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(Download complete pdf here) Matera, November 2023 Yes! Finally rid of you, you…2023! It’s January, and that means we’ll either commit even more to our goals with great preparations for the coming year, or we’ll pivot and aim for something else. Or maybe we’ll just plan nothing at all in rebellion against our own interests… If you do have goals for 2024, then this is the moment to dig in your heels, take off the gloves, burn the midnight oil (and whatever other overused idiomatic expressions come to mind), but reconsider that Dry January thing because isn’t life too short to drink nothing at all for an entire month? Two weeks? We’re going to start this year with the inspiring story of Laurent (Lolo) Marre, a wine-crazy Frenchman, who in his late forties almost died, and when given a new lease on life he refocused on a lifelong dream. I hope you enjoy the story about this passionate no-sulfite-added, natural, biodynamic, self-described “neo-vigneron” in Cahors living the life many of us on the other side of the wine trade dream of. In the meantime, best of luck to you this year, and welcome once again to the beginning of the rest of your life! After twenty-five years as a sommelier, wine wholesaler and the owner of a Parisian wine bar, forty-eight-year-old Cahors native, Laurent Marre, found himself in a hospital bed. Unexpected life-threatening circumstances and four months confined to a hospital can change anyone’s perspective. After he was released, Laurent and his wife, Nathalie, started to plan a return to Laurent’s familial homeland. Since 2018, they’ve been raising horses (Nathalie’s métier, along with plowing the vineyards) and farming eight biodynamic hectares of vines on their 30-hectare plot surrounded by forest on one of Cahors’ geologically diverse and high-altitude limestone plateaus. Our first interaction with Laurent’s impeccably balanced, no-sulfites-added “natural-wine” range (white included), evoked a whole-body YES! The range begins with C’Juste, a welcome and unexpectedly intense mineral and fresh, amphora-raised Gros Manseng, followed by a series of emotion-inducing and minerally fresh Malbecs raised in concrete, amphora, and large old French oak barrels and foudres. Laurent offering wild onion growing in his vineyards No one’s body stays young forever, but at fifty-something, Laurent’s mind seems to have turned back the clock. From the abyss of his hospital bed came rebirth and revelation that brought him back home to Cahors and a dream he had almost forgotten. Laurent was in line to be the fifth generation of operators of the Cahors hotel and restaurant, Le Terminus. Hospitality, wine, culinary arts and living well from one meal to the next were their family heritage. They took their vacations in wine countries with good restaurants, and it set the course for his adventures abroad. After high school, he attended viticulture and enology university in Toulouse. Instead of jumping straight into the vineyard and cellar, he worked in Alsace for three years at L’Auberge de l’Ill with Serge Dubs, one of his great mentors and the winner of the 1989 “Best Sommelier of the World” competition. Eventually, Laurent owned a wine bar and also represented various vignerons in the Paris market. “I always wanted to be a winemaker. But not coming from a farming family, my former job as a sommelier allowed me to achieve this dream of working in the wine world. Then a serious health issue in 2016 pushed me to achieve my dream to become a vigneron.” Put on hold and then nearly forgotten, his original dream took a backseat as he got accustomed to Parisian life where he watched the rest of France and the world passing through the iconic Ville lumière. Now he’s a new-world mind in Cahors’ old-world setting, and there are few vignerons we’ve encountered so sure of their calling to the vines as Laurent. It’s rare in France for outsiders of the wine community (even if they’re French) to make the leap from life in restaurants and wine bars to that of a vigneron. Laurent is an exception with his quarter century in helping to promote young vignerons’ names and reputations in Paris and elsewhere. With full idealism intact, his splash was immediate and perhaps surprising to some. But it wasn’t for those who are familiar with his immeasurable urgency to live life that followed years of reflection on the nature of wine, and the words and ideas of the thousands of vignerons, sommeliers and talented tasters and thinkers who crossed his path. With clarity in his practice, his ideas have come together quickly yet he remains as endlessly curious and enthusiastic as Pollux, his canine vineyard companion. During our first visit, Laurent and Pollux were hardly able to contain themselves, moving quickly through their vineyard and forest playground poking and sniffing, analyzing flowers and herbs and limestone rocks like they’d just discovered them. Laurent paused as we examined the curious six-inch porcelain plates on white limestone rock and he explained that below are highly porous terracotta amphoras beside newly planted vines to offer them micro-doses of water and temperature regulation needed to thread the needle through the hot and dry summers in their crucial years before fruit production and greater root development; these clever and cute pots are a useful gardening technique he saw in Japan that replaces drip irrigation. Some people use punctured plastic containers as well, but that’s neither sexy, cool, nor aesthetically pleasing in such a natural setting. You can take the man out of the wine bar, but you can’t take the wine bar out of the man (or something like that). Laurent transformed from rustic wine grower to hospitable Parisian barman (which may seem like an oxymoron) the moment he held the cellar door for us to pass into his winemaking workshop. He described his objectives with each aging container while patiently watching and offering a light commentary to preserve the mystery for each of us to bond with his wine in our own way: to discover something completely new or uncannily familiar; to let our interpretations and creative juices flow; to make our relationship personal and deep in a matter of sips with our unique perceptions that only we sometimes understand. As Andrew Jefford writes in the opening sentence of Drinking with the Valkyries, “We know no moment quite like this.” Childhood friend and business partner at Le Vent des Jours, François Sudreau is not only a great supporter of Laurent’s dream, he is also one of his biggest fans. With his infectious smile and eyes enlarged by his glasses, a bottle or glass in hand (and sometimes a cigarette in the other), like Laurent, he closely attends to his guests: Water? Wine? A smoke? Perhaps some rillette de canard? A great friend to have for any epicurean, François’ 130-year-old family business carries from the late-1800s to our century the ancient craft of charcuterie quack: confits, rillettes, pâtés, and foie gras a hundred ways. Sudreau-Côte Cave is an evil temptation in the center of Cahors that preys on those of us who lack restraint for France’s Michelin-starred picnic fair. His shop is lined with all their ancient recipes in jar and tin, and also a fabulous collection of wines, piles of the most mythological French cheeses and sausages (especially those from the southwest), along with a room in which to sit, pull corks, enjoy everything on offer, and commune. François brings a dangerously good accompaniment to visits at Le Vent des Jours, and he surely pushes harvest lunches and a quick casse-croûte to a stratospheric level. Once a prolific variety used for its color and structure contribution to Bordeaux, a frost in 1956 exposed Malbec’s Achilles’ heel for this once rare seasonal challenge compared to the Cabernet brothers and Merlot. Commonly referred to as Cot (pronounced like the abbreviation for company: Co.) in other areas of France, its thick skins and dark, lip-and-mouth-staining color earned the name, Malbec, which Laurent explains in the local dialect of Cahors means “bad mouth.” (The Vin de Cahors website, vindecahors.fr says the name’s origin involves a dubiously named and seemingly shameless self-promoter, Mr. Malbeck.) A half-sibling of Merlot, among many other winding vinous relations, Cahors (presumably made with Cot/Malbec) was also an inspiration for the Roman poets, Horace and Virgil. I suppose this shouldn’t surprise us that Horace wrote about it given that he was from modern-day Basilicata’s Venosa (in his time it was called Venusia and part of Apuglia), a central hub for Aglianico wines of Vulture. Assuming the Cahors of his time was Malbec, this grape is of an equally dark color and structure as Aglianico, though perhaps a little less intense by comparison when measuring tannins and perhaps naturally juicier and more seductive. In Bordeaux, Malbec was used as a blending component to beef up Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. But in Cahors, Malbec performs on a world-class level as a single-varietal terroir wine at higher altitudes on limestone bedrock and calcareous topsoil. Perhaps more so than the low-lying and largely alluvial soils of Bordeaux, also similar to the many vineyards inside the Lot River gorge on former flood plains, the limestone roche mare of Cahors seems to naturally impart a more linear and strict architecture to the aromatic and palate textures to this often fruit-heavy wine. An hour and a half northwest of Toulouse, three hours by car from the city center of Bordeaux, four hours from Lyon, five from Marseille, and eighteen hours by car, or 400 hours by foot from Horace’s hometown, one doesn’t “happen” to cross Cahors by car on the way to somewhere else. (Imagine how sound the Cahors must have been to travel so far over 2000 years ago and still inspire Horace to immortalize it!) Located just west of the western end of France’s Massif Central, an ancient igneous and metamorphic rock mountain range with some young-ish, seemingly (hopefully) dead volcanoes, Cahors is a land of Jurassic limestone plateaus (referred to in French as causse) above a deeply carved, Mosel-like, dizzying meander of the Lot River. The Lot sprung near the Massif Central’s Cévennes and carried a variety of different rock types from the ancient massif to the Lot River Valley, depositing them in cobble form along the limestone ridges and eventually joining the Garonne River after 485 kilometers of travel from its source. Malbec is perfectly situated in Cahors for many reasons. The most influential factor in determining a grape’s ideal place in the world is the climate. The southwest is generally mild in the winter, wet in the spring, hot in the summer, and humid in the fall. It’s more influenced by oceanic conditions despite being relatively equidistant from the Atlantic and Mediterranean. At the western base of the Massif Central’s Parc Naturel Régional des Causses du Quercy, Lot’s path has a convergence of strong opposing natural forces. The Pyrenees to the south block much of the intense African and Mediterranean heat and spring storms, and, like the Massif Central to the east and north, offer cool mountain air relief; the Massif’s north winds also bring Cahors’ biggest threat of frost. Toward the west, it’s open to the Atlantic, which brings autumnal rains and cool winds. With similarities to Southern France’s famously howling cold north wind, the Mistral, the opposing warm Autan winds originate above the Sahara and roar through the Languedoc and Roussillon gap between the Massif Central and the Pyrenees, through Carcassonne, Toulouse and finally Cahors, and it can be beneficial or dangerous, depending on its duration and timing. Laurent says that it often carries a lot of desert sand, and, like the Mistral, it’s said that it usually lasts for three, six or nine days. If it arrives late in the growing season, it can dry grapes and reduce yields, as it did in 2023. However, Laurent’s biggest concern among these multidimensional influences is hail. The vines have been under biodynamic culture now for almost two decades. The conversion began with Fabien Jouves (Mas del Périé), a biodynamic-natural wine vigneron who sold the vines to Laurent and François in 2017. What great fortune to walk into such a thriving ecosystem! The following is a lightly edited version of Laurent’s responses to some of our questions, though it should be noted that he speaks English well. My agricultural philosophy as a neo-winemaker is as simple as possible. First, the size of the estate is a human scale: eight hectares of vines to make our living, eleven are made up of woods and pastures for our horses, eight for the sheep, one for the truffle oaks, and one with woods for our beehives. I try to apply a “farmer’s” common sense and replace most Phyto treatments with infusions, porridges, and natural minerals. If my schedule allows it, I follow the planet’s calendar; if I can’t, I deal with those processes the following days. Our animals eat organic hay and graze on organic lands, so they make organic manure which we recover to make our supply of organic elements for our soil health. Our horses also pull our plows and our sheep are part-time mowers and fertilizers. Our bees make honey for our breakfast and to treat our horses’ wounds. White clay is also used to heal the wounds of animals or ours, but we also spray it on the vines as a way of using a natural substance to fight against leafhoppers effectively. All these natural products cost almost nothing, unlike Bayer or Monsanto products which are accompanied by very harmful effects. Since 2022 we leave the grass cover [which is extremely spare anyway] in the center of the vine rows and till only directly under the vine lines in autumn to build a mound around the vines for winter protection. At the beginning of spring, we put the mound back. Ultimately, Laurent’s philosophy is to first respect nature and work in its flow as fluidly as possible when creating their wines. The second is to make sure his wines bring clear sensations related to this historic vineyard land and most importantly to the rocky and fully exposed terroir. “Aside from an empty bottle, the greatest compliment is to taste my wine blind and tell me it’s Malbec on limestone.”-Laurent Marre On their thirty hectares, just southwest of Cahors’ town center and east of the village, Villesèque, Laurent and François have a single, contiguous, eight-hectare vineyard plot on a limestone plateau. “Maintained with love,” the bordering forests on the north and east offer some frost protection, and the 284-310 meters of altitude (higher compared to neighboring appellations, Bergerac and Gaillac) brings good air circulation that reduces fungus populations resulting in fewer vineyard treatments during the vegetative cycle. Laurent explains that the seasonal average of sulfur and copper treatments is around six to seven times, though in the hot 2022, there were only three, and in the dismal 2023 there were 13, though they still lost 60% of their crop. The summer’s diurnal shift when perched up on the causse plateaus is dramatic. The days often hit highs between 36-42°C and then at night plunge to 16-22°C, with the wind always present. The white limestone also keeps the ground cooler in this fully exposed setting, which pushes harvest times (during the last decade) of Malbec to late September and sometimes into early October. Even if it’s a small piece of land, Laurent explains that there are three distinct geological settings. The differences are most evident with Malbec picked over 10-12 days with the first grapes harvested where the central plot thickens with red clay (Quaternary geological age), followed by the red-tinted Jurassic limestone section at the bottom, and the last of the Malbec is picked from the white Jurassic limestone sections in the upper part of the vineyard where the sheep hang out the most. The Jurassic age of the limestones is dated to the Kimmeridgian (Upper Jurassic). Though they’re more similar than different from the famous sharp but friable and soft Kimmerdigian marls of Chablis and the Upper Loire Valley, they’re hundreds of kilometers away and are not exactly the same. Much of the limestone formations have heavy faulting that allows roots opportunities to dig deep. On the top areas of the causse with what seems like impenetrable limestone, the rock is broken up over time from cryofracturing (among many other names with perhaps the most common reference, the freeze-thaw cycle) where water enters gaps in rock and freezes and expands, wedging the rock apart. No known hard rock can resist the 10-11% expansion when water turns to ice, but uniquely, the softer the rock the less it is affected by freezing water; for example, because of the plasticity of mudstones and claystones, they’re not affected. Malbec is the focus of the domaine and the vine age ranges between 25 to 45 years old (2023). It’s planted with 5000 vines per hectare, which is half of what is typical in the Côte d’Or. It grows on all the soil types, but principally on the rockier limestone sections. The 40-year-old Merlot vines are planted on the heaviest red clay. The 25-year-old Gros Manseng and Ugni Blanc (10% of the C’Juste blend) are on the Quaternay section (red clay) as well but with a large vein of white clay. Chardonnay and Viognier are also inherited and were planted 25 years ago on the poorest limestone soils. As a former sommelier who’s had every French wine at his fingertips, it’s understandable that Laurent is not completely satisfied growing what was already planted. This prompted him to cultivate other varieties he loves that thrive perfectly on limestone and clay; they’re also varieties that we love: Chenin Blanc, Pinot Noir, Trousseau, and Syrah. With 90% of C’Juste composed of Gros Manseng grown on the large veins of white clay in warm-to-hot summer conditions and without added sulfites, we may expect its takeoff to be like the first throttle on the tarmac in a fast but chubby commercial liner; however, it’s more like (what I imagine) being pressed against the seat of screaming fighter jet during takeoff. We, for one, find C’Juste yet another impressive no-sulfites-added white wine that demonstrates what’s possible if done correctly in the cellar. It’s as inviting as it is electric, and once open the bottle tends to empty rather quickly. Laurent describes C’Juste as, “a rich wine due to the typicity of Gros Manseng. From one year to the next, the Victoria pineapple side (a note not often found in colder and wetter climate Gros Manseng wines) remains the common thread, while the 10% of Ugni Blanc brings freshness and acidity—the lemon side on the finish. It’s for the meal rather than apero hour and can compete with a fine Chardonnay in terms of power and the freshness of a great Chenin Blanc.” Once in the cellar, the grapes are first left for 24 hours in concrete to cool down, then they’re whole-cluster pressed before being returned to the same medium. At the end of the 10-15-day natural fermentation, the wine is racked off the gross lees into four 8hl Italian terracotta amphoras for 11 months before bottling. There is no sulfite added to this wine at any time, though the exception is the 2020 version. C’Juste is lightly filtered but not fined. The red starter in Laurent’s range is also the wildest of his no-sulfite-added Cahors. It’s not made every year but reserved for years (like 2018, 2021, and 2023) where certain lots don’t hit the stylistic mark for the Les Calades and Les Moutons bottlings. Initially, the wine is explosive, shooting aromas in all directions. A member of our talented team at The Source, Tyler Kavanaugh, tasted the 2021 over five days after the wines arrived stateside and sent notes that perfectly sum up this wine: “It’s wild and swerving out of the gates; lots of raw and pungent primary fermentation elements raging around; a little awkward at first.” On the second day open after only a little taste on the first, he describes it as though the angst backed off and the wine is more subdued and approachable, though still sanguine and raw. On day five he pulled it from his refrigerator, “And wow, what a remarkably stable and intriguing wine without SO2. It softened into this delicate, powdery wine; the acidity and volatile elements zenned out; nothing weird, out of place, or fault-adjacent to be found. Much of the raw and unhinged qualities are no more. It’s honestly become a geeky pleasure to drink to the point I may very well polish the bottle.” Other pronounced notes include high-toned purple fruits, purple flowers (iris, hibiscus, petunia), beets (fresh and roasted), freshly tilled soil, dark and earthen; smells of a nursery/gardening store; Sichuan pepper and Chinese five spice. “Un Jour ou l’Autre must be my everyday, financially accessible Cahors; a 100% Malbec for thirst, aperitif, sausage, barbeque.” -Laurent Because it comes from the plots used for Les Moutons or Les Calades, it’s composed of a combination of Upper Jurassic limestone bedrock and the Quaternary white clay and limestone rock topsoil. (For more on the terroir read “The Plot” and “On the Range” sections.) Once in the cellar, the grapes are 80-90% destemmed before a 20-30-day natural fermentation in open concrete vats. Two pump-overs a day are employed early in the maceration period and almost nothing is done during fermentation. It’s aged in 50hl concrete tanks for seven months before bottling with a light filtration. No sulfites are added. A blend of Malbec from their three different soil types (see The Plot section) picked at different times within a 10 to 12-day span, it is for this that Laurent’s mid-range Cahors, Les Calades, is the most accessible and widely appealing. He describes it as the flagship of their range, “a pure Malbec with power and freshness that represents the king grape variety of our appellation on limestone, and the new generation of Cahors: more fluid, rich and balanced with a distinct and very present mineral and marine finish.” Each plot has an average age of around 40 years (2023) and naturally ferments in separate concrete vats with 10% of whole bunches between three weeks to a month. Because Malbec already provides a lot of substance from its very thick skin, he does a single short pump-over every two days to preserve the hygiene of the cap of about 300 liters in total of the 50hl vat. After fermentation, the grapes are pressed and mixed with the free-run wine and aged for 11-13 months equally between Italian terracotta amphora, old 30hl French oak vats and six-year-old 225l French oak barrels. They’re lightly filtered at bottling without any added sulfites. Again, we defer to Tyler Kavanaugh for a thorough description of the 2020 Les Calades tasted around Thanksgiving: “A deep and focused black-red fruit medley and purple flowers with a refreshing graphite-cool mouthfeel. It’s soft and broad in the mouth and a little sanguine in a steely, iodine-forward sense. The tannins are pleasantly chewy with sweeter black and red berries (though not ripe/overripe) and loads of freshness. It feels firm in the middle on weight, structure and acidity with a nicely detailed direction to the fruit that keeps you coming back to the tart blackberry and boysenberry, bramble, florist fridge fresh dark flowers and leaves and stems in the cold. It’s solid on the second day with the floral aromatics lifting well above the fruit with the tannins lightly tightening up. It didn't last beyond the second day due to its deliciousness factor, which kept me pulling it from my ‘secret’ Thanksgiving bag.” Les Moutons comes from Laurent’s favorite Malbec plot at the top of the hill on its poorest rocky topsoil on Jurassic limestone bedrock. This is where les moutons (the sheep) like to hang out the most, eating and fertilizing—“a sort of organic doping of the vineyards,” Laurent says. “Les Moutons is destined to be my grand cuvée,” Laurent says This 0.45ha upper plot in the vineyard always produces extraordinary wine from its 45-year-old vines, which he partially attributes to the plot’s spare soils and the regularity of sheep contributions. But perhaps the most significant factor is that it’s not made every year. Laurent’s vision for this wine is to have something serious and precise, and when the year doesn’t line up the way he wants it to, like 2021 and 2023, he blends it into Les Calades. Tyler’s take on the wine was that it has “a more finely etched and detailed frame with dustier but more precise tannins; it’s more elegant and less fruit nuanced than Les Calades.” This fineness and savory character is not only by design from Laurent but also by the forceful voice of this section of his vineyard. Once the grapes arrive, half are destemmed and layered, “millefeuille style,” with the whole bunch clusters in a 30hl tronconic wood vat for around three weeks of natural fermentation with a control of between 12-14°C. The must is pumped over once per day until pressing. Despite the notable beauty and class of the wine each year that it’s made, Laurent says that he’s still finding his way to fully realize his vision for this wine. In 2019, it was aged for 13 months in equal parts amphora, foudre and barrel. All of the 2020 was aged in 8hl Italian terracotta amphoras, and in 2022 it was four-year-old French oak barrels (at least from October 2022 to October 2023). As with the other reds, Les Moutons is not fined but passes through a light filtration, and has no added sulfites at any time. Each season is quite different and despite the notably erratic behavior today, it’s wild every year regardless of climate change. The most notable challenge today is how the extremes are even more extreme. Laurent has provided a quick overview of his most recent vintages. 2019 was very sunny which resulted in a lot of sugar which, of course, raises the alcohol. The natural yield was 32hl/ha. 2020 was a perfect vintage that resulted in magnificent Malbecs. 2020 was the first season they used pheromones to confuse the grape worms during their reproductive period. Laurent describes this as a smashing success. There was almost no rot in the vineyards and the yield was 36hl/ha. Laurent refers to 2021 as a “shitty year!” with nine months of rain over 18 months. “Luckily it was cold, so we didn’t have mildew problems.” It was difficult to have the sugar levels they wanted and also difficult to harvest with showers every day. The final yield was an average of 23hl/ha. Regardless of the growing season, the 2021 C’Juste is spectacular! 2022 was a very beautiful vintage, similar to 2020 but with four months of drought from May to August and temperatures between 36 and 42°C. However, there was little water stress thanks to the depth of the old vines’ roots. The yield was 38hl/ha. 2023 was a very complicated year because of a lot of rain in spring with 220mm (almost nine inches) in three days at the beginning of June and storms every evening in May. The spring and summer were very hot and there was a permanent attack of mildew, very similar to what happened in many other European wine regions. At the beginning of September, the hot Autan wind dried many of the remaining grapes. Many winegrowers didn’t even harvest. The average yield was 12hl/ha.

(Download complete pdf here) 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!

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

Winston Churchill said in 1946, “I could not live without Champagne. In victory I deserve it. In defeat I need it.” Whether you think you deserve it or need it, everyone in the US probably really could regularly use a good glass or bottle of bubbles. With what will inevitably be a difficult remainder of this unforgettable year that we’d all rather forget, maybe there’s a need to allocate at least a few cases for every drinking adult out there… Or maybe you’ll choose to keep your indulgences to a minimum until the holidays, when some of us might experience some added travel and risky-mingle stresses to our already interesting family gatherings. This selection of six wines can set you up with what you need for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, etc, as well as the finale, on December 31st, when we’ll tell a lot of what happened in 2020 to go to h**l, while we also toast the many things for which we’re grateful. The Tiers The first tier of sparklers is for the bigger family gatherings, where price and quality are imperative. These go quickly so you may want to double up on them. And we can’t forget to account for those sneaky family members who forgot they are not the only ones at the party. You know they’ve already scoped out and zeroed in on the wines you brought because they’re not dumb and they know your wines are the best anyone brought. Consider these wonderful wines to kick it all off. And maybe they’ll take the biggest hit in the collection of wines you offered to the party. Just make sure the family wine predator sees you pop one of these first, take a sip, smile like you’re proud, intentionally forget your manners and look a little greedy by taking a bit more before offering it to anyone else. Look the predator straight in the eye to signal that you know they want some and pour them a nice big glass to keep them busy while you head to the kitchen to get into the second tier wine in the fridge before they catch on to your game. That’s how it’s done. I’ve been doing it for more than two decades now, and it works. The second tier is a step-up and should partly be kept away from the family wine predator until you’ve had your share and are ready to move on from bubbles and that maybe you begin to feel guilty that you’ve been holding out on them; they’re still family after all, and I guess that counts for something. The second tier is indeed for you but even more so for the elders in the family who have endured your pain-in-the-butt family this long as well as this extraordinarily stressful year. Predator Tip: Make sure they don’t see what you’re up to and don’t ever set the bottle down until you’re ready to say goodbye to it. You can foil them by pouring it almost completely out for those most deserving (including you, of course), but offer them the last taste by pouring the remaining couple ounces, just enough to let them think about their sizable past offenses. In the last phases of the holiday, we start to dig into Champagne and we’re going to keep the prices in the non-ridiculous category. They’re wines that are exceptional in their own right, but young and exciting. The first set of Champagne’s are best served up with food. They are not the aperitifs or after dinner types that flaunt crystalline qualities and big fruit, or matured age with subtle nuance. These are savory, which makes them ideal with food. (The other showoff Champagnes that can be more overwhelmed by food than these will come in the next tier…) These wines need to be opened when people start snacking heavily and should be nearly polished off before everyone sits down and migrates into their preferred color. At last, it was a good day and you’ve maybe taken a post-lunch, booze-induced nap, or you’re wild-eyed and just beginning to defile yourself as you purge 2020. In any case, by the time you get to this last tier of wines, it’s been a long day and you’ve waded your way through a lengthy dinner and floated away on a lot of good bottles; well, at least if you’re able to enjoy the ones you brought before they’re topped up around the table, three glasses out of each bottle… The best part about saving these for last is that maybe you get to take some back home and have a toast with your intimate loved one, or the one you want to be intimate with… Or, maybe you just need a little perk up to finish the eventful day and the predator called it early because they thought you ran out, or they passed out (whichever comes first). In the wine industry we often start with Champagne and finish the night with it too. You will at least need these bottles opened some minutes on the night before 2020 turns into the past. The Wines The Sorgente Prosecco is the perfect start to any holiday gathering. The proximity of Sorgente’s vineyards to the Alps and the Adriatic Sea brings an ideal temperature characterized by large temperature swings from day to night. As you may know, this is crucial for a proper Prosecco to remain true to form (bright, fresh, minerally) and function (pleasure over intellect, although both are strong here.) Limestone and clay are that magical mix of soils that impart many of the world’s great wines with interesting x-factors. Yeah, it’s still Prosecco, but it’s a good one. And it’s been noticed by some of the best restaurants in New York, California and Illinois where it's being poured by the glass. The Château de Brézé Cremant de Loire is another wine in our collection that over-delivers for the price, especially when considering the exhaustive effort that went into crafting such an inexpensive sparkler from Brézé, one of the Loire Valley’s greatest terroirs. This now famous commune in Saumur is known for its laser-sharp Chenin Blanc wines, and fresh, bright and extremely age-worthy Cabernet Franc. The blend here is about 75% Chenin Blanc with the rest Chardonnay; the latter is used to soften up, add body and round out the edges of the extremely taut character of the Chenin grown in the coldest sites on this already frigid hill. Vincent Charlot is a master of organic and biodynamic viticulture, and within moments of meeting him, you know you’re in for it. Descending from a long line of family cooperatives, the passionate and eager Vincent took over the family business in 2001, when he began to bottle his own wines. One of the few vignerons in the biodynamic wine world to grow and make his own biodynamic preparations, he is a strong advocate of using homeopathy to manage any malady in the vineyard. To spend the afternoon with Vincent, means you will not only witness his remarkable knowledge of the complex microcosm thoroughly embodied by his thriving vineyards, and you’ll also see the rich biodiversity that populates them, including various species of wild strawberries and carrots, bees pollinating the lavender bushes and mushrooms that sprout between the vines as if to boast the health of the surrounding terroir. It is not only a visual experience; it’s also a spiritual one. Often quirky and full of surprises, Vincent’s wines are deeply complex and layered with savory characteristics that conjure up the feeling that you are drinking the entire terroir itself, with its immense biodiversity of plants, wild fruits, flowers and animal life. "La Fruit de ma Passion"comes from the Côteaux d’Épernay and is composed of 55% Pinot Meunier, 25% Pinot Noir, and 20% Chardonnay sourced from 2 parcels: La Genette (0.55 ha) and Les Chapottes (0.55 ha) are predominantly grown on chalk soil with clay and silex rocks. After fermentation it is aged in old French barrels for eight months without a Malolactic fermentation. It’s unfined, unfiltered, and the dosage is 4.5g/L “The secret is not what I do in the cellar, it’s my vineyards and how I work them.” Maxime Ponson and his younger brother, Camille, with his own label, Paul Gadiot, work their family’s vineyards together in La Petite Montagne, a subsection of Champagne’s Montagne de Reims, located west of Reims. The Ponson vineyards are scattered between seven different communes on premier cru sites spread over 13.5 hectares. The grapes are a mix of nearly 70% Pinot Meunier, and the rest is equal parts of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. The bedrock here is mostly chalk and Maxime says it’s softer than the chalk found further south on the Côte des Blancs because it’s more of a tuffeau, an extremely porous, soft, sand-rich, calcium carbonate rock. Maxime believes that if every vineyard is worked according to what it needs and not in a systematic way across the range of vineyards, the diversity obtained from the best characteristics of each brings to his blending palette something to fill the gaps where others may fall short. This makes for a more complete wine that hits on a broader range of complexities than others. All grapes are whole-cluster pressed in a traditional Coquard basket press. Alcoholic fermentation lasts between ten days and two months with maximum temperatures of around 16° to 18°C. Aside from temperature control, Malolactic fermentation rarely happens and is not encouraged. The Total SO2 of any Ponson wines rarely exceeds 30 mg/L. La Petite Montagne comes from premier cru sites scattered among seventy parcels in seven different villages and is composed of 40% Pinot Meunier, 35% Chardonnay and 25% Pinot Noir. The base year is 2014, and is blended with 25% réserve wine. The dosage is 4g/L. Camille Ponson’s Paul Gadiot Précurseur comes from some of the best premier cru sites, a few of which are seventy years old. The blend is 50% Chardonnay, 25% Pinot Meunier, and 25% Pinot Noir. 2012 is the first vintage and a joint effort between the brothers. The dosage is 4g/L. In 2008, Guillaume Sergent started his micro-domaine with a tiny parcel of his family’s vineyards. Along with his formal education in enology, he earned a degree in geology, making time spent with him a treat filled with in-depth details of the natural history of his vineyards and the surrounding area. Located on La Montagne des Reims, Guillaume’s minuscule 1.25 acres of vineyards are entirely committed to organic culture and plowed by horse. All the wines are all aged in old François Frères French oak barrels and finished with a small dosage—rarely more than 1g/L, minimal amounts of sulfur (45mg/L, or 45ppm) and no induced stabilization, fining or filtration. While he employs simple and straightforward, low-tech winemaking processes, Guillaume’s wines are subtly taut, ethereal and refined—a clear reflection of his mastery in the vineyards and soft touch in the cellar. Les Prés Dieu, a single harvest Blanc de Blancs premier cru composed of Chardonnay, originates from two vineyard plots on light sand and chalky soil. Both plots are within the advantageous middle of their respective hills, which brings balance to the body of wines; Les Prés faces northeast and Les Vignes Dieu, south. The May 2019 disgorgement comes entirely from the 2017 vintage, while the July 2020 disgorgement, entirely from 2018. Another Sergent wine labeled B.O. (Bouteilles Oubliées, which translates as “forgotten bottles”) signifies a lengthier bottle aging that lasts a minimum of six years.

I’ve dreamt of filming the Wachau’s section of the Danube River gorge for years, and even proposed to Emmerich Knoll, a good friend and the current president of the Vinea Wachau, about ten years ago to rent a helicopter (before drones were really around). The idea was to film the whole thing to use for a US tasting tour with top Wachau producers and all their importers under one roof, kind of like it was in Austria’s golden age when US importer, Vin Divino, had just about everyone important from the Wachau and Austria, outside of what at the time was a much smaller portfolio of Austrian producers from Thierry Theise. Once Vin Divino sold, the flow slowed to a trickle (it seems, because I haven’t heard of any tastings happening like the ones I attended twenty years ago) and left new generations of sommeliers and wine professionals a little in the dark on the subject. I was lucky to join those tastings Vin Divino put on; they were like a miniature version of Austria’s fabulous semi-annual trade show Vie Vinum. It really opened my eyes. Emmerich liked the idea of the filming from up high, but it never materialized. Hard Choice: Schnitzel or Kebab? Rain was in the forecast, bad weather for the drone. After about thirty minutes of good footage with ominous clouds overhead, Martin Mittelbach, the owner of Weingut Tegernseerhof and my host for the day, headed over to his family’s heuriger (a wine country tavern usually owned and operated by a wine producer) for a bite. Of course, it would be wiener schnitzel for me—another one of my food obsessions—and Martin’s partner in crime, Eva, had already told her friends and the staff that that is what I would order. It’d been too many years since my last, and I wasn’t about to let another meal pass by if a good one was available. I am always on the hunt in Austria for the best wiener schnitzel experience. It’s not an extraordinarily complex meal, in fact it’s quite simple. But I like simple things too. The best food and wine come in simple forms but have someone’s all put into perfecting its simplicity. I was in a famous restaurant in Vienna known for its traditional wiener schnitzels, always made with veal, never pork, the latter of which should be more properly listed as schwein schnitzel (always ask if what’s on offer is really made with veal because some are pork), and I asked for some spicy mustard to go with it. The waitress, probably in her mid-forties but looked mid-fifties, grimaced with a look of disgust—that look would mark the last time that request was ever made in Austria to accompany my schnitzel, even though I always want it, especially when they are a little on the dry side. I have the same obsession with döner kebab (kebap) and Turkish pizzas, also Mexican food, surely my favorite overall hand-held food along with burgers. On average, the best kebaps are to be found in southern Spain, Austria and Germany, but I had one in Dublin once with ingredients that ranked up there with the very best but didn’t bring it home in the flavor department as much as others I’ve had elsewhere. The most satisfying I’ve ever had (and probably the cheapest, too) was in Granada, Spain, at a tiny place on a side street just off a grungy, busy square, that served the “Taj Mahal.” The Taj Mahal at this place (a name I’ve not seen since in a kebab place) is a perfect balance of big-time spicy heat and a coolant of herb-rich, cold yogurt with crispy but still-soft-on-the-inside meat carved from the spinning cone of stacked slices, and a freshly baked flatbread to roll it all up. I was able to find this place again by memory thirteen years after I went there the first time in 2004. I was surprised that it was just as good as I remembered. I don’t remember the name of the place and still can’t find it on a map, but I know where it is once I get into Granada’s city center. Unexpectedly, one of my favorite schnitzels came from a restaurant in Santa Barbara, California, where I lived for fifteen years, called the Dutch Garden—commonly referred to as the “D.G.” by locals. They were a greasy mess and not really so traditional because they used panko as the crust, but it was my favorite schwein schnitzel, even when compared to most in Europe. Sadly, during the pandemic, this place that locals had seen as an institution closed down permanently after seventy-five years, and I didn’t even get to have a farewell schnitzel. What a great loss to the restaurant scene in that town. It was probably the most underrated Santa Barbara restaurant that served real home cooking like I think my German ancestors would’ve loved. It was kind of a dumpy place, but the food was as heartwarming as it was artery clogging. The weisswurst, potato salad and sauerkraut all warrant honorable mentions. Rest in peace, D.G… After I scarfed down the schnitzel accompanied by the last of a bottle of 2010 Tegernseerhof Steinertal Riesling Smaragd (my favorite in Martin’s range), we headed back to the winery to do a little more filming, including an interview where he talks about each of his wines. Some people are great on camera because they act naturally. For Martin, it evolved into a cheesy comedy sketch, like an old show filled with exaggerated, corny pitches on each wine, and a constant barrage of interruptions from his family and friends in search of the next bottle. He’s a hard one to pin down in one spot for long because he has so much energy that explodes into random bursts of laughter, followed by a completely serious face. He did well enough on the filming, and now that you know a little backstory, you can check out the interview on our website soon to watch as he tries to contain himself with a squirmy attempt to act normal, whatever that is. He’s one of the most fun guys we know in Austria, and a tireless host that goes out of his way to make sure you are taken care of, no matter how many days you happen to be there. Martin has changed his game in recent years by converting his vineyards to organic culture. This is a big break from the older members of the pack in the Wachau who still hold a firm grip on many in the younger generation as they try to keep things from veering too far from the path they rebuilt relatively recently, after the Soviets left Austria in 1955. These parents of many producers grew up in tough times and brought things back from ruin, so it’s understandable that they want to preserve what they worked so hard for. But Martin’s father has been retired now for a long time and Martin has been uninhibited in calling the shots at Tegernseerhof since he was in his mid-twenties. The Wachau has been one of the most conservative and impenetrable regions for welcoming more eco-friendly farming. Though many still considered to be Austria’s preeminent wine region, it’s pretty far behind the curve on progressive and ecological considerations, and yet it is moving in the right direction, albeit slowly. In fact, they may rank last in all of Austria’s most important wine regions for percentage of organically farmed (or better) vineyards. Most growers in the appellation still use herbicides and it’s easy to see it in the spring when the first sprays are made that make the vineyards look like a hair-dye session gone terribly wrong. Most of the terraced areas of the Wachau are impossible to plow, so it’s either done by hand, small machine, or herbicide. From an economic perspective with regard to labor, herbicide is clearly the most efficient and inexpensive on steep terraces or flat land. Much of the vineyard land in the Wachau bears surface level markings inside its vineyards of continued herbicide use and it seems most growers won’t change this until they’re forced to. I’m happy to say that both producers we work with in the Wachau—the other is Veyder-Malberg—are organically farming, and they are two among less than ten percent of the entire appellation who are doing so (and I think I'm being generous with this number). It’s too bad that the region is so far behind the times compared to so many of the world’s great wine regions, especially since they remain the flag bearer of great wines in a country with a large organic and biodynamic culture everywhere else, though this dominant position may be diminishing. I’m excited for Martin to have broken through on organic farming (but the truth is, he was very close in practice for so many years prior) and onto another chapter that will hopefully set an example for his friends to pull their head out of the rocks, tell dad to chill out, and let the beautiful surrounding nature have more say in the characteristics of the wines. The following morning, I had an early visit with biodynamic guru, Birgit Braunstein. She’s 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, she lives the 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 you feel the reverence she has for everything around her, including you. She’s our Austrian Mother Goose. Of course, we did some drone filming. The producers love it. They get to see their vineyards from a vantage they may have never seen, and, as mentioned in the first segment of this 2021 Travel Journal series, sometimes it takes half the drone’s battery life to figure out which parcels are theirs from four hundred feet up. However, Birgit’s are easier because they are the greenest patches, and when I was there, purple too, due to a huge bloom of flowers between the rows. The spring rains stopped the week before I arrived in Austria and there was a drastic heat spike that supercharged growth everywhere. The herbs and flowers between Birgit’s rows were jungles and almost impossible to walk through, with vine shoots growing like tomato plants on an overdose of nitrogen and sunshine. After the high-flying action, we went back to the winery and set up for a video interview with Birgit, so she could talk about her range of wines. Inside, there were a lot of mosquitos, bigger than I’ve ever seen, the size of mosquito hawks. They seem to thrive in her refreshingly cool tasting room constructed of rock. It’s no surprise to have these prehistoric-sized mosquitos in these parts because the Neusiedler See (Lake Neusiedl), a massive, shallow lake with a maximum depth around six or seven feet is close, and it’s a perfect breeding ground for this insect that seems to serve no purpose other than to disturb our sleep, make us itch (even if we just see them or hear them prior to their attempted jab), though I suppose that they really exist as a primary food source for a lot of birds and bats. One was just hanging around on Birgit’s head through much of the interview and I wanted to reach across the table to smack it off of her but it just stayed in her hair, where it seemed to get lost. While Birgit is most known for her Blaufrankish red wines and atypical but very well-done experimental wines, the shock wine of my tasting with her was her entry-level Chardonnay, simply labeled Chardonnay Felsenstein. It’s grown entirely on limestone, and there’s no doubt about it given its aromas and taste. It’s impressive and was more fun to drink than almost any Mâconnais Chardonnay I’ve had in recent years that are even close to this in price. It’s not at all overplayed in any direction, but rather highlights Chardonnay’s best assets when grown on pure limestone: freshness, x-factor, tense white fruit, and mineral sensations for days. I don’t expect the world to look toward Austrian Chardonnay merely on account of this one, but for those on a budget looking for a real terroir experience at a reasonable price, this is one to not miss. Another Chardonnay of equal impression and value is from La Casaccia, a cantina in Asti whose vineyards grow on pure chalk. Birgit’s zillion different cuvées of experimental wines are mostly sold in Austria. I like a lot of them because they are pleasurable with solid terroir trimmings. But I get the sense that the global market isn’t quite ready for Austrian glou glou. Maybe it’s too weird for people to imagine Austrians loosening up so much and breaking out of the hyper-sophisticated, buttoned-up culture with which they are associated—while some parts of Germany made the leap a long time ago, especially Berliners. But make no mistake, Austrians know how to party. It’s just hard to imagine in more quiet places like Burgenland. The following day, I dropped in on the boys over at Weingut Weszeli, Davis Weszeli (on the left) and his winemaker, viticulturist, and right-hand man, German ex-pat, Thomas Ganser (on the right). After some drone-time, we did a vertical tasting of the last four years (2015-2018) of bottled Grüner Veltliners and Rieslings from all their cru wines. What a treat that was, and how eye-opening! From the sky with all the twists and turns and hills covered in green vines everywhere, it was almost impossible to navigate Kamptal’s vineyards by air. I shot from a position standing in the famous vineyard, Seeberg, and managed to grab some good shots of the more famous hillsides of Heilingenstein and Gaisberg to the southeast. Here’s a big deal you probably didn’t know: Weszeli’s cru wines spend three years in large wood casks before bottling. Almost nobody does that and judging by how seriously complex their wines are, it’s strange that it’s so uncommon. Many years ago, when I worked in a limited capacity in California with Ernie Loosen’s wines from the Mosel, we introduced Rieslings that were aged one, two and three years in wood before bottling. Ernie learned about this practice when he discovered his grandfather’s old cellar notebook and it was a revelation. It wasn’t really new to me because Weszeli was already doing it, but, in my opinion, they did it far too quietly. They should’ve been shouting from the rooftops about this unusual but seemingly historical and nearly forgotten approach because it yields fabulously unique results. The problem with Weszeli is that it’s taken a long time to realize the potential of their extended aging in barrel. Three years is a long time, and this is compounded by another two in bottle, which in most cases is four times longer than the aging that goes into most other famous Austrian grower’s top wines. 2017 is a breakthrough for Weszeli on many levels. It was the right vintage for their extended cellar aging approach and the wines end up built like Thomas: muscular and defined, like a mythological warrior statue. They’re impressive and complex, so deeply complex that they stop just short of overwhelming—like Puligny-Montrachet big hitters tend to do. If layers of complexity and depth are defining measures for great wine (which they are) the 2017s from Weszeli would be scored in the mid to high 90s on that alone. But more than just their tastes and smells, you can feel the life of their organically farmed vineyards vibrating through their wines. The three years in oak heavily curbs what would otherwise evoke the same ubiquitous (and sometimes boring) characteristics of Austrian Rieslings and Grüner Veltliners that go through a short aging before bottling, by cutting the primary fruit down to size and sculpting the wines around their secondary and tertiary distinctions. Weszeli’s wines are almost unrecognizable when compared to other young wines in the region, save their fully endowed natural acidity, a structural element that doesn’t depart unless tampered with. Weszeli is on a path that few winegrowers in their region will be able to follow closely because of the time it takes, and the investment needed to go from the fast annual turnaround to waiting it out for four or five years before you sell your top wines, which also happen to be your most expensive to make. Other Austrian wineries might do well to take note of what Weszeli’s wines offer that those of other great producers don’t. I feel lucky to be involved with these guys and to finally, after six years of working together, be able to offer the results of the ideas hatched more than a decade ago. Kudos to them. Austria is lucky to have the diversity of their wines and people should take a closer look.■ Next month it’s Veyder-Malberg, and then off to Germany to meet up with two of the most exciting young producers making unexpected waves.

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

(Download complete pdf here) Our first encounter with Martin Muthenthaler in 2014 was at the same Vie Vinum table as our friend and Austrian wine wizard, Peter Veyder-Malberg. All who attended this wonderful biennial event had the fortune to taste the 2013 vintage from every top grower’s Austrian Riesling and Grüner Veltliner. 2013 remains a favorite since I started drinking Austrian wines in the late 1990s and took a deep dive at the start of 2000, followed by my first extended European trip that included Austria in June 2004. It was, and remains, a growing season whose wines express a sort of contained lightning, their exquisite balance and energy raising the hairs on our arms and necks, sometimes to the point of full-on goosebumps. Every 2013 was charging, some oozing and flirting with perfection—a season of restrained wines that right away displayed all their jewelry elegantly. But at the big event, Peter who thus far seemed to be on his own planet suddenly had a friend, a vinous partner to share ideas, and the stage. Pouring next to him was the rosy-cheeked, smiling and energetic Martin, a stretched rail of a man without a gram of slack, made of wire and steel, with a handshake as firm as a marble sculpture. The wines tasted that day from his bottles offered no illusion: Martin’s ascent was imminent. A former truck driver who bluntly claims with a certain level of pride that he was fired from his job, Martin returned in 2005 to his family’s tiny parcel of “Buschenschank,” deep into the Spitzer Graben. His collaboration with the Vinea Wachau lasted three years–until 2008, the same year a certain rebellious new arrival to the Spitzer Graben at that table in Vie Vinum harvested his first grapes just down the street … The Spitzer Graben is the farthest west and the coldest section on the north side (left bank) of the Danube (Donau) River. In Martin’s earlier years, no one would pay attention to this deeper Spitzer Graben area away from the Danube. It was off the river into a notoriously frigid valley, which meant that mostly only lower levels of ripeness were achievable, and rarely found enough strength for the celebrated Smaragd wines without dehydrating grapes on the vine to increase the required higher alcohol levels to qualify for this highest classification of dry wine in the Wachau. Martin’s return was the perfect moment to dig into the quiet Spitzer Graben, a section of the Wachau all but abandoned decades before that would eventually be recognized as a good investment in the face of climate change. With new global interest and demand for more soft-handed viticultural tactics, it was also the optimal moment to flow into the green side of the force instead of against it. Once a well-kept secret, the Spitzer Graben has become a focal point for taut expressions of Riesling and Grüner Veltliner. It’s only strange that in this mildew heaven, it was one of the first areas where organic farming recently took hold on the left bank of the Wachau. Everywhere else in the appellation—those warmer areas—it’s an easier thing to accomplish. In the world of great stories exists the famous dynamic duos. In sports, Jordan and Pippen, Montana and Rice; in fantasy, Batman and Robin, Skywalker and Solo, Kirk and Spock. Shrek and Donkey? No one can say for certain who would be who between Martin and Peter. The two shared meals, the world’s greatest wines, and progressive ideas that fit their specific territory, offered help to each other and nurtured a meaningful friendship. With Peter’s greater exposure to a more global wine view and Martin’s open mind and talent in the vineyards and to similarly see fine details and relentlessly pursue them in his wines, things started to shift dramatically. With Peter blazing his global trail early on and finding worldwide acclaim and success, he still supported Martin’s achievements. Together, this duo contributed to the global attention of the Spitzer Graben, and other growers have started to find footing there too. Martin describes all those years spending time with Peter as “a wonderful, synergetic togetherness.” While Peter is mostly reserved though with a small but slightly more extroverted side (he’d probably disagree with the latter), Martin is much quieter. He’s also less proficient in English, which makes him naturally more timid outside of German-speaking company. Whenever we’ve met at an informal event, he’s always smiling, covered in dirt and grass clippings from weed whacking, managing the vines and moving dirt, or building rock walls. His toil never seems to end, and I suspect that when exhausted, he lies like a corpse until the crack of dawn resurrects his consciousness. Even during our lunch with Melanie and Martin to finally agree on our partnership in the US after ten years of courtship he could hardly contain his desire to get back out to the vines. He seems half man, half machine. Today, however, he seems much more at ease with Melanie at his side. Martin’s wines were brought to the US by a few different importers over the last decade or so. Back before that 2014 Vie Vinum showing, Martin’s previous Wachau wines were spirited but old-fashioned; rustic but clean—though it should be noted that the two previous years before 2013 were different seasons: stylistically fuller vintages overall which made it harder to recognize a breakthrough performance for anyone. At the time, it was easy to find Martin’s wines in the US market because his New York-based importer worked well. And what wines were shown at Vie Vinum were either just bottled or would be shortly. His 2013 wines hit a new level and though they were different they were undoubtedly on par with the best growers in the salon–a slam dunk. Today, they’re constantly M.J. launching from the free-throw line. With his departure from the classical Wachau Smaragd style (riper, fuller, more concentrated, more baroque), he shifted focus to a freewheeling but conscious natural practice. Unrestrained by the Vinea Wachau, he focused on high biodiversity vineyard life that went well beyond the vine itself by focusing on the health of the dirt and vineyard canopy, and a different calibration of grape ripeness. Martin eventually became an influential force for the unarguable quality of his wines. The world took notice, and so did other Wachau growers. With Martin and Peter and now another duo of younger growers turning heads with their similar vineyard culture and racy Spitzer Graben wines under the label, Grabenwerkstatt, this once-forgotten valley should be on every serious wine lover’s map. While remaining Austria’s preeminent wine region now for generations, Wachau is also one of today’s slowest to embrace change. Other Austrian wine communities jumped much further ahead of Wachau and much earlier regarding conscious ecological viticulture and organic, biodynamic and natural farming. The exception is one of the world’s trailblazers, a sort of outlier in the Wachau on the south side of the river, the country’s most famous pioneering biodynamic family, the Saahs. They’ve practiced biodynamic farming since 1971 and are in the oldest known winery in Austria, Nikolaihof. They may also be Europe’s first fully committed commercial biodynamic winegrower. But the Wachau wasn’t always slow to change. Imagine Austria, post-World War II defeated and destroyed—physically, mentally, spiritually. In Arnold Schwarzenegger’s compelling three-part Netflix documentary (worth watching for his candid historical and cultural narrative of Austria and the United States after WWII), “Arnold,” he talks a lot about Austrian men, like his father after the war, with his most memorable comment, “Austria was a country of broken men.” Like all sectors of Austria, the people in wine regions began to try to rebuild their wine country and culture with dignity. The remaining population had a difficult recovery because of political turmoil, including wine regions in Lower Austria, like Wachau, Kremstal, Kamptal and neighboring wine areas, that were under Russian occupation until 1955; other sectors were occupied by the US, France and England, and, similar to Berlin, Vienna was also divided between them. The rebuilding of the country's wine reputation had a slight hiccup and went from solid momentum to full wipeout in 1985. The Austrians shot themselves in the foot with the Glykolwein-Skandal, when it was discovered that glycol was added to some bulk wines to impart a richer taste. Few did it, but their entire export business suffered. No one died, but it became perhaps the most famous winemaking scandal in recent history. Even if in Italy one year later there was another scandal involving methanol poisoning where more than twenty people died, the Glykolwein-Skandal is still more famous. (Peter Veyder-Malberg told me that the global awareness of the Austrian problem was partly heightened because the scandal broke in the summertime with little other news to report, and because Australia made it a point to make sure everyone knew it was Austria, not them.) After the Italian’s wine scandal, their country’s wine exports dropped by 40%, though only for less than a year. Austrian exports dropped to zero. All products were pulled from every shelf worldwide. Austrian wines didn’t make a comeback until the early 1990s. The upside of the scandal was sweeping reforms and restrictions to Austrian wine production, making it perhaps the most reliably governed wine-producing country in the world. Today, few countries can challenge Austrian wines’ average quality and price. Those who rebuilt wine regions like the Wachau did so during challenging economic times. After the war, the Allied-occupied territories continued to suffer because most of the agricultural output was under Russian control. In the accepted (albeit possibly revisionist) historical narratives of the time, the Russians took the crops home as reparations for the war instead of allocating them to other parts of Austria. Then, when those from the Wachau who established the trailblazing Vinea Wachau in 1983 (with a framework years in the making), it became difficult for many to continue to evolve in technique and approach to viticulture because they’d already produced such magnificent rewards. With Austrian wines significantly improved through stricter quality standards due to the Glykolwein-Skandal, the Vinea Wachau’s classifications of Steinfeder, Federspiel and Smaragd (akin to Kabinett, Spätlese, and Auslese, respectively), combined with the region’s dramatic wine country scenery and rich history, which earned it UNESCO World Heritage status in 2000, Wachau became Austria’s gold standard. They did everything right. Right? Well, almost. The challenge of today’s current Wachau generation (those who are publicly in charge) is still under the watchful eye and controlled purse strings of their parents–the rebuilders. The rebuilders are the ones who saw and felt those harder times and toiled firsthand with their parents to rebuild opportunities for their children. Understandably, older generations are risk averse when faced with what they may view as unnecessary changes that could compromise their crops, which, of course, may compromise their economic agenda: if it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it—a familiar inner family power struggle. What was missing from the Vinea Wachau codex was a proactive plan for protecting nature; they didn’t place importance on balanced biodiversity and industry-leading ecological measures that would set the standard even higher—to be a true global leader ahead of its time. But we have to hand it to the Wachau trailblazers, they did so many things right, though they were slow to come around to ecological consciousness. Perhaps they just needed a few nudges as much from the inside as the outside. Maybe the guys making noise with their organic farming, including those in that backwater Spitzer Graben rocked the boat enough with the quality and selling prices of their wines to influence the region’s greater culture. Once in the path of the Danube before tectonic movements altered the course of the river, the steep, east-to-west running Spitzer Graben splits off from the river at the far western end of the Wachau where it turns north in about four kilometers. Here, Martin farms organically and does almost all of the vineyard work himself–at least until his Bavarian wife, Melanie, jumped in headfirst in 2021, also taking charge of restructuring their sales, marketing, and communications. Without the assistance of outside consultants in the cellar but drawing on many years of exchange and collaboration with other growers and his great friend and winegrowing neighbor, this garagiste gifted with a green thumb and well-honed palate and nose crafts a range of Riesling and Grüner Veltliner of sterling precision and quality which now have few equals in Austria. While Martin’s wines are a notable departure from the Wachau style, they still express the flavors and aromatic nuances associated with Grüner Veltliner and Riesling inside of Austria; this is to say that while they’re international in some ways, there’s no mistaking their origin. Typically, Martin’s wines are intense. Their core is dense and their architecture lacks fluff and fat—just like their maker: straight to the point, few curves, tight angles. One particularly compelling attribute of his Grüner Veltliners is that they are much closer in structure and feel to Riesling than most others. Another fabulous quality (due to the skill of the grower) is that even warmer vintages still taste and feel like colder ones, at least when they’re young. Martin’s approach in the cellar allows each terroir to best express itself inside his range by being treated more or less the same through vinification and aging processes. Of course, some exceptional moments require a break from the parameters, but they are generally in this line. Grüner Veltliner grapes are immediately pressed over an eight-hour cycle, tank settled for 12 hours, and then undergo spontaneous natural fermentation with maximum temperatures of 18 to 22˚C. Spitzer Graben is aged in steel, whereas all the others are in medium-sized oak vats, where they continue to age for 10 months. Malolactic rarely happens but is not inhibited. The first sulfites are added a month after fermentation and the wines are lightly filtered before bottling without fining. Riesling grapes are macerated for up to eight hours, depending on the ripeness (with riper grapes receiving less time), pressed over an eight-hour cycle, tank settled for 12 hours, and then undergo spontaneous natural fermentation with maximum temperatures of 18 to 22˚C. For ten months before bottling, Brandstatt ages in 320-liter steel vats, Bruck in 700- to 1000-liter steel, and Stern in 700-liter acacia. Malolactic rarely happens but is not inhibited. The first sulfites are added a month after fermentation and the wines are lightly filtered before bottling without fining. Martin’s small organic certified plots inside these rather large, classified vineyards range in altitude of a couple hundred meters. Though they are generally variations of south-southwestern faces, this means great diversity and variation of formations, aspects and exposures. What rock and soil type he finds in his parcels may not be congruent with what is recorded by the general geological surveys published in 2014 (read here) nor what the Vinea Wachau shares on their website. It lacks details for entire vineyards of importance, like Brandstatt, to growers like Muthenthaler, Veyder-Malberg, and Grabenwerkstatt so we’ll leave it to the growers. It should be noted that Martin is the only commercial grower in the Spitzer Graben working solely with local fruit. Altitudes and aspects from analyses by the Muthenthalers and Google Earth. Spitzer Graben For a more extensive research and commentary on Wachau and what rock’s got to do with it, read further below, “Deeper Wachau Dirt.” Grüner Veltliner ‘Spitzer Graben’ is the largest production wine in Martin’s range and represents the fresh and pointed effect of this cold valley’s wines when picked around a potential alcohol of 12%. The grapes are the first pick of the season from many vineyards planted between 1980 and 2017. The altitudes range between 320 to 400 meters with south/southwest exposures on mostly very steep terraces propped up by rock walls. The thin topsoil is rich in organic matter mixed with rock and sand derived from the underlying bedrock of gneiss, mica schist and other metamorphic rock formations, like amphibolite, paragneiss, and quartzite, and maybe some loess. Planted in 2000, Martin’s two parcels for his Grüner Veltliner Ried Schön sit between 350 and 400 meters on extremely steep terraces, one with a west face on the main hill, and the other southeast. The thin topsoil is 20 cm deep and rich in organic matter with a rock and sand topsoil derived from the underlying bedrock of gneiss. (According to the Vinea Wachau website, “The impressive terraced Schön site is in the immediate vicinity of the Ried Bruck. Instead of the granodiorite gneiss of the Ried Bruck and amphibolite, paragneiss predominates in the Schön. In addition, the soils are deeper and richer in nutrients. The profile shows vineyard soil from a higher terrace on scree. The matrix is ​​clayey, with paragneiss stones embedded in it.) A subsection in the upper terraces of Bruck, is Martin’s Monopollage Stern. His Grüner Veltliner was planted by his great-grandfather in 1950 and are his oldest vines, and the Riesling was planted in 1989. At 410 to 450 meters, they are also on extremely steep terraces on a south exposure set closest to the forest, which stimulates a faster cooling effect in the summer and more contact with nature for a greater influence of biodiversity. The meager 10 cm deep topsoil is rich in mostly organic matter with little rock and sand derived from the underlying bedrock of mica schist. Regardless of the grape, Stern is a beam of light, fresh and pure; a capture of the essence of this challengingly high altitude, steep, rocky, and cold site inside this verdant valley. Ried Schön in the foreground, Monopollage Stern in the upper center to the left of the trees, and Ried Bruck in the background. Riesling Ried Bruck was planted in 1990-2005 in the Wachau’s Spitzer Graben where it sits at 370 to 385 meters of altitude on extremely steep terraces with south-southwest exposure. Though the Vinea Wachau’s assessment of this large and diverse 17-hectare vineyard ranging from 292 to 488 meters says it’s principally composed of granodiorite gneiss, amphibolite, with quartz and feldspar-rich subvolcanic rock, Martin’s parcel has thin sandy and rocky topsoil derived from an underlying bedrock of mica schist. (According to the Vinea Wachau’s website, “The acidic Spitzer granodiorite gneiss of the Ried Bruck in the western Wachau is the counterpart to the Gföhler gneiss in the east. It is often associated with dark, basic amphibolite. The soils are practically free of loess and lime, so the pH values ​​are neutral to slightly acidic. The sandy soil was formed by weathering from Spitzer granodiorite gneiss and amphibolite. A high proportion of stone (in the coarse soil) contains both rocks. Due to rearrangement processes on the slope, the material finally came to lie on Spitzer granodiorite gneiss. The weathered gneiss is interspersed with a quartz and feldspar-rich dike rock, an aplite.) With Ried Bruck to the right, Brandstatt begins to the left and continues further back; below is Bradstatt’s south side. Ried Brandstatt has become a staple vineyard between the top growers in Spitzer Graben. Today (2024), several unplanted or abandoned parcels are still interspersed between sections on the southern side, allowing a little more of nature’s influence between the grower’s parcels. The vineyards also abruptly stop toward the bottom of the southern side where the rock resisted the force of what was once a torrentially flowing waterway (formerly the Danube!) leaving some short cliffs at the bottom, often with houses tucked underneath. The northern side of the vineyard is on a softer slope and is the last fully cultivated hillside for winegrowing on the north side of the Spitzer Graben. Their Riesling is planted between 390 to 430 meters on the south side on the steep but softer terraced slopes and the terrace rows are interplanted with the Grüner Veltliner away from the terrace walls to catch more wind, and the Riesling is closer to the rock walls for added heat. The thin topsoil here is rich in organic matter and rock and sand derived from the underlying bedrock of gneiss and mica schist. The other section of Brandstatt about 600 meters north is planted only to Grüner Veltliner at 370 to 400 meters. Here the slopes are softer but still very steep, and the topsoil is a little deeper, also rock and sand derived from the underlying bedrock of gneiss and mica schist. Metamorphic rock terrace walls in Martin Muthenthaler’s vineyards Despite the slight uptick in the last decades in overall temperature in this mountain and continental climate, the Spitzer Graben and the rest of Wachau are still on the edge between sublime weather and disaster. What keeps the Spitzer Graben cranking out world-class wines is not just the area’s natural talent for racy wines, it’s also the practice of conscious organic farming tailored to this unique environment and each plot. It’s an extremity of the Wachau, but like a lot of the region’s steep terraces with sparer topsoil and various metamorphic bedrock types from the thousands and millions of years of erosion and the Danube’s carving of the valley and the uncountable small waterways, growers look for nature’s balance in each vine rather than each plot or area. The natural crop load can be significantly higher in warmer Wachau areas and those with deeper topsoil. In Spitzer Graben, growers who have parcels with little to no soil inputs often let vines produce what they will when the fruit set has already reached the limit of the vine’s natural capacity in this slightly more extreme environment. Climate change has been good for the fruit’s ability to reach ripeness here, but the yield on its steep slopes is less than in other Wachau areas. The Spitzer Graben’s rolling and windy landscape of steep south and west-facing terraces lined with Riesling and Grüner Veltliner is perfect for those who prefer their grapes slowly matured to reach a potential of 12-12.5% alcohol at their peak, without the need to dehydrate them a little on the vine; many members of the Vinea Wachau need to do this (at least they did in the past) to achieve Smaragd ripeness and the fullness that’s often expected of this classification. Most famously in this most southern part of the Bohemian Massif is the fabled crystalline rock, gföhl gneiss (named after a town just north of the Wachau, Gföhl), a metamorphic orthogneiss derived from igneous rock protoliths, like granite and/or granodiorite. But there are many other rock types along the Wachau River gorge such as the metamorphic rocks amphibolite, paragneiss (derived from sedimentary rocks, where orthogneiss is altered from igneous rock), quartzite and mica-schist, the latter of which seems common in Spitzer Graben. Then there’s the highly water-retentive, wind-blown, fine, silty sediment resulting from the glacial grinding of rock called loess (löss, in German), often with a high calcium carbonate content in these parts, which is also common but less so in Spitzer Graben compared to vineyards along the Danube. The Spitzer Graben’s dominant vineyard areas are steeper on average than the main pathway of the Danube, and this wind-dancing mineral-rich material blankets about 10% of the Earth’s surface. It’s often deposited on eastern-facing vineyards along the Wachau as these mineral-filled winds blew in from the north and northwest out of the Alps (though I’ve read in other sources that it may have come from the east?), and found their resting place mostly on the east faces of the terraced hills as well as the lower sections of almost every vineyard and flat zone not washed out by the Danube’s occasional flooding. In those flood areas the soil is mostly composed of gravel, sand, silt and clay, and often renders wines of lower complexity and quality. Wines grown on loess compared to ancient metamorphic rock and topsoil present a very different growing condition. Grüner Veltliner and its big bunches need constant coddling and have a big appetite for water and nutrient intake, making loess its preferential partner. However, many compelling Grüner Veltliners are grown on metamorphic rock and are therefore quite different! It’s in the hard, unforgiving and spare metamorphic rock where Riesling suffers more and its naturally smaller clusters yield better results for more complex wines—at least that’s what we’re told. But when the winegrower’s farming and cellar work are so impactful to a final wine’s characteristics, can anyone really make sense of the differences between how a Riesling grown in different soils derived from similar metamorphic rocks like gneiss, schist, amphibolite, and quartzite commonly found in Wachau can smell, taste and feel? It’s hard … Ask some growers and their eyes glaze over. Others are more confident. But after traveling for many years with a few different geologists in the European wine areas where we work, what is regularly missing is that, beyond a basic idea, growers often don’t really know exactly in which kind of bedrock and topsoil their vines grow. So how can this be useful, let alone be consistently observable with accuracy if we’re accidentally fed the wrong information? Of course, it may not be the rock itself that’s the definitive influencer, as it’s not like the vine is a straw slurping directly from a rock’s guts. But indirectly, the bedrock may be one of the crucial governing factors for how a wine could feel and taste different from another grown in a different type. How each rock weathers is determined by its mineral makeup because each mineral erodes at a different rate. They also erode into different soil grains, like gravel, sand, silt and clay. The soil grain directly influences the topsoil’s water retention which has an immense influence on a wine’s characteristics: gravel, with its coarser grain, is the least water retentive, and clay, the finest of grains, the highest capacity for water retention. The mineral structure of a rock determines its hardness and what gifts it more readily imparts, or not, through erosion. And maybe that soil derived from the bedrock might not even stick around, especially on these super steep terraces. In the very steep hills of any higher altitude wine-growing region on terraces, it may be that much of the soil is only fractionally derived from the bedrock but a lot more from organic matter, some kind of glacial or river deposit. Or, sometimes growers have historically brought dirt up from lower-lying areas (a common practice that makes many terroir aficionados cringe) to give more needed soil for growth—just like we would do our gardens that have been washed out. While Vinea Wachau’s geological research is thorough, the growers we work with in Spitzer Graben have cited mica schist as a dominant bedrock/soil type in their vineyards. This metamorphic rock generally erodes easier than gneiss as its mineral composition and structure naturally make it softer. It’s a 4 to 5 on the 10-point Mohs scale of hardness; 1 being the softest, 10 being the hardest—talc is a 1, diamond a 10. It’s softer partially because it contains the super flaky mineral, mica, which is a 2.5 to 3 on Mohs—like gold, silver, copper and, believe it or not, your fingernails! Mica schist has excellent drainage because it erodes into fine, flaky particles (the mica parts) and a sandier (quartz parts), loamier grain—ideal for Riesling quality. However, this good drainage makes it hard for young vines to grow because of its lack of water retention. Taking its name from the Middle Ages German word, “gneist,” which means “spark” because of its reflective minerals, geologists classify gneiss as a high-grade metamorphic rock; schists are medium grade; slates are low grade. This high-grade classification implies that without completely liquifying into magma, this rock formation underwent the most tremendous rock and metal-melting heat (greater than 600°C), and immense pressure (greater than two kilobars) deep below the Earth’s surface. (One kilobar of pressure is felt at about two miles under the earth’s surface, two kilobars about four miles, and so on. We know 600°C/1112°F is crazy hot. Lava temps usually range between 700 to 1200°C—1,300 to 2,200°F.) Gneiss is hard, between 6 and 7 on the Mohs scale depending on its mineral composition, which means it traveled a long road to erosion (a good title for a geological documentary?). Gneiss has patterns where minerals were remelted under extreme heat and pressure, consolidating to form long bands of mineral layers (foliations) easily observable to the naked eye. Because this orthogneiss’ protolith was granite/granodiorite, it has the same minerals (feldspar, quartz, mica), but they’ve been partially melted and reconsolidated into mineral bands, whereas the mineral matrix of granite and granodiorite is more “pooled” into equigranular structures (meaning that some of the main mineral crystals are nearly the same size and arranged like dots inside the rock). Vine root systems will naturally follow the line of least resistance in their search for water, which if not so available in the topsoil, will work through the softest mineral because they’re the first to erode. Our growers explained that the topsoil beds on top of gneiss and derived from gneiss are often deeper and easier for the vines to grow. if it’s been planted on metamorphic rock, Grüner Veltliner naturally prefers gneiss over mica schist. Perhaps in theory, wines from this gneiss environment are somewhat richer and more powerful than those grown in softer mica schist because mica schist erodes into more sandy soils. Why doesn’t anyone in the wine business talk about the badass rock, amphibolite? Maybe because the prefix evokes the sensation of a slimy amphibian? Amphi originates from Greek, and means “both,” or “on both sides,” or “ambiguous,” or “doubtful.” The root word, bol, comes from the Greek “ballein,” meaning throw. While the slimy creatures took this prefix because they can live in and out of the water, amphibolites were named by a French mineralogist because they are rocks of complex and variable chemical composition and crystalline structure that makes them sometimes difficult to classify. This rock is usually related to volcanic rocks, and often as a result of metamorphosed basalt and/or gabbro—two super hard (badass) rocks: 5-6 on the former, 6-7 on the latter. Why should we care about this rock type? Because it can theoretically produce powerhouse wines. When it decomposes, the breakdown of its high content of feldspar can produce kaolinite or smectite clay minerals and also have more iron oxide, among other minerals in smaller proportions. What is commonly observed in wines from grapes grown in clay and/or iron oxide, like much of the Côte d’Or’s red wine soils, or Mosel’s red slate, or Rioja and Ribera del Duero, is that they tend to impart more power. (There’s an infinite supply of rocks to turn over. To be continued …) After refining his craft in celebrated vineyards and cellars of Burgundy, the Northern Rhône, and Bandol, and completing harvests in New Zealand and Australia, twenty-seven-year-old Thomas Frissant returned in 2019 to his family’s fourteen hectares in the Touraine Amboise appellation. Perched just twenty-five kilometers east of Tours, one kilometer south of the Loire River above the floodplain commune of Mosnes, he immediately embraced organic viticulture by converting his clay and silex plots, planted between the 1940s and 1990s with Sauvignon, Chenin, Chardonnay, Gamay, Grolleau, and Côt, achieving certification by 2022. Thomas now crafts wines with precision—unpretentious yet impeccably made. Anchored in these quiet yet storied terroirs of the Loire, his range offers clear and honest expressions of this historic enclave. Chardonnay, ‘Tout En Canon’ is harvested from 25-year-old, east and west-facing vines on a gentle slope of flint and clay bedrock with flint rock, clay, and sand topsoil at 105 meters altitude. In the cellar it ferments for 2 weeks at a maximum of 18°C in steel. It’s aged 3 months in steel and is filtered before bottling without fining. Sauvignon Blanc, “Le Chapeau Comte” is harvested from 20-25-year-old, east-facing vines on a gentle slope of flint and clay bedrock with flint rock, clay, and sand topsoil at 95 meters altitude. In the cellar it ferments for 2 weeks at a maximum of 18°C in steel. It’s aged 3 months in steel and is filtered and bentonite fined before bottling. Chenin Blanc, ‘Les Perruches’ is harvested from 45-80-year-old, east-facing vines and a plot of 100-year-old vines facing northwest on gentle slopes of flint and clay bedrock with flint rock, clay, and sand topsoil at 95-100 meters altitude. In the cellar it ferments for 2 weeks at a maximum of 18°C in steel. It’s aged 8 months in steel and is filtered before bottling without fining. Gamay, ‘Tout En Canon’ is harvested from 45-year-old, east-facing vines on a gentle slope of flint and clay bedrock with flint rock, clay, and sand topsoil at 95 meters altitude. In the cellar it’s fermented for one week at a maximum of 20°C in steel. It’s aged 5 months in steel and is filtered before bottling without fining.