteristics of Cirò. Most of the producers of the Cirò Revolution produce it entirely with Gaglioppo. This was the real revolution that restored vigor and interest in Cirò. The most important thing that stopped Cirò from becoming famous today like other wines regions who were also not so famous in the recent past, like Alto Piemonte, Montalcino, and even Langhe (which became more famous in the last 30-40 years) is that it does not have a specification suitable for the vine. The specification suitable for Cirò is that of Barolo, and it is often called the Barolo of Calabria: Gaglioppo gives its best after at least four years of refinement, but I prefer after six years. In the 60s and 70s Cirò was produced with a minimum of five and eight years of refinement and it had a high price and an excellent reputation, especially in Piemonte, but also in the US. After that, many cellars at the time (who are still working today) instead of continuing the path of quality, chose the path of quantity. They exploited the name Cirò but inside the bottle there was little or nothing, wines without soul, without identity, wines for large-scale, low-level distribution. After almost destroying the name Cirò, in the 90s they started producing IGP Calabria wine, highlighting the name of the winery on the label, almost ashamed of the name Cirò. Luckily the winemakers continued to produce quality Gaglioppo, and I can say with certainty that if we at the Cirò Revolution hadn’t started bottling over ten years ago, Cirò would no longer exist today.” Cirò city center facing vineyards to the south Arcuri Vineyards Sergio says that an in-depth study of the region’s terroirs has not been done, even if there is a great diversity of soil and microclimate change from area to area. The DOC was determined by the municipal boundaries of Cirò and Cirò Marina for the classic Cirò DOC, and the neighboring municipalities of Melissa and Crucoli can also make Cirò DOC, though Cirò Classicos (Classico, Classico Superiore, Classico Superiore Riserva) can only come from Cirò and Cirò Marina, which has only 490 hectares. All of Arcuri’s vineyards are inside the Classico zone. The Arcuris have made wine in Cirò since 1880, and with the knowledge passed down through the generations, they know a few things about Gaglioppo’s interaction with the various terroirs and their output. Sergio explains that the principal ingredient for high quality Gaglioppo is clay, not its visual grandeur. Clay is found throughout the entire appellation, and it’s especially deep in the flatter areas by the sea as a result of the Lipuda River delta. Often contrary to wine books and articles on Cirò, Sergio believes that wines grown on the flatter areas in deeper beds of calcareous clay make Cirò with as much–if not more–quality than those on the picturesque steep, exposed hillsides—similar to Cabernet Franc’s predilection for deeper clay topsoil in Saumur-Champigny. “There’s no need to make wines on the hills. We have the beautiful Ionian!” It’s true that the flashiest vineyards don’t always make the best wines—case in point: Côte d’Or. Most of Arcuri’s six hectares of vines are on the plain beside the sea, with the highest reaching 70m in altitude. The average vine age is thirty years old, with the oldest parcels being seventy. Sergio explains that his biotypes of Gaglioppo are not known, but all his replanting is done by massale selections from his vineyards that produce smaller bunches and the highest quality grapes. Each plot is selected based on its terroir and quality for either the rosato, rosso, or the bianco, the latter being made entirely from the indigenous grape, Greco Bianco. During the fruit ripening period, the diurnal shift in the summer ranges only about 8°C (15°F), which could be expected for this beachfront property, and the mid-fall about 12°C and late fall 15°C. The very active maritime winds in this period help to keep the grapes cool and fresh even when the temperature jumps above 40°C (104°F). The Arcuri’s have always worked their vineyards in a natural and organic way. In 2010 they began their adherence to the rules for organic certification and have been certified since 2015. Sergio is also interested in biodynamics and believes that he already practices many of the principles but hasn’t yet found how he might approach it when his vineyards already don’t need the addition of unnatural treatments to keep nature’s adversaries away from the vine. Limestone rock fragments in Cirò’s calcareous clay Lipuda Valley Gagioloppo Sergio also says that despite Gaglioppo’s brickish red color with orange reflections, it’s very stable against oxidation. It's also not prone to reductive elements, which makes it versatile with many approaches in the cellar and different styles of wine, including very good rosato. Gaglioppo’s Achilles Heel is its thin skins and the vine’s sensitivity to Peronospora and mildew, which has greatly limited its proliferation. Cirò Marina has an average of 670mm (26 inches) of rain each year, which is decent, but during the late spring and summer when the plants begin to produce chlorophyll—the food for Peronospera and mildew—it’s very dry. Between August and October, even if it rains, it’s too late for these fungi to have a big impact because the hot, dry winds clean out the vines in a heartbeat, and usually the latest picked Gaglioppo comes in at the beginning of October, before the highest amount of rainfall begins to fall. It’s good that there isn’t much rainfall during the growing season because it can have high production, and with clay as the main topsoil (key for water retention during the summer drought) the vines could produce too much for high quality wine. Gaglioppo’s skins are delicate and thin but have a lot of tannin. Sergio describes the skin tannins as elegant and velvety, and the seeds contain even more. “But you need to know how to manage maceration well and to choose the right vineyards based on the type of wine you intend to produce,” he says.  Some vineyards produce grapes most suitable for rosato or a short-fermentation maceration rosso, and those with the greatest balance of skin and seed tannin maturity should be destined for the longer vinification and aging. “Gaglioppo’s deception with wine professionals, even though it has its own personality, the color, spices, minerality, and structure expressed with long aging, think that it is aged in large barrels when its aged entirely in concrete, or glass. Many fall for it, and I don’t use any wood vats in my cellar.” One of the many concrete vats at Sergio Arcuri’s cellar The range of three Gaglioppo wines begins with the salmon pink and brick colored, pale Calabria IGP Rosato “Il Marinetto,” which comes entirely from within the Cirò DOC area and is the first fruit of the season to be picked, usually at the beginning of September. Like many rosatos made from serious materials and top tier Italian grapes, like Nebbiolo, Sangiovese and Nerello Mascalese, in body and color it’s somewhere between a classical Provençal rosé and a very light red, and in this case with Gaglioppo, always with an orange tint and fuller color, even with only three to four hours of skin maceration prior to draining off the juice; the press juice is not used because Sergio wants it to remain fine and to reduce tannin extraction from the skins. (The press juice, along with all the other quality materials excluded from each pressing of white and red grapes goes into a wine he sells to local friends.) Its maximum temperatures usually reach around 20°C but are not temperature controlled. It’s more in the style of a Valle d’Aosta Premetta (Grosjean comes to mind), some of the red and white grape rosé blends out of Portugal, or Spanish Clarete, another hybrid somewhere between red and rosé. It’s serious wine and Sergio insists that even more bottle time is beneficial despite most people wanting to drink it young because that’s what people were led to believe about rosés cleverly marketed by the French for fast turnaround on cash on their investment. Those familiar with French rosés know the best age quite well in the short term and are better with more bottle time than a few months, or even a year. Il Marinetto emits aromas of Aperol, pink lady apple skin, pink flower, orange marmalade, tamarind, peach pit, flan syrup, partially dried apricot, and sweet licorice. It’s mouthwateringly salty, and slightly tannic, and tastes of rusty red and orange fruits, peach and apricot pit and skin. It offers greater depth alongside the playfulness expected from a rosé. Because Il Marinetto doesn’t go through malolactic fermentation it’s filtered before bottling. The first and more upfront of the two Gaglioppo reds, the Cirò Rosso Riserva “Aris” is picked toward the end of September (usually a week or more before “Più Vite,”) and is produced with 40% of its grapes originating from the Piane di Franze vineyard replanted forty years ago at an altitude of 70m and in full view of the sea. Its soil is red clay, red sand, and silt, and the remaining 60% of grapes come from the Piciara vineyard with vines planted seventy years ago on calcareous clay just next to the sea at a few meters in altitude. In the cellar the wine is fermented naturally under a submerged cap with no movements/extractions of the must. After three to four days of fermentation, the wine is drawn from the tank and the grapes are very lightly pressed (with the stronger press juice/wine sold to bulk wine production). Aris is aged in concrete for twenty months prior to bottling, with its first sulfite addition made after malolactic fermentation and then again before bottling. Aris is then aged in bottle for one year before going to market. The total SO2 depends on the vintage and ranges between 30-50 mg/L (ppm). The results are a wine led with beautiful sappy red fruit heavy on cherry nuances with sun-dried red rose, dried sweet orange peel, persimmon, and guava, and loads of iron-led metal/mineral notes. It’s the richer of the two Cirò wines and an easier gateway for newcomers to this historic region. The Cirò Riserva “Più Vite” is produced only in a few years from the Piciara vineyard on the sea, one with clayey soil and 70-year-old vines. Usually picked in the first week of October, it spends 9-15 days of maceration and spontaneous fermentation under a fully submerged cap without any movements of the must. Like Aris, the wine is then lightly pressed, with the harder pressed wine sold in bulk. As one would expect, this wine has a greater phenolic and tannin ripeness, which leads Sergio to age it for four years in concrete without any movements until bottling. The first sulfite addition is made after malolactic fermentation, with an additional one during the first year of aging (if warranted), and rarely more for the following 2.5 years before bottling. The total SO2 depends on the vintage and ranges between 30-50 mg/L (ppm). Più Vite’s four years in concrete softens the fruit compared to Aris’ shorter élevage. It’s rustic and savory and young versions often lead with earthy notes of kiln-dried red clay, fall leaves on wet soil, chestnut, saffron, leather, iron, animal, braised meat, and rose water. Fruit is present but delicate, and it emits notes of ripe persimmon, shriveled golden apple, dried orange peel, and wild cherry. More tannic than Aris, Più Vite balances firmness and delicacy. Hours open (even the day after), it rises and can be deceptive, a doppelganger of a top-tier, traditionally made Barolo—tar, plush red rose, sun-touched cherry, and anise. It’s versatile and may be best served with fewer people in an intimate setting with both heart-warming food (ossobuco, cassoulet, ratatouille) and finely crafted, Michelin-style cuisine.

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. ■

29 August, Ponte de Lima I was afraid the details of my summer trip would begin to fade after I wrote my last entry two months ago, but the best memories are still vivid; I can already tell that the impression of certain moments will be lasting, even if they get fuzzier with time. I seem to have a mental limit (especially these days), but memorable experiences seem to unconsciously get upgraded. However, there are so many good ones (and difficult ones, too) that bring on the humor of the circumstances now, that it’s actually been hard to forget any of it. Once I start down each lane of memory, it doesn’t matter anymore if things are perfectly accurate, or even if they’ve become more fantastical than they were at the time. Our imagination can be just as important as the original occurrence in that it rewrites things to keep them interesting when they’re not, and less painful when they’re that. I just finished lunch on our terrace overlooking Portugal’s Lima Valley. (The picture above was shot from there.) We live in a part of the world with many specific products that have few equal or greater examples the world over. The combination of seafood and frango caseiro, the Olympic athlete chickens sold to the butcher by the locals, acorn-scavenging pigs, and free-roaming countryside-grazing cattle, deeply sweet carrots, and eggs with, at best, only one equal in the world. And the lemons. Sorry Amalfi, we lived on your shores for a year and had your lemons every week, and while yours are grown on limestone cliffs and are extraordinary in a different way, size isn’t everything; those just from our own property, grown on extremely acidic soils of metamorphic and igneous rock, are even more aromatic and much less bitter than most lemons. And with Galicia just twenty-five minutes north, some of the most prized shellfish in the world thrives at extraordinary and almost unbelievable quality, thanks to the extremely high content of plankton inside the estuaries (locally called rías). Oh, and the Galician beef: it’s the real deal (but However, I’m sorry to say that the best versions of grilled Galician beef are not usually found in Galician restaurants, but rather in other Spanish regions that use the product, like the many great Basque restaurants.) One of Many Obsessions The ingredient I didn’t mention in the list may be mainland Portugal’s most special gift from the Atlantic: sardines. Portugal is globally famous for their conservas (canned) sardines, as is Spain, but that’s not what’s served at the famous street side seafood and fish grills in the ancient port of Porto, Matosinhos. There it’s all about the fresh, wood-fire grilled sardines and other seafood—a must for anyone coming to Portugal for the first time, or for another round of this country’s warm hospitality and extraordinary food at prices unmatched in any other first world country. Sardines have become an obsession. They’re seasonal—a truth that put me in a state of depression last winter, perhaps greater than the pandemic restrictions themselves—and I understand why: it’s the fat! Between the late spring and early autumn months, plankton populations are at their peak and the sardines gorge themselves, building up fat and improving their flavor. Sardines are one of the healthiest, if not the healthiest fish for you, because they don’t consume mercury-rich food—only plankton, not other fish. Anchovies are the same, but they are less common to get fresh here in Portugal and while the salt content of the canned and salt-packed versions is a deterrent for some, they are without a doubt my greatest food obsession. Anchovies are a part of almost every lunch and dinner made at home. Wednesdays and Fridays, Armanda, a middle-aged Portuguese woman with a soft and kind face, brings fresh shellfish and fish straight from the Atlantic, a twenty-minute drive to the west and visible from our terrace. On her truck she always has sardinhas, and while they are a lot of work in the kitchen because she doesn’t clean them, they’re irresistible, and at five euros a dozen, no matter the size, it’s impossible to pass on the deal, and she always gives me thirteen or fourteen, depending on how many she has. Shellfish and fish in the States are usually too expensive. It’s for that reason that I’ve always hesitated to experiment too far with them because when you put a lot of cash down, you don’t want to mess it up, and with seafood minutes can make what would be potentially epic turn dry and hard. But here, ocean fare is almost free by American standards (it’s even half the price of what we used to buy during our year on Italy’s Campanian coast, on average), and I’ve let loose to explore more, and I only wish I did more twenty years ago when I first moved to Southern California with its multitude of Pacific Ocean options. Here, the only real cost associated with sardines is the time they take to prepare. That’s one reason they’re so cheap; the other is that there’s so much available when they’re in season. My first sardine experiments began as freshly cleaned, filleted and lightly cured with lemon wheels and salt for just a few hours, or overnight—I did that one the first half dozen times and it was always delicious and as good as any fresh sardine I’d ever had. Then it was on to mild pickling with a modest amount of lemon juice and vinegar. Vinegar is all too often overused in everything from pickling to salad dressings; with the right ingredients, vinegar is the needed accent, not a taste that kills the wonderful ingredients it’s meant to lift even higher. I’ve marinated sardines still fully intact (except for the guts, scales and head, which needs to be clipped off to evenly fit into my roasting pan) in lemon, vinegar and salt for only thirty minutes and quickly cooked below the oven’s salamander with a touch of olive oil, oregano (an herb that seems perfect for fish) and flaky sea salt atop extremely thin slices of onion that render just enough to stay crunchy but lose their harshness while soaking up the flavor of the fish and a little portion of the marinade dumped over them. Recently at our new favorite restaurant in Porto, called Apego, I was given perhaps the most simple and extraordinary preparation yet. The restaurant is owned and operated by Aurora Goy, a chef raised in France by her French father and Portuguese mother, who judiciously employs French techniques on her Portuguese food. She does sardines every which way, but last Saturday night I had the mother of them all. I asked her about the preparation—the secret, please—and she smiled and said, “it’s really simple: salt, but it has to be the right salt and for the right amount of time, thick sea salt and no more than an hour, but perhaps thirty minutes is enough.” The perfect time needed is only based on the size of the sardine, and my first try was another lucky strike I hope to repeat. Enter Austria Far away from any ocean but a land full of gorgeous food, is Austria. I’ve said many times that I think Austria is grossly underrated in the context of European cooking. Perhaps people lump it in with Germany—often the least inspiring cuisine of all the European countries I frequent—but it’s different, and just a “simple breakfast” at the Malat family’s hotel alone stands as proof. I passed through the mountains of the far western end of Austria in its western state, Tirol, heading north through Germany, took a sharp right just southeast of Munich around Rosenheim, and headed back into Austria without being stopped for proof of the Covid test I took the day before in Italy’s Südtirol. After fewer than three more hours on the road I’d be checked into Malat’s hotel. It doesn’t matter how recently I’ve showered before arriving at the Malat’s hotel, I’ll want to close the elegant and diaphanous white curtains of the room above the courtyard below and take another one in the fully-exposed glass shower stall that separates the bedroom from the bathroom, get the blood flowing with a nice hot one—even on a blistering summer day as it was the day I arrived—and lay around the room in the towel (or in the buck) to relax and forget the world for a moment. The Malats had a vision with their hotel: they want you to feel pampered (and sexy). And you do. I snapped out of my half hour of vacation mode and went down to meet Michael Malat (his friends call him Mickey; pictured below), who had checked me into the room. I’d been driving all day and was hungry, so we patched together a few things in their hotel’s breakfast kitchen, popped a bottle of Riesling, and caught up on the state of the world and California. We hatched a plan to start the morning doing some drone shooting up at Stift Göttweig, the towering, ancient monastery that dominates the top of a tall nearby hill to the south of Malat’s place. The monastery has an epic view of Kremstal’s alluvial plains and loess covered metamorphic rock terraces below (pictured above) and its steep hillside vineyards on the north side of the Danube, with views deep into the Wachau River gorge to the west, Kamptal straight to the north, and Wagram to the northeast. Breakfast at Mickey’s Normally, I don’t eat breakfast and haven’t done so regularly for nearly twenty years—save for when I’m on vacation, or the need for food to gain warmth from the empty cold and hollow feeling that follows a restless night of attempted sleep. If you seek to live well and not miss excellent things, skipping breakfast at the Malat’s would be a crime against yourself. Here, there is no choice. The Malats truly have one of the best breakfast spreads outside of a Michelin-starred European hotel one could find; it’s so good that it’s almost embarrassing that it’s all there for you and you can have as much as you want. Michael’s mother, Wilma, greeted me at the door with a big smile and her soft, motherly energy—the inner caretaker that treats all like they’re her children coming in from playing and starving. My late mother, Rosemary, was mostly of German heritage, and being around Wilma was like being near an extension of her spirit. On their vinyl record player spun Neil Diamond, one of my mother’s favorites, and honestly, I would’ve never expected to hear Neil in the Austrian backcountry. It all made me feel like I was safe at home—as I always do in Austria—but my mother never served a breakfast like the one I was about to partake of, filled with the joy of hospitality that infused the room from Wilma and her culinary staff and the edible pastoral gifts of the early summer. The spread was immense, and even slightly unusual for a breakfast. It had all the standards, like homemade chunky granola, cakes, nuts, cereals, cheeses, breads and the Waucher-Laberl, one of the great breads of Europe and a specialty of the historic Schmidl family, in nearby Dürnstein. A small, round and flaky, crunchy but soft-inside roll, it’s always branded with an S on the bottom to show that it’s come from the Schmidl bakery (pictured below with Austrian winegrower, Peter Veyder-Malberg); no others are quite the same, so ask to see the branding and prepare to keep searching it if it’s absent. Don’t forget that it was Austria’s capital, Vienna, that is the origin of the world’s great pastries, not France; in France pastry places are not called Viennoiserie without reason. It also included a whole host of unexpected things, presented as salads and hors d’oeuvres, from sauteed chanterelle mushrooms with asparagus and feta cheese (for breakfast!), burrata with roasted beets (obviously they know how valuable beets can be to travelers), vegetables, alpine-fresh wild strawberries and cherries, thin slices of eggplant with fresh figs and fresh goat cheese, and desserts galore. Wilma is a master omelet maker. She gets it: soft eggs, not overcooked, nor overmixed, finished with killer ingredients, including comté or gruyere (I forgot which one it was), and some delicious and locally cured pork belly fried on the griddle just before the eggs hit the flattop. Interestingly, she adds a little bit of grated carrot, a touch I never would’ve considered in my omelet but now do. It’s a breakfast room you never want to leave, and here, you don’t have to. You can come anytime, grab a bottle of wine, drink as you want and tell them what you had when you are finished. It’s an incredible place where you really are made to feel at home to do what you want, when you want. Spy Games It was the twelfth of June and it was hot. Last year, it was July that scorched Europe, but this year it came a month earlier and following a very cold start to the growing season which stunted the growth of plants, the blazing heat made it so that you could come to the same vineyard at the end of the day and see that the shoots had pushed out three or four more inches by sunset; this was a story that would follow my path from Austria, through Germany and into France. In 2021, the vines grew as wildly as anyone had ever seen before. Michael and I started our drive up to Stift Göttweig. Once at the top, the place was swarming with attendants and police officers doing nothing but wearing Soviet-like faces, looking for trouble. That day there was a meeting of politicians and media and I could sense that drone filming wasn’t a wise choice, but Michael insisted that we press forward and approached every guard for permission to take some “photos of the place,” but we were denied, denied, denied. Finally, we found an unattended trail that circled the monastery. Out of sight and earshot, we passed an older couple who smiled and made us feel like we weren’t doing anything wrong—just out for a stroll on a Saturday morning. I found the right launch pad with just enough space between two trees to get the drone out into the clear. It was a perfectly blue sky, and I knew the shots would be money. The drone, that had somehow and somewhere along the route acquired the name Bob, had the sky to himself, and I zeroed in on my controller to make sure the flight was smooth with no wasted time. I knew I would be limited to one battery’s worth of time, despite having three others fully charged and ready to go, because once the drone would come back in for the landing, we may get spotted. We weren’t doing anything wrong, per se, but given the political event and the intense atmosphere, it felt like we were a couple of Double 0s wiggling our way into a party to which we weren’t invited. After some glorious shots (including the one above), the battery warning began to shriek, potentially calling attention to us. I brought Bob back and slowly threaded him through branches with only a foot or so to spare on each side—a precarious situation because the sensors might have stopped him from coming too close to the trees, leaving him out there above us with no place to land in time. But he got through, touched-down quickly and less than a minute later was tucked into an unassuming white cloth sack I used instead of the drone case—something I always do to camouflage my intention to film. I don’t like trouble, especially in other countries that use languages with which I’m less familiar. Something was telling us that we should go back out the way we came, and we should’ve followed our instincts, but we decided to go straight to the car because it was only a few minutes’ walk while the backtrack was at least ten. As we turned the last corner around the building, with our car in sight, we came upon four Austrian cops in the middle of the path, a fifth on his way. Without saying a word, Michael and I knew we had no choice but to walk right between them to get to the car, and any unusual movements or direction changes would attract attention. I tucked Bob’s white sack back behind my Canon on the same shoulder to use the camera as a decoy. Not twenty feet away, their eyes narrowed on us in unison. We knew we were in for some trouble. Sometimes not attempting to speak the local language is a good strategy for potentially minor offenses where no one else is involved. Some years ago in Chablis, Dominique Collet, from Domaine Jean Collet, was with me in my car after we had some Champagne at their place before a scheduled dinner in the village center. There was an alcohol checkpoint, and she firmly grabbed my shoulder as we approached and said in French, “Don’t speak French with them. Only speak English and they will probably let us go without testing.” I’d only had a glass of Champagne and was sure I would be under the limit, and I’m always ready to practice my French. But when they stopped me, I said, “I’m sorry, I don’t speak French…” They waved me on. I don’t speak more than ten words of German. My German is so bad that whenever I’m in Austria or Germany and need gas, I pick only pumps with numbers I remember how to say to the cashier, which means I am stuck between pumps one, two and three, and picking back up at six and seven. I never get gas from pumps four or five because it’s only after I leave the station that I remember the words, vier and fünf, even though they’re so obvious, being so close to English… By the movie-like interrogative tone the first officer took, our Double 0 game seemed to begin to unspool. Ciao for now, Bob, I thought… For those who don’t speak or understand German, the language can be startling and sound aggressive by nature, even when niceties are exchanged; Italian can be the same. It’s not fluid and melodic like Latin languages, and American culture has long villainized the German language, particularly since WWII. It can sound so harsh, and it did from this officer, the squattest and ugliest of all the guards and clearly a guy that relished his position of authority. The others formed a half circle around us as the officer barked at Michael and then he turned his angry dog face on me, intensely. He shouted some words. Michael interjected. He yelled at Michael. Michael, with his unflappable calm, spoke with what felt like authority over all the officers present—he was their sergeant, telling them to calm down. The guard switched to poorly spoken English and firmly said, “Identification. Please!” I forgot my passport at the hotel, something I rarely do; even when I go two kilometers down the street for dinner in Portugal it’s always in my pocket along with my Portuguese ID. Thankfully, I had my Portuguese resident visa, which I’ve pulled out of my wallet maybe five times in total over the last nine months, since it arrived in the mail a half year late due to the pandemic. The officer reviewed the card, looked up at me, handed it back, showed a half-cracked smile and calmly said, “have a nice day.” We slipped past the pack with the white bag making a smooth transition to the front of my body and the camera slipping back to continue shielding it from their view. On the drive down the hill, Michael explained the exchange he’d had with the officers. I was impressed by how he had managed the situation and took the attention away from me while I nervously hid Bob from sight. No doubt he’s a better Double 0 than I am, more of a James Bond type: ice-cold, the looks, the silver tongue, the confidence. I on the other hand am a terrible liar, and when the officer was yelling at Michael, telling him to be quiet because he was addressing me and not him (as explained by Michael), I was ready to just hand over the drone because I was sure that’s what they were talking about. Someone surely saw it flying around this heavily guarded monastery that was soon to fill with important people and they’d waited for us to come out from the trees, arrest us, confiscate the hardware, and pitch us in the who’s cow. But for a minute back there, Michael owned those guys and shifted the dynamic. And we got lucky, too. They had no idea what we were up to. Next month, we’re off to Weingut Tegernseerhof to meet with our very good and longtime friend, Martin Mittelbach. First order of business: film the Wachau vineyards around the Loiben area that includes some of Austria’s most well-known crus, like Kellerberg, Höhereck, Schütt, Loibenberg, Steinertal, and Kremstal’s Pfaffenberg vineyard.

Over the last couple of decades, despite the persistent churn of changing wine trends, some vignerons steadfastly affirmed their terroir vows.  No matter how unappealing their honestly crafted wines were to some, these vignerons resisted the temptation to cater to critics that awarded high scores to hulking wines and so were lost in the shuffle during those darker days of wine. Back then the fashion was too much hand in the wine, and these days it’s nearly no hand at all.  Sadly, today’s hands off winemakers often leave their grapes—many from gorgeously farmed vines—unprotected, paving the way to disfigurement and death before most make it to the bottle.  Today’s wine is often a different kind of bad, where the smell of decay and rot replaces tastelessly over-made, soulless, candied wines.  (Truth be told, I’d take the tastelessly made wines over the ones that test my gag reflex.) In the fine wine trade the pendulum swung away from the heavy hitters and more recently, away from the extreme naturalists, with their new brand of flaws.  The market trend went from the big boys almost straight into the ideologically pure natural boys, which kept traditional gems like the Rousset family under the radar for a long time.  However, this explanation of how the Roussets and their most talented vineyard have been missed all these years seems inadequate. During my first visit with Stéphane, he mentioned that he had an importer at one time (a famous one, no less) who, shortly after they started working together, abruptly stopped placing orders with no explanation.  It was around the early to mid-2000s, about the time when the Rhone climate went through a short crisis, and Rousset’s wines might not have been in best form for their coming out party. The Northern Rhône Valley had just experienced a number of good to very good vintages between 1995 and 2001—each had their virtues, and certainly some were much better than others.  Then came the disastrous 2002 vintage.  A terribly rainy season spoiled the streak—though there are some surprises here and there. Then came the heat.  In 2003, unprecedented temperatures were responsible for the deaths of nearly 15,000 French citizens, primarily the elderly.  Unlike any vintage since—even in our current record-breaking years—the heat was relentless from bud break to the day the grapes were harvested.  It was an especially tough vintage for those who like elegant wines, while being a banner year for people who like to get knocked out by high alcohol, power and extraction. Livingston-Learmonth gave Rousset’s wines from 1999 through 2001 very good reviews, but then came 2002 and 2003.  According to his tasting notes Rousset also struggled (as did many producers in Crozes-Hermitage) between 2004 and 2008—though a second look at Rousset’s 2005s warranted an upgrade from a prior review.  It’s just a guess, but this mix of vintages might have made it difficult to understand Rousset’s elegant style, which could be one reason why his importer pulled the plug after just beginning in 2006. The years between 2002 and 2008 were obviously impacted by dramatic climate shifts from one year to the next, and it put every vigneron to the test.  However, in 2009, Livingston-Learmonth’s reviews on Rousset changed; things got better, and stayed better. In Livingston-Learmonth’s book, Robert Rousset is one of Crozes-Hermitage’s beacons of light, and Les Picaudières is the greatest terroir in the more than 1700 hectares of the appellation.  The book was published twelve years ago, and given the consistent high quality of Stephane’s wines over the last six vintages and the pedigree of his holdings, it’s hard to believe they weren’t snapped up by new importer. If Rousset wasn’t on Norman’s radar, it’s surprising that he didn’t at least mention Les Picaudières. The “backbone of Hermitage,” as Norman put it, Les Bessards, is the closest in elevation, steepness and soil type to Les Picaudières on this side of the river.  Perhaps pulling out the measuring stick to compare a Crozes vineyard to one of Hermitage’s best was a stretch; after all, it was Crozes-Hermitage, and Roure, likely the largest landholder of Les Picaudières, hadn’t hit one out of the park in decades. Click here for Part 3:  The Rise of Stéphane Rousset and Les Picaudières

The drive between Sartène and Porto Vecchio is beautiful and the day’s sunny, cool, windy weather was perfect for this cinematic dreamscape. We drove by the famous natural sculpture, Lion de Rocapinne, a granite outcrop atop a hill shaped like a perched lion that faced south, like it was guarding the island. The lion’s mythological story is of an impossible love and a sad hero who committed suicide and was then transformed into this natural monument. We wrapped around the bottom of the island and tried to make out Sardinia. Last year with Manu there was only a little haze and we could barely see it; I couldn’t keep my eyes off it until we turned a corner and it was gone. Without Sardinia in view this year I was transfixed on the beauty of Corsica’s southernmost granite beaches. The hillsides close to the beach were stripped of most of their soil and left with only short green shrubs that grew from cracks in the rock, with every curve, nook and color variation of the sea beyond. Without another landmass in sight, it felt like we were on the edge of the earth, alone, winding through a land of extraordinary beauty and tranquility. As the sun set behind us, the whispers from the wind came through the windows and after three days of wine madness, we were spent and said little. We slowly rolled into downtown Porto Vecchio, inside the gulf, and checked into our rooms. I had seen so much beauty in Corsica that Porto Vecchio was just another pretty face and I went straight to my room without marveling at all it had to offer. I laid down on the bed backwards and propped my feet up on the wall for fifteen minutes, which wasn’t nearly long enough; I could’ve passed out on the bed until morning. Instead, a dinner had been arranged and we were expected. Only one more act to play. We drove to a spot about ten minutes away to meet with the vignerons who came from mainland France for a tasting that was organized by a well-known Corsican sales guy, Pierre-Marie. At this point, I felt a little out of my comfort zone because I was a sort of accidental guest who was backstage at a great show only because of my trip with Manu. The awkwardness of the moment vanished in the parking lot as soon as I saw Julien Zernott and his wife, Delphine Rousseau, make their way out of a car next to us; it’s easy to spot Julien, a 6’5”, 300 pound giant towering over a crowd of Frenchies. They own a small domaine in the Languedoc, Pas de l’Escalette, and visited me in Santa Barbara just before I left California for France. They were fast becoming some of my most regular French friends and I was set to meet them again at their domaine the following week. Not only that, Pas de l’Escallette is another one of Manu’s clients. Accompanying them was a well-dressed guy in snazzy eyeglasses, with a full but cleanly trimmed beard and suave, modern Spanish-style clothes, form-fitted to his thin, sturdy frame. By first take, he reminded me of one of those brilliant guys I know who always have a slight mischievousness tucked into their bright smiles. His name was Thierry and his handshake was warm, his eyes connected to the moment, and I knew I was going to like him. Once in the wine shop, I shook the hands of a number of people I’d never met before. When I’m introduced for the first time, I rarely remember names (except Thierry, just minutes before) because I’m so focused on the energy of the person and what they look like, and not as much on what they are saying. It’s a terrible habit and something I attribute to my general lack of focus and again, that nearly deaf right ear. Toward the end of the apero, I saw that Delphine was talking with the only woman in the group I had yet to meet. Before I approached them, I warmed up my French with a young Corsican couple for about fifteen minutes, which helped me lose my apprehension. They were an interesting pair who had just begun making infused spirits under the label, U Massicciu, and had been invited to the party to share some of their products with everyone after dinner. I went over to Delphine, who introduced me to her friend as her California importer. Of course after all my preparation to speak French, the woman immediately switched to perfect English, even after she asked me which I would prefer. I told her my first name and with bright, surprised eyes, she said, “Ted…, Ted Vance??” I smiled, equally surprised. “Oui, c’est moi.” I couldn’t imagine why she would know my name, or why she seemed bewildered, as if she had just met Bond… James Bond. But the wine world is small and as I get older, it gets smaller. You spend enough time working around Europe and the degrees of separation shrink exponentially. Her name was Anne-Charlotte Genet, and just the night before I happened to request her friendship on Facebook. She had liked a pic I posted the day before of my visit earlier in my trip with Romain Guiberteau, one of the Loire Valley’s most exciting winemakers, and after realizing we had plenty of mutual friends I thought we should connect. Who would’ve known that I’d meet her in a wine shop in Corsica the very next day? After we had a laugh, Anne-Charlotte revealed that she “worked” for Charles Joguet; I found out the next day at the tasting that it was her father’s domaine. I appreciated that she didn’t feel the need to give me her resumé within five minutes of meeting me. I’ve always liked the Joguet wines and it was nice to meet her and learn about her family’s domaine. The sales agent, Pierre-Marie, stood in front of me with a big smile under his wine-soaked eyes and long nose. He was as happy as a dog on the beach rolling on a dead seal to have most of his great producers in Corsica at one time. He probably knew I was a little uncomfortable and he dispelled that immediately with a solid, welcoming handshake. I was in, and it was time to relax and enjoy the show. After tasting a load of Corsican breads, cheeses and meats with a bunch of bubbles from some of the producers (man, do the Champagne guys stick out like a well-manicured thumb in a group of vignerons) we headed to the American style burger joint just next door for dinner. Sure, why not a burger in Corsica instead of some insanely delicious seafood? Being the foreign guy, I didn’t know what to do about seating, so Julien grabbed me and sat me down. To my left was the daughter of Yves Canerelli, all of about nine years old, while Manu was on my right at the end of the table. Thierry sat across from me and Julien to his right. I had no clue that these two would end up being the most mischievous of the bunch, cheerleading the party to devolve into raucous laughter and hijinx more quickly than I would have expected. Thierry engaged with me immediately and asked about my involvement with the group and who I was. I told him about importing wine, working with Manu and my interest in Corsica. I still didn’t know who Thierry was, so I asked. It turned out that he was Thierry Germain, one the Loire Valley’s very best vignerons. I’d heard so much about him but I’d never seen a picture before and was totally taken off-guard by how different he looked than I imagined. The old saying about dogs looking like their owners can be said about wine and their winemakers, but I guess I just didn’t even think about that when I thought about Thierry’s wines. His Loire Valley wines from Saumur and Saumur-Champigny were indeed like him: extremely polite, well-dressed, engaging, thoughtful, intelligent, with a classy demeanor and not a hair out of place. I was truly surprised and immediately had a good feeling about him, though there was no possibility of working together because he works with Kermit Lynch and is surely happy to be there; I was just impressed with him as a person and saw that we had a shared passion for wine. He repeatedly insisted that I visit him the next time I was in Saumur and I happily accepted. I knew by reputation that he’s a super technical and perceptive vigneron, almost surgical with his wines and there’s nothing overlooked in any bottled by his hand. I was looking forward to picking his brain. Pierre-Marie was glowing as he walked up to our table with some kind of Corsican swagger (whatever that is), carrying Pandora’s Box. Julien’s blue eyes went neon as he stuck his monstrous hand in the box and pulled out a cigar that was about the size and look of a big blood sausage. It was no doubt the biggest cigar I’d ever seen, and a fitting size for Julien, a former rugby player that would’ve been a lineman in the NFL if he were born in the US. Thierry grabbed one too, gave it a sniff and asked for the lighter. We hadn’t even ordered dinner yet and they lit up and instantly changed the atmosphere of the entire restaurant. I looked at Manu and he smiled sheepishly, cocked his head to the side and shrugged his shoulders. Within minutes, there was smoke billowing out of more than a dozen frogs and it seemed that every waft of smoke was sent my direction. I’ve never experienced anything like it. The stench of my clothes when I went back in the hotel was so bad I thought about leaving them in Porto Vecchio, but decided to just put them in plastic bag so they wouldn’t ruin everything in my suitcase. With cigars still smoldering as we ate our dinner, we went from one magnum of Corsican wine to the next. There were some pretty good ones, but the white and red from Clos Canarelli stole the show and were in the best company of top domaines in Corsica. They were a fine pairing with the white fish crudo entrée followed by the American style burger I ordered. Manu and I had the same idea and snuck out of the restaurant early, long before the group completely exorcised the demons that had built up over the last month of being stuck inside during the unexpected cold and rain. It was one of the wettest late winters/early springs in a while and they were all anxious to get to work their vineyards before they were overwhelmed by what would come with the quick temperature shift on the horizon. After a bout of weather like that the vines will play catch up fast. This would be the last party before the 2018 season was suddenly in full swing. The next day we put in some good time at a tasting that started at ten in the morning. There were some top producers there, and highlights included Abbatucci, Clos Canarelli, Vieux Telegraphe, Charles Joguet, Thierry Germain, Pas de l’Escalette and Yves Leccia. Yes, for those familiar with Kermit Lynch’s portfolio of producers, it seemed like a small Kermit tasting without Kermit. It was great to taste and meet all these superstar vignerons. When I arrived I immediately looked for Pierre Richarme, the owner and vigneron of the Corsican domaine, Pero Longo. He walked in ten minutes after us and quickly caught my glance. We shook hands and the smile I couldn’t forget from last year was on full display as we tasted his wines and sat for lunch together with Manu. Manu poured his own wines, GRVins, which we import to California, and they showed beautifully amongst many of Corscia’s best. GRVins is a tiny negociant business where Manu buys organic grapes from some of his best producers and their top parcels (both undisclosed). He supplies all the materials, including 600-liter French oak barrels usually crafted by the cooper, Atelier Centre France—the fastest rising star of the barrel world, and one of my favorites (if I had to choose between new oak barrels). Before Manu and I left the tasting I went back to taste Pierre’s range and tasted them one more time. On the way out the door I asked him if he’d let me represent Pero Longo in California—a moment I had planned before I went to Corsica. I had a good feeling about him from the start and wanted to be a part of what he’s doing and where he’s going to go with his son involved. He was happy to hear that I was interested and answered with a resounding yes. Next Week: Of Corse, The Last Chapter: A Reflection on Experience from the Inexperienced

It’s summertime and while we tend to veer toward drinking bubbles, rosé and white, reds still have their occasion. The six red wines in our offer come from six different organic and biodynamic growers. What I’ve chosen is only one of the many wines each of these growers makes. So, don’t stop with these, dig into their other wines by clicking their link, because there is so much pleasure and fascination to be found in each wine we import directly from these producers. I’ve written a brief summary about the wines in The Skinny. If you want more, like I always do, you’ll find a more extended piece below that I enjoyed writing, titled, A Faux Seasonal Affair, which also includes a more in-depth overview of the wines. The Skinny 2017 A. Peraccia Ajaccio Rouge "Prestige Cuvée" There’s x-factor for days in this exotic and spicy red from Corsica. Thanks to its proximity to the sea, the granite soils and most of all, the lovely Sciacarello grape, this wine is a dandy. It looks and expresses like a wine from the Reynaud family of wines (I know the Rayas comparison is overused, but these wines really go that direction), but tastes Corsican. It’s one of the most compelling wines we import and we’re only able to get very small quantities. 2016 A.D.N. Patrimonio Rouge Patrimonio is often Corsica’s most rustic, manly, hairy-chested wine, but A.D.N.’s takes a leap into a more elegant world with this wine primarily composed of Niellucciu, the island’s adapted version of Sangiovese, the famous grape from Tuscany. This wine is suave, with gobs of crunchy bright red and black fruits and lots of texture, and the full range of the island’s smells and sunny demeanor. 2013 La Madura Saint-Chinian "Grand Vin" If one were to measure a wine’s merit by the length of its finish, layers of complexity and quality of craft, this wine would rank near the top. It’s a clean and full-throttle old-school style red mix of Mourvèdre and Syrah aged in concrete and old oak barrels. There’s not an ounce of slack here, just layer upon profound layer of texture and nuance; and it's savory to the bone—perfect for a night of long conversation in the cool summer night air. 2017 Jean David Seguret Rouge This is singing Provençal dialect in a bottle. Jean David concedes all to his nature-filled terroirs and the old-vine Grenache, Carignan and Counoise blend in his Seguret makes the wine deep and vibrant but a refreshing take from one of the Côtes-du-Rhône’s best kept secrets. If you miss more crunchy redness in your southern French wines, this is a good place to recapture it, as these wines are picked with ripeness that truly hits the mark. 2018 Pas de L'Escalette Coteaux du Languedoc "Les Petits Pas" It is only a matter of time before Languedoc reds shake the misconception that they are all bruisers. It is indeed the biggest region for French wine production—often of the mass variety, but this size also brings diversity in the terrain that can translate into some zones that make for crunchier style reds. Escalette’s organically farmed vineyards are in one of the coldest zones of the appellation, far from the Mediterranean. This is a sweet spot on rocky mountain terrain that preserves the tension and high-toned aromas in this Grenache, Syrah and Carignan blend. 2017 Roc des Anges Côtes-du-Roussillon "Segna de Cor" This biodynamic winegrower is going to almost single-handedly change France’s Roussillon. (Yup, big claim…) Their wines have snap and freshness, and stick out like a beacon of hope for this region known for its exhaustive reds and fortified wines. For any serious wine drinker or Francophile, these can’t be passed over if one wants to stay in the know. This wine is a mix of Grenache, Carignan and Syrah. A Faux Seasonal Affair (The Extended Skinny) I have many fond memories of Southern France, and I relive most of them at least twice a year with Pierre and Sonya, the extraordinarily talented cooks and two of the most loyal and generous friends I’ve ever had. Mas La Fabrique is their private country home in the Provençal village, Graveson, located between the ancient papal city of Avignon and the Roman city, Arles, to the south. Here the fire in their kitchen is never dormant for more than a couple of hours and the subject of food never ceases. Meals are planned days in advance and sometimes weeks. Even more than a month before I come, Sonya begins to press me for exactly what meals I will partake in and on what days. If only I were as good at business planning as they are with their meals. The contents of La Fabrique’s meals are sourced from local purveyors, including the fabulous outdoor market located in the former Roman outpost, Van Gogh hospital locale and current celebrity hotspot, Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, and whatever you can’t find there you can get a little further south at the mile-long market in Arles, another Roman and Van Gogh hangout. The best nights in Provence are in the summer, when dinners are outside under the starry night sky and the occasional chaotic whistle of the forceful woosh of the cleansing mistral winds through the cypress trees and the constant, mesmerizing chirp of countless invisible cicadas. Once past the aperitif, which usually involves rosé on ice (yes, I do this sometimes too…) and the almost certain first course of cold fish, seafood or vegetables followed by fresh, taut and salty white wines, the main event begins. Of course a lighter red is the right start because its still hot out and the sun is still strong, but when the mountains and trees begin to shield the sun, and the cool, sometimes thick, soft air eases the parched earth and the trees and flowers, and the wind fans a welcome damp freshness to the skin, a chilled, sweating bottle of southern French red is the proper transition into the night. Many people carry the idea that it’s sort of a faux pas to drink full flavored, richer reds in the warmer evenings, but I don’t subscribe to this at all; we just have to wait for it to cool down a bit first and drink the red with a deeper chill than room temperature. Some think southern French reds, and other reds like them, only fit into occasions almost exclusively for cooler months. While it’s true that these heavier wines naturally compliment richer, stronger flavored dishes served with more regularity in cooler times, my summer night meals in France are often chock full of flavor and richness too, especially when the produce has regained its natural, non-greenhouse and hydroponic flavors, and the meat courses begin to make their way to an open flame. And anyone who has spent time in the south of France and dined with the French or lives close to the ocean where it can be hot in the day and sweater-worthy at night knows that the only thing faux is the idea that full-flavored red wine is a seasonal affair. Red wines somehow enrich the meal in ways that whites and rosés don’t, no matter what time of year it is. It seems to better pair up with the deeper conversations that arise later in the night, relaxing us while softening our concentration and rendering us fully present. It helps us shed the weight of the world that then somehow remains absent until after lunch the next day. Big southern French reds, like Bandol, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, or medium-sized Saint-Chinian or Côtes-du-Rhônes somehow fit into almost all occasions, and every season. Let’s remember to forget those false ideas ordained by those who forgot how to live! Do it the southern French way, where red wine is the occasion whether it is le dîner à l'automne, en hiver, au printemps ou en été. Wine Stories I adore A. Peraccia's Prestige Cuvée. We get too few bottles from this Corsican gem in Ajaccio, and the only thing that stopped this minuscule allocation from disappearing as quickly as it did last year was that they had only just arrived a few months before the world shut down, so this is a rare opportunity for everyone to pounce on. A bear of a man, Laurent Costa is the one-man-show who works his vineyards by hand, employing biodynamic and certified organic practices. Rich in beguiling x-factors channeled by Corsica’s queen red grape, Sciacarello, and the iron-rich sandy granite vineyards soils, Laurent’s Ajaccio red wines are unexpectedly captivating and complex for extremely modest prices. First timers may be taken off guard as the utterly compelling and peculiar characteristics far exceed the expectation of the price of this wine, and like any wine of true breed, you need to be patient with this one to see all of its dimensions. The color is lightly rusted garnet; the aromas are effusive, exotic and savory; and the palate is compact with a core of sappy, glycerol orange-tinted red fruits and refreshing mineral textures. It shares a similar temperament and x-factor with some uniquely individual wines, like those from France’s legendary Château Rayas and Corsica’s Abbatuci, a couple hours’ drive south, and Sicilian Frappatos by COS and Occipintini, and Langhe wines made by Guiseppe Mascarello and Fabio Alessandria, from Burlotto. The comparison to these luminaries may seem overindulgent (and it is only when comparing historic pedigree with some of the wines these producers make), but in delivery, Laurent’s wines speak the same heightened dialect and holds its own. Moving north and further toward the east in Corsica, we arrive at Patrimonio, one of the wine world’s most complex geological spots. Granite is the most dominant geological feature for wine production on the island, but here there is the full gamut of sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous rock, sometimes even within the same vineyard. This makes for an immense amount of palate texture and depth of complexity in the resulting wines. This wine, an exciting expression of Patrimonio, is crafted by Emmanuel Gagnepain, one of France’s most well known enologists, a man with a penchant for elegance over power—quite the contrary to most enologists charged with the job of point catcher. The A.D.N. Patrimonio is grown on limestone and schist from a few different parcels and is a blend of mostly Niellucciu (believed to be from the same parent material as Sangiovese), a grape with good acidity and structure, with smaller amounts of the more elegant and high-toned aromatic, Sciaccarellu. Limestone imparts more muscle and broad complexity while the schist seems to impart more deep mineral/metal characteristics and sharper angles. The 2016 is especially refined for a Patrimonio red wine. The vintage was perfect for those who like some freshness, and the palate texture is rich in mineral sensations. Overall this organically farmed wine is a solid balance of the rustic and the suave, with good upfront red fruits and already revealing great secondary and tertiary characteristics akin to a good Brunello, minus the power, pain and high alcohol. It's a lovely wine, great with food, and a clear demonstration of the genetic and cultural heritage shared between Italy and France on Corsica. This organically farmed wine is such a steal when considering the price and delivery. And with the extra years in bottle, La Madura's Saint-Chinian "Grand Vin" has opened up into its prime drinking window with many more years to continue its upward climb. Another blend of different bedrocks, topsoils, and grapes, the range on this wine is vast—truly… Mourvedre and Syrah take center stage and are collected from many different parcels grown on limestone, sandstone and schist bedrock, with topsoils heavy in rock derived from the bedrock and clay to cement it all in place. All of these elements contribute in different ways to the blend, giving broad impact on the palate with just the right amount of cut to keep it fresh and enticing. Once opened, the dense perfume of southern France opens up fields filled with the lavender and thyme that permeate the aromas. The palate has a balanced density with red earth, molten iron, meat and chaparral. As the wine unfolds, its softer sides take shape and offer up more red and purple fruits, Middle Eastern spices, coffee, garrigue and a deep, salty and mineral freshness. We’re all in on this one and if you like a little gentle oomph with your wines, this is a must. Being organic or biodynamic is a way of life, not just a philosophy reserved for the fields, or an effort to keep up with a current marketing trend. The age of extraction and chemical farming continues to lose ground, and Jean David, one of France’s humble and often overlooked heroes was ahead of the curve when he went full organic in 1979, a radical move at the time in a region overwrought by chemical farming within one of France’s main breadbaskets, Provence. His home is Seguret, a small wine-producing village set on the fringe of the better known wine appellations, Gigondas and Vacqueras, and further to the west, the most famous, Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Seguret should be more well-known, but I’m happy to say that it’s not. It remains quaint and not overrun by tourists (at least in the off-season) with the occasional painter in the street working away, or a man sitting alone on the back of his truck playing the guitar for his own pleasure—both of which my wife and I saw on the same day in Seguret with not another soul in sight. It’s an inspiring village of narrow rock passageways, thankfully not suitable for cars, with sometimes just enough room for one person at a time to pass. Seguret is an epicenter for geological studies and contains countless different rock formations from different epochs that date as far back as almost two hundred million years, with everything that’s happened up to now piled on top. Largely composed of limestone, clay and sand, the vineyards of Seguret begin low on the Ouvèze River terraces with soils derived from river deposits and work their way up toward the steep Dentelles de Montmirail, a jagged uplift of vertically positioned rocks, largely composed of limestones. It is geologically complex and so are its wines, especially for such modest prices. In these parts, there is always potential for high alcohol, power, extraction and prematurely aged, brown-tinted Grenache wines; but in Seguret the story can take a brighter more fresh turn, as it does with Jean’s wines. Protected by the Dentelles mountain range and the cool winds that flow through the Ouvèze down from Mont Ventoux, the great white limestone capped mountain of Provence, the wines can be more garnet red and dark pink on the rim of the glass, indicating less oxidation in the aging and earlier picking of the fruit. Jean’s fresh-tasting wines are balanced by the cold winds from Ventoux at night, the fifty-plus-year-old vines of Grenache (55%), Carignan (25%) and Counoise (20%), the concrete tanks the wines are vinified and aged in, the almost non-existent use of sulfur, and Jean’s pension from an organic, artistic way of life with the sole purpose to capture the true essence of his countryside in his finished product. They are true wines, with their tastes a result of concession to their land and its historical culture, truly worthy of attention from anyone looking for something honest and without pretension. From the moment the Pas de L'Escalette "Les Petits Pas" was created, Julien and Delphine’s intention was to create a charmer in their line of wines that didn’t take itself too seriously —hence the full color pinkish red label with neon green footprints, inspired by their children. Pas de L’Escalette is nestled up into an ancient roadway that connects the Languedoc to the north by way of France’s central mountain range, the Massif Central. This is cooler wine country, far from the Mediterranean, so it’s plenty cold at night, even in the summer and this is what imparts their wines with more zippy freshness and crunchy red and dark fruits, which make it a perfect wine for warm weather. Les Petits Pas is a multi-parcel blend of organically farmed vines on limestone terroirs with a mix of 40% Grenache, 40% Syrah and 20% Carignan. Each of these grapes naturally carries ample freshness which is magnified by a little chill, making it anything but heavy under the sun. It is indeed a compelling wine for us wine geeks, but it’s more of a drink it, don’t think it kind of wine, high brow and low maintenance at the same time. It doesn’t constantly tug at your sleeve begging to show you how good it is, it’s just good. Roc des Anges is not the kind of domaine you expect to find in the Roussillon. Marjorie and Stéphane Gallet, both transplants from other parts of France (the Côte-Rotie area and Normandy, respectively), have constructed a biodynamic wine sanctuary in the Vallée de l’Agly, a nearly deserted vineyard land dominated by co-ops and famous for producing fortified wines. (The locals continue to abandon vines every year because the yields are tragically low and make it one of the most difficult places in France to make a living with vineyards.) Since she began the project in 2001 (at age twenty-three), Marjorie’s intuitive and peaceful contemplation has resulted in wines that carry a signature of purity, focus and elegance unlike anything made in the region. They are low alcohol, hands-off, mind-on wines bottled by varietal from single sites on specific and unique soil compositions. In smell and taste, their structure and style more closely resemble that of their earthy and salty cousins from the middle of France’s Loire Valley. The Segna de Cor is their starting block red, and it’s a knockout, as is their entire range, which I cannot recommend enough for their compelling interpretation of this part of the world. Senga de Cor is a blend of Grenache, Carignan and Syrah grown on schist. She picks the grapes weeks earlier than everyone else, and at first, her neighbors thought she was crazy. It’s impossible to think that now, and it was only a matter of time before someone came along and went against the grain to begin the reshaping of an entire region’s image. They’re doing it and the wines are fabulous.

Arribas Wine Company granite vineyard planted at 650m in Portugal's Trás-os-Montes An article in the February 28th issue of The New Yorker magazine titled, “It’s O.K. to Be Confused About This Economy,” hit close to home. January left us nervous and the tension was compounded by all the projections of recession by the experts, but then business boomed in February. Confusing indeed. It seems the unusually heavy rains kept people home instead of in restaurants in early January. We’re grateful for our February, and March is already off to a roar. If it’s going well for us again, hopefully that’s an indicator for you as well. After an absence of almost a year and a half from the States, I flew from Barcelona to Los Angeles on January 12th and landed in sunny weather to find unusually green hillsides after the big rains. My trip was exhausting and the five weeks I was there felt like they went way too quickly. Our company put on a three-day staff meeting followed by some very well-attended tasting events in SF, LA, SD, and Monterey, which allowed me some face-time (albeit brief) with many of our customers and friends. By the time I arrived back in Barcelona—direct flights are now available from LA and SF through Level, by the way—followed by a couple of days’ drive back home to Portugal with an unusually snowy stop in Rioja, I was toast. When people find out I’m involved in wine importation they mostly think the job is all just the pleasure and fun of sipping and feasting. This is indeed a part of it, but that’s not how it always goes. When traveling alone I don’t eat breakfast and sometimes skip lunch, too, and often freeze to the bone in cellar and vineyard visits during cold seasons while the vines are dormant (the best times to visit, unfortunately, are when the weather’s not particularly nice). One Brit in the same line of work summed it up to me perfectly in 2010 at one of Beaune’s infamous restaurants, Ma Cuisine, “It’s good work, but it’s hard work.” In 2010 I was two years into my first wine company (Vance Erickson), and at thirty-three years old I was energized straight off the plane, a fearless consumer of daily foie gras and sometimes two or three pain au chocolat a day while in France for four to six weeks, fuel that fired me up to hit the road. At forty-six, it’s a stumble off the transatlantic flight in full zombie mode, pinched neck, sagging shoulders and desperate, bloodshot eyes, challenges of my life choices and addiction to all things wine, feeling old—prematurely old. Then, after one good and long day of sleep exactly ten days after being home, I’m ready to destroy myself again. My wife doesn’t understand it, and neither do I. A new vine in Douro Superior at Mateus Nicolau de Almeida Spring Travels & Early 2023 Forecasts There is no wine area quite like northwest Iberia. Last week I saw almost all our Galician and Portuguese crew during a four-day bender, and along for the ride was Gino Della Porto, winegrower and co-owner of Sette, in Nizza Monferrato. Here, everyone we work with started their own project from the ground floor, most of whom are like cultural search-and-rescue teams for generations of lost knowledge. They’re often from poor families that support their wine dreams the best they can, working against unfavorable winegrowing conditions every year, lots of hail, and mildew pressure like no other large European wine zone I know. Our guys at Cume do Avia have never had a normal crop load. The best I’ve ever heard was just last season, which was down only 10% from their potential output, when it’s usually reduced by 60-70%; they’re organic farmers in a fungal paradise—conditions inhospitable to grapes. While their neighbors who are not organic have canopies exploding with fruit, they live the ideological dream (nightmares being dreams, too) of the Galician winegrower committed to organic farming as their neighbors chuckle all the way to the bank. Prior to 2022, Diego said that with mildew’s three-peat victory from 2019-2021, they considered putting a stop to organic farming, which they’ve practiced since the very beginning of their project. 2022 has renewed their vow and confidence, and I’m proud of them for weathering the often grueling first decade and half since they started. Spending time with these guys from this part of the world I now call home gives me a reality check on what true exhaustion and stress looks like. Their relentlessness inspires me to reinforce my resolve to do better, not for me, but for them…wait, yes, seeing them succeed is for me, too—I need it, I crave it… I live for this interaction and for the opportunity to make a difference for them and their livelihood. Here, in Northwestern Iberia, all the clichés of humility—shirt off their back, salt of the earth, heart of gold—fit better than any other large winegrowing region I’ve experienced. The Galicians and Portuguese recharge my battery, narrow my focus, remind me of all the gifts that fill my life, while bringing more depth to our work than the squabbling over prices and payment terms, and the utterances of “what have you done for me lately?” all too commonly experienced at well-known wineries run by fortunate offspring in historically important areas—regions that have now become more of an industrial commodity than something inspiring. Here, a sense of entitlement rarely exists, only gratitude for any contribution to their business. I’m refueled now, maybe not physically but at least emotionally, and ready for 2023! I’m off to Piemonte at the end of this month to visit with a few of our new growers. It’s a research trip to collect stories, technical details, photographs, and drone images for three of our newest additions, and to say hello and taste new and upcoming releases out of tank and bottle from our old friends. The three new additions will redefine the direction of our Italian portfolio, giving us a clearer stamp in the land of Nebbiolo. Two of them will one day be very important Barolo estates (it’s hard to believe, but we’ve added two not only new but exciting Barolo producers in the same moment!), and one is a small cantina with lofty goals from an ambitious young grower in the far eastern section of Caluso. All are under thirty, which makes them particularly special for us, and you’ll see just how special they are when their wines are in your glass. Names and details will be revealed next month! Special Feature: Itata on Fire (literally) Leo Erazo Viñateros Bravos Itata, Chile Leo in the vineyards after the fire; Image credit Leo Erazo While California was green and refreshing in January, Chile burned. I’ve spent a lot of summer months there because my wife is Chilean, so I’m familiar with the summer fires and the smoke. It’s exactly like California with its arid climate and devastating earthquakes and seasonal flames. Though it’s a quarter of the way around the world, this particular fire hit close to home for a lot of us who work with growers down in Itata. I spoke to both Leo Erazo, from Viñateros Bravos and his eponymous label, and a friend we once worked with, Pedro Parra, after Leigh Readey, our Santa Barbara neo-hippie, beach and farm girl, Source representative and social media dabbler, gave us a report on the situation. Pedro said that the wind was favorable for him and blew the fire in the opposite direction of his vineyards. Leo’s vineyards, however, were right in its path and were devastated, all but about 10% of the vines. Two weeks ago, I spoke with Leo and he sounded positive but shaken. Over the years he and his wife, Zjos (a Belgian native), invested all their earnings from the Viñateros Bravos negociant program to build/buy their own vineyards and winery. The winery is safe and holds the 2022 vintages still in tank with some lots from previous years too, but the vineyards they bought (for the Leo Erazo range) were scorched in less than six hours. These losses not only include this year’s crop but every crop until three or four years after they replant. With no fire insurance (likely not even available in Chile due to the regularity of burns) puts them back at square one (or even further back) with mostly only negociant fruit to work with, which will also certainly be less available because many of his growing partners lost their vineyards too. These losses mean a reduction to about 50% of normal production each year (estate vineyards and negociant vineyard losses combined), not only for one year, but until he’s able to find more sources of fruit inside this now charred land. Vineyards before the fire Lost were some of the most treasured vines in the world. The only beneficial losses were the eucalyptus trees, an invasive, alien, pesky, thirsty, greedy Australian tree that choked out most of Itata’s historic vines in the twentieth century. As many of you know, Itata is home to a treasure trove of the oldest vines in the world, with most País vines being over 150 years old, and over 80 for Cariñana. Some of the País are even believed to be over 300 years old. Most of the vines are own-rooted as well because Chile was never exposed to phylloxera, which makes Itata even more special—world heritage level; UNESCO level! To think about what wines we get from Leo and Zjos at the prices we get seems ridiculous: cold climate, own-rooted, 150-300-year-old vines on decomposed granite and volcanic soil. Simply absurd values for some of the New World’s most authentic terroir wines. We know we cannot save the whole world by ourselves. But when opportunities arise to help those in front of us who’ve helped build our business and possibly been a part of yours (for those in the trade), it’s gratifying to contribute in some way to ease their stress, suffering, along with those around them—workers, friends, neighbors, people who lost their homes, too. What’s unique in the case of Leo Erazo compared to makers in other wine regions who’ve gone through devastation is that the margins on his wines are razor thin and he lost his vineyards, not just a season’s crop. They need to rebuild, but all of their money was tied into those vineyards and their future crops. Also, this part of Chile is poor—dirt poor, so a little money goes a long way. In other agriculture areas banks often leverage loans against land, but this is Chile, not the EU, or the US. Resources are few and the government’s power to help is limited because it has so little in reserve. Leo said the government will help those who lost their homes, but not their vineyards—an understandable priority. I know firsthand that Leo and Zjos are frugal and live very modestly. They’re free-spirits, happy to live in spare quarters with little, with only good friends and humble means. It’s for this that we know that the financial help they receive will go straight to rebuild necessities for their business. Our resolution is simply to take a modest increase on their already underpriced wines and donate that increased revenue after the business costs, plus a dollar per bottle directly from The Source to Leo and Zjos. We bought a full container, so if we can do it, it will really be something they can work with. Though maybe this year the prices are a few bucks higher per bottle, the wines are worth that and more. It’s about the same percentage increase that most Côte d’Or growers take every year regardless of a bad season or good. The difference in a store will be about $19 to $22/$23 for the Viñateros Bravos line. Simply by purchasing these wines you will be directly supporting the rebuilding of their lives so they can continue their work preserving what they have left and making beautiful, inexpensive terroir-stacked Chilean wines. That’s the story, below are the wines. All are organically farmed, and the following explanation of their details is loosely taken from their writing. The oldest wine ever produced in Chile back in 1551 was called Pipeño. Old vines and natural winemaking make these wines a great introduction to the old vines of Itata. Pipeño Blanco is made with 100% old-bush vine Moscatel planted in the 1960s, and the Pipeño Tinto is made with 100% old-bush vine Cinsault, planted almost a hundred years ago. Both Pipeños are unfiltered and intentionally hazy, which has been the tradition of Pipeño since the oldest memory of these wines. Pipeño is the greater regional “terroir series,” while Viñateros Bravos is the “soil series,” where the old vines have a greater interaction with each specific mother rock, highlighting their mineral characteristics and wineprint. The “cru series” is the result of ten years of soil mapping across the Itata hills, and these are the vineyards that got destroyed. In these wines the layers of complexity and depth, and the longer aging potential are more apparent. All the wines are vinified in concrete (eggs, spheres, and more), amphoras, large wood vats and food-grade polymer containers, and they’re pressed in a vertical, wooden press. We thank you for your contribution to help, which is simply to buy and enjoy the Viñateros Bravos and Leo Erazo wines. Arriving are: 2022 Pipeño Tinto (1L) 2022 Pipeño Blanco (1L) 2022 Viñateros Bravos, Itata, País Volcánico 2022 Viñateros Bravos, Granítico País 2022 Viñateros Bravos, Cinsault Granítico 2021 Leo Erazo, Parcela Unica Cinsault, El Tunel 2019 Leo Erazo, Parcela Unica Cinsault, Superior, Las Curvas 2019 Leo Erazo, Carigñan Parcela Unica Superior, Hombre en llamas New Producer Etna Barrus Etna, Italy Located at an altitude of six-hundred meters, on panoramic terraces of Mount Etna’s southeast side within view of the Ionian Sea, exists the boyhood dreams of four men. Salvo, Toti, Mario, and Giuseppe were inspired by the passion and work of their grandparents when they formed Etna Barrus, a partnership that would begin their collective return to familial roots, where they would “devote themselves to viticulture without pollution; to do it the way they used to.” Named after the elephant, the city symbol of Catania, combined with Italy’s most famous active volcano, the vineyards of Etna Barrus were planted in 2005 below one of Etna’s extinct cones, Monte Gorna. Their 2.7 hectares of vines are committed to a red grape responsible for some of the world’s most beguiling wines, Nerello Mascalese, and its burly and more colorful sibling, Nerello Cappuccio; Carricante was also planted in 2021. Their vineyard is composed of massale selections of each variety and they describe their agriculture as regenerative—they’re moving into organic certification in 2023. However, “to do it the way they used to,” implies that even before their bid for organic certification there’ve been no non-organic inputs in their vineyards. And because of the arid conditions in Sicily, with the exposure to the morning sun on the volcano’s southeast face, few treatments are needed in this natural climate that has been favorable to viticulture for millenia. Their miniscule production churns out two raw though finely nuanced Etna Rosso wines and an Etna Rosato, all a blend of 90% Nerello Mascalese and 10% Nerello Cappuccio, and all on volcanic sand naturally rich in organic substances and life-giving minerals—hallmarks of these nature-friendly soils. The vine density is 5000 vines per hectare trained on Cordone Speronato and Alberello (goblet). The full capacity each season should produce only around 7,500 bottles. The red grapes are usually harvested around the first ten days of October. Once in the cellar, they are destemmed and macerated no more than a week to preserve the fresher fruit nuances and allow the fine tannins from the grape skins rather than the seeds that further break down as the alcohol rises, extracting harsher tannins. The wine is then racked into steel along with the press wine and then finishes fermentation over another two weeks. The wine for the purple label remains in steel for a year, and the orange label, the “selezione,” also finishes its fermentation in steel but is then racked into old French oak barrels (225l-500l) for a period of 12 to 18 months, dictated by the season’s conditions. The differences in taste between the Purple Barrus and Orange Barrus Etna Rosso wines are fitting colors that match the wine personalities. Purple Barrus is grown in a more reductive environment (steel) and tends toward a darker color with more exotic purple fruits than red, and has a stronger purple floral element with wild berry fruit. It’s also very mineral in the palate in a refreshingly cool sensation while at the same time being explosive, vigorous and exciting. The orange label Etna Rosso is stronger in red and orange fruits, due to the slow, oxidative maturation in old wood barrels. The floral elements are relatable to the sun-dried rose, similar to Nebbiolo, and expresses the southern Italian sweet orange peel/Aperol aroma. This wine is also more discreet and finely tuned than the upfront purple Barrus. New Producer Mateus Nicolau de Almeida Douro, Portugal “When I was eighteen, the only thing that I wanted was to see the world. I had no special thoughts about winemaking, but wine runs in the blood.” -Mateus Nicolau de Almeida Renaissance (Cave) Man and the Saint The Douro wines of Mateus Nicolau de Almeida in Vila Nova de Foz Côa are crafted underground in a schist cave, an environment in near complete opposition to the work experiences and family histories of its makers, Mateus and Teresa, as both come from extremely scientific and technical backgrounds. Their stated objective is, “To be transparent, and to transmit the elementary concepts of Douro, even if you are drinking them on Venice Beach!” Organically farmed and certified, their wines are defined through a combination of vineyards in the different sub-regiões (subregions) of Douro and a multitude of indigenous grape varieties. The Trans Douro Express are three “climate” reds from roughly ten different vineyards that demonstrate the three sub-regiões of Douro: in the west, the coldest and wettest, Baixo Corgo; in the middle Cima Corgo, and in the east to the border of Spain, the driest and warmest, Douro Superior. Each of these wines illustrate their differences in climate, which of course, determines grapes suitable for each area, which are not the same. Eremitas are three white wines from the Douro Superior and express three different schist-based terroirs. Made in particular years, the Curral Teles, their “human wines,” are their most experimental, tinkered with in the cellar (including one wine aged inside a granite block!) to discover new gateways to different expressions and nuances—very Portuguese, at least from a two-thousand-year view into the past with this country of historic exploration and discovery. There are also two stellar (but in very low supply), traditionally crafted Port wines, Lágrima (white Port) and Ruby Seco. There are more specific details of each wine toward the bottom of the profile. The Saint (Teresa) and the Caveman, a guy with a crown of thick, windblown, Van Gogh-esque brushed locks, are fabulous cooks and irrepressibly hospitable. They raise their own crops and animals, and a small building on their property is dedicated to the making of their character-filled and full-flavored vinegars. They also produce distillates with juniper and make olive oil; their projects are a constant, including those with artist Pedro Jervell (the producer of their granite rock tank), as well as with wine transporters who use old sailboats. They do music events, wine events (Mateus helped to conceptualize Simplesmente Vinho in Porto, the most important event for small and environmentally conscious winegrowers), parties (legendary by reputation), and began to work with archeologists from the Côa Valley after Teresa found important paleolithic rock engravings. Mateus even has his own tiny wine importing company focused on European producers with their same agricultural ideals in organic, biodynamic, and natural wine concepts. What else? They’re also fluent in Spanish, French, Portuguese, and English! With all this time spent doing so many things, when they’re asked who does what in the winery, they respond, “We’re still trying to figure that out…” Bloodlines Mateus Nicolau de Almeida made and bottled his first wine in 1988, at only ten years old. He’s the son of one of Portugal’s most celebrated winegrowers, João Nicolau de Almeida, and the grandson of Fernando Nicolau de Almeida, the founder of Portugal’s most mythical and immortal (and most expensive) wine in 1952, Casa Ferreirinha Barca Velha. By blood, they’re all connected to the legendary Ramos Pinto port house started in 1880 by the then twenty-one-year-old artist, Adriano Ramos Pinto, known today for its historic port wines, but even more for their iconic, art deco label illustrated in 1925 by French artist, René Vincent. Coming to understand Mateus’ family heritage of wine, art, and creative and progressive minds, makes it easier to imagine what his first wine crafted at such a young age would have been like. Mateus’s curiosity for the world and wine led him to experiences in California, Argentina, Chile, and Spain, but most of them abroad were in France, including seasons at Caves de Saint Mont, Château Grillet, and numerous châteaux (Reynon, Doysy Daëne, Clos Floridène) co-managed by University of Bordeaux enology professor, the late Denis Dubourdieu, whose influence on Mateus was enormous. But his most important interaction in Bordeaux was in 1996 at a Third Growth Margaux estate, Château Cantenac Brown, where he met Teresa Ameztoy, who would become his partner in life, the mother to his children, and the holder of the string that keeps the kite that is Mateus from flying away. Mateus’ wine experiences also include involvement in their familial project, Quinta do Monte Xisto, and in 2003, he created the winery, Muxagat, then left it to his partners in 2014 to develop his own project. A San Sebastián native raised in Rioja, Teresa’s father worked for the famous bodega, La Rioja Alta S.A. and Murua. In 2019, she left her position as the head winemaker for Ramos Pinto (2005-2019) to fully focus her energies with Mateus on their wine project, labeled Mateus Nicolau de Almeida, starting in 2015. Prior to Ramos Pinto, Teresa’s vinous exploits include eight years as a winemaker in Xerez, seasonal stints in Italy, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, South Africa, Domaine de Trevallon, and the famous biodynamic Alsace estate, Josmeyer. She also earned a BTS Vitio-oeno at Montpelier and Diplome National d’oenologie at Bordeaux University. Teresa cites her early great influences as the late Eloi Dürbach (Trevallon), Telmo Rodriguez, João Nicolau de Almeida, and her father, but, she says, “Now Mateus is my biggest influencer.” Golden? If one took all the extremes of Germany’s Mosel Valley, France’s Northern Rhône, Austria’s Wachau, and Spain’s Ribeira Sacra and stirred them together you would have Portugal’s Douro River Valley. The extremity of the series of river valleys that stream into the Douro and the bridges towering above them is truly breathtaking, unlike anything else in the wine world. With vineyard altitudes that go from about 80 meters to around 800m very quickly, with land that seems strapped down by vine rows so they don’t fall over into the rivers far below, it’s a glorious view for the non-squeamish car passenger. It’s also an intense, stressful, and envy-filled drive for the one behind the wheel who must keep their eyes on the winding roads at all times. Douro’s vinous history dates to the Romans, who of course, came for metals, mostly gold. Douro means golden in Portuguese, but Teresa pointed out that linguistics theorists believe the name for the Douro River comes from the pre-Roman sound, DWR, which means running water—similar to other river names, like Dordogne, Adour. Centuries later, the Moors instituted a near-complete Muslim prohibition on alcohol from sometime during the 8th Century until around the late 11th Century. The Reconquista resulted in Christians regaining territory in what was then called Galicia-Leon. The new rulers coincided with the arrival of Cistercian monks who planted new vineyards in 1142 in the Douro at today’s Casa dos Varais, across the Douro from Peso da Régua, less than five kilometers by air (15 minutes by car) from Lamego to the south. These monks were also responsible for Galician wine development just to the north, as well as in Burgundy and many other European wine regions. Port wine production appeared toward the second half of the 17th Century to stabilize wines through fortification for export, principally with British and Flemish patrons, who at that time were at war with France. Most of the Port wines were produced from vineyards in today’s Baixo Corgo and Cima Corgo, and Douro Superior was exploited for production in the early 1900s. With the arrival of Port wine, the most historic wine of Douro, still wine, became almost non-existent. However, as already mentioned, Casa Ferreirinha’s Barca Velha was developed by Mateus’ grandfather in 1952, and João, Mateus’ father, developed the “Duas Quintas” still wines in the early 1990s for Ramos Pinto. In the late 1990s, the Port house, Niepoort, under the direction of Dirk Niepoort, took a strong position with a series of new and inspiring still wines. In 1986 Portugal joined the EU (then referred to as European Communities), and subsidies began to finance new ventures along with the crazy bridges and a world-class highway system that made it easier to cross into Portugal’s nether regions, which coincided with an explosion of Douro’s still wine production. Douro Sub-Regiões Douro’s sub-regiões are better understood through climate, with, generally speaking, Douro Superior (east) with Mediterranean (or Continental) dominance, Cima Corgo (middle) with Mediterranean and some Atlantic influence, and Baixo Corgo (west) with Atlantic and less Mediterranean influence. Teresa and Mateus explain, “the three sub-regiões are well delimited, but their differences are still very unknown to general consumers. Apart from that, it would be very important to acknowledge that inside these three sub-regiões of Douro there are other sub-sub-regiões with different climates and different soils.” This would be an enormous task to formalize, and if the history of politics in wine appellations is any indicator of what would likely transpire, it would be a very long time before any consensus was made among growers. Douro Superior Temperature is very influential inside the sub-regiões. Butted up to the border of Portugal’s Vinho Verde appellation, Baixo Corgo (BC) has the mildest temperatures and the most rainfall—nearing 1000mm per year. Cima Corgo (CC) is much warmer and with an average between the two on precipitation of around 600mm per year, and Douro Superior (DS), separated on its far eastern flank from Spain by the Douro (Duero in Spanish) and Agueda Rivers (a tributary to Douro originating further south that acts as the Portuguese and Spanish border for over 100km), is the hottest and has around a mere 350mm. Mildew pressure and disease are highest in Baixo Corgo and decrease the further east through Cima Corgo and then Douro Superior, which correlates directly with the amount of vineyard treatments each season. BC has more trees, but the highest degree of biodiversity is in DS. Climate change is influential in Douro but Mateus and Teresa believe it’s less so than other wine regions. Douro has always been extreme, and they think that it is not so much different than in the 1950s, and they have familial historical references to back this up. The difference is that the extremes of summer highs are higher, but they think the overall temperatures are similar. The most affected region is likely Baixo Corgo (the cooler area), which has warmed the most. However, the burgeoning still-wine business has different needs than those of Port wine production. In general, along the river gorges, Port wine grapes originate on the hot, south-facing slopes, while much of the still wine production is facing north and/or at higher altitudes. Though it’s dependent on each season, normally the bud break starts in Baixo Corgo, then Cima Corgo, and finally Douro Superior. DS is last because the temperatures until February and March are colder, and the spring and fall are the shortest seasons by way of temperature; DS has a lot of winter and summer. Harvest usually begins in DS, then CC, and finally BC. This, in theoretical support of length of season connected to wine complexity, should mean that on some level, Baixo Corgo may have a greater potential of phenolic complexity than the other sub-regiões, in general. However, much of the general population would go for DS and CC because of their richer profiles by comparison. Mateus believes that still wines from BC should be the longest lived, followed by DS, and then CC. Topographically, Baixo Corgo and Douro Superior are more gentle slopes when compared to the more extremes of Cima Corgo. They all have the commonality of various versions of schist, with the youngest rock formations starting in BC leading to the oldest in DS. Interestingly, the many granite terroirs of Douro are not allowed into Port production. New vineyard on Monte Xisto Vineyard Practices and Grapes The philosophical approach in the vineyards to respect nature and encourage biodiversity in and around the vineyards. They believe biodiversity is key, not only to wine expression but overall health of their lands. One visit to their properties demonstrates their commitment to these ideals. Regarding tillage, some are done by tractor, some by horse, and others not at all. The timing of picking is done with a combination of taste and chemistry balance, and all of the wines are grape co-fermentations. They have many vineyard sites within each of the sub-regiões, and each has more favorability toward specific varieties. Though the five most planted in the area are the red, Touriga Nacional, Touriga Francesa, Tinta Barroca, Tinta Cão, and Tinta Roriz, there are over 100 different indigenous varieties in the region. Other notable reds are Tinta Amarela, Malvasia Preta and Tinta Carvalha, which are more present in BC and CC. Whites are fewer, with BC planted more to Malvasia Fina and DS more Rabigato and Codega (Siria). In CC there are fewer white grapes planted than the other sub-regiões. Most of the grapes used for their project are from vineyards they own (4ha in total, all certified organic), and some are from rented vineyards while others are from purchased grapes. Please refer to our Douro Terroir Map on our website for more extensive grape details and terroir overview. Wines The fish on the label—a unique wine logo—is representative of the Allis Shad (known as Alosa Alosa, in Latin, and Sável in Portuguese), part of the herring family. This fish was once able to work its way back into the Douro and beyond until the closure of the river by the fifteen dams that now stop the free flow. As mentioned, the Trans-Douro-Express are “climate” wines, and are labeled based on the sub-regiões, Baixo Corgo, Cima Corgo, and Douro Superior. They all come from vineyards of schist bedrock and variations of topsoil composition, mostly loam (clay and sand mixture) topsoil and are very poor with low water retention. The wines are a blend of more than ten varieties and crafted with the same basic processes in the cellar: all destemmed and spontaneously co-fermented in 4000L concrete vats. Extractions are gently done one time per day (maximum) with pumpovers, or pigeage by feet and hands for four to five days prior to pressing. They’re aged in the same concrete vats for eight months, racked a few times during aging, lightly filtered, and sometimes fined. Total sulfite levels range between 40-50 ppm(mg/L) with the first addition usually made prior to fermentation. Between the three wines the climate and precipitation are evident. Of course, vintages will vary, but early experiences with young wines are that Baixo Corgo leads with a tight frame, iodine-heavy mineral nuances (particularly in the 2021), and rock and wild berry purple fruit quality. Cima Corgo similarly has iodine impressions present in the nose but also some level of reduction/mineral and rockiness in impression. The fruit components are also berry heavy, but those with the sense of cultivated and wild-picked. Douro Superior expresses more burnt earth mineral nuances, like hot iron. It’s not as tight as the others upon opening and expresses more savory fruits and food, with the 2021 showing chestnut, persimmon, red apple skin. Its earthiness seems more dirt than rock. Curral Teles Tinto “Alpha” is done with whole-cluster foot-stomping inside an open-top, shallow granite calcatorium (lagar) for three hours and then slowly pressed in a vertical press. The juice is fermented and aged in 4000L concrete vats for eight months. Eremitas Branco “Amon de Kelia” comes from gray schist with quartz at 500m altitude and is made exclusively of Rabigato, an intense white with very good levels of acidity. Whole clusters are foot-stomped inside an open-top, shallow granite calcatorium (lagar) for three hours and then slowly pressed in a vertical press. The juice is fermented for seven or eight days followed by aging in 4000L concrete vats for eight months. The wine does not go through malolactic fermentation, therefore the wine is filtered prior to bottling and sometimes fined.

Davide Carlone’s Boca vineyard, Alto Piemonte For the last two months, we temporarily reduced the quantity of wine we’ve been importing in response to California’s sobering six months of film industry strikes and a recovery that’s coming along slower than we’d all like. This month, however, we have a couple of boatloads en route from France and Italy. There aren’t any new producers to report (though there is a lot of news on that front, which we’ll get to at a later date) but there are a lot of new wines from some of our best producers. We’ve trimmed the newsletter down to five featured growers: Château de Tracy’s historic Pouilly-Fumé wines, Anthony Thevenet’s Morgon wines, Dave Fletcher’s starting block white, orange and two reds, Fliederhof’s gorgeously fine and lifted Schiava trio, and Davide Carlone’s Alto Piemonte range grown entirely inside the Boca DOC. More wines are on the way, but there’s enough here to keep your mind full of wine. Along that famous target-shaped, Kimmeridgian limestone ring of the calcareous Paris Basin across Champagne’s Aube, Burgundy’s Chablis and into the Loire appellations, we first come to Pouilly-Fumé, and the riverside appellation’s most historic producer, Château de Tracy. In contrast to Sancerre, Pouilly-Fumé is less topographically extreme, with fields that roll gently as opposed to some of the neck-breaking slopes of spare soil exposed to the sun’s ever-increasing pressure on the other bank. The famous Kimmeridgian limestone marl of Sancerre and Chablis is present here too but, like Sancerre, Pouilly-Fumé’s other prominent geological feature is silex, known in English as flint or chert. Château de Tracy’s position close to the river has richer clay topsoil and is more dominated by the limestone marl bedrock than silex. Because of the property’s history that extends back to the 14th Century, there is an unusual feature around their perfectly positioned vineyards that differentiates it from most of Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé: verdant and wild indigenous forests that offer greater biodiversity and shelter from the heat, all preserved for centuries by the château. This forest is something rare having never been cultivated, leaving its precious nature and unique biodiversity intact. We began our collaboration with this historic château in 2017, and their classically terroir-powered, purely sélection massale Pouilly-Fumé wines continue to impress. Incomings are the estate-fruit bottling of 2022 Pouilly-Fumé, followed by a pricy duo worth the experience: the old vines planted in 1954 that make up the 2019 Pouilly-Fumé “101 Rangs,” and the 2020 Pouilly-Fumé “Haute Densité.” How dense, you ask? 17,000 vines per hectare, now a forbidden density to plant/replant in Pouilly-Fumé. (For context, the appellation norm is 6,500, Côte d’Or 10,000, Thierry Richoux’s HD parcel 23,000, and Olivier Lamy’s famous HDs 30,000.) This not only makes it a particularly special wine, it’s also a unique experience coming from the appellation. What’s more is that Tracy has been under the same ownership since 1396, and its vineyards may boast the oldest known sélection massale Loire Valley Sauvignon Blanc they use to replant everything on the property—no clones here! As they say, “When you taste a wine from Château de Tracy you are also tasting history.” Recently, Château de Tracy commandeered some vineyards outside of Pouilly-Fumé to offer a range of price-sensitive IGP wines with Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc, and a classy yet upfront Menetou-Salon Blanc & Rouge. When looking for philosophically well-tended vineyards and exceptional value in the Loire Valley, and with Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé almost out of reach for normal by-the-glass programs, Tracy’s IGPs and Menetou-Salons grown on the same general soil types offer excellent alternatives, with prices that turn back the clock more than a decade. Morgon at sunset 2022 Beaujolais could be the vintage with the most beautiful balance of juicy delicious pleasure and pure terroir expression for which we’ve waited almost a decade. 2014 was perhaps the last MVP vintage where everyone seems to have made their most consistent, predictable, and unrelentingly pleasurable wines with great balance, at least in my book. Anthony Thevenet’s 2022 Beaujolais wines are exactly that, and unapologetically sumptuous while maintaining classical form—a hallmark of Anthony’s style. With alcohols between 12.5%-14%, his 2022 range is gifted with one of the region’s oldest collections of vines that produce wines of joy and warmth; they smile at you, and you can’t help but smile back. The 2022 Morgon and 2022 Morgon “Vieilles Vignes” bottlings mirror his 2014s with their slight purple over red fruit profile but with even a touch more body and juiciness—maybe chalk that up to ten years of organic viticulture, the wet previous year, and the sun of 2022. After his first solo vintage in 2013, he has come into his own with Lapierre-level consistency and purity, though the wines are closer to a Northern Rhône body while Lapierre’s hit closer to Pinot Noir country up north. We were able to snap up the last cases of his 2021 Morgon “Cuvée Centenaire,” harvested from vines that date back to the start of the United States Civil War. 2021s from growers with this kind of ancient-vine sappy density from this cool growing season makes for a wine with great refinement and depth. It may live forever—by Beaujolais standards—and would be best served with fewer participants (or more bottles!). This vintage he also made his maiden Beaujolais Blanc, a pure Chardonnay raised in old fût de chêne, and harvested from a 21-year-old limestone, clay, and sand parcel in Corcelles-en-Beaujolais, just east and downslope of Villié-Morgon. It’s a surprisingly good first effort. At the beginning of 2023, Dave Fletcher resigned from his full-time position as the head winemaker for Ceretto’s Nebbiolo stable. But they countered to keep him on as a consultant—good idea, Ceretto! The combination of fifteen years of experience and now much more focus on his own wines is reflected in the constant uptick of his range. We tasted his 2022 Dolcetto d’Alba in mid-January, a wine from a uniquely warm and dry season that somehow resulted in wines with balanced acidity, phenolics, and structure, along with the most perfect fruit Dave claims to have ever seen in the Langhe (no rot, no shrivel, no desiccation). It left me short on words, giddy with excitement, and increased my desire to turn my academic tasting into a drinking session! By the time I tasted his 2021 Dolcetto last year it was all gone. “I didn’t think you’d want any…” he guiltily responded to my look of “wtf?”. Commence well-deserved verbal lashing. Dave is such a Nebb-head (me too) and Chard-head, so I guess we never really talk about the merits of Dolcetto, but I adore its finest examples and will even put them above some Nebbiolos, given mood and occasion. Dolcetto, like Grignolino, deserves a better position in the conversation among Piemontese junkies, though few growers take it seriously enough to attempt to distract the world from Nebbiolo’s most gloriously celebrated historical moment; after all, Dolcetto is known to be the most imbibed family dinner wine of the great Barolo and Barbaresco growers; they all know how great it is, so why don’t many others see it like they do? It’s grossly undervalued, and in the right hands, it’s the bottled joy of Piemontese culture, while Nebbiolo is more prone to capture its cultural pride. (As those in the trade know, one can still experience the greatness of a Barbaresco and Barolo producer’s wines they can’t afford by opting for their Dolcetto. At Bovio restaurant in La Morra, among the juggernaut Barolos of G. Conterno Cascina Francia, and G. Rinaldi Brunate, it was G. Rinaldi’s Dolcetto d’Alba that outmaneuvered the bunch.) Dolcetto is a perfect Piemontese restaurant by-the-glass wine, especially when a five or six-ounce pour fills the glass, initially stifling aromas of subtlety until half the wine is out and down the hatch. Even in an overfilled glass, Dolcetto has enough fruit and aromatic puissance to deliver its message. Dave’s Dolcetto is a pleasant shock that needs to be passed on to restaurant and fine wine store patrons in search of excitement and class, at a first-date price. Despite our adoration for excitingly fresh and tense wines, Barbera’s naturally high acidity requires a longer development to soften which unfortunately results in higher potential alcohol, thus becoming a challenge for those looking to curb alcohol consumption and still drink a great Barbera. Its acidity is so naturally high, as the joke goes, that many growers spend much of August and September in church praying for the acidity to drop enough before rain comes, or the alcohol levels can rival Port (to return once again before the following year’s harvest for the next wave of prayers). To be honest, if I’m going to splurge with my liver, I usually reserve its high-alcohol allocation for wines like Barbaresco or Barolo (and on a rare occasion, Tequila). Yet during a tasting in mid-January, Dave’s 2022 Barbera d’Alba, with its cute new label depicting a train, was strikingly, lip-smackingly, hypnotically delicious, and hard to disengage from to move on to the rest of the exciting Barolos and Etna Rosso wines, and a spectacular new producer we’re signing out of Bierzo (more on that in a few months when the wines are en route!). Part of the magic of Dave’s Dolcetto d’Alba and Barbera d’Alba is the bony-white, calcareous soils and the 60-year-old selezione massale planted at 350 meters altitude on an east-facing plot. The other contribution is Dave’s craftsmanship and nose for quality and style. Old oak is the practice for Fletcher’s reds, and no barrel is younger than ten years. We also have minuscule amounts of Dave’s 2022 Langhe Chardonnay made in a Burgundian style (definitely an overused expression), which implies a dash of new oak–30% this year, spontaneous barrel fermenting, and harvested from vines on limestone soils (the latter of which legitimizes the comparison). His 2022 Arcato Orange wine arrived but there’s too little of this 75% Arneis and 25% Moscato blend, both destemmed but fermented and macerated with whole grapes for three to four weeks before pressing. The whites, like the reds, are exceptionally crafted. For a non-Burgundy Chardonnay, this one is about as close as they get (without the tinkering often slyly employed in New World Chardonnay with cheap reduction tricks paired up with dollops of new oak to blur the lines), and the orange is for all those who like their rust-colored wines with proper trimming. While a troublesome name that translates to slave, Schiava, also known in German as Vernatsch, is the queen of Südtirol red grapes, and the young Martin Ramoser (still under thirty) orchestrates his Vernatsch-based St. Magdalener trio under biodynamic culture with the full support of his family in the vines and cellar. While the grape’s names are hard on the ears, it can render gorgeous wines; we’re thankful that Martin labels the two main players (both with 97% Vernatsch) with their special minuscule appellation, St. Magdalener! Following the line of the region’s greatest growers while already leaving his mark with his Gaia cuvée we start the range with the ethereal, red-fruited, and transparent, younger-vine 2022 St. Magdalener “Marie.” 2022 was a warmer vintage and the fully destemmed Marie captures nuances and the slight glycerol texture of the year’s heat but still blossoms with delicate fruit and flowers. Martin continues to capture each season with his viticultural approach of picking early to maintain ethereal qualities on top of what this regional profile tends toward, rusticity and earthiness (which we also like!). Martin’s 2021 St. Magdalener “Gran Marie” is a selection from the oldest vines (50-70 years old) named after his grandmother, Marie. A bottle we chugged in February this year brought me straight back to 2004 and a visit to Domaine Joseph Roty, in Gevrey-Chambertin, with Phillipe Roty and his lineup of Marsannays and ancient-vine grand crus splayed out for our tasting in the company of a crazy and hilarious New York dentist and wine collector. Like the enviable old vines of Roty’s stable, the 30% whole cluster fermented and ancient botte-aged Gran Marie pulls from its deep well of experience the elegance tucked into the compact and concentrated fruit of ancient vines; however, here in the Südtirol, on one of Italy’s hottest sites in the peak of summer’s heat and one of the fresher vintages in recent memories, these vines have survived a lifetime of stress and pressure from the sun in its spare volcanic and alluvial soils on some of the most picturesque vineyards in the world. With the second glass, the wine tightens, straightens, and communicates with great precision its alpine union of mountain herbs, summer fruits, autumnal spices, and gorgeous, ingrained rusticity. Stunning. Martin Ramoser doing a biodynamic prep (photo courtesy of Martin) A contemporary Vernatsch that touches Europe’s greatest elegance-led wine regions in style and class, the 2021 St. Magdalener “Gaia” is on its own level in Italy’s Südtirol. An entirely whole-bunch adventure first toyed with in 2020, the 2021 is just as hypnotic and charming and only a little more grown up. Relentlessly seductive, the 2020 Gaia made my top ten list of wines imported in 2022—unexpected for a Sütirol Vernatsch, but I remain quite fond of this grape’s humble elegance. Selected from the most perfect clusters from the most balanced vines of medium to old age, like the 2020, the 2021 follows in the line of Gran Marie and the nostalgia, though this time leading me to another great Gevrey-Chambertin grower I’ve never visited and can no longer afford (come to think of it I never could) with all its beauty and filigree trim; of course, only after the new oak was finally swallowed by the Gevrey legend’s wine, hours after being opened. New oak is not an issue here, only the remnants of a great terroir cultivated by believers and sculpted by an inspired young grower in two ancient Burgundy barrels with a vision for his wines, wines that are far from home among Germanic and Italian cultures, the Südtirol being both. The bottles allocated to us are too few and will be doled out sparingly to those who believe a wine’s price should be based on its performance rather than its appellation. This is a wine that transcends the perceived limits of what can be achieved with an unexpected terroir and an underdog vine variety. Carlone Boca vineyard, Alto Piemonte Davide Carlone is so immersed in his day-to-day work that one could easily get the feeling he has missed the surge of global reverence for his wines. With so much going on, it’s hard to get out of Boca and his exposure to other great producers is limited, undoubtedly a consequence of being on the edge of a country in a very rural setting at the base of the massive Alps. Most notable is the nearby Monte Rosa, which is 175m short of the Alps’ tallest peak, Mont Blanc/Monte Bianco, though it’s much more pronounced and visible from the Po Valley. His wines find that elusive common thread shared among the range from great producers of precise craftsmanship (he’s also a blacksmith/metal worker) and big emotion—as though they shoulder the history of Boca and an obligation to reflect its true history in style and taste. The globalization and stylization of wine (à la Burgundy and Bordeaux) remain strong and continue to infiltrate even Europe’s most historical regions, like parts of Spain, and Portugal, where some growers have quality terroirs but need direction—oh, how the dictatorial scars of the 1900s remain in Iberia! I like wines made with these tried-and-true methods (minus the new oak, please), however, they often neuter the cultural message. This is not the case at Carlone, which is why it fits in with one of The Source’s callings as an importer: to focus on cultural authenticity while maintaining responsible vineyard practices and conscious craftsmanship. Few in the world know Davide Carlone, and I think he and his Swiss patrons are partially to blame. The Swiss love their neighbors’ mountain reds; their country is frozen most of the year, too cold to produce them. And what’s better in the freezing alpine territories for a hearty, warm dinner? (Beer works too, but we’ll stay on topic…) Davide is constantly building, expanding, and reclaiming Nebbiolo territory reabsorbed by forests and other wilderness after the economic viticultural failures in the early to mid-1900s that led to mass workforce migration to industrial centers. On his pink-flecked, light gray and volcanic bedrock that’s hundreds of millions of years old and sometimes resembles dinosaur bones, and his sandy topsoil, this expansion of his childhood reclamation dream comes at great cost in time and money. The Swiss (at least certainly those with the better taste inside this neutral bunch) make the windy drive and offer him on-the-spot hard-to-refuse cash in difficult economic times. Thus, the cycle of Davide’s relative global obscurity continues. In California, we’re gifted some limited quantities of his authentic treasures from the prime of his craftsmanship, which by all accounts starts with his meticulous vineyard work. Piemonte’s golden age began decades ago and we’re right in the middle of it. Indeed, the region’s northerners are just getting traction while those in the Langhe were already in sixth gear decades ago. Broken links in this lengthy series of quality years exist and the culprit is often hail, as it was in the catastrophic May 2020 hailstorm. Luckily for Davide, the hail missed his vineyards entirely, making his wines some of the few available from the entire region. These south-facing vineyards perched above all Alto Piemonte appellations and surrounded by densely forested mountains facing the Po Plain were indeed quality fruit from a great season. You only need to experience his 2020 Nebbiolo new arrival! Davide’s starters are rhyolitic ignimbrite volcanic-rock solid!—the technical name for this rock is often tossed into the generic “porphyry” classification. The craft, the exuberance and youthful joy and generosity without compromise for cellar worthiness and cultural identity are more than only present; they are forcefully communicated. The daily confluence of summer sun and mountain fresh air gives these wines of noble vinous genetics their depth and lift. After working with a great focus on Alto Piemonte wines since 2010 (and an in-depth drinking and study of the Langhe more than a decade further back), I believe Carlone is a clear contender for top billing in Alto Piemonte, which always includes consistency aside from terroir merit and past glories, despite the year. They are also quite noteworthy in all Piemonte, Italy, and therefore, globally. We start with the 2022 Vespolina, a grape known for its potentially bitter green tannins, but not at Carlone. Spurred on by another local vignaiolo and well-known enologist, Cristiano Garella, Davide opted to shorten macerations to avoid digging too deep into the seeds and extracting the meaner tannins once the alcohol begins to break down the various membranes around the seeds. Vespolina is yet another unsung superstar-in-waiting from Piemonte, although it seems impossible for any grape, no matter how worthy, to challenge Nebbiolo’s unstoppable generational dynasty. Vespolina is known to be genetic parent material for Nebbiolo and shares its noble balance of finesse and power, at least when crafted by the right mind and hand. 2022 was a unique year and mirrors the general climate of the Langhe with balanced acidity, sun-touched ripeness and gorgeous red fruits tied together with a floral bow. Quick out of the gates on a late Wednesday morning in early February this year, with clear skies and perfect cellar temperature inside and out on Spain’s Costa Brava, the 2022 Vespolina flaunted a gorgeous nose of flowers, clean lees (for those who have cleaned out a red wine fermentation bin, it’s those pinkish-purple creamy, glycerol lees pocked with brown seeds), licorice, carob, fresh cut and raw yam, horse saddle (not in a bretty way), straw, algae, and tree bark. It’s extremely young and juicy with a palate of beautiful chalky tannins—nothing green. It has a stunning savory finish with licorice and is tailored in a micro-ox style on the palate; a compliment considering this stainless steel raised wine, a vessel which typically makes wine more angular, though impossible to tell with this wine, save the striking clarity and clean trim. After a long lunch with some Spanish winegrowers and just before I passed out early, a retaste revealed the sweet black licorice note is stronger than earlier in the day; like the licorice note of a young Vieux Telegraphe CdP from the ‘90s and ‘00s—I haven’t tasted anything from Vieux Telegraph since 2007! Tannins are much tighter and the wine much more savory; blue and black fruits with a red fruit finish. Beautiful. It's sometimes easy to find a strong organoleptic connection between Nebbiolo from the ancient volcanic soils of Alto Piemonte with those much younger volcanic soils of Etna. When two great varieties are predicated on specific aromas like rose and finely delineated red fruits with lighter hues (unless pushed for color extraction), and elegance on sturdy tannic and acidic framing, it may be easy to think certain Nebbiolo wines could be mistaken for the greatest and most polished ambassador of Sicily, Nerello Mascalese. Carlone’s 2020 Nebbiolo is a prime example of this similarity, and that’s why it’s the first Nebbiolo wine I’ve written about in the same breath. (Perhaps this is also because we have now firmly planted our flag on Etna with three new ones to come this year!) The 2020 is darker than the 2019 and more aromatically reserved when compared to the 2022 Vespolina in the same tasting; maybe two extra years in bottle has something to do with that? It’s not particularly varietal-dominated (hence the relation to Etna wines), except the licorice, tar, and the gentle rosy florals. It is most expressive with sun-exposed wild fruit, dry and wet forest nuances, and a sort of volcanic, high altitude, mountain foothill vibe. Firm tannins, clean barn, straw, and animal mat are some of the compelling savory notes that make this even better served with some chow. You may need to have it with food to experience its highest expression. Rarely do I suggest a pre-aeration in the form of decanting, but it might be helpful if you want to dig in straight away. Otherwise, plan well: open it far before dinner (or lunch, for you tireless bons vivants), draw some wine off and let it unfold in time for the meal. I have waited more than two years to finally experience a finished bottle of the 2019 Boca, which I have tasted twice out of botte and once out of steel vat just before bottling. Each encounter was glorious with an educational opportunity to taste separate vinification and aging of different biotypes. The final blend surpassed my expectations. This is a wine and a vintage for the ages, and while it will be good young with the right amount of patience and coaxing, it’s guaranteed to age very well. The most elegant and lightly aromatic Nebbiolos out of botte are reserved for the Adele bottling. In this bottling, labeled simply as Boca, all the many different old wood vats and a dozen or so Nebbiolo biotypes with a dollop of Vespolina (15%) makes for a deeply layered and complex wine that combines autumnal red and dark stone fruit and ripe wild berries, and an immense array of spicy, earthy, animally, savory qualities. This is as good as it gets for authentic Alto Piemonte on this type of hard volcanic bedrock. Carlone’s Boca seems to be in a league of its own up on this hill away from the greater production of Alto Piemonte Nebbiolos further downhill and closer to the expansive Po Valley. Bravo, signore!

After leaving Chez Dutraive, our next stop was a business call to two promising young Beaujolais producers that Jean-Louis had met a few months earlier, when they had sold him a shipment of much-needed grapes after the losses to hail. Once he tasted their wines it immediately occurred to him that Ted should meet them. Again we drove through countryside usually only seen in photographs: one-lane roads squeezed between verdant berms among huge expanses of now green and healthy vineyards stretching to a distant horizon, under blue skies mottled with perfectly spaced cotton ball clouds. There were actual castles on distant hilltops, just for good measure. Ancient crumbling walls and structures lined the road and lay in piles in the fields. I kept wanting to reach for my camera, but it occurred to me that if I did this every time I thought of it, I’d never put it down. New research suggests that the practice of always holding a camera in front of an experience greatly diminishes our ability to retain what we are seeing; somehow by concentrating on storing images in a device, they are less likely to store in our brains. Then we have thousands of photos we often don’t look at again later on, and the bulk of what we’ve seen is forgotten. I kept my phone in my pocket as much as I could and recorded everything with my eyeballs. We were yet again sent sideways by the white wagon’s navigation system, and by late afternoon finally found the domaine of brothers Victor Emmanuel and Pierre-Maxime Chardigny. Both were boyishly handsome and surprisingly young; Victor was in his early twenties, while Pierre-Maxime was just short of thirty. They were both a little shy and quietly earnest at first. They showed us the buildings they had recently acquired for their operation: what appeared to be big barns, a bit ramshackle and in need of renovation, but full of promise. Then they took us around back to a large expanse of their parcels as a chilly wind kicked up that sent me running back to the car for my coat. The guys gave us the rundown in threadbare cable knit sweaters, seemingly immune to the cold. They told us that when they were growing up, their father had a mobile bottling machine, so they got to know a lot of winemakers in the area. Eventually he was able to buy some land that he rented out to a vigneron who worked the land for a few decades. When the maker retired, the land returned to the family and Victor and Pierre-Maxime jumped at the chance to take over and start their own operation. While Victor is the resident maker and holds a National Diploma in Enology, Pierre-Maxime runs the business side of things. They also have a third brother who has a degree in agronomy and works for the famed biodynamically run Domaine Leflaive, so he contributes with advice on crop production and soil management. At the time of our visit, they had twelve hectares, and their cousin contributed to their efforts with an additional eight. All of the vines were surrounded by healthy green undergrowth; in recent years the land had been chemically farmed, but they had plans to go completely organic and biodynamic and were looking to achieve full certification in 2018. They pointed at some slopes in the distance where they had more vines and said they had yet another on the other side of the hill. Then they jumped in their little white Toyota Tercel and took us over to each parcel, where Ted and Andrea clicked away with their cameras and Ted rubbed stone and dirt between his fingertips. At our third stop, their vineyards overlooked a small valley with a church and graveyard surrounded by more vineyards. I wondered aloud if the graves would have any effect on the grapes around them and Victor gave me a wry smile and a shrug. Their primary production facility was in another big barn beside a house to which they would expand in the coming year, though there was the possible complication with an old lady who had lived in the top floor for decades. Inside the big rickety doors with peeling pain and an ancient lock, the space was filled with a tight crowd of steel tanks that on first glance looked like a mob of hulking robots from an old sci-fi movie. Through another door to the side was a small room with new oak barrels stacked in triangles of three. Victor poured tastes from his pipette and he and his brother spoke with humility, gratitude and pride about the growing success of their new enterprise. As we tasted, Ted continued to be surprised by the quality of the work coming from such a young vigneron. We got into our cars again and followed them to a large house with a tall iron gate. Inside on the property was a sprawling lawn full of trees with big white blooms called boule de neige (snowball), a type of rhododendron. Across from their father’s huge limestone house, there was another building filled with more tanks and equipment, shiny and fresh out of the box, which they had recently purchased to keep up with their rapid expansion. Under the beautiful home, which was draped with big clusters of pale purple wisteria that Pierre Maxim referred to as glycine, there was a tidy tasting room with stone walls and a low wooden ceiling. We all sat around an antique oak table, as Victor Emmanuel opened bottles and poured the newest cuvées. Ted mentioned that he was one of three brothers as well, separated by about the same number of years as the Chardignys. He immediately pegged these guys as having a similar dynamic to his with his older brother; there was even a little tension caused by Pierre-Maxime being more assertive and bossy, while Victor had a mischievous glint in his eye. Pierre-Maxime said Victor is prone to jokes and pranks, like Ted has always been. A big difference was that Ted’s brothers aren’t involved in his business, but his sister Victoria is the general manager of his office and developed the entire administration side of things almost from scratch. Ted was enjoying the wines immensely and was already sure he wanted to do business with them, a decision compounded by this newfound sense of kinship. They were being distributed to some extent across Europe, but seemed to be hesitant about going overseas, or maybe even starting with someone new in any capacity. They had recently been burned by a middleman who had taken a huge shipment of bottles and then disappeared and never paid them. Ted assured them that his reputation for scrupulousness was sound, as Dutraive, for one, could attest. They quickly conceded the point as Ted said he would see that they benefit greatly from being distributed widely in his territories of Chicago, California and Oregon, all of which he would soon be expanding. Ted continued: “I like to support producers in any way I can. I don’t consider myself a merchant, more a partner. The lines of communication are always open; I want everyone to feel free to communicate their questions and needs at all times.” The Chardignys were soon as sold as Ted was. Ted mentioned that we had been at Julien Zernott’s place the day before, and Pierre-Maxime said they had exchanged bottles with him a few months earlier. Zernott had left six for them at Dutrave’s and when Pierre-Maxime heard that he would be at Dutraive’s again more recently, they brought him six bottles in return and got to meet him. Ted and the guys talked about the regular practice of vignerons exchanging their wares, the meeting of peers and gaining of friends in the process. Ted started in on talking allotments and noticed that the stack of boxes against the wall were all in six packs, their preferred way of doing things thus far. He said it would be helpful for them to upgrade to boxes of twelve, since the shipping companies charge per box, not just weight. That change alone would clearly reduce transport costs by half. Pierre-Maxime expressed surprise at this, but it was just one of many things he would be learning as he took the jump across the Pacific. Back outside, talk turned to the personal again, as Pierre-Maxime said that he was relocating to Lyon to move in with his longtime girlfriend, a physics student. I was surveying the beautiful grounds and the rolling land of Burgundy beyond, when I asked about the house. He said it has been in the family for three hundred years and the big lawn out back was often used for parties. It seemed to me like it would be the perfect place to get married (if one was into that sort of thing).

(Download complete pdf here) New Arrivals Katharina Wechsler Rheinhessen, Germany We started our collaboration last year with Katharina Wechsler’s remarkable 2019 vintage of dry Rieslings from the Rheinhessen’s heartland, Westhofen. 2019 is considered one of the great vintages of recent years. Its high acidity, perfectly matured phenolics and low yields for concentration make for wines that will age very well, and that will also need time to open up once the cork is pulled or a much longer time in the cellar. Katharina began the harvest of her 2020 Rieslings on September 14th, though most of the top sites—the crus that have just arrived—were mainly collected at the end of the month. She explained that in the middle of September nighttime temperatures dropped, allowing the grapes more time on the vine to further develop their aromatic complexities. While the praise is greater for 2019, she believes that 2020 is more balanced overall because of the even crop load and slightly lower degree of acidity, though the acidity is still high. All in all, there may be a better fluidity to her 2020s than 2019—better for today’s market that probably drinks 95% of all of these wines within the first few years of their arrival. At the end of the month, Katharina will be making the rounds showcasing her top cru Rieslings. Katharina’s Big Three Benn sits to the left of the fallow field and goes from the road up the hill Benn, the family’s tiny monopole vineyard site, has perhaps the most diverse plantations of all her vineyard parcels. It’s her biggest section and has the greatest variation of bedrock and topsoil as well as grape varieties. The warmest of Katharina’s three important crus, it’s composed mostly of loess topsoil in the lower parts that sit as low as 120m, and limestone in the upper part, peaking around 160m. Quality Riesling vines are preferential to suffering, which is why it is in the lower sections where much of the non-Riesling are planted. The 50-year-old Riesling vines, particularly those used for Wechsler’s top-flight trocken bottling, are planted in limestone bedrock and limestone and loess topsoil toward the top, not too far away from the bottom of Morstein. Notably, the old vines produce an annual average of nearly 25hl/ha (1.33 tons/acre), and the young vines used for the estate trocken wine 65hl/ha (4.33 tons/acre)—almost a 1:3 ratio; you can imagine which vines are used for the top wine. The quality of Riesling generated from Benn is noteworthy, but there’s no doubt its current highs at the Grosses Gewächs level (while it isn’t classified as a GG wine, nor is Katharina in the VDP) are not yet the same level as Kirchspiel and Morstein. That said, Benn is still being discovered by Katharina. To this taster, Benn produces a substantial Riesling and it has very impressive moments, especially with more time in the glass. When the others shine so brightly in their own individual way, Benn has been upfront but somehow still a slower burn. The material for potential greatness is unquestionably in the wine’s interior, but it often needs a little more time open and perhaps more cellar aging too, to fully express itself on a level similar to Kirchspiel and Morstein. You can read a more exhaustive account of this vineyard and the others on Katharina’s profile on our website (here). Morstein vineyard Kirchspiel is a great vineyard and screams its grand cru status (Grosses Gewächs) upon opening. It’s always the readiest out of the gates—in the range of other growers as well—and for many reasons such as its amphitheater shape that faces the Rhine River (but still roughly five miles away by air to the closest point) with its southeastern exposure an average of around a thirty percent gradient, with bedrock and topsoil composed of clay marls, limestone and loess. It’s warmer than Morstein because of its lower altitude (between 140m-180m) along with the curvature of the hillside that allows it to maintain greater warmth inside this small topographical feature that shelters it from cold westerly winds. Katharina has three different parcels in this large vineyard with reasonably good separation, giving the resulting wines a broader range of complexity and greater balance. The three different parcels were planted between the years 2000 and 2015 and the average yield between them ranges from 40hl-60hl/ha (2.67-4.0 tons/acre), with some of the fruit slotted for the Estate Riesling Trocken and the Feinherb Riesling Trocken, the top quality lots (which doesn’t always have to do with yield, but rather specific parcels that naturally excel beyond others) for the Kirschspiel Trocken, and the difference for the Westhofner Riesling Trocken. The youth of these vines is on display with the resulting wines and their vigorous, energy-filled, fruit-forward personalities that balance the mouth-watering, mineral-rich palate textures and aromas. Kirchspiel is a leader in the range of all who have Riesling vines in this gifted terroir, and it’s considered one of the country’s great dry Riesling sites. Morstein, Rheinhessen’s juggernaut limestone-based, dry Riesling vineyard is—even with vines only replanted in 2012—the undisputed big boy in Katharina’s dry Riesling range. It’s one of the vineyards that first made Klaus-Peter Keller famous (I believe the other was Hubacker), and from what KP told me some years ago, it’s also the principal location for his G-Max Riesling (the precise location of which he won’t openly disclose now because some years ago some overindulgent visitors were made privy to its location and later stole a bunch of the grape clusters!). Katharina’s Morstein vines are massale selections from the Mosel and have smaller, looser clusters with naturally low yields, even from the young vines. A mere pup by the standard of vine age, Morstein is formidable. And while it’s not as flashy out of the gates, it picks up serious power and expansive complexities that seem to know no end. There are many top wines in the range of the world’s great producers that behave similarly. Take the slow burn once the corks are pulled on Armand Rousseau’s Chambertin compared to the all-out charge of their crowd-pleasing Charmes-Chambertin; Cavallotto’s Riserva Barolos, with the long-game, Vigna San Giuseppe, that trounces after hours open, versus the upfront Vignolo that has a smaller window of greatness; Veyder-Malberg’s greatest pillar of Riesling purity and deep power, Brandstadtt, next to the ready-to-go Bruck; Emrich-Schönleber’s regal Halenberg on blue slate versus the friendlier Frühlingsplätzchen spurred into immediate action from its red slate. Morstein is no rapid takeoff F-15 fighter jet with instant supersonic speeds. It’s a rocket ship with a slow initial takeoff and a steady climb that reaches 17,000 mph before entering orbit. Morstein faces south and rises to a high plateau of around 240m with a 20% gradient (a slope hard to understand from a distance but more evident when standing in the vineyard), all on limestone bedrock. The topsoil is referred to as terra fusca (black earth), a soil matrix of heavy brown clay. Its low to medium topsoil depth (by vinous standards), combined with limestone fragments from the underlying bedrock limits its ability to store water than Katharina’s other main sites. Its root penetration into the subsoil is also a more difficult challenge, giving the Riesling vines the much-needed stress to regularly pull off peak performance. These young vineyards yield between 35hl/ha and 55hl/ha (2.3tons/acre to 3.7tons/acre), relatively low numbers for young vines that demonstrate Morstein’s spare vineyard soils. Cume do Avia 2021s Ribeiro, Spain The stress of each year at Cume do Avia pays dividends on the final wines. Every year, brothers Diego and Alvaro Collarte, and their cousin, Fito Collarte Pérez, enter the ring with Mother Nature to take her punches. They’re pummeled with frost, mildew, disease, and hail—everything! 2021 was no exception, but a complete opposite from the previous year, except that they had about the same 50% losses in overall yield. They may get beat up pretty badly but they still manage to win, and each year is another hard-earned uptick in the overall quality of their wines. Vintage 2020 & 2021 2020 was a dry winter followed by a rainy and cold spring, and fifty days straight summer sunshine before a wet fall. 2021 had a wet winter, late budbreak and dry spring, wet and rainy summer, and a dry autumn. 2020’s losses were mostly due to bad flowering, while 2021 was mostly due to mildew during the fruit season. Diego pointed out that even though the losses were 50% in each year, they were at about 25% of the production capacity of their vineyard when all the young vines will begin to produce to their potential. With this, you can imagine the amount of work they do each season for such meager yields. Especially notable in 2021 was the high level of humidity from the daily fog that only encouraged an explosion of mildew pressure and a severe selection through periods prior to the final harvest. Under organic culture, this is especially difficult. For varieties that need a longer growing season, like Sousón, Caíño Longo and Caíño Redondo, it was imperative to pull them earlier than they wanted. It’s for this reason that they were not made into single-varietal bottlings but instead were all blended into the Colleita 9 Tinto, just like their 2020 estate reds. Stylistically, the 2020s are more structured and 2021s are sharper and more angular. 2021 Wines Arriving are their two bottlings from the Arraiano estate, owned by another extended family member but farmed by the Cume do Avia team. These Arraiano wines are usually a little fruitier than the Colleitas. It’s another year where they skipped the single varietal bottlings because of the devastating low yields. 2022 will again have the full range of goodies in single-varietal form. In the meantime, we get to take advantage of having all their best materials from each vineyard area blended into a single wine. The Arraiano Branco is 59% Treixadura, 15% Albariño, 13% Godello, and 13% Loureira. Colleita 9 Branco is 53% Treixadura, 29% Albariño, 10% Loureira, 5% Lado, 2% Caíño Branco and 1% Godello. Treixadura has a medium to low acid profile with a more herbal, floral, and white, non-citrus fruit notes, the supporting cast of other grapes are all of much higher acidity, with stronger citrus characteristics and more taut stone fruit qualities to give these wines some punching power and a little more fruit. Both the wines are aged in stainless steel vats. Both reds are aged in large, restored chestnut barrels (some nearly 100 years old) and very old, medium-sized oak barrels. Every vintage the Arraiano Tinto comes from the same plot (as does the white) and is almost always the same blend of 60% Caíño Longo, 13% Sousón, 10% Mencía, 9% Brancellao, and the remaining 8% a mix of Mouratón (Juan García), Merenzao (Trousseau) and Garnacha Tintorera (Alicante Bouschet; not the same grape as Grenache/Garnacha). The dominance in Arraiano Tinto with Caíño Longo makes a wine with perhaps a touch more tension and red fruit compared to Colleita 9 Tinto. In top years, Colleita 9 Tinto is a blend of grapes that don’t make the single-varietal bottlings (Caíño Longo, Brancellao and sometimes Sousón). That’s what makes the 2020 and 2021 bottlings of this wine so special—they have all the best stuff from each harvest! It’s a blend of 28% Sousón, 27% Caíño Longo, 24% Brancellao, 9% Mencía, 6% Carabuñeira, 4% Merenzao and 2% Ferrón. The Caíño Longo brings some electric thunder, Sousón brings animal, spice, darker color and even more acidity and tannin, and Brancellao softens both of those strong personality grapes with its extremely fine nuance, beautifully balanced freshness and extremely pale color. The others, Mencía brings more fruit, Carabuñeira more tannin and color, Merenzao higher aromatic tones and Ferrón more beast, pepper and inky color. Birgit Braunstein Burgenland, Austria Our biodynamic guru, Birgit Braunstein is on the far eastern side of Austria in Leithaberg, on the north end of Burgenland. Many centuries ago, this region was inundated by Cistercians, the same monks responsible for advances and the preservation of knowledge in Burgundy and Galicia, among other European wine regions. Here the rock types are limestone and schist, no surprise for the monks who had a thing for limestone (Burgundy) and metamorphic rock (a good chunk of Galicia). Birgit is without a doubt one of the most actively thoughtful producers we work with. Nearly every month a personal email arrives wishing us well and with news and inquiries of how things are going for us. Not only does she farm her vineyards under biodynamic culture (Demeter certified), she lives that same culture in her daily life. A single mother that raised her two twin boys alone since birth and who are now running the winery with her, she’s a bit of an angel and she reveres everything around her, including you. She’s our Austrian Mother Goose. While she is most known for her Blaufrankish red wines, Birgit also has a zillion different cuvées of experimental wines mostly sold in Austria. They’re pleasurable, with solid terroir trimmings. We showed a set of them at an event just before the pandemic struck and they were a hit. It’s maybe understandable that we forgot about them while the world was falling apart, but they’re now back and even better, as she has a couple more years under her belt. We were able to secure a good quantity of these wines but we expect they won’t last long. After tasting her range of skin-fermented whites some years ago, I asked if she could make one that is easier on price, and she came through with her first bottling of the new wine, 2021 Pinot Blanc “Prinzen.” This delicious and fun wine meant for early drinking (and I don’t only mean before noon) comes from a very serious terroir buzzing with biodynamic life. It’s on the top of the Leithaberg hill, one of the most historical sites in the area, and abuts a forest that helps to regulate the temperature with cold northern winds that pass through the trees and into the vines in this relatively warm and humid area close to Lake Neusiedl, a shallow, landlocked saltwater sea (that’s also mosquito hell!). Pinot Blanc is known to have been in Burgenland since the Fourteenth Century and is grown here on limestone bedrock and clay topsoil. It’s almost too good for such an inexpensive biodynamically farmed and clean natural wine. It spends three days on the skins, pressed and then aged in steel tanks for six months. 120 cases imported to the US. Birgit’s 2020 Pinot Blanc “Brigid” is named after the Celtic goddess of light. This is a step up in complexity compared to the Prinzen Pinot Blanc, vis-a-vis its cellar aging and what Birgit considers to be ideal for a deeply mineral wine due to its schist soil. This wine made from 42-year-old vines was skin fermented for three weeks (so seven times more than Prinzen) before being aged in old, 500l barrels. Birgit describes it as having a strong presence of flint in the nose and subtle notes of marzipan, menthol, graphite, lemon verbena, white flowers, and ground hazelnut; fully ripe and vibrant with a taut mineral structure and long finish. 35 cases imported to the US. Birgit Braunstein's nature-filled vineyards Birgit’s 2019 Sauvignon Blanc “Nimue” is skin fermented for two weeks prior to pressing, then aged in old, 500l barrels without sulfur additions until bottling. Birgit describes this wine grown on limestone as delicate elderflower, fruity extract, pure minerality, and a robust structure derived from a prolonged maceration period. Birgit named the cuvée after Nimue, “Lady of the Lake,” a ruler in Celtic mythology who gave Excalibur to Arthur from within her waters, and she was the foster mother of Lancelot and Merlin’s lover. 35 cases imported to the US. Domaine Chardigny Beaujolais, France Victor Chardigny We also have some 2021 wines arriving from Domaine Chardigny. It was a soul crushing year for the Chardigny family with terrible losses on Beaujolais and even worse on Chardonnay. The battle for grape preservation began in April with a frost that killed a lot of early shoot growth, followed by a snowfall that added enough weight to the remaining tender shoots for them to break. Then there was heavy rain in July and August (more or less the same weather I experienced in Portugal during the summer) and then a dry enough final to the season to pull off healthy grapes with what was left. We spoke with Chardigny about getting behind their Chardonnay wines in a bigger way, but that will have to wait until the 2022s. After a series of hot years (2017-2020), we are finally able to relax and swirl copious amounts of low alcohol Beaujolais—the only problem being that the quantities are so miniscule! Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just take the average alcohol in a ten-year period instead of such swings? As mentioned in all past promotions of this young group of sons in charge of their family’s winery, they are on a constant upward trajectory. The first vintage we imported from them was 2016, a tough year in itself, and the rest were warm or hot years that they managed quite well. Now with 2021, we get to see what they would’ve done with a vintage that resembles what was more common in the past. Domaine Chardigny first bottled Beaujolais-Leynes with the 2020 vintage. Named after their hometown, it’s a Beaujolais-Village appellation wine sourced from vineyards at the geological convergence between Beaujolais and Mâconnais. It’s made entirely with carbonic fermentation with 100% whole clusters in concrete and stainless steel with almost no intervention over its two-week fermentation. This wine is a reaction to the need for a more price-friendly Beaujolais, and it delivers the spirit of these young and generous guys. Standing in Saint-Veran and looking at Beaujolais across the way Chardigny’s 2021 Saint-Amour Clos du Chapitre continues to dazzle with its trim figure and subtler notes than its counterpart, the 2021 Saint-Amour À la Folie. À la Folie has won over so many with its unabashed, bodacious curves, middleweight texture and big but trim flavor. It was always the greater potential production between these two Saint-Amour crus and was the one on which they ran most of their experiments, with different aging vessels of concrete, stainless steel, foudre, and small oak barrels (called fûts de chêne, or simply fût, in Burgundy).The 2020s I tasted out of barrel with Victor and Pierre-Maxime were stunning. I didn’t make it back to Beaujolais to taste the 2021s out of barrel this last year, so I don’t have the comparison to it, though I already know in the bottle it’s showing beautifully and it’s certainly less full bodied. Pique-Basse Roaix, Southern Rhône Valley Every order we receive of Pique-Basse evaporates almost overnight. Frankly, we’re pleasantly surprised that in this low-alcohol focused market that many buyers continue to recognize that one can make a good wine with low alcohol, but in some regions, like the Southern Rhône Valley, picking when the phenolics are properly ripe leads to wines of greater depth. The reality is that many wine drinkers who can actually afford to eat out in restaurants of high quality want more classically styled wines, not only natural wines, especially in the Southern Rhône, like the wines of Pique-Basse. Arriving are 2021 La Brusquembille, a blend of 70% Syrah and 30% Carignan, and 2019 Le Chasse-Coeur, a blend of 80% Grenache, 10% Syrah and 10% Carignan. Syrah from the Southern Rhône Valley is often not that compelling because it can be a little weedy and lacking in the cool spice and exotic notes that come with Syrah further up into the Northern Rhône Valley. However, La Brusquembille may change your opinion, especially with the 2021, a cooler vintage with even fresher and brighter fruit than usual. Without the Carignan to add more southern charm, it might easily be mistaken for a Crozes-Hermitage from a great year above the Chassis plain up by Mercurol, where this appellation’s terraced limestone vineyards lie and are quite similar to the limestone bedrock and topsoil at the vineyards of Pique-Basse, without the loess sediments common in Mercurol. It’s not as sleek in profile because it’s still from the south, but its savory qualities and red and black fruit nuances can be a close match. Despite the alcohol degree in the 2019 hitting 14.5% (while the target is always between 13%-14%), Olivier tries to pick the grapes for Le Chasse-Coeur on the earlier side for Grenache, a grape that has a hard time reaching phenolic maturity at sugar levels comparable to grapes like Syrah or Pinot Noir, so he farms accordingly for earlier ripeness with the intention to maintain more freshness. It’s more dominated by red fruit notes than black—perhaps that’s what the bright red label is hinting at—and it’s aged in cement vats, or sometimes stainless steel if the vintage is plentiful, to preserve the tension and to avoid Grenache’s predisposition for unwanted oxidation. Both Le Chasse-Coeur and La Brusquembille offer immense value for such serious wines.  

Finally coming home! (My original home, anyway…) It’s been two years since I’ve been to the US and a lot has happened (including babies!). It will be nice to see all the faces I’ve missed and all the new people I’ve yet to meet in person. I’m especially happy that I’ll be seeing my father, who turned eighty this year and has gone through a rough patch with his health. It’s hard for us expats to have such a separation from our families for so long and I’m glad that the dry spell is coming to an end. New Videos and Maps on our Website There’s a new terroir map this month: Galicia’s Rías Baixas, which also includes Portugal’s Vinho Verde sub-appellation, Monção e Melgaço, because of their common thread and focus on Albariño (Alvarinho, in Portuguese). It may be the most colorful map to date, action-packed, with information on rock types, grape codification, altitudes, temperatures, etc., all squeezed into one page. In case you haven’t perused our website recently, there’s a new menu category of Videos that includes some interviews with winegrowers and some fun new drone videos of their land and regions. There are two posted so far and there will be many more to come. The first drone video I did (which was more of a practice effort) is a regional teaser for our new producers in Spain’s Rioja and Txakoli areas, a short piece of eye-candy that covers some interesting ground from earlier this year. It’s fascinating how different the landscape in Rioja is compared to Txakoli, which is barely a half hour drive away from the northern parts of the region. The shots were filmed within a day or two of each other, but the drastically different environments make them seem like they are hundreds of miles apart. The second video (which took me three days to edit because my efficacy with video is dismal) offers a tour of Chablis’ right bank. It’s a hair over ten minutes long, has classical music to accompany the flight, and a lot of information I’ve put in the form of text pop ups in the video to consider with the backdrop of the premier crus, Mont de Milieu, Montée de Tonnerre, and Fourchaume, and, of course, all the grand crus. The material may be slightly dense and sometimes a little fast to take it in one pass, but you can pause and rewind to read, check out the grooves in the landscape, refer to the accompanying vineyard map and contemplate the simplicity and complexity of this wine region. When I am able to finally unplug myself from the unusually high quantity of new producer profiles I need to write for our website, I will get to the left bank of Chablis, along with dozens of other videos I plan to create from the drone footage I shot on my two-month trek through Europe, which only really missed the Loire Valley and Central and Southern Italy. Chablis grand crus Blanchots on the right and Le Clos on the main slope Delayed Containers The logistics of this year have been by far the most difficult to navigate since we started our company a little over ten years ago, and things don’t seem to be getting better. Wines usually take about sixty days to get from the cellar door in Europe to California, but right now they can take up to five months… It’s for this reason that all the “new arrivals” coming in October were written about in our September newsletter because their original projections for arrival (even with a massive time buffer considered) were in that month and the end of August. Most of those wines did arrive on our shores, but the shore is where they stayed for two additional months. Getting them out of port in Europe was difficult enough, but they’ve been just floating out on the ocean close to the port waiting for the go-ahead to enter and unload. So, if you want to read about what new wines will actually be available this month, you can read (or review) our September newsletter. Port of Los Angeles September 2021, Photo by Mario Tama Letting the clowder of cats out of the bag (Yes, as with a murder of crows, clowder is the name of a group of cats.) For many, the pandemic was a waiting game. But for many others in business sectors such as delivery services, agriculture, and construction, they had an actual increase in business (at least over here, in Portugal). As the principal owner of our company, it was a call to action, as it was for most business owners. Sink or swim, right? My wife, Andrea, and I did more than just tread water, we were in an all-out freestyle race in search of new producers, redevelopment of some of our website ideas, online retail work (which saved our butts for many months at the beginning of the pandemic, paying our bills when the wholesale division had dropped to near zero), ramped up our foreign language classes, and tried to make sure that our employees were not sinking too far financially and going completely crazy with so much time to contemplate life and the stresses the pandemic caused for everyone. During this unique moment in history, we greatly expanded into Iberia and picked up a few other producers in Italy, France and Germany along the way. Many of our new producers are not even close to arriving and I wanted to play them close to my chest until they got to the States because I’ve had bad experiences where people changed their minds and pulled out after we had already started to promote them. But given that this month all our new arrivals were already covered over the last two monthly newsletters, it’s a good opportunity to talk about some great new things in the market, and what’s more exciting than that? What follows are short overviews of the upcoming new producers (with less personal narrative than usual) that can be found on our website. For some of these producers, it will be their first time being imported to the US. What follows are short overviews of the upcoming new producers (with less personal narrative than usual) that can be found on our website. For some of these producers, it will be their first time being imported to the US. Incoming new producers mentioned in previous newsletters to arrive in October include Davide Carlone (Boca, Italy), Falkenstein (Südtirol, Italy), Togni-Rebaioli (Lombardy, Italy), La Battagliola (Lambrusco, Italy), and Elise Dechannes (Champagne, France). Elise Dechannes showing her homemade biodynamic tea preparations The Newbies Katharina Wechsler - Rheinhessen, Germany (National, except MN) The German organic (certified) and biodynamic winegrower, Katharina Wechsler, is the owner of enviable holdings in the most famous dry Riesling area of the Rheinhessen (thanks to the local luminaries, Klaus-Peter Keller, and Philipp Wittman), the highlights in her stable include a big slab of the grand cru vineyard, Kirchspiel, and a small chunk of perhaps the most coveted of all recognized grand crus, Morstein. Between these two juggernaut vineyards of dry Riesling, her family owns entirely a large vineyard, called Benn. Only the upper section of Benn on the strongly calcareous sections is planted to Riesling, while much of the lower slopes are a patchwork of many different grape varieties that she loves to play with in her cellar, concocting things that range between pure pleasure and fun, savory orange wines, to more serious classically styled dry wines, like her knockout Scheurebe. The entry-level trocken Riesling will give any dry Riesling in all of Germany a run for the money but showcases the lifted and elegant exotic characteristics of Riesling only found in this part of the world. Artuke - Rioja, Spain (CA only) Artuke’s Arturo Miguel is a quiet but influential leader of a new movement of young Spanish vignerons in Rioja, the country’s most historically famous region. The agenda is to bring attention back to specific terroirs and return the power to the growers themselves. He is the second generation of his family to grow and bottle their own wines since the end of the dictatorship, and when he took control of the family’s vineyards, he converted them all to organic farming. His cellar techniques are straightforward, with older barrels of different shapes and sizes that highlight the differences between the four specific vineyard wines, except for the ARTUKE bottling made with carbonic maceration, a long-standing tradition with local wines, and Pies Negros, Spanish for black feet, a reference to the foot-stomping of the grapes, which is a blend of many different parcels. All wines come from calcareous sandstone (similar in structure and mineral makeup to sandstones from Barolo and Barbaresco) with varying degrees of sand and clay. José Gil - Rioja, Spain (CA only) The young and open-minded José Gil and his Uruguayan life partner, Vicky, are major influencers in the new generation of Rioja grower-producers focused on single-site, organically farmed wines. Located near Rioja Alta’s famous San Vicente de la Sonsierra, most of the vineyards sit at higher altitudes that stretch the limitations of the region’s naturally long ripening season. Employing straightforward cellar practices with fermentation and aging in small to medium-sized barrels, José’s wines are direct, aromatic, fully flavored and driven by each wine’s terroir. José gives weight to the influence of the surrounding area, mostly from the mountains just to the north, and handles the wines gently to retain the area’s identity beyond the vineyards. The production is minuscule but on the rise. Arizcuren - Rioja, Spain (National) Well-known and highly respected architect turned winegrower, Javier Arizcuren is one of Rioja Oriental’s most exciting new talents. With the help of his father, Javier spends his “spare time” focused on rescuing high-altitude, ancient Grenache and Mazuelo (the local name for Carignana) vineyards that managed to survive both phylloxera and the trend of replacing historic vines with Tempranillo, an early-ripening grape that is only a small part of this region’s history despite its dominance today. His experience with architecture leads him down rabbit holes of possibility and experimentation (a rarity in this often predictable and extremely conservative wine region), so that he may better understand the aesthetic of each site and build on its strengths using various fermentation and aging techniques. Aseginolaza y Leunda – Navarra, Spain (National) Environmental biologists and former winemaking hobbyists, Jon Aseginolaza and Pedro Leunda, have directed their full attention to a project focused on a better understanding of Spain’s Navarra, a historical region with a severe identity crisis stemming from its living in the shadow of its illustrious neighbor, Rioja, Spain’s historical crown jewel. Always the bride’s maid and never the bride, the region began to focus on international varieties to stand out and increase its market share. Moving in the opposite direction of this trend, Jon and Pedro are focused on finding and recovering old vineyards planted with indigenous ancient genetic material (mostly Grenache, the historic grape of the region) inside vastly biodiverse areas—all assets that give the region a possible edge on the widely monocultural approach of much of Rioja. The life and authenticity in their first wines (started in 2017) are clear and their future is promising. Alfredo Egia - Txakoli, Spain (National) The wines made in Txakoli by Alfredo Egia are radical for the region but not for the world, since he is fully committed to biodynamic farming and natural wine methods. And with the influence of Imanol Garay, the highly intense and fully committed naturalist from France whom he refers to as his mentor, he’s determined to harness the intense energy of Izkiriota Txikia (Petit Manseng) and Hondarrabi Zerratia (Petit Courbu) to give them an altogether different expression, shape and energy, with a constant evolution upon opening that can last for days. These white wines walk the line with no added sulfur and should be consumed earlier in their life to ensure captivity of their best moment. Whether they can age well or not remains to be seen, but since they have very low pH levels that usually sit below 3.20, and ta levels that can be well above 7.00, they should be insulated for a while. Rebel Rebel is the solo project of Alfredo, and Hegan Egin a joint venture between Alfredo, Imanol and Gile Iturri. Rebel Rebel is a blend of 80% Hondarrabi Zerratia and 20%Izkiriota Txikia. Hegan Egin is a blend of 50% Hondarrabi Zerratia and 50%Izkiriota Txikia Sette - Asti, Italy (National) Asti is Piemonte’s new wine laboratory, and experimentation is extensive at Sette where they’re looking to expose new dimensions of their local indigenous varieties. The comedic and talented duo of the experienced wine trade pro, Gino Della Porta, and well-known enologist, Gianluca Colombo, founded Sette in 2017 with the purchase of a 5.8-hectare hill in Bricco di Nizza, in Monferrato. Immediately, a full conversion to organic farming began, followed by biodynamic starting in 2020—the latter, a vineyard culture still considered somewhat radical in these parts. The wines are crafted and full of vibrant energy with only a soft polish, with the focus, the slightly turbid and lightly colored, juicy fruity, minerally Grignolino and their two serious but friendly Barberas. Sette’s game-changing progressive approach and delicious wines (with total eye candy labels) should ripple through this historic backcountry and bring greater courage to the younger generations to break out of the constraints of the past and move full throttle into the future. La Casaccia – Asti, Italy (CA only) Even in Italy it may be impossible to find a vignaiolo who emits as much bubbling enthusiasm and pure joy for their work than La Casaccia’s Giovanni Rava. La vita è bella for Giovanni and Elena Rava, and their children, Margherita and Marcello. Working together in a life driven by respect for their land and heritage, they also offer accommodations in their restored bed and breakfast for travelers looking for a quieter Italian experience. Their vines are organically farmed and scattered throughout the countryside on many different slopes with strong biodiversity of different forms of agriculture and untamed forests teeming with wild fruit trees (with the best of all, the cherries!). Their traditionally crafted range of wines grown on soft, purely calcareous sandstones and chalk are lifted, complex and filled with the humble yet exuberant character of the Rava family. Fliederhof - Südtirol, Italy (National) The city of Bolzano and the Santa Magdelena vineyards, home to Fliederhof Martin Ramoser is a true budding young superstar in the wine world, and with the help of his parents, Stefan and Astrid, he’s writing a new chapter in the family’s wine history. Located in Italy’s Südtirol, only a half hour drive from the Austrian border, on the gorgeous and historical hill of Santa Magdalena that overlooks the city center of Bolzano, they cultivate their Schiava and Lagrein vineyards under organic and biodynamic principles. Their mere three hectares of vineyards are all planted on hillsides of porphyry, an igneous volcanic rock with a mix of large and small grain sizes, which makes for sandy, gravelly soils as it decomposes, and results in wines with higher aromas and chewy textures. Martin’s style is one of pleasure led by upfront aromatic red fruits and red/orange flowers with sharper lines, deep but gentle mineral textures and a soft touch on extraction. Imanol Garay - Southwest France & Northern Spain (National) Spanish/French former engineer, Imanol Garay, un vigneron libre, follows no wine rules (other than some labeling requirements for his French/Spanish wine blends) and believes in terroir not only as the concept of specific site or even region but as a contiguous philosophical thread practiced in different places that may be forged into one wine. A resident of southwest France, his cellar is in Orthez, only a short drive from Spain’s Basque country. Before starting his project, he worked with French natural wine gurus Richard Leroy and Vincent Carême, among others. Some vineyards are his own, some he rents and farms, and some fruit comes from friends with the same deep respect for nature. He has another project in Spain’s Txakoli region with friends, Alfredo Egia (also in our portfolio) and Gile Iturri, labeled Hegan Egin; some years he makes Rioja, others Navarra, and always a lot of French wine. Cautiously walking the natural wine line, his pursuit is of the clean yet uninhibited, void of unwanted animally smells (the mouse, the horse), but with wonderful character-filled and potently nuanced, high-energy wines filled with joy and authenticity, just like the man himself. Tapada do Chaves - Alentejo, Portugal (National) There are few Portuguese wineries as mythical as Tapada do Chaves. Its line of extraordinary successes produced from vines planted in 1901 and 1903 by Senhor Chaves fell off the map when they were sold in the 1990s to a sparkling wine company. The property’s fortune changed with its purchase in 2017 by Fundação Eugénio de Almeida under the direction of Pedro Baptista, one of Portugal’s most celebrated oenologists most famously known for producing Pera Manca, some of the country’s most prized (and expensive) wines. Immediately these historic vineyards planted on a unique granite massif that towers over the flatter lands more typical of Alentejo below were converted to biodynamic farming, priming Tapada do Chaves to reassert itself as one of Portugal’s most preeminent terroirs. The white wines are blends of Arinto, Assario, Fernão Pires, Tamarez, and Roupeiro, with the reds Trincadeira, Grand Noir, Aragonez, and Alicante Bouschet. Quinta da Carolina - Douro, Portugal (National) The Douro property that was once in the hands of California trailblazing winemaker, Jerry Luper, (whose illustrious wine career included tenures at Chateau Montelena, Bouchaine, and Rutherford Hill), has been for years now under the ownership of Luis Candido da Silva, a well-known wine retailer in Porto. Today, the winery has been slowly taken over by his son, also named Luis, and things are going through some noticeable changes the more Luis Jr. commits himself to the project. His day job is working as the head enologist and wine director for the still Douro wine program at Dirk Niepoort’s ever-expanding, global wine empire. Niepoort has a history of recognizing talent and churning out many superstars in Portugal, most notably Luis Seabra, the boys over at Arribas Wine Company (also in our portfolio), and starting in 2018, Luis Jr. The respect he has garnered at a very young age in Portugal speaks volumes for the confidence the local wine world has in him. Exciting things are in store for this very small estate with wines that cover both the traditional style like his father’s, and the extreme progressivism of his generation, with a gorgeous touch, exquisite crafting, and a razor-sharp attention to detail. Expect big things, albeit in very small quantities (unfortunately) from this special Quinta.■ Photo shot from the Quinta da Carolina vineyard

Cilento Coast, 2019 (Wouldn’t that be nice right now?!) Last month’s newsletter shared the hope that this year’s cold and wet weather in many parts of Europe would eventually turn out favorably. 2021 was also damp and challenged by mildew pressure across Europe until the summer’s long days opened the skies and supercharged the grapes before picking. And while many of our growers in Atlantic-influenced areas of Spain and Portugal struggled to achieve their desired ripeness levels, many continental climate areas were gifted wonderfully fresh, classic wines that rewound the phenolic and structural clock decades. Most of these 2021s are on the market or have already sold. Having visited and talked with over a hundred buyers in California and Illinois in the last few months, the consensus is that 2021 is a smashing overall success with quality, especially white wines. At the end of June before my early July flight back to California, I visited David Duband at his cellar and he was, at the time, hopeful the summer would arrive and lift the clouds to bring hope. The day before we published our August newsletter, we had a video call to discuss how we could maximize our intake of so many special wines from his domaine’s 2022s and 2023s and his new “natural” and mostly no-sulfite-added range, Les Terres de Philéandre (named after his kids, Philomène and Léandre). What was to be an exciting meeting about the future kicked off with stress and grim news. “It’s shit. It just continues to rain, and it hasn’t stopped raining all year and it’s already August.” David has enviable holdings in the Côte d’Or with six Grand Cru bottlings, nearly a dozen Premier Crus, and all the major village appellations, save Fixin and Marsannay. At the time of that meeting, he believed he’d already lost more than 90% of all his grapes on the Côte d’Or. David Duband’s new “natural-ish” Burgundy wines David has been certified in organic viticulture for more than twenty years. Still, many other organic and biodynamic growers I spoke with on my final trips in France, Italy, and Spain before July, he’s not sure if the practice is still sustainable each season. These days, scorching hot years take turns with low-yielding, wet ones, like 2021 and 2024. Due to climate change, the aperture of each season’s rainy and mildew-heavy periods and blistering sunny ones has widened unpredictably, causing greater variability in the bandwidth of weather patterns each year. As I mentioned in last month’s newsletter, many growers continue to be concerned that organic viticulture is no longer tenable every year now, and, unfortunately, David is a new addition to that list, stating, “If next year is like this again, I will have no choice [but to resort to some non-organic certified methods].” Bourgogne Hautes-Côtes de Nuits site for David Duband’s cuvée “Louis Auguste” The good news for David is that over the last few decades, he started to insulate himself from what seems to be an inevitable collapse of Burgundy’s hierarchy when he invested in land further to the west of the Côte d’Or in the Hautes-Côtes de Nuits where similar to the Hautes-Côtes de Beaune, much of the land shares the same basic geology (Jurassic limestone bedrock and clay-rich topsoil) but is fresher and less exposed with a lot forest that mitigates some of the extreme heat and cold through shading, moisture regulation, and thermal insulation, among many other benefits, like biodiversity. However, hail may be an increased risk in this backcountry. The Côte d’Or has the forest’s support usually on one side of the slope (the western, upper slope areas), but is otherwise much more exposed to the extremes of climate change as it’s open to the vast Saône Valley. The difference is that the backwater Burgundy areas and the better potential sites (at least for this moment in climate change) are relatively unknown, or undiscovered, compared to the fully dissected and classified Côte d’Or. The Burgundians will have to do this work, but who knows how many generations that will take. Would any of us give up three-quarters of our annual earnings out of principle when it would put our future at risk in these uncertain times? As I mentioned in last month’s newsletter, we cannot judge growers who have no choice but to pull the plug on organic and biodynamic practices to maintain financial security. We can’t forget that growers who believe in and truly practice these along with natural viticulture do it because they know it’s a better way to work with nature. But nobody should have to go down with their ship for the sake of ideology. As I also asked in last month’s newsletter, would any of us give up three-quarters of our annual earnings out of principle when it would put our future at risk in these uncertain times? We don’t yet know what 2024 will deliver across Europe, but by the time this is published, we will have more news as harvest has already started in many places. Hopefully, others will have better fortune than those like David who have lost most of their harvest. Writing about newly arrived and released wines in our newsletter is speculation based on my experiences of these wines in Europe and I make sure I’m well rested before tasting, and taste over hours, if not days. We work with living wines, and that’s to say that they’re not enologized into a static, microbially sterile state. Like us, our wines move, evolve and have moods: sometimes charming and giving, sometimes stubborn or unfriendly. A wine can be shut down and confusing one day, and another bottle of the same on a different day can be compelling and mind-bending. Unfortunately, many in the wine business (me included) can be harsh and unforgiving critics. Four beautiful wines out of five from a grower, and we rarely forget (and forgive) that one that was off, even from a single taste, or bottle.   One of the many cover illustrations of Les Misérables, a story of second chances. When a wine arrives by boat after a month or more en route, or travels in a car for only a few days, it needs time to regain its footing. Ship shock is as real as bottle shock, and so many times wines that taste glorious in Europe arrive in the States jostled and off balance for months, sometimes even a year. Because we can’t make a first impression with our clients twice, we almost always try to give new vintage releases at least a full month of recovery in our warehouse before we present them. With about 700 wines imported yearly, we can’t taste everyone on them twice! All it takes is one unready bottle to turn a buyer off until the release of the next vintage. But that same wine can go from introversion to complete extroversion in four months. People don’t forget wines that strike them the wrong way, especially when expectations are high based on experiences with previous vintages. I often hear that a newly arrived vintage isn’t as good as the previous one. This depends on things like that year’s overall quality, but it likely depends more on the advantages or disadvantages of time. If the previous vintage is tasted close to the time of the newer release, last year’s release has the advantage of both more time in bottle and more time stateside after arrival. Wines tend to be more resilient than we expect, especially those crafted by a disciplined grower with experience and a quality track record, but one of the ever-present obstacles is that small growers, like the vast majority we represent, don’t have the financial means to hold wines until they are in their best first moments after bottling. They need to sell them as soon as possible. As students and observers of wine’s nature, we must always give bottles more time and revisit them further down the road. We should resist jumping to and maintaining conclusions without a second-tasting opportunity, which presupposes that living wine is static, without the potential to evolve, improve, and find its shining moment. Wild cherries (best of my life!) picked in 2022 from the land of La Casaccia, in Piemonte’s Monferrato Since I got to California at the beginning of July, I’ve feverishly tried to catch up on how our wines are tasting here in the States compared to my experiences at the cellar and well-rested bottles in Europe. Those that had just come off the boat were notably short and tight in their first weeks compared to almost all my experiences back home. A few weeks later they’re now starting to sing, and those that hit their expected marks will be covered further in this newsletter. But it’s the wines that have been in our inventory for some time that are, not surprisingly, on fire. During my time on the road through California, sorting through some wine I wanted to taste in our warehouse cellar, and at several tasting events between California’s main markets and Chicago, I found many wines at the peak of their powers at this young age. Cherry-picking anyone’s portfolio of wines is really about timing, and I’ll help with that here. There’s also the other side of the coin. For example, the red wine I wanted to drink the most before I arrived from Europe was from our new grower, Domaine Les Infiltrés, and their Saumur Puy-Notre-Dame. This extremely seductive wine has me hooked but none of the four bottles I had in California in July expressed that same level of magic. Everything was tight and the reduction on the nose was unshakable. In mid-July I tasted another bottle and it began to sing that familiar and obsessive tune. On the Friday before Labor Day Weekend, I took a bottle around the Ojai Valley and Ventura to see if it continued to improve, which it did. However, we must wait for its full return to glory, and I’m sure it will soon. Because we’ll be receiving an immense quantity of wines in October and November but not much in September, I’ve decided to share what I think are some of the best-drinking wines I’ve tasted over the last two months that are still in our inventory. Over the last year and a half, budgets on all sides have been tight and many of our best weren’t tasted with customers as far and wide as usual, leaving some untouched ground with many. Cume do Avia’s new labels We’ll start our list of recently released arrivals with the new vintage from Ribeiro’s Cume do Avia. While I’m obsessed with Cume do Avia’s wines, their style isn’t for everyone in every vintage. However, the 2022s will capture a much wider audience because of their joyful nature and immediate accessibility. The cold and wet 2021 season produced wines with tension and less body for an already racy, high-toned style. The 2022s hit the sweet spot on all wines, white and red, with the 2022 Colleita 10 Blanco surely the best of this label ever bottled and a strong consideration for those who miss the acidic snap and mineral depth of Sancerre and Chablis in these warmer times. I tasted it out of vat last March, along with the 2022 Dos Canotos Blanco, and they were stunning. Their bottling date was set for July and I asked why. “Why wait? It’s perfect now! Bottle it yesterday!” Two weeks later it was in bottle, and those extra months in glass instead of steel paid dividends. 2022 is a marriage between the best qualities of electric Rías Baixas Val do Salnés Albariño and the unmistakable delicacy of pastoral flowers, fresh leafy herbs and white fruit of Treixadura. The charm meter is as high as I’ve seen on their whites, yet they remain packed with regional terroir dialect and the fresh saltiness of the Atlantic. 2022 was warmer and more balanced than 2021, and the reds also greatly benefitted from this warmth. The 2022 Colleita 10 Tinto is the colleita we’ve been waiting for. It has much more upfront pleasure than last year’s Colleita 9 (they don’t use vintage dates, only “harvests”), and was immediately showy even after a week off the boat. As I write this portion of this newsletter in Los Angeles after 12 days and 12 different bottles, it’s simply stunning. The Atlantic-influenced red fruit from my two favorite Galician red grapes, Caíño Longo (more than 50% of the blend) and Brancellao, and their darker cousin, Sousón, are a brilliant trio, and this version will continue to add even more flesh in the coming months. The delicate nature and pale, almost completely transparent 2022 Brancellao would be the envy of the likes of Frédéric Mugnier. Its extremely light color looks as though it should taste like nothing and then it bursts on the nose and palate with sublime and fine red flower and fruit notes tightened by the unmistakable minerally texture and nose of these vines grown on igneous and metamorphic bedrock. Don’t miss these 2022s from Cume do Avia. They are a striking realization of what these humble dreamers intended to achieve. A few new head-spinning Ribeira Sacra bottlings from Argentine Pablo Soldavini landed and made a solid impression. Lurpia and A Besta are made with some of the same red grapes as Cume do Avia and are equally elegant but fuller. Harvested entirely from the Quiroga Bibei subzone of the Ribeira Sacra D.O. (though electively not bearing the appellation name), this region combines more continental influence than Atlantic compared to the further west Galician regions, Ribeiro and Rías Baixas, as well as those further west and north Ribeira Sacra subzones. This, in addition to the gentler slope of these vineyards compared to the celebrated and vertigo-inducing terraces in the famous pictures of Ribeira Sacra imparts a plusher, fuller character. Pablo’s interest as a winegrower is with the “first-known generation” varietals, like the Caíño clan, Brancellao, Sousón, among others, than Mencía, a relatively recent migratory variety from further east in warmer, drier areas, like Bierzo and Jiménez de Jamuz. Mencía was heavily propagated in the last century for its higher yield and easier-to-manage farming during economic hardships that further intensified with the Spanish Civil War, collateral effects of two World Wars, and the ensuing Francoist dictatorship. Like a lot of Piemonte, post-World War Two, who left the countryside for Milano and Torino, some growers entirely abandoned their countryside homes for work in Galicia’s industrial centers, like Vigo and Ferrol, others left home for the weekdays and returned on weekends to keep the vines going. Fewer stayed put, but with little help and financial incentive to grow grapes and sell wine, they bet on Mencía’s reliability and durability at the cost of the region’s more historical varieties. Lurpia is Pablo’s 100% whole-cluster Brancellao vinified without any active extractions (infusion, as we often refer to it) and aged in 500-600L old French oak, and A Besta, equal parts of that same whole-cluster Brancellao mixed with entirely destemmed Sousón. Lurpia is a seductive and contained beauty, while A Besta (Beast, in Galego) is more exotic and wild with a darker color from the Sousón, also known in Portugal as Vinhão. With only just over 1000 bottles of Lurpia and 600 bottles of A Besta produced, these are rare and as good as any Ribeira Sacra wine I’ve had in this elegant and high-toned style. We finally dug into Carmelo Peña Santana’s Bien de Altura range, and they knocked it out of the park. Only four weeks after their arrival, Carmelo’s flagship, the 2022 Ikewen, a blend of seven different parcels, and perhaps the most well-rounded wine of the range, was unstoppable from the first to last tastes. 2021 El3mento (the only non-2022 in this offering) showed Carmelo’s touch for refinement and perfection of craft for an unmoved, eight-month, whole-cluster, amphora-aged, pure Listán Negro harvested from a plot above 1300 meters. And the extremely limited 2022 Tidao, with its blend of ancient vines, seduced all comers. Every wine climbed further each hour through our sales day, and these wines will continue to flesh out but are already singing Carmelo’s soul music. What a thrill to work with this level of talent! (Vineyard picture taken in a parcel of Ikewen with the two single-site wines, El3mento on the left, and Sansofi on the right, and Carmelo in the dirt.)   Jumping from one volcanic island and Carmelo to another, are the wines of Carmelo Sofia (pictured on the right in the front and his father, Giocchino), from Azienda Agricola Sofia. By contrast to the three Spanish growers’ wines, Sofia’s were stateside for more than two months before we showed them, and they were at the peak of their powers. Both the 2022 Etna Rosso “Giocchino” and 2019 Etna Rosso “Piano dei Daini” came out in full swing and we sold almost half of our initial order of Giocchino in San Francisco on the first day of shopping it around. Giocchino, a red-fruited and competitively priced Etna Rosso is the charmer, and may only be matched in price and quality with our very own Etna Barrus. After our first day with Giocchino, we secured another pallet that will arrive before the end of the year. Piano dei Daini is more serious than the fully extroverted and friendly Giocchino, and carries greater depth but without expense to its similarly generous and convivial nature. The 2019 Piano dei Daini is the second vintage for Carmelo, but it has the maturity of a vineyard and cellar hand who worked, as Carmelo did, for a decade with Vini Franchetti’s Passopisciaro. This is another not to miss! Now it’s time to cherry-pick our portfolio and I’ll focus on a few individual wines that are as mesmerizing as ever, and still available. Please note this list is not some sort of clearance attempt, but one for those that shocked me with how wonderfully they are tasting now and just happen to be still hanging around our warehouse. Most of the wines that made this list came in over the last year and a half during a difficult economy that we launched in California during the very long film industry strikes that tested many restaurants’ financial stability and, unfortunately, put some out of business. Few white wines can outplay Riesling in the summer heat. I had the pleasure of again tasting Katharina Wechsler’s 2020 & 2021 Kirchspiel & Morstein crus on several occasions recently. They’re fire right now, with perhaps the 2020s a little showier, despite the high octane of the piercing 2021s. The unique marriage of Riesling to limestone from this region seems to find the palate of a broader audience than most dry German Rieslings grown on slate and other formations. Despite the acidic freshness, this bedrock and soil type seems to impart less hard yet still clear and precise lines than those on igneous and metamorphic bedrock in places like the Mosel and Nahe. Though it’s hard to pick a favorite, Kirchspiel’s more extroverted character makes it good for a group, while Morstein is best enjoyed over hours with fewer friends. With the stratospheric rise of “Grand Cru” vineyards in this region due to the viticulture, cellar and market work of the local luminaries, Philip Wittmann and Klaus-Peter Keller, the names Morstein and Kirchspiel should immediately evoke interest. Katharina has fully embraced organic farming for years and her wines stack reason after reason to get behind this first-generation winegrower making all the right moves with Germany’s top dry Riesling vineyards. Katharina with Pinot Noir grapes, harvest 2023. Photo courtesy of Katharina Kremstal’s Michael Malat continues to hit the mark each year, but vintages like 2019 and 2021 are exceptional, for him and his peers. We took a position on Michael’s 2019s because we know they’ll be great for a long time. We showed some 2019 Rieslings and the that used to be the most reserved upon release was the star-of-the-show. 2019 Riesling Silberbichl is in a perfect place and a virtual guarantee to satisfy anyone interested in great white wine, even those with a tentative acceptance of dry Rieslings. As I tasted it in each account, which I normally do when I show wines, my mouth tingled and flooded; it’s simply spectacular, with so much joy and pleasure. Those who have already tasted and are pouring Pedro Mendez’s 2022 Albariño by the glass know it’s outrageous and stunning to all comers. Every year I drink most of Rías Baixas’ top-grower Albariños from the Val do Salnés, and this is the most head-turning “entry-level” 2022 I’ve had from the vintage, bar none. What seems an almost impossible mountain to climb, it’s even a match for the more subtle but striking Manuel Moldes 2022 Afelio. (Manuel’s 2023 just arrived.) We don’t have much more of the 2022, so don’t sit on your hands. I have yet to taste Pedro’s 2023 out of the finished bottle (though tasted from vat) but I expect big things after this breakthrough wine. My first ever bottles of Tapada do Chaves in 2020 Wines that continually baffle and seduce almost everyone who tastes them are those of Alentejo’s Tapada do Chaves. This is one of Portugal’s most important historical wineries that survived the Salazar dictatorship which converted much of the vineyards of Alentejo to other crops and redirected the country’s focus on wine elsewhere. In 1901 and 1903, Senhor Chaves planted vines on the top of a unique granite massif at 400 meters, dating to Pangean times. Here, the now biodynamically run vineyards and winery house some of Portugal’s largest collection of massale selections that they only allow to be propagated inside their vineyards on this massif. Both wines, the Alentejo Branco Vinhas Velhas, the remaining ancient vines of the original plantation of whites in 1903, and its descendant vines replanted some forty years ago that go in the Alentejo Branco, left us all in awe. I’ve had so many of these white wines from the 1980s and 1990s bottled before the sale of the vineyards to a sparkling wine company some two decades ago and they are epic and timeless, even if some of the bottles looked like they were stored on your grandparent’s mantle above the fireplace since release. They’re unbreakable and will seemingly live forever, but it would be nice to get more voices to speak up on behalf of this Portuguese history-in-a-bottle. Sticking with Portugal but digging into red cherries, the Arribas Wine Company Saroto Branco, an orange wine, has stolen some of the momentum of their 2021 Saroto Tinto, a wine that was flying out of our inventory before the bigger production of their orange wine stepped into the limelight. We took a bottle of the 2021 Saroto Tinto out in San Francisco and it was shining all day, like a baby Côte-Rôtie without the excessive sun, the newer oak, and the extraordinarily high pricing. The pricing here is also extraordinary, but it’s on the other side of the spectrum. It’s a steal for a wine crafted from old-vine, ancient cultivars almost lost to history but revived by a couple of brave young Portuguese winegrowers who adopted the region and are nursing it back to health. We have a good amount stocked, but I consider it a cherry because it’s hard to match it on authenticity, price and craft. Indeed, I understand a narrative of 40 different red and white grapes inside a red wine from a place no one has ever heard of is not easy. But this wine drinks gorgeously and will present an opportunity to learn and teach something new about the rising tide of Portuguese wines. Arribas Wine Company ancient vines in Portugal’s Trás-os-Montes As good as any elegant red in our portfolio, I’m in love with Vincent Bergeron’s no-added-sulfites Pinot Noir, “Un Rouge Chez les Blancs.” Today it tastes like my first tasting out of barrel: perfect. When it arrived our staff said that it was a little shut down. This didn’t surprise me. It has no added sulfites and after its long journey needed more time to resettle. Now it’s glorious purity. It has the nose of a Loire Valley Pinot Noir or Irancy but a gentler palate like a Côte d’Or Pinot Noir, minus the new wood. It’s an outstanding wine and will deliver for those who miss pre-2003 classic red Burgundy with a softer structure. I’d love to see what this humble winegrower could do with some Côte d’Or fruit. Vincent would be a global phenomenon if he were making wine on the Golden Slope! Over a couple of days in San Francisco, we took out the Demeter and organic certified 2019 & 2020 Sadon Huguet 14 “Expression Calcaire,” a Saint-Emilion Merlot and Cabernet Franc classified as “Vin de France” from an organic and biodynamic certified vineyard. Its makers, Bénédicte and Mathieu, are consulting enologists in Bordeaux (with Bénédicte most notably the former enologist for Margaux’s Rauzan-Ségla and Saint-Emilion’s Château Canon) that today specialize in organic and biodynamic farming. Sadon Huguet is their tiny “zero-zero” personal project (8-10 barrels per year), made without any additives. Both wines showed wonderfully and were full of flavor, everything we’ve been missing from Bordeaux’s over-crafted winemaking history. The 2019 is the most open-knit between the two, and the 2020 is a little more tied together with perhaps greater structure and closer to a classic Bordeaux, despite checking all the boxes of a natural wine. These are Bordeaux to get behind as they’re in a beautiful place now. To finish our ciliegie-picking session with Italy, we start with the single-site, high-altitude Giacomo Baraldo Sangioveses farmed from the slopes of Monte Cetona were a standout from my trip. These three terroir-dense and undeniably delicious 2020 beauties can’t be much more ready than they are now (though seemingly decades from any kind of downward trajectory). After tasting the three in Chicago at a tasting event, one well-respected and experienced taster went so far as to say that Giacomo’s style redefined Tuscan Sangiovese. As it is usually my favorite of the range, 2020 Caccialupi, his highest altitude site on galestro and limestone bedrock with red clay topsoil was gorgeously complex and fully fleshed out. A few hours in, it only continued to rise. Yes, I know every sommelier in our market isn’t running out the door to grab as much IGT Sangiovese as they can (unless it bears the name, Montevertine) but Giacomo’s set is also worth considering. After years of many harvests in the southern hemisphere and finally in Europe at Burgundy’s Domaine de Montille, he returned home to San Casciano dei Bagni and Monte Cetona, an undiscovered mountain in Tuscany just at the border of Lazio and Umbria with a geological story as complex as any (see his profile on the website to read a brief geological summary of the mountain) and well-equipped to produce top class wine. Once tasted, the mystery of why this small mountain wasn’t already famous for wine may be perplexing. The Baraldo family also has two fabulous restaurants (a breakfast & wine bar called Bar Centrale and their informal but classic and charming, Restaurante Daniele) with a great selection of Burgundy and Champagne wines along with Italian classics and other global greats curated by Giaccomo. They also have a hotel … Giacomo’s world is a must-visit, and like my first time there with my wife, we didn’t want to leave. (Photo lifted from wineanorak.com. Thanks for the stand-in photo, Jamie!) The trajectory of Dave Fletcher is in a steep incline. His Barbaresco crus are beginning to be traded in Italy’s secondary market at much higher prices than normal, and it’s understandable why: they’re fabulous. Despite being an Aussie making full-flavored, gorgeously crafted Nebbiolos, his are as Piemontese as any Piemontese out there. However, while Dave’s 2022 Dolcetto d’Alba and partial carbonic 2022 Barbera d’Alba are exceptional gateways into Italian wine culture, they are a little more fun than these often stoically framed, serious Italian classics. The combination of Dave’s desire to have as much pleasure in his wines as intellect, and the solar power of 2022, brings these two to a more rounded, generous personality than the typically sharper angles and stern structure of these two grapes. Given the pedigree of its vineyards, the 2021 Barbaresco “Recta Pete” is also stunning. Already touted as one of the greats, there’s a lot of buzz surrounding this vintage. And it’s easy to imagine the hype when faced with a taste of this wine harvested from the great crus, Roncaglie and Starderi, and a touch of the lesser-known, Ronche. We took it out in Los Angeles with the Dolcetto and Barbera, and three spots asked to pour it in their by-the-glass programs. It’s an unshakable Nebbiolo with tremendous energy and wow factor at a reasonable price. Vineyards in Calabria’s Ciró DOC With a portfolio full of wines I adore, Sergio Arcuri’s 2016 Ciró Riserva “Più Vite” has everything I want in a classically styled wine: authenticity, emotion, tradition, intention-filled and thoughtful craftsmanship, and a soft touch. Sergio puts these old-vine Gaglioppo grapes grown on calcareous clay next to the Ionian Sea through a couple of weeks of submerged-cap fermentation without any extraction movements before separating the free-run wine for Più Vite, while leaving the press wine for another bottling that’s only sold locally. Most who taste it for the first time are sure it’s raised in old botti when in reality, it’s refined exclusively in concrete for four years before another two in bottle before release—in a blind tasting, most also mistake it for a very old-school (though clean) style of Barolo or Barbaresco. 2016 is a perfect vintage to reinforce this ancient variety’s delicate nose of effusive sunbaked strawberry, rhubarb and orange peel fruit notes and soft, sun-scorched but living roses, licorice and tar, with bright acidity, balanced by tight tannins, and a light, crimson red and orange color; yes, so much like what we read of the great Barbaresco or Barolo wines made half a century ago, and with a deft touch. Over the last few years, I had Sergio ship cases of this wine to my home in Portugal, and now I have a few safely cellared to feel its magic every year in the coming decades. I’ve already shared at home a few bottles with some of the most talented growers we work with, and all finish their last taste in awe of the majestic purity of this unknown and nearly forgotten Calabrian wine. What’s more, Gaglioppo is a genetic sibling to two of Italy’s most compelling and talented grapes, Nerello Mascalese and Sangiovese, and also the charming Sicilian variety, Frappato. We still have a few cases and any Italian wine lover would be remiss to miss this one; it’s an experience-wine. As a side note, Sergio’s 2018 Più Vite arrives at the end of this year.

We headed back over the hills toward Provence, passing through Montpelier and Nîmes again. Our goal was to visit a small producer who does a great ten dollar organically farmed wine that Ted said, “tastes alive,” which he had just a couple days earlier mentioned was nearly impossible for such a cheap bottle. So he wanted to see the operation in person to verify that it wasn’t too good to be true. The Les Lys winery wasn’t easy to find, what with the navigation system again redirecting us through many strange and pointless turns before we finally found the road we needed. There was some sort of festival underway in the tiny town we were passing through, so we were forced to drive through the milling pedestrians at a crawl. When we finally made our way out of herds and arrived at the winery a few miles on, we found a simple and beautiful pair of low, sleek modern buildings with a big deck between them, overlooking a huge expanse of green farmland that stretched to the horizon. Thomas Faure greeted us inside a small tasting room and retail space. He’s in his early thirties and wiry, with a great mop of hair over a boyish, scruffily-bearded face. As he poured his selections, he enthusiastically described each one and how he personally experiences them: the fruit, the scents and what he likes to eat with the different varietals. He spoke softly and never used more words than were necessary. He and Ted conversed in French and Ted continued to express pleasant surprise with more than half of the new vintage wines. Then Thomas excused himself to take a call and left Ted with an export price list. Ted was astonished at the value of the wines and was excited at the prospect of passing such a good deal on to his clientele, some of whom really appreciate an inexpensive but high quality table wine. We went for a quick tour of his barrels and tanks in a small facility downstairs, tasted a couple of aging samples, and the Syrah in particular was showing up strong. I swished, spit and missed the grate, and admired Ted’s ability to project what looked like a solid mass of froth—a pellet even—in a perfect arch that hit whatever he was aiming at dead center. I saw this phenomenon with many of his growers and peers and realized it was just another skill that can be picked up after thousands of practice shots, along with his poet’s ability to describe wine. Thomas assured me that my miss wasn’t a problem, that he hoses the place down regularly. But he also said he wasn’t worried about being as clean as a hospital. After all, he said, vignerons in places like Burgundy and Châteauneuf-du-Pape don’t disturb the dirt and mold on the walls and ceilings of their cellars, where they often grow to many inches thick, and the stuff becomes a part of the wines’ terroir. Since Thomas had come to work that day on his scooter, Ted drove us all out to his vineyards, a couple miles away. Thomas pointed out a couple other wineries as we passed them, saying this one was good, while that one… he paused to blow air into bulging cheeks and out of his mouth like a leaky tire, and said nothing more. We got out to the bulk of his parcels and Ted immediately picked up some soil and look at it through his loop. The land under Thomas’ vines was thick with grasses—clearly herbicide free. He would till it all soon enough to provide natural fertilizer, but otherwise he lets nature take its course. Ted snapped photos of green fields that ended in thick stands of bushy trees in the distance. Though Thomas was clearly photogenic, he kept shying away from Ted’s camera lens. Ted finally said, “Wait! Look at me!,” in French. Finally, Thomas paused and smiled. Ted clicked away, then said, “There! That’s the money shot!” There was another stacked-stone hut between long stone walls nearby, a Berger like the ones on Zernott’s land, but bigger and resembling an Aztec pyramid. It was three hundred years old and built as a shelter for the local shepherds to live in, way back when. It was still in amazing shape and since we were right off a road that led to a nearby town, it seemed certain to me that local kids used it to drink beer and smoke pot, what I would have done there when I was a teenager. I said as much to Thomas and he quickly agreed; he had to clean empty beer cans out of it on a regular basis. We returned to the winery and said our goodbyes. It had been a quick and pleasant visit and we headed back south, into the Mistral, where the trees beside the road were dancing maniacally. I couldn’t get over how every structure seemed to be built of the same limestone that filled the ground, and that most of the vines we had seen so far grew from the very same building materials and took on their properties. The rocks Ted loves so much truly surround us and we drink them in. Our last night at La Fabrique was another blur of smoke, animated French chatter, Nicole dangling a cigarette between split fingers as she tossed a salad, and Thierry bringing out his cheese plate that had magically been completely replenished, his son Romain eating huge chunks of it after a big meal as he refilled his whiskey and coke… Veronique’s hoarse laughter echoed under the patio roof. Ynez wrote letters on Leiah’s back for her to guess as Mattisse ran around and giggled. And all these images and sounds took up permanent residence in my head. The dogs Jango and Jazz, as always, were still baying at everything that moved beyond the periphery of the light. Sonya and Pierre had had them for three years and every time they barked, Sonya never stopped shouting at them (to no avail) and then shook her head in frustration, each time with a kind of beaten resolve that she has repeated countless times and would repeat countless more. A little boy who lived in one of the rentals approached the table and circled on his bike. The dogs lunged and barked, lunged and barked again, but he stood his ground and they eventually backed off. Another boy wasn’t so lucky. He got scared and ran and Jango chased him, caught up and nipped him on his butt. He screamed and ran home crying. His father returned and didn’t seem mad, just asked what could be done to prevent it happening in the future. The consensus among the group was: “don’t run.” Like with wild animals, the child’s fleeing seemed to trigger a predatory response. I thought of all the helicopter parents in the States who would’ve certainly been irate, threatening and possibly pursuing litigation—a laughable prospect in France. I asked Pierre about a huge wooden armoire that loomed in the dining room where I broke fast every morning. It had intricate carvings on the front depicting distant figures and farmland around a house, as well as close-ups of peoples’ faces, and he said it was carved by an artisan for his family decades ago and depicted his mother and father, him and his siblings, with his childhood home in the background. I said I thought it a beautiful and unique piece and expressed doubt that things like that were done much anymore, to which he immediately agreed. Earlier in the day, I had said something about the same armoire to Sonya and she grumbled that it was an ugly monstrosity that took up half the room. She wanted it gone, but it was an heirloom, so her hands were tied. At dinner, Pierre conceded that it had fit better in a house they lived in before and now he didn’t really know what to do with it. He had had better success with the two huge stained-glass windows that he had pulled from his father’s old house which he had installed as room dividers in the new guest house where Ted and Andrea were staying. I said I had noticed them and thought they were beautiful and made for impressive, colorful glass walls. He looked pleased. Now it was anybody’s guess where most of the stuff in the huge house would go, because they were planning to sell La Fabrique and move to a much smaller place. The days when Ted could have his samples shipped there to wait for his next visit, the weeks where he (and friends like I) could come and stay and use that private resort as a haven, were numbered. Pierre had hoped that his son Fabien would take over when this time came. But Fabien had long ago moved to Ojai, got married and had children. His life was in California, and likely would be for the duration. So sometime in the coming months (or years, who knows how long it could take), Sonya and Pierre would be handing this paradise over to someone else, and more than a few people were sad about it. We were departing the next day, and while Ted and Andrea would probably make it back there before things changed, I was pretty sure I would never see it again. I looked around and did my best to lock in every detail I could.

Domaine Les Infiltrés old-vine Chenin Blanc, Saumur Puy-Notre-Dame, May 2024 Gen Z already at the helm of a Barolo cantina? Impossible, you say? Nope! Born in 1997, the first year of Z, the inspirational Daniele Marengo from Mauro Marengo, and Gino Della Porto, the soul-surfing, super-chill Gen X visionary from the establishment-rocking Nizza Monferrato, Sette, are about to invade California over the next two weeks. These two long-time chums will be a two-person road show, with Daniele flaunting his triumphant 2019 Barolos (crafted at a jaw-dropping 22-24 years old!), and Gino, Sette’s revelatory range after the biodynamic conversion six years ago of their lucky-strike purchase of old vines on a perfectly situated hill in Nizza Monferrato. The Barolo and Monferrato reboot is here, and these two are quietly at the front of the charge. One producer I’m excited about this month comes from the humble and nearly forgotten Loire Valley appellation, Bourgueil. Operated for the last few decades by François Delaunay after his father handed him the reigns, the now organic (certified in 2013) Domaine de la Lande maintains spectacularly priced wines that simply overdeliver with an extremely classic sensibility. Full of flavor, François’ wines rewind the clock to my first encounters with Cabernet Franc, which, almost thirty years ago, was an esoteric variety in the States thought best blended rather than as a monologue performer. Cabernet Franc from Chinon, Bourgeuil, Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil, Saumur and Saumur-Champigny remain some of the world’s best deals for legitimately great wines. Even the average ones are higher than the average from most famous appellations. The most common Loire Valley Cabernet Franc can age well, if not more consistently than most Burgundies two or three times the price. And while the wine world continues to flirt with new styles in each area and decade-long trends, some, like François, have wedded themselves to traditionally and simply made wines. With the first sample bottles I received, I knew by the aromas alone—rustic but clean, deep, balanced between darkness and light—that they were for me. I admit, I’m an aroma hound first, texture second. My first visit with François this last December brought my enthusiasm to new heights, and my second only three weeks ago was reassurance that it wasn’t a fluke. My first cellar tasting last December was on point, followed by a quick vineyard tour of the well-tended and thriving grounds, still green even in December. But it was in the ancient tuffeau cave with old bottles that I understood the true quality of this domaine and was reminded of the breed of Bourgueil. François (but he’s usually much more smiley than this picture) At the top of the slope near the forest, we pushed through thick bushes, ducking under an overgrown tree and into their hidden cave. Entombed in the milky white tuffeau cavern were vintages as old as François, with bats quietly sleeping before slowly unraveling like old wines as they stretched before flight. As with many of us, one of my greatest pleasures is old wine that’s still sound. Well-aged wine is the final frontier of wine appreciation, a test of pedigree and clairvoyance (and sometimes vindication) of its maker. Most “taste” old and celebrated wines with too many people for a single bottle, which works as an academic snapshot, or often to fluff their experiential inventory to be later embellished in recounting, as though a taste is enough to know a wine. “Tasting” a great bottle is wasting a great bottle. Great wines reveal their merit when drunk over enough time—at least until the conversation starts to go downhill. The worst tastes of a great wine are the first, or the mud in the bottom. It’s everything in between over a time where one really gets to know a wine’s true character and breed. I’ve long collected wine to age. In the late 1990s, I worked at Restaurant Oceana in Arizona, with its chef, Ercolino Crugnale. He moved there from California with an extensive collection of mostly California wines he intended to put on his wine list, only to find out that he’d have to sell them to a distributor first and have them sell them back to keep things legal. He decided to drink them all instead. He was, without a doubt, the most generous restaurant owner I’d ever worked for. He had all the California greats from the 1970s-1990s, the highlights for me being Ridge and especially Williams Selyem. His pleasure was sharing as much as drinking the wines themselves. And we definitely didn’t taste. We drank. And that’s when I fell in love with old wine. Williams Selyem was the first great influence after flirting with the world of cheaper wines—the price point I could afford to drink. I was fortunate to spend a lot of dinners in Santa Barbara and Sonoma with Burt Williams, from Williams Selyem, during his last five years when he brought out mostly magnums because he’d run out of 750s. Darn. In the mid-nineties, young and ambitiously curious wine freaks like me weren’t easily allowed into the exclusive “wine club.” I was dismissed regularly by older wine professionals who guarded wine knowledge like gatekeepers, bestowing to the worthy (but moreso those who kissed the ass the most), or to the guests they schmoosed. Never one to kiss the ring (and not so humble about it either) I walked my own path until I met Ercolino. The other most generous boss I ever had was The Ojai Vineyard’s, Adam Tolmach, with whom I worked in the cellar for five seasons and remain good friends. There are few wine experiences like old wines crafted by generations past that then go unmoved in silence and darkness for decades deep inside the cold, damp earth. It’s incredible to think that some of the wines that had been guarded perfectly for decades before François opened them were destined for my glass that first day I visited Domaine de la Lande. It’s humbling, and a special privilege that I can’t say I felt I deserved. Yet, I could cite countless examples of having experienced that sort of kindness and hospitality in the wine world. François started with the younger wines, 2010 first, then we blind-tasted another half dozen that went back to the early 1980s. As he ripped corks from the bottles between his knees, gave his glass a sniff, smiled with the joy of sharing, and poured, everything was top-notch. The “great vintages” were as expected and the overlooked ones were even better; there are so many special wines in that cellar, and the vintage was inconsequential for the quality. Like all great reds of Burgundy, Bordeaux, and Rhône, they are aging gracefully with similar results and fewer differences beyond color and structure, despite big differences in terroir and variety. Though undoubtedly Loire Valley Cabernet Franc, many of François’ wines would stand their ground next to other aged greats from more celebrated regions. No wine showed a hint (at least in the first ten minutes) that they were on the other side of their peak. The “great” years were fuller and showed the ripeness of their seasons, and the fineness of the lightest years was magnified and bright. It was freezing. I was hungry. But I didn’t want to leave. Back in Portugal, I messaged François about possibly buying some old wines—a mixed case or two, I begged … I could see François’ lean, rosy high cheeks pressed up as he smiled and typed a mile-long list of options with every vintage back to 1982 that he sent me a few days later. The list was thorough, the prices jaw-dropping—a mere $0.50-$0.65 for every year aged in the cellar; top years, $1.10 for every year. I scoured the web for vintage charts but came up short on information for Bourgueil. I asked for guidance, which François gave. I proposed four mixed cases off his list: some very old that I would try immediately and other young ones (2005-2015) that I’d cellar longer. So far, I’ve pulled the cork on about ten bottles (1985, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2001, 2002, 2005–and there may be a couple I’ve forgotten), and each has been glorious. Most I shared with our Portuguese grower and great friend, Constantino Ramos, who is also now obsessed with them. The only confusing moment is just after the cork is pulled. No bottles had been capsuled until François’ family readied them for me; they’d all been left exposed to that ancient cellar, some for as many as four decades. The top of each cork was moldy and smelled like the deepest corner of the cellar and even a little TCA, quite rotten. But none of the wines were corked! The bottles only needed their lips and inside the neck cleaned, where the cork was in contact. Bourgueil has long been overshadowed by Chinon, at least in the US market–maybe because it’s easier to pronounce? With all those vowels, Bourgeuil is tough to get right! Bourgueil and Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil (SNdB) are on a contiguous slope on the north side of the Loire River. Chinon is more topographically diverse and mostly sandwiched between two rivers (the other being the Vienne), like Montlouis-sur-Loire’s vineyards are between the Loire and Cher. Perhaps Bourgueil is viewed as more rustic than the typical Chinon. Perhaps a matter of more gravelly and sandy sites in Chinon? Without a classification system in place, location is an important variable. The pedigree of each vineyard bearing this appellation name can be quite different from the next. There are wines for easy drinking and others far more serious. Looking closely at a Google Earth image, or an appellation map, the land near the Loire River has fewer vineyards than other crops. Bourgueil is split in two by the small creek, Le Changeon, and from a 20,000-foot view, along with the SNdB, the contiguous slope is like the Côte d’Or and many Champagne areas, only facing south and southwest. Many of Burgundy and Champagne’s top spots favor more eastern expositions. Given its abundance of pyrazines, Cabernet Franc historically required more late afternoon sun, so more south/southwest positions. These days, it ripens quite easily regardless. The lower slopes of Bourgeuil and SNdB are generally sandier, and those on the riverbank have more unsorted alluvial sand, silt, clay, and gravel. About 4km north of the Loire River toward the forest, a gentle uptick begins from 40m, peaking around 90m. The top sites for wines of pedigree sit higher on the slope, close to the forests, where roots make contact with more of the tuffeau limestone bedrock and calcareous clay. François’ family vines begin just north of the village on the western end of Bourgueil at about 50m with more clay than sand and move upslope with the oldest vines destined for the “Prestige” bottling. Bourgueil Burgundy’s Côte d’Or and Champagne’s Côte des Blancs In short, the Bourgueil comes from six hectares planted between 1965 and 2010 at 50-60m facing south on a gentle hill of tuffeau limestone bedrock with a shallow siliceous clay topsoil. This is the easier-going wine, fresh, beautiful, and lifted with a substantial follow-through. It’s a great wine that will improve your day when you need a fair-priced, terroir-laced organic wine that doesn’t make you work too hard to find its cultural and regional stamp. Lucky for you, we were able to buy both the 2015 and 2017 Bourgueil “Prestige.” This is their superstar wine from two excellent and balanced vintages (from the same vineyards those old wines that I bought from François grew and then aged so long in the cellar). They are also their current releases—it’s nice to have some age built into a wine program! Prestige is more profound and substantial than the appellation wine. It’s equally classic in style, and just as fun to drink, but in a heavier weight class (though more a tight-lipped-but-fluttering Ali than a bruising Tyson) flowing with waves of complexity. Also facing south on a gentle hill of tuffeau limestone bedrock with deep calcareous clay topsoil at around 70m, this two-hectare plot was planted between 1930 and 1964. These old vines give it its torque and the organic culture for more than two decades now, its vivacity. The 2015 is for those who want more meat on the bone, while the 2017 is only a little more lifted and still quite substantial. Next time someone says they’re the winemaker, ask to see their hands! All François’ Bourgeuil wines are made in a very straightforward manner. They’re fully destemmed and fermented/macerated for around two to three weeks with one punch-down and one daily pump-over. Then they’re aged 18 months in old 5000 L French oak foudre and steel, with light filtration but no fining. Speaking of nice guys making wine in a similarly straightforward way as François Delunay, Rodolphe Demougeot takes his humble (by Côte d’Or standards) scatterings around Beaune, Pommard, and Meursault to peak performance for their classification—a subjective hierarchy in the face of climate change since we don’t all see eye to eye in our preferences. Unless someone else is paying the tab I’ll often take a young, higher altitude premier cru above a grand cru. Demougeot’s vineyards are either high or low, with hardly anything mid-slope: two premier crus, Pommard Charmots and Savigny-les-Beaune Les Peuillets, among eighteen different bottlings, no grand crus. It’s not Mercurey-level humble among the hierarchy of Burgundy areas, but it is modest considering his surroundings overlooking Pommard’s top Epenots premier crus on the north hill, paces below and above Meursault’s top premier crus and in the vast expanse of Beaune, with its swarm of négociants and tainted reputation. He does the best with what he’s got, and his best are charming and finely tuned. I’m a fan because, like I always say, I love honesty and less hand in the wines. As mentioned in a previous newsletter, when traveling in Burgundy with the Austrian luminary, Peter Veyder-Malberg, Rudy’s wines topped his list. Purity and sophisticated simplicity won him over, and we visited a lot of excellent makers. Yes, it was hot. But … How about some perspective without the spin? It wasn’t exactly hot like other hot years. There were so many heat waves in the spring, summer and fall of 2022 but there was also at least some healthy rain at crucial times in Burgundy. 2021 was a cold and wet year, and hot seasons following cold ones always benefit from less hydric stress because reserves are topped up, especially in limestone and clay-rich lands. This was felt all over Europe, which makes 2022 compelling enough to bet on. This didn’t happen so well for the string of hotter years that started in 2017 and was bookended by 2020, though 2017 also benefitted from some seasonal particularities (cold and wet until the summer went nuclear) and a colder year prior. This filled 2017 with some playfully serious wines with classical trim and their terroir clarity fully intact. 2017 remains my go-to red Côte d’Or drinking vintage since 2013, though the 2014s with their often hollow interior are filling in, and the furrowed brow of 2015 has begun to loosen. Let’s see what happens in the years to come with the 2018-2020 vintages. At the risk of being dismissed as having a house palate, I admit to being very happy with our two main Côte d’Or growers in these hot years. They delivered fresh wines of low alcohol and a well-managed structure. I have a fortunate history of steadily following most of the same producers as a Burgundy lover since the release of the 1999 vintage, until the wine industry lost its mind on certain domaines. Coche and Roumier used to be about the only small domaine Côte d’Or unicorns with hefty second-market prices, but now there’s an uncountable amount. Before the zombie buyer searching for unicorns who had more dollars than sense showed up, guys like Demougeot took over his family’s domaine and nobody cared because he didn’t have top premier crus or grand crus. And Duband was under severe scrutiny for big ripeness and extraction and lots of new oak, which he then drastically recalibrated and has since evolved into one of the finest top values on the entire Côte. France’s top wine publication, La Revue du vin de France, went so far as to put him in the same sentence as Leroy. Let’s face it, while many regions benefit from newfound positive ripeness where it was once impossible, Burgundy is facing a climate change dilemma more quickly harrowing than most—it’s particularly existential for those in the prime historical spots. Aside from the new challenge of frost and hail almost every year, the solar beatdown on what makes it to harvest is off balance compared to what it once was. The phenolic balance of Burgundian Pinot Noir and Chardonnay has always teetered on a knife’s edge. Other French red varieties in more continental climate environments such as the Cab family and the Rhônes, get away with more acceptable variation in some sense (except when the alcohol is too high), and the varieties are sturdier. But when Pinot Noir loses its flowery palate freshness or the growing season is too fast, forcing shorter and/or softer extractions during fermentation, they may maintain acidity by being picked early, but they’ll lose their magnitude. Chenin Blanc, unlike Chardonnay, has a history of tensile-dry wines and sticky sweets successfully grown at world-class-quality levels on just about every soil type. Its chameleonic quality is more resistant to the immediate weather challenges at hand. But when Chardonnay is picked prematurely in a warm year it gets bitter, and when picked late its flat and feels prematurely aged in bottle. The truest statement about navigating Burgundy still stands (for now): Buy the producer, not the vintage. The amendment to that rule should be to follow producers working on a more human scale with less surface area that are personally in daily contact with their vineyards. Slight adaptations during the growing season make the difference on that knife’s edge. And that brings us to Rodolphe Demougeot, who works in his vines all day and leaves his wines in tranquility until bottling. These will go as fast as they have been lately, since our fan base in California began to see the light of Rodolphe’s wines a long time ago, and his 2022s are about to land. First in the hierarchy … We have the Bourgogne Côte d’Or Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. (Which I think they could’ve shortened by leaving out Bourgogne…) These two wines are a case in point for Rodolphe’s talent with lower classification wines built like a Champagne flute rather than the slightly audacious Zalto Burgundy stem. The Chardonnay is a blend of different parcels from high up on the slope above and below Meursault. This combination delivers a wine with a somewhat mid-slope weight and richness (lower site) and minerally lift (higher site). It’s a great starter white and tastes as much like a Meursault as, well, a Meursault. This isn’t too surprising since it’s located in Meursault! The Pinot Noir comes from old vines near Chassagne-Montrachet, an appellation formerly more famous for red than white. It’s a serious ferrous red Burgundy, without the lipstick. Rodolphe has done all of us terroir junkies a favor by presenting almost all of his appellation wines with their respective lieux-dits. This way, we can still contemplate and play with terroir without selling Mom’s jewelry to get familiar with Burgundy’s terroir mapping. Let’s start in the north with Savigny-les-Beaune and work our way south. Savigny-les-Beaune is a diverse appellation and probably less famous than it could be. The diversity of its parcels divided between two main hills spread far and wide with so many expositions (southwest to north-northeast) and deliver unexpectedly high-quality wines. Outside of the local luminaries, like Simon Bize and Chandon de Briailles, many great to very good growers from other appellations (like Leroy, Bruno Clair, and Mongeard-Mugneret) have planted flags in the appellation and on the south hill with sites facing as much northeast as east on the same slope of Rodolphe’s two wines, Les Bourgeots and the 1er Cru Les Peuillets. These are adjacent, with the former a more gravelly alluvial wash from the now creek-sized waterway, and the latter, farther from the creek, built with more sand than gravel. Les Bourgeots is often grittier in texture and darker, while Les Peuillets is brighter and more lifted. Rodolphe in his Pommard 1er Cru Charmots Jumping over the freeway and to the south side of Beaune, Rodolphe has the Clos-Saint-Désiré, a Chardonnay harvested from a soft slope with deeper topsoil than expected so high up. It’s crafted in the cellar the same way as his Meursaults but it doesn’t taste like Meursault, beyond the variety and the more general region. It has bigger shoulders and is more frontloaded, while the Meursaults have that ingrained finesse and specific Meursault minerally magic. Rolling downhill just to the main road shooting out from the south side of Beaune’s town center, is Les Beaux Fougets, a red Burgundy. I’ve always loved the texture of this wine; it’s a rich Pinot Noir with a lot of earth and density yet remains lifted and lightly exotic by Rodolphe’s touch. Like many of his other reds, they often open with some reductive elements but quickly move into a more open expression. In photos, Rodolphe looks rough and tough, and though he might be tough he’s not at all rough. He’s gentle and generous, thoughtful and accommodating, an unstuffy Burgundian with a soul surfer’s demeanor unless he’s talking about organic certification, which furls his brow and thickens the air. He works organically but doesn’t certify because he, like many in France, doesn’t believe in the paper shuffling certifications. Auditors don’t go to the vineyards. They focus on receipts to see what makers have bought. Not sure that’s the best metric … Ever heard of cash purchases? The next commune to the south is Pommard. Like Savigny-les-Beaune, it can be a difficult village to navigate because of its many faces. Rodolphe’s appellation Pommard is one of the few non-lieu-dit wines as it’s a blend of two parcels in very different areas, like his Bourgogne Blanc and Meursault. A blend of unusual names, La Rue au Porc and En Boeuf—in English, they could be loosely translated as The Pork Street and In Beef. (There is also a Pommard climat outside of Rodolphe’s collection called La Vache—the cow. When they were classified in 1936, Pommard clearly had a few jokers on their marketing team; perhaps these names were chosen to stimulate digestion, and I guess we know why Rodolphe didn’t bottle them separately as lieu-dit wines … ) La Rue au Porc was planted in 1948 and composed of deep clay and limestone rock topsoil—the sources of the muscle and weight of the wine. En Boeuf is located in the Grande Combe, a somewhat narrow valley far to the west of the appellation on the north hill facing south on a steep slope of shallow rocky topsoil, close to forests, and in the direct path of colder winds from the countryside to the west, which presents an almost complete contrast to La Rue au Porc. Planted in 1979, the position of these vines brings the balance of mineral, tension, cut and lift, to compliment the richer fruit and fuller body from En Boeuf. Compared to the other Pommards of his range, this is more savory and meaty, while the others are more lifted and ethereal. Vignots, mid-slope above the fork in the road and up to the top Moving away from vineyard names with animals and on to more sexy, Pommard “Vignots” is not part of the upper cru club, but of cru club quality, thanks to climate change. Perhaps it was left out mostly because of its altitude which more or less begins at 300m on Pommard’s north hill. Vignots is a phonetic portmanteau of vigne and haut, which means, high vines. In communes with grand cru wines, above 300m usually defaults to a premier cru or appellation wine. But in Pommard, where there are no grand crus, the default goes to either village or Bourgogne. Regardless, Vignots is a serious wine, especially today. (Lalou Bize Leroy knows it, Vignots being one of her domaine’s bottlings.) It leans toward those of us who often appreciate as much angle in our Burgs as curves. Rodolphe’s 0.21ha parcel was replanted in 1983. Its defining characteristics of being south-facing, higher altitude, windy and steep, with thin topsoil and limestone bedrock are on full display after his soft approach in the cellar and rigorous organic vineyard work. Though its full name is a bit long, we’ve finally arrived at an A-level marketing decision on the name of Rodolphe’s top red: Pommard 1er Cru Les Charmots “Le Coeur des Dames.” I.e. High Charm, “The Heart of the Ladies.” Now that’s more like it, Pommard marketing team! Here, we flip Vignots upside down by leading with more curves than angles. Nature abounds in this small clos enclosed by limestone walls that keep out the diesel and brake dust from the surrounding roads. The vines here are plowed by horse as much as possible to respect the microbial life in the soil while also maintaining control of the natural grasses and weeds. Purity, elegance, and nobility are consistently defining factors rendered from this hillside planted in 2001 on limestone and clay. It’s made the same way as Les Vignots, which makes for a clear two-bottle demonstration of terroir at play with two of the most elegant faces within Pommard’s diverse range of terroirs and wine styles. Both are softly extracted through the infusion method, which is to say very little is done in the way of punch-downs or pump-overs during fermentation. I love this style because I subscribe to the idea that if the terroir is strong it doesn’t need to be forced to deliver its message. Last but not least of the reds and the furthest southern Pinot Noir vineyard in Rodolphe’s range, aside from the Bourgogne Rouge, we finish the red set with the Auxey-Duresses Rouge, “Les Clous.” Harvested from a single acre of Pinot Noir planted on a direct south exposition, it’s perfect for this appellation which is sometimes cooler than the rest of the Côte. Tucked into a small valley back to the west of Meursault and scrunched between Monthélie and Saint-Romain, this is a smart buy in warm and healthy years, like 2022. The soils are limestone and clay, but are very well drained due to the ample mix of stone sizes deposited by the small creek that once flowed through this valley long ago. Earthy and foresty freshness with a long finish are its lead characteristics thanks to the depth of the vines planted in 1949. Though more fruit-driven in 2022, it remains restrained and savory, a lovely match for food. As it is traditional tasting in barrel rooms in the Côte d’Or, we finish with Chardonnay. Demougeot’s Meursault is composed from two different lieu-dit village sites, Les Pellans and Les Chaumes. Located low on the slope, Les Pellans sits just next to the Puligny-Montrachet border below the famous Meursault 1er Cru Charmes known for its full-bodied and burly shoulders. Planted in 1957, these old vines set on a deep clay topsoil bring weight, earthy power and thrust to this seemingly lithe, middleweight Meursault. Les Chaumes, planted in 1999 and just above a deep limestone quarry above the village’s most famous 1er Cru Les Perrières, is the pointed spear in the charge of this ensemble. The stony and shallow soils—just next to one of Coche-Dury’s principal sections that make up his Meursault—brings lift, high energy, tension and vibration. The combination of these two sites that sit above and below some of the most talented terroirs for white wine in all of Burgundy make this a noteworthy Meursault. As usual, everyone wants it but there’s so little to go around. Planted in 1969 on just a tenth of a hectare (eight vine rows!), Rodolphe’s minuscule parcel of Meursault “Le Limozin” is surrounded by premier cru greatness on three sides. Indeed, not all village wines are created equal, and it’s good to note the location of this one: downslope from Genevrières, south of Les Porusots-Dessous, and north of Les Charmes-Dessous—not bad neighbors! Like his appellation Meursault, it’s another rare example—at least these days—of strikingly pure Meursault, devoid of overindulgent and trendy reductive winemaking notes. Its privileged placement among giants renders a deep body, dense interior and aromatic spring. The soils are deep with limestone-rich clay, and while this wine has striking tension, its depth is credited to its deep soils with a clear balance to bring weight, texture and finesse. The production is tiny with only five cases for the US. 2021 is the vintage to understand just how good Falkenstein’s wines are. I tasted them out of vat with our Southern California team, JD Plotnick and Tyler Kavanaugh. Their eyebrows shot up like mine did a decade ago during my first encounter with their wines at a restaurant near Lago de Garda, with Le Fraghe’s Matilde Poggi. Our first vintages imported, 2019 and 2020, were warmer years. The wines were still exquisitely crafted by Franz Pratzner, the founder, owner and chief winegrower. Though more now under the welcome influence of his daughter, Magdalena, Franz was already doing great work before she returned from school and with experience from working in other wine regions. She’s gentle, but also a force of nature that will help elevate the level even more. We tasted Falkenstein’s 2021s in their state-of-the-art, frigid cellar dug into the mountainside tricked-out with gorgeous medium-sized, mostly 10hl-18hl acacia botte in the middle of May 2022 with already sweltering heat that didn’t let up the rest of the year. If I ever had a cellar (and a lot of cash), it would look like theirs: immaculate and with big, beautiful, botte! When they released these vintages, we received our 2020s in California and needed time to work through them. They asked if we wanted to skip the 2021s and buy again with the release of the 2022s. Not a chance! The 2021s are too good and you need to know how special they are in the cooler years. Grown on a mix of metamorphic and igneous bedrock, it shares similar geology to the region for Franz’s inspiration with Riesling, Austria’s Wachau, though from a different geological age. Franz’s wines speak the same language but with a different dialectic twist. The Südtirol’s Vinschau DOC is similarly continental/mountain climate with hot and dry summer days and frigid nights, though the Wachau has been much spottier as of late during fruit season with more frost and hail. While the Wachau is a narrow river gorge, the Vinschgau, or Val Venosta, is an expansive and steep-walled glacial valley. The topsoil of their vineyards are a mix of glacial moraine and sand derived from the bedrock. The vines are also at much higher altitudes than the Wachau, at 600-900m—about 400m maximum in the Wachau. First up, the 2021 Weissburgunder. In Südtirol, Weissburgunder (more commonly known as Pinot Bianco or Pinot Blanc) is often considered the top white variety and when tasting those from the best local cellars, it’s easy to see why. On Jancis Robinson’s website, she describes the grape as it usually presents itself in most regions: “Useful rather than exciting.” She’s right. The majority are like that. But things are changing, and this grape offers pretty dull wines most of the time (especially further east in Friuli), but in Alpine country it thrives. Take Wasenhaus’ German Weissburgunders from Baden as another excellent example. In Südtirol, Weissburgunder is truly their top white, on average, and a lot more exciting than those produced elsewhere. Many whites grown in Südtirol grow well on the Dolomite limestone formations further east, and, just like the Sauvignon grown there, can be intensely racy, fully aromatic, and sharply textured. In the center of the broad region, on porphyry rock and glacial moraines, usually the hottest zones, they tend to be richer and more glycerol, salty, expressive of spices, honey, and more mature stone fruit. In the areas with the coldest nights and on more acidic soils, like those of Falkenstein, the combination of bedrock, sandy soil, bright sunny and warm days and frigid nights keep it fresh, lifted and complex. Weissburgunder is never a pushover inside special terroirs like Falkenstein’s. And 2021 is the season to give them a spin if you’re looking for more zing in your Pinot Blanc. The six hectares that make up the headlining 2021 Riesling vary in vine age and are planted with a multitude of different biotypes, with the oldest established in the mid-1980s, and others up until the late 2000s. The selection for this first Riesling in the range (the one bottled with only Südtirol Vinschau DOC printed on the label; the other is labeled Alte Reben—“old vine”) comes mostly from the younger vines and the upper row of clusters of the older vines. And while the Alte Reben is a grand wine, the appellation wine is the one I want to drink most, like the Federspiels of the great Wachau growers—though this one lands between Federspiel and Smaragd with a tilt toward the latter. The altitude ranges from 600 to 900 meters and offers a broader span of characteristics. The Pratzners describe theirs as typically dominated by citrus, stone fruit and salty minerality. But in 2021, it’s even more minerally and with greater citrus dominance over the stone fruit and the textures have finer lines. The vintage brings us back a decade or two in climate influence. It also validates the claim of their Italian peers and many Austrian and German Riesling growers that Pratzner’s Rieslings are indeed Italy’s flagbearers. While Germany’s most famous dry Riesling is concentrated in the Rheinhessen’s limestone sites, these match the more historic Austrian deeply salty dry Rieslings grown on metamorphic rock inside the Kamptal, Kremstal and Wachau. This year is the best demonstration of what the Pratzners can do with the noblest of grapes. My wife thought Marrakech would be similar to Napoli, one of her favorite cities. But on Napoli’s most chaotic roads (which are everywhere), at least you have the body armor of a car. The center streets of Marrakech are narrow and dirtier, but not with the scattered and ubiquitous trash like Naples. Marrakech has a lot of dirt, brake dust, smoke, exhaust, buildings in ruins, quieter and gentler people, and cats … lots of cats. After quickly rinsing off the air-travel grime and donning a fresh set of clothes, outside of the riad (a small privately owned hotel), wood and meat smoke, tajines, herbs, spices, and motorbike exhaust are instantly cured into your skin, hair, and clothes that were fresh a minute ago. Everyone is on their toes, even the locals, and tourists’ heads bob up and down as they check their spotty phone navigation apps trying to decide which street to take as men and boys honk and blister by them through the souk market on bikes. Among the disgusting and divine scents, I was happy that one was notably absent: that of dogs; their scent couldn’t be found anywhere. I don’t mean the smell of puppy fur only a couple days after a bath (which I and most people like), but rather the stink of Europe’s urban centers where dog owners all too often shirk responsibility for their animal’s messes (necesidades, as the Spanish say) and the noise pollution of territorial barking. I saw only one old black-and-tan canine trotting through the chaotic traffic at dinner time, tongue out, confident. Though it’s a mere hour and forty minutes by plane from Porto, it’s a very different world. Despite warnings about dark streets at night and misdirection from locals with dubious intent, the only things I felt were unsafe were the bikes and cars. But for as much shock and terror as there was in realizing that there were only millimeters separating us from severe injury or death every thirty seconds, my wife was anxious and somehow relaxed at the same time. A change of activity and mindset was needed: no home and office habits, no computers, poor cell phone coverage (and I was disappointed my phone worked at all)—every reminder of our privileged life back home was gone. And on the street of Marrakech, your inner yogi has no choice: you must be present, or you’ll get run over. The highlight of our trip was the day we spent in the Atlas Mountains with a Berber family. Our first stop was Asni, a town in the lower mountains and foothills, damaged by last year’s earthquake, the most severe in over a hundred years, responsible for the death of a few thousand people—a tremendous amount in proportion to these sparsely populated areas. Some who slept in their clay houses were crushed by truck-sized boulders crashing from above, and many survivors now live in tents outside of their ruins while they rebuild. We stopped at the Saturday market for the vegetables we needed for our cooking class with a Berber woman, Latifa, who taught us how to make the real-deal tajin, fresh bread and the unforgettable and easy-to-make eggplant dish, zaalouk. Without a doubt, I was the only blond, fair-skinned dude, and my wife was the only woman I saw among the mess of tents and rough-but-kind Berber men. And I’m sure there were positively no California health code violations in that market … We barely made it back to the airport after three days. Not because we didn’t have enough time, but because our young driver was a stone-silent, horn-honking swerving, needle-threading, 4-Runner-driving madman with a death wish. Our lives were out of our hands for thirty minutes, but we got to where we were going. Pointers after four days in Marrakech: be patient; remember why you’re there; concede to the chaos and smile, knowing that they’re gentle people and they will smile back even if they’re not trying to sell you something; arrive at least three hours before your flight departure—the lines are slow and long, especially inbound passport check so don’t underestimate how much time you’ll need; go to L’Mitad restaurant (our lunch pictured), the best modern(ish) restaurant we went to—other highly recommended places fell very short by comparison; explore the street as much as possible during your first days before you commit to any street food so you can find the right ones. If you’re going to risk Montezuma’s revenge, Moroccan style, better to get it the day you return home instead of at the beginning of the trip.

If you have interest in Italian wines, particularly those from Tuscany, Riecine could be a worthwhile consideration for you. The style of the wines at Riecine wear many faces, from the elegant and lifted Chianti Classico, the more savory and deep Chianti Classico Riserva, the unapologetically top-heavy red fruited, full-throttle Sangiovese, La Gioia, and the most dainty and Burgundian of the pack, Riecine di Riecine—the latter is scheduled to arrive later in the year.During my first visit to the estate I was quite surprised by what I tasted. Fortunately we walked in the door at a change of guard, and while the wines before today’s vintages were also very good, it seems that things are taking an even bigger uptick in overall quality. Further below is a short story of what is happening these days at the cantina and some of my thoughts on the wines. If you have any questions about Riecine or any of our other producers, please send us an email and we can set up a time to talk about wine, a subject we never get tired of talking about. Riecine: Rewinding The Clock And Moving Forward Since the passing of Riecine’s founders, the Englishman, John Dunkley, and his Italian wife, Palmina Abbagnano, Riecine has now cycled through a few different owners. In 2015, a young and talented Italian enologist named Alessandro Campatelli (pictured) took charge with full support on his vision from the newest owners. His mission was to bring back the spirit of these historic Chianti Classico wines that began with the 1973 vintage made by Dunkley and his then enologist, Carlo Ferrini. Ferrini has since become one of the biggest names in Italian wine and Alessandro’s first order of business was to enlist him to achieve this goal. Dunkley passed away in 1996, and Ferrini decided to move on to more personal projects and consulting opportunities the following year. Surprised by the invitation to return, he hadn’t been back to Riecine since the day he resigned, and Alessandro said that upon arrival he had tears in his eyes, explaining, “John and Palmina were like Ferrini’s second parents. It was a great moment to have him back.” Riecine’s organically farmed vineyards (since the 1970s) are in the northern zone of Gaiole in Chianti, one of the highest quality communes of Chianti Classico. In the south of Gaiole, the vineyards are much lower in elevation, and the soil is less rocky than in the north. Almost entirely different from the lower area of Gaiole, the northern zone shares similar high altitudes—430 to 600 meters—to the vineyards of Radda in Chianti. This impacts the overall growing season, and results in higher-toned flavors, acidic snap and finely etched textures. Perhaps one of the most notable differences between these two fabulous Chianti Classico zones is that Radda has more galestro (a decomposed schistous clay soil with a very high pH that seems to impart more angular dimensions to its wines) while the upper areas of Gaiole, where the Riecine vineyards are located, is principally on limestone and clay, which imparts more roundness and fuller flavors to balance out the freshness of the wines. The Wines We know all too well that the constant comparison of wines outside of Burgundy to Burgundy is exhausting and overextended. However, a few of Riecine’s wines, particularly the Chianti Classico and the Riecine di Riecine, are far to this side of the spectrum for Chianti Classico. Not only do these two Riecine wines often feel close to Burgundy in the palate, they can smell and taste like Burgundies grown at high altitudes, particularly those premier crus above grand crus, or even some sections of rockier grand cru sites themselves. Believe it or not, some wines from Riecine have duped many skilled wine tasters into believing they were Burgundy before unveiling the wines; many of these occurrences happened during blind tastings that I conducted. By contrast, Riecine’s Riserva Chianti Classico is more of what one expects from the appellation, and even further out on its own is La Gioia, something of an impact wine that demonstrates how far the wines can be stretched. The first level Chianti Classico is well above the cut for the price and value. Fruit forward with a seamless and refined texture, it’s serious Sangiovese but with glou glou immediacy upon pulling the cork. Not solely a one-trick pleasure pony, the wine has extra gears and demonstrates its versatility and depth with more aeration (if it can be resisted long enough). More classically savory characteristics of Chianti Classico begin to unfold with time open in its youth and surely with more maturation in the cellar, and are supported with the acidic snap from its high altitude and endowed with a sappy red fruit core. This limestone and clay vineyard Chianti Classico is aged in large old oak barrels to further highlight its purity and high-toned frequency. (Reviews if you’re curious: 2018 received 99 points from perhaps an extremely overenthusiastic Italian wine critic, Luca Gardini; 92 points from both the Wine Enthusiast and James Suckling.) The Chianti Classico Riserva from Riecine is far more deep and savory than their lifted and elegant Chianti Classico. Between the ages of twenty-five and forty years old, the vines used for the Riserva are older and the wines are aged for twenty months in large, old oak barrels—the first wine, spends fourteen months in large, old French oak barrels and Grenier casks, and are from vines that are more than twenty years old. Grown also on limestone and clay, which, along with the older vines, imparts more roundness and an even fuller mouthfeel. At a tasting in Los Angeles with the most discerning palates from many of the city’s top Italian restaurant sommeliers and wine buyers, the merits of this wine were immediately evident and were a true highlight with the more traditionally-minded Italian wine buyers. Indeed it will age well in the cellar, but it can also be enjoyed early; just give it a little air before diving in, and know that it’s best drunk with a meal—just like every traditionally made Chianti Classico. (Luca Gardini 2017 Riserva: 98 points. I guess he more than just likes these guys…) La Gioia is one of Tuscany’s seminal IGT successes with its inaugural 1982 vintage, designated as a “Vino da Tavola di Toscana”. In 1982 the mix was 85% Sangiovese and 15% Merlot. As it has been since the 2006 vintage, it is now 100% Sangiovese. (The historic Riecine Merlot vines are used for the Tresette label, an extremely interesting wine with big-time chops for the long haul—if the market was still interested in Merlot!) Designed in the cellar for the long haul, La Gioia is aged for thirty months in a mixture of new, second and third year 500-liter French oak barrels. Clearly it’s not the same type of wine as Riecine’s Chianti Classico or Riserva since it’s notably more flamboyant and unapologetically full, decadent and loaded with flavor. It’s my experience that sometimes the wine leads with oakier nuances and needs a bit of time to get around it, which it will; then there are times the oak is hardly noticeable at all, save some textural components. Clearly this wine is alive and always on the move. For those looking for rarities/collectibles, this is one that should be considered; even we get very few bottles. It will live a long life and show quite well, as the mini-vertical of the 1982-1985 did only a month ago at a tasting in Riecine’s cellar of all the wines produced from 1971 to 1985; sadly I was not there for that tasting, but received some pictures of the event... (Accolades/Reviews for 2015: 95 points by both James Suckling and Germany’s Falstaff Wein) Riecine di Riecine transcends the appellation as a singular expression of Sangiovese unlike anything I’ve found elsewhere in the Chianti hills. It can test one’s notions of high-end, blue chip European wines—particularly those from Burgundy, and my first taste of the 2013 vintage, with the wine and food writer, Jordan Mackay, did exactly that. We were perplexed because in our Zalto glasses was a wine that evoked the feeling of high-altitude red Burgundy from a shallow and rocky limestone and clay topsoil on limestone bedrock. Poured from a Burgundy-shaped bottle, the wine was supple but finely delineated with high-tension fruit, earth, mineral impressions and a sappy interior. Its beguiling aromas were delicate but effusive, and very Rousseau-esque, in a higher-altitude-sort-of-way (think Rouchottes-Chambertin, without the bludgeon of new oak upon first pulling the cork from that wiry juggernaut of the Côte d’Or). Like a Burgundy, this wine is in fact grown on rocky limestone and clay topsoil with limestone bedrock, and at a high altitude of 450-500 meters, so about 200 to 250 meters higher than the majority of the Côte d’Or’s most prized sites. To preserve the wine’s purity, it’s raised in concrete egg tanks for three years, which serves this wine well—not all wines of pedigree can thrive so well raised solely in concrete. The vines planted in the early 1970s further its suppleness and complexity, and concentrate its fresh red fruit characteristics. This wine is special, and with a vintage like 2016, it's not one to pass on if your budget has room for at least a bottle to give it a try. (2016 Review: Suckling 94… Not bad, but if he gave 2015 La Gioia 95 points, this should be at least a 96. But to taste it next to La Gioia it can easily appear less substantial because it’s fine and more subtle. We find it substantial in a different way, a more Burgundian way.)