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(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.

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

Newsletter April 2025 Diego Collarte, Cume do Avia, Ribeiro Is there anything but strange happenings lately? The last decade produced some memorable moments for all of us as the wine import business, restaurants and retailers have constantly teetered between epic meltdowns and nearly irreparable disasters. Nothing has been easy and current events keep throwing more wrenches into the works. So then, what do you get when you cross a warm winter, a warm spring, and a hot summer with numerous heat waves recording the hottest year in Europe on record? Indeed, not only the sweaty Catalan gasp of Insuportable!, but also great white wines. Yeah, that happened–some good news. I posed the question everywhere on my warp-speed winter wine tour with Remy, our New York captain, across six countries where makers were selling their 2022s. As I suspected, most of them credited the 2021 season for providing the vines with greater resistance to 2022’s solar beatdown. And after a series of hot summers, Mother Nature struck back in 2021, shut out the sun, and replenished the well. It was also a month-long never-ending feast for mildew, to the point where growers actually began to miss the relentless summer sun. But the pump was primed, and 2022 delivered—not only on quantity but also with quality. I love exfoliating, tenderizing, vibrating and borderline abusive acidity and I expected many 2022 European white wines to be a little flat, which is typical in hot years. Instead, there’s thrust and energy alongside a sun-kissed fruit profile and many aren’t just good, they’re excellent. For a lot of growers, the crop was bigger, which helped reduce the high concentration most common in balmy vintages and also made up for the losses of 2021. As I write this segment, I’m sipping on Vincent Bergeron’s 2022 ‘Matin, Midi, et Soir’ Chenin Blanc from Montlouis-sur-Loire, which will hopefully arrive at the end of April without a 200% tax. Each new pour picks up momentum and tension, increments of cooler and cooler freshness. While tasting his 2022s out of barrel, I couldn’t read them well—maybe I was too in my head about what I expected from the hot season. But across our Northern European white wine territory, from Austria to Galicia, makers were met with success—with few exceptions. Because of their deeply embedded location inside Europe’s continental climate influence, our Austrian and German growers were the true test. Of all grapes, dry Riesling is most prone to fall flat when the vines are overheated. They remain complex, at least by definition, but their libido goes … well, a little limp. The 2022 Rieslings of Wechsler, Malat, Tegernseerhof, Veyder-Malberg, and Muthenthaler? Energy-filled, with surprising torque. So are the Austrians’ Grüner Veltliners. Our two Chablis growers, Christophe and Collet pulled it off. Few anywhere are salty shredders like the Val do Salnés 2022 Albariños, which many growers there consider their best vintage in years. So far, I’m enjoying these longboarding 2022s, soul surfing in the diffused rays of a low winter sun. There are some great reds, too. In continental areas, the balance is still intact, but the fruit is juicier and the wines stouter. But growers who’ve recently moved from power toward a gentler approach played well in 2022. It’s a vintage with the potential to create bruisers, but so far with our growers, it’s loads of purity and the unmistakable echo of their terroirs. Dave Fletcher, our Barbaresco grower (available in select markets), described the 2022 fruit as the most immaculate of his career. It’s not that they’re necessarily perfect in profile (perhaps missing some floral and brighter red tones), but the clusters in hand were without imperfection. And, like the top-quality 2022 Val do Salnés Albariños, the reds of Galicia hit their highest notes. They are ideal examples to represent this region’s potential for reds. The fruit and charm are more on display than the typically pronounced angles, squares, and jolts of metal and mineral from their rock-and-roll terroirs. Unofficial port authority, Salerno 2018 I hope you’re not like me—weaned on Côte d’Or, which carved my preferences in stone and sometimes led to my donning a pair of blinders. Enmeshed nostalgia for our past influences is a strong default, especially when challenged by the enormity of the constant and rapidly accelerating variations in the wine world’s evolution. It captured my primitive wine mind early, narrowed my focus, and became the benchmark to which I compare every other wine on the planet. It hit the bullseye, and everything else landed in the outer rings. And I remain as guilty at times of regressing as anyone, though I tell myself that at least Côte d’Or wasn’t a bad place to backslide into. “Burgundy has the advantage of a clear, direct appeal, immediately pleasing and easy to comprehend on a primary level.” -A.J. Liebling, Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris, 1959. My Côte d’Or-influenced bias leaned more toward red than white. New oak notes in the forefront have never been my inclination, but the older more structured Côte d’Or reds seemed to digest it well. Now, gargantuanly fruity reds in hot years still have the same levels of new oak and taste like either a slightly sloppy smash-burgundy or a material display of wealth rather than of cultural and intellectual value—a surface allure of riches, to be paraded to a table of those who often lack appreciation for a wine’s relevance–the art of the thing. Malat cellar, Kremstal Few whites in the world, if any, wear woody bling better than Chardonnay from the Côte d’Or, but my preference for neutral aging vessels (mostly older wood barrels or concrete rather than steel) was yet another product of my wine youth. In the late 90s Austrian wines (for me, more Riesling than Grüner Veltliner) became the next thing and influenced me greatly. More neutral aging vessels on whites illuminates their directness and highlights their terroir. Between the two early influencers of red and white, that of the more neutral vessel with white wines remains closest. Below in the section, “France Part Two: North Central,” you will find more information about two of our most important new arrivals this month from two organically certified farmers and growers. First are Jean Collet’s 2022 Chablis Premier Crus and Grand Crus. In my experience, Collet is one of the most reliable domaines in Chablis for warmer seasons. The wines migrate from cooler years that are unmistakably classic, and in the warmer years, they’re like a marriage of Chablis’ nuances with Côte d’Or’ and Mâconnais’ sunnier fruit qualities. While in warm years Chardonnay can be a bore, Collet’s ‘22s still express their origins and will be quite crowd-pleasing for a typical restaurant guest, more than those who love a Chablis with a sharper edge.  The most successful regions of 2022 inside our collection of whites are those of Galicia, specifically Rías Baixas and Ribeiro. The 2022 Val do Salnés Albariños of Manuel Moldes and Pedro Méndez are undoubtedly the best we’ve experienced from them. Manuel (Chicho) describes it as his best year ever, and those who enjoyed his 2022 Albariño ‘Afelio’ and Pedro’s 2022 starter Albariño already know what’s coming with the imminent arrival of their parcela selections. Manuel Moldes and an ancient Albariño vine in “Peai” The 2022 Albariños arriving from Manuel Moldes are A Capela de Aios, a wine made from 70-80-year-old vines on severely decomposed ancient, Pangean-era schist with a rich topsoil, Peai, another Albariño on schist but harder bedrock than A Capela de Aios and similar topsoil, and As Dunas from schist-derived beach sand. Each is raised in old 500-600 L French oak and they’re quite different. As Dunas finds a unique set of aromatic characteristics unlike any other Albariños in the region (except those of Rodrigo Méndez and Raul Pérez, who bottle two different wines, one under Forjas del Salnés and Rodrigo Mendez’s eponymous label) and remarkably powerful for a wine from beach-like sand. Peai, pronounced P.I., like Magnum P.I., might be the most structured of the bunch, a powerhouse puncher with a dense nucleus and an intensely salty mineral orbit. A Capela de Aios is the foundational wine of the bodega—the first of his Albariños from schist, and one of the first in the region to acknowledge its geological difference—a true anomaly in this granite-dominated region. In the years past, it was heavier and richer; a gilded but deeply complex and slightly baroque wine. But in 2021, there was a change, a finer line drawn in its sandy-loam schist soil. The 2021 lit the way, but the 2022 walked the path up to this vineyard’s zenith, like a star at the peak of its nuclear fusion—harmony is now in perfect equilibrium. While As Dunas and Peai have opposing qualities, Chicho’s ‘22 A Capela de Aios combines their best qualities and finds its newest level. It may be the most compelling young wine I’ve had from him, which also makes it perhaps the most compelling and complete young Albariño I’ve ever had. Also arriving from Moldes is his 2023 Albariño ‘Afelio.’ 2023 was another successful year with a slower growing season. Each year after the new wines are buttoned up for aging, my wife and I meet up with Chicho and his wife, Silvia, and he says the same thing no matter the season: “A really difficult vintage but I am very happy with the results.” Afelio is Chicho’s wine grown almost entirely on granite soils. It’s highly mineral but more fluid compared to his three parcela wines on schist that often pack a tighter punch. Most of this wine comes from further north of the schist outcrop just north of Sanxenxo. In 2018, he and I discussed raising more wine in older barrels, and he’s now incorporating new large foudres. 2022 was a great year for Galician reds, too. There’s nothing more that Rías Baixas needs than a consistent season with some sun, warm daytime temperatures and the ocean-cold nights to ripen their reds to beyond a bearable pitch. A 50-50 blend of Caíño Tinto and Espadeiro from old vines (some pre-phylloxera), the 2022 Acios Mouro’s summer and fall red fruit profile is as bright as usual but softer and more generously juicy to balance its light balsamic notes and high acidity—a natural characteristic not only spurred by the cooler climate but the extremely high acid of these two varieties. Acios Mouros has become a cult favorite for those who know it, but it might be better served by leaving it for professionals and adventurers who like an intense experience. If you’re looking for a simply relaxing moment with a glass of red, this probably won’t be your copa de vino. Chicho’s wines move out of our warehouse like we’re having a fire sale, so if you are interested, please let us know soon. Pedro Méndez and an ancient Albariño vine for ‘Tresvellas’ Dancing around the 2022s are two new arrivals from Pedro Méndez. Both are unofficial non-D.O. wines made entirely from Albariño in the Rías Baixas Val do Salnés area of Meaño, the historical viticultural center of Val do Salnés. The 2023 Pedro Méndez ‘Viño Branco do Val’ eponymous label is a fabulous follow-up to the double-take inducing ‘22 that took everyone by force and charm. 2023 is tighter in some respects and narrows more quickly to a more minerally point. (But don’t forget that if you’ve recently had the 2022, this 2023 with a year less in bottle will be more piercing until it settles in a bit further.) It’s harvested from a broad collection of small parcels in Meaño, from young to ancient vines, giving it a wide range of complexities. It sneaks in just under the limit for by-the-glass programs but will deliver on expectations for that upper-tier price. Liquid gold and platinum Albariño is bottled up in the 2021 Tresvellas ‘Viño Branco de Viñedos Historicos.’ Continuing its winning streak after the ‘19 and ‘20 versions from these ancient vines that look more like trees, each of these 100-year-old-plus vines (with a few estimated to be around 200 years old) were able to maintain their root systems free of the aphid due to their silty and finely sandy soil grain. Many for this wine are next to a small creek at the bottom of the hill on super fine silt, and are used as budwood for all new plantings in that area—they are not only the Tresvellas (Three Old Ladies), they’re the mothers of almost every young Albariño vine around them. Another borrow from a previous newsletter, as this wine doesn’t miss a beat from the earlier versions: “With concentration, depth, and restraint, the warm and well-worked Tresvellas fills the glass. All the varietal’s classic high-toned lemony notes went to full preserves: sweet, salty, acidic, zest oil and the right amount of bitter pith. The color is between straw and gold leaf and it tastes expensive.” This is one of Rías Baixas’ most triumphant bottlings, and one not to be missed. Though stout to the core, it’s also generous and filled with the joy of its ancient mothers surrounded by their thriving babies. Iago Garrido, Augalevada From serious to the most serious of our Galician growers, former professional Spanish futboller turned virtual modern-day Cistercian cellar monk, Augalevada’s Iago Garrido recentered his athletic discipline from the highest level of sport to natural viticulture and precision cellar work. Established by Benedictine monks in 889 A.D., the Monasterio de San Claudio de Ribeiro is perhaps Galicia’s most historic viticultural center from the Middle Ages. Iago’s proprietary vines are a few kilometers to the east on a sliver of granitic land carved out into an amphitheater facing the sun where vines were first probably planted more than a thousand years ago. Today, those vines “replanted” again between 2008 and 2010, and grafted over a few times to varieties that he gravitated toward as his ideas for the kind of wines he wanted to make, crystallized. Fully committed to biodynamic farming since the first plantation, he wed himself to Treixadura, a variety that produces soft and agreeable white-fruited and herbaceous wines, but eventually left her for a much racier pair, Lado and Agudelo—the latter also known as Chenin Blanc (first identified by a Spanish ampelographer exactly a hundred years ago this year, though it’s believed to have been brought in centuries earlier). This duo comprises the new 50-50 blend of his 2022 ‘Ollos de Roque,’ (Eyes of Roque, Iago’s son). But first, we have to introduce you to the 2021 ‘Ollos de Roque,’ a blend of the gently structured Treixadura balanced with the extremely high acid, minerally-dense varieties, Lado and Agudelo. This flor-influenced, old oak and amphora wine is Iago’s flagship. His other white from Ribeiro, 2022 ‘Ollos Branco,’ is a blend of 15-50-year-old Treixadura, Albariño and Godello from organically farmed vineyard of Manolo de Traveso and other parcels in the three unofficial Ribeiro subzones Arnoia, Avia, and Miño. This is the right introduction to Iago’s Neil Gaiman-like wine universe where everything is fascinating and far from typical. All his wines up to this release are under the influence of flor, which was naturally discovered on his property when he buried an amphora with wine out in his granite terraces. It’s a striking wine filled with moments of almost unbearable tension, liberation and euphoria. One needs a meditative journey to uncover all its secrets that evolve from one sip to the next. It’s a brilliant wine, though perhaps too Lynch and Kandinsky for the common drinker. Out of Ribeiro and into Monterrei, one of Galicia’s D.O.s furthest to the southeast and perhaps its warmest, is Iago’s 2022 ‘Areas de Rei.’ A play on words, it means “king’s areas,” but also “areas” in Gallego means sand (in this case, sand from granite), and Rei, as in Monter-Rei. It’s sourced from 80-year-old vines on granite at altitudes exceeding 450m. A strange name for a grape, Dona Branca can almost always produce innocuous, perfumy white wine with low acidity. But put her in the hands of a wild man with a brain that works overtime outside the box, and something altogether different arrives. It’s hard to describe such wines, but let’s say it’s mildly floral, spare in fruit but white fruited, salty for days, earthy, spicy and utterly savory. It’s a wine that mystifies me—not for the first time with Iago’s wines—and there is certainly a place for it on the right menus. The most electrically charged in his high-voltage range is yet another Albariño in our collection of five growers who make the stuff.  2022 Val do Salnés Albariño “Parcela Eiravedra” comes from 60-year-old Albariño vines just three kilometers from the ocean in the Val do Salnés. This is Luke’s Return of the Jedi green lightsaber in liquid form, a bottle of aurora borealis; it’s mean to some and absolute glory to others–and I’m one of those others. Older vintages are denser and almost offensive to some who don’t appreciate the high voltage. In recent years, he found a way to calm the current and make it play nice. It’s a beauty, and one of the great representations of salty, minerally and high-strung Albariños, though it’s made in a cellar far far away from its roots. I love Iago’s whites, but I am a bigger sucker for his reds. He’s never as proud of them as he is for his whites, and I don’t understand this. I’m not sure what he’s searching for, but I keep finding what I want. They’re so fresh and vibrant, clean yet character-filled, more analog than the usual digital waveform Galician reds, with thin frames but a solid smack of affection. The 2022 ‘Ollos’ Tinto and 2022 ‘Ollos de Maia’ (named after his daughter, Maia) have found a new level. The differences aren’t so great, but Ollos Tinto is a blend of young and old vines of Caiño Longo, Brancellao, Espadeiro and Sousón from organic and sustainably farmed vineyards on granite and gneiss, and Ollos de Maia is a blend of 15-year-old, biodynamically farmed vines of 45% Caiño Longo, 45% Brancellao, and 10% Caíño da Terra, from the unofficial Miño subzone on granite. The whole-cluster management may have been the biggest factor, at least outside of learning how to do things better each year—this guy’s a fast learner. It went from fully destemmed in 2018 (which I also adored, as I drank at least three cases, maybe four over a few months—no exaggeration), to 2019 partial whole cluster, then to 100% whole cluster in 2020, and now to about one-third in 2022. During those 100% whole-cluster years, the wines needed more time once open to find their footing. We spoke about this subject at length in 2021 on our first visit after the borders reopened as we tasted the 2020s. I explained that I was worried about clipping the fruit with too much whole bunch; in this part of the world, fruit is a needed asset that doesn’t always come easily with these indigenous red varieties (not including Mencía) that tend to overload on metal, mineral, earth and flower. They are naturally intense channelers of the region’s hardcore acid bedrock and topsoil that often seem to overdose their wines with minerally and metallic angles. But this year he nailed it. Everything is in place: fruit, freshness, authenticity, and the coming together of the seventeen years of the Camino de Iago. For someone who rarely seems satisfied with his work, even when it’s extraordinary, the question is, where will he go next? We arrive at the last of this month’s 2022 white wine act. And what a way to finish the story of the white wines with the arrival of Katharina Wechsler’s 2022 Westhofen Riesling Grand Crus, Kirchspiel, and Morstein, as well as Katharina’s monopole cru in between, Benn, among others. I hoped Europe’s hottest year on record would be as gentle to the vines here in the Rheinhessen as it was elsewhere. Same story: 2021 filled the well and helped the vines maintain their resilience through a scorcher, yielding a collection of superb dry Rieslings with unexpectedly strong punching power. Even Katharina’s 2022 Riesling Trocken, the starter in her range, is an especially powerful wine. Of course, many of the areas with limestone, a rock with good water retention, and clay, were well advantaged over those regions with sandier soils that had a harder time fending off the heat and protecting the grapes. Benn, the family’s tiny monopole vineyard site, has perhaps the most diverse plantations of all her vineyard parcels. The warmest of Katharina’s three important crus, it’s composed mostly of loess topsoil in the lower sections that sit as low as 120m, and limestone in the upper part, peaking around 160m. Quality Riesling thrives with suffering vines, which is why much of the non-Riesling vines are planted in the lower sections. Its 50-year-old Riesling vines, particularly those used for Wechsler’s top-flight trocken bottling, are planted in limestone bedrock and limestone and loess topsoil toward the top, not too far away from the bottom of Morstein. Benn produces a substantial Riesling that expresses impressive moments, especially with more time in the glass. When the others shine so brightly in their specific ways, Benn has been upfront but is somehow still a slower burn. Katharina Wechsler, photo credit to her husband, Manu Kirchspiel is a great vineyard and screams its grand cru status as soon as it’s opened, especially the 2022. It’s always readier out of the gates—often in the range of other growers—and for many reasons. Shaped like an amphitheater facing the Rhine River (though still roughly five miles away) with its southeastern exposure an average of around a thirty percent gradient, its bedrock and topsoil is composed of clay marls, limestone and loess. It’s a warmer site than Morstein because of its lower altitude (between 140m-180m) along with the curvature of the hillside that allows it to maintain greater warmth inside this small but sheltering topographical feature from cold westerly winds. Katharina has three different parcels in this large vineyard with reasonably good separation, giving the resulting wines a broader range of complexity and greater balance. Morstein, Rheinhessen’s juggernaut limestone-based dry Riesling vineyard is—even with vines only replanted in 2012—the undisputed big boy in Katharina’s dry Riesling range. Katharina’s Morstein vines are massale selections from the Mosel and have smaller, looser clusters with naturally low yields, even from the young vines. A mere pup by the standard of vine age, Katharina’s Morstein is formidable. And while it’s not usually as flashy out of the gates as Kirchspiel, it picks up serious power and expansive complexities that know no end. Like many of the world’s great wines, Morstein is no rapid takeoff F-15 fighter jet with instant supersonic speeds, it’s a rocket ship with a slow initial takeoff and a steady climb that reaches 17,000 mph before entering orbit. The topsoil is known as terra fusca (black earth), a soil matrix of heavy brown clay. Its low to medium topsoil depth (by vinous standards), combined with limestone fragments from the underlying bedrock makes its ability for water storage more limited than Katharina’s other main sites. Other 2022 wines arriving from Katharina start with her mid-tier dry Riesling, Kalk (formerly labeled Westhofen Trocken), a wine entirely composed of the younger vines of Kirchspiel, making it a fabulous deal! And the greatest deal in the bunch, the Riesling Trocken is about to arrive, which also benefits from a large percentage of Kirchspiel fruit. And finally, in the range of dry white wines, her Scheurebe Trocken, made in a classic way, and the Scheurebe Fehlfarbe, an orange wine. Lastly, but often first in my summer wine line, the Kirchspiel Kabinett, one I begged her to make and with which I’m now completely obsessed. It’s a wealth of riches from Wechsler at unbelievably fair prices for such talented terroirs. Remy Giannico and Jean Delunay, an old master of Bourgueil, Domaine de la Lande Only thirty kilometers east of Saumur, Bourgueil feels so much farther away. Maybe going into flat lands after Saumur’s limestone perches over the river with troglodyte dwellings and limestone mansions, ornate pasty white tuffeau châteaux surrounded by residences built with the same white stone, and the absurdly beautiful, overindulgent churches (like the hemispherical-domed Notre Dame des Ardilliers, scrunched between the bluffs and river) with their glistening gray slate roofs hued green-gold with the same lichen found on the region’s vines. The majesty of Saumur’s inspired buildings seems to descend into Bourgueil’s more serviceable and industrial buildings on the north side of the Loire. But once inside its vineyards, Bourgueil’s are just as exciting as Saumur. That is to say, they don’t look like they would render wines that would send a shiver of excitement down your spine or make your hair stand on end. But if the wines couldn’t, those 12th-century Cistercian monks would’ve split faster than it took them to plant and wait a few years to taste their first few harvests. But like many of the world’s unassuming vineyard sites that generate life-changing wines, you gotta go to where the root meets the rock. Those clever monks knew the magic of Bourgueil started mid-slope and continued farther up into the clay-rich rocky topsoil and limestone bedrock not too far underneath. Bourgueil has long been overshadowed by its neighbor, Chinon (at least in the US market). Maybe because it’s easier to pronounce? The word is more guttural than Chinon, which somehow sounds more noble, even if its name originates from the word, Canetum, which means swampy area. Maybe Bourgueil would be more accessible if they left it to its Latin origin, Burgus, or even when that evolved to Burgolium before Bourgueil. They got the Bourg part right, that’s easy. But the last syllable with all those vowels is tough for the back of the throat of English speakers. Maybe it’s Chinon’s dark yet romantic connection to Jeanne d’Arc? The Saumur-esque reemergence of magnificent ancient buildings overlooking a river, like the Château de Chinon, with even more charming residences than in Saumur? Maybe it’s the wine? Perhaps Bourgueil is viewed as more rustic than the typical Chinon, but this doesn’t seem plausible to me … On a mostly contiguous slope on the north side of the Loire River, the landscape of Bourgueil and Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil (SNdB) is shaped much like parts of the Côte d’Or, or high quality Champagne spots. Chinon is more topographically diverse and mostly former marshland sandwiched between the Loire and Vienne like Montlouis-sur-Loire’s vineyards are between the Loire and Cher. Perhaps it’s a matter of more gravelly and sandy sites in Chinon? I don’t know, but Bourgueil’s wines have great potential and deliver on the authenticity of terroir as strongly as anywhere in France. And perhaps more growers here are committed to a more classical style, which seems to be coming around again. After an evening tasting and dinner that included his spectacular new release of Arnaud Lambert’s 2023 Saumur “Midi” (formerly known as Clos du Midi) arriving in California this April, Remy and I left Arnaud’s, we headed east toward Touraine and into Bourgueil to Domaine de la Lande. There we met with François Delaunay and his kids, Pauline and Thomas, and his father, Jean, a charming well-aged vigneron responsible for crafting some of the greatest old Cabernet Franc I’ve ever had the pleasure to drink. François Delunay, a young master of Bourgueil Because we were so tight on time, and I didn’t expect that Remy could sell the wines in New York, we had a quick tasting of their precisely crafted and wonderfully expressive new releases. We then went straight to their organically farmed vineyards (certified since 2013 under François’ direction) and, despite running late, were enticed into their limestone lair for my third round of extraordinary old bottles that dated back to the 60s. In a past newsletter, I wrote about my experience with their old wines and how I managed to procure four cases back to the earliest part of the 1980s, when Jean made all the wines. There wasn’t even close to a single dud in the entire bunch and it was by far the greatest batch of old wines I’ve ever purchased from any domaine, the prices ranging between that of a good sandwich and a three-course lunch menu at a decent bistro while they all delivered a long-drawn-out Michelin experience of constantly evolving vinous courses. 2 pm is already too late for lunch in France. But we had skipped breakfast, and I couldn’t drag Remy to the next appointment hangry. We had no choice but to grab a grocery store sandwich, even though I knew being late for lunch in France was a bad idea. Those stale and tuffeu-white sandwiches with a paper-thin, salty, reddish cross-section of animal lacked nourishment. They only served to bloat and balance us out a little after our undeserved and illuminating rarities cellar tasting with the Delaunay family. The Delaunay’s unexpectedly offered us the opportunity to represent their work in the entirety of the United States, and I knew everyone needed to be introduced to these wines. Their wines are as honest and pure as any found in all “wines of place” inside France. And most of the time, in the middle of your wine discoveries, don’t you want at the very least an honest wine? Brutally honest, or even just brutal? So long as it’s true? It’s easy to feel cheated with wines that lost their identity through too much tinkering. Like they’ve cheated you, cheated themselves, cheated their terroir. You won’t find that in anything coming from the Delaunay family. Was ‘sur-Loire’ really necessary? Montlouis alone sounds noteworthy; regal, even Royal: Mountain of Louis! Now that carries weight! But Mount Louis on the Loire? No. Would Volnay-sur-Saône sound like a glorious terroir? A name says it’s only as good as a secondary appellation … Paulliac-sur-Gironde? Unclassified swill … Cornas-sur-Rhône? Cheap! Montlouis’ hyphens and dead-weight words hold it back! Vouvray? Two syllables. Clean—like a sword unsheathing from a metal scabbard. Or, a challenge to a duel, “Tu as insulté mon honneur! Je demande un Vouvray !!” Well, it turns out that this was actually said in a celebrated French restaurant by a nobleman after they had sold out of Vouvray, and Montlouis-sur-Loire was offered in its place … With or without Sur-Loire, Montlouis is indeed old but these days it’s a newish frontier with a second generational wave of boutique growers rising in the ranks of quality for Chenin Blanc. The natural wine movement sparked it, and what better appellation to spawn a group of rebels to challenge the establishment across the river in Vouvray. It may be Touraine’s mirror of Saumur as an overlooked appellation creating unexpected waves. Interestingly, I recently received a message from Arnaud Lambert asking for me to write a letter—which I did—in support of the Saumur growers application for a new Dénominations Géographiques Communales (DGCs) that includes the six names: La Côte (some areas inside of Saumur-Champigny), Brézé, Berrie, Brossay, Puy-Notre-Dame, and Courchamps. However, Saumur has nearly ten times the surface area of vineyards than Montlouis’ 400 hectares. This warrants some delineation. The first of our three Source underground Montlouis luminaries (one of whom is still withholding our US allocation because Trump got elected) is Vincent Bergeron, a man whose humility and generosity continues to inspire me to better myself. He’s a gem of a human being. It was easy for Remy, our Los Angeles tastemaker JD, and me (the first time I met him in 2022), to want to do everything possible to support such a person and bring him the recognition he deserves. Borrowing from the website profile I wrote a few years ago, “Vincent is rare in today’s world of self-aggrandizing young vigneron talents—sometimes appointed by the wine community and often by the self, as “rock stars.” Many seek celebrity and membership in idealist tribes rather than going for truth and an honest view into this métier, this artistic pursuit, this craft–a marriage between homo-sapiens and nature. Vincent is a vigneron’s vigneron, a human’s human, an uncontrived example of how to live and simply let be, spiritually, without trying to be someone.” Soul-filled? Angelic? These are two impressions that come to mind with Vincent’s wines. He crafts some quite serious but inviting organic, and, most of the time, no-added-sulfites Montlouis wines. Again, as I put it years ago: “Emotionally piercing, Vincent’s mineral-spring, salty-tear, petrichor Chenin wines flutter and revitalize; a baptism of stardust in his bubbles and stills—a little Bowie, a lot of Bach. His Pinot Noir is earthen en bouche, and aromatically atmospheric, bursting with a fire of bright, forest-foraged berries and wildflowers, and cool, savory herbs rarely found in today’s often overworked, oak-soaked, and now sun-punished Pinot Noirs, the wines that were the heroes of the past millennium, but today are a flower wilting under the relentless sun. Advances in the spiritual heartland of Pinot Noir have been made, though I sure miss the flavors of the Côte d’Or from my earlier years among wine.” Vincent’s Pinot Noir takes me back to the beginning of my love affair with this grape’s propensity to produce the world’s most beguiling and slightly austere red wines. Vincent’s range of 2022 Chenin Blanc is arriving in May (we hope without 200% tariffs!) with the vineyard blended, ‘Matin, Midi et Soir’ and the lieu-dit, “Maison Marchandelle,” two of the most convincing 2022s I’ve had, and his Pet-nat, “Certains l’Aiment Sec” is about to land as well. Vincent’s 2022 still whites are some of the initial ones that helped me begin to recognize the quality of white wine from this vintage across Northern Europe. As mentioned in the introduction to this month’s newsletter, they’ve got legs and unexpected thrust for a year with such hot weather. And once I tasted 2022s from other makers, as mentioned early in this text, I was sure that the vintage has merit, a wine worthy of those who want and need a white wine with snap. Vincent Bergeron in Maison Marchandelle, December 2024 Vincent’s Maison Marchandelle plots outlined in black—the green sections! While standing in Maison Marchandelle, a 0.87-ha plot planted in 1970, Vincent lamented that this was the only vineyard he harvested grapes from this year. Outside of this small parcel, the rest of his 2.6 hectares of crop were destroyed by the constant mildew pressure of the season. He’s made it clear that if 2025 isn’t fruitful, he might have to hang up his vineyard boots, a personal tragedy. And if you know the wines and even more the man, it becomes a tragedy for us all. Fingers crossed. In the meantime, enjoy the masterful wines that we have on hand! In 2024, Vincent managed to buy some fruit from one of last year’s new Source growers, Thomas Frissant. The morning after we visited Vincent we would stick our nose into the cellar of this young, well-trained, and technical cellar swashbuckler. His organic vineyards are located near Amboise, the final resting place of Leonardo da Vinci. We braved a walk through his vines (and he braved a drive with his truck through some pretty wet, slippery clay roads) for probably the coldest vineyard exploration of our trip. We thought it would be quick, but Thomas took us on the long route! I mean, how much silex does one need to see when it’s all over the place? It was bitingly wet and windy but glimmers of sun shone through that would’ve surely inspired Leo to paint, had he lived to 572 years old. Against my better judgment, I flew the drone. I could’ve easily lost it as I did its twin in Wachau’s Spitzer Graben seven months earlier. But this flat terrain presented no obstacles other than the fierce wind, so it returned and touched down with no problem. Thomas’ wines are fabulous and mostly come from older vines and all are under organic certification. He has higher-end wines too, but the starter range is restaurant-program gold for the price, quality and vineyard culture. Their silex soils seem to endow them with that similar Pouilly-Fumé and east Sancerre hard-punching mineral quality. Sometimes it’s hard to break the market of such addictions when they deliver at these prices, but it’s perfectly fine with Thomas that we’re addicted and even particular regarding the selection we import from him. We blistered through the first batch we received in October, and the second one just landed a month ago and is on the move again with the two main features, 2023 Sauvignon Blanc, “Le Chapeau Comte” and 2023 Chardonnay, ‘Tout En Canon.’ Thomas Frissant Nicolas Renard’s cellar We won’t spend too much time on Nicolas Renard given the minuscule quantity of wines we’re allocated every other year, but we would finish our day tasting with him in his pharaoh-like tomb of a cellar. While we receive so little from Nico (pictured above), his wines are of the most substantive whites in our entire portfolio from seven countries. Nico is a magician with Chenin, Sauvignon, and Chardonnay. They’re epically singular (like the guy) and flirt with x-factor perfection. I can’t get enough of them, and once they’re open they’re unbreakable, and they have not a molecule of added sulfites. I asked Nico during my first visit in 2022 if some of the wines had had any sulfite additions at some point. It was the only time I ever felt like I had crossed a line with him. After his brow unfurled, his usually ever-present sheepish smile returned. His wines ferment for years (the last two whites we received, the 2017 Sauvignon and 2018 Chardonnay, finished fermenting in 2023) and I’ve not tasted many more intriguing wines out of barrel in the Loire Valley, though I could say the same for all the cellars I’ve visited in France. If there’s any Loire Valley grower whose wines should fetch massive second-market prices, it’s Nico’s. But good luck finding them, though I have faith they’ll come around again. The three restaurants in France that get a few bottles don’t even put them on the list, saving them for a rainy day, I guess. The rest that we don’t get are in Japan. Le Berlot has become the communal restaurant of the growers most preoccupied with nature, in the area. It’s a tradition for me to meet up with everyone I know when I’m in town (again, now minus the guy who withdrew our allocation because of Trump), and I was most happy that our young Thomas joined us for dinner there with Nico and Vincent. Thomas already has the skills but a little of the magic dust that falls off Nico and Vincent wouldn’t be lost on him. Le Berlot has a good kitchen with only slight tweaks to more French classics, and a good selection of natural wines. There are so many names on it I don’t know that I need a virtual wine shaman to guide me through it. And if you’ve had too much to drink to get behind the wheel (so less than two glasses with France’s tolerance of 5g/L of blood alcohol level), they have dorm-style private rooms upstairs, but with shared bathrooms. The legend of after-hours here is quickly gaining a reputation, though I’ve been lucky enough to avoid any unwelcome long nights and space shared with strangers. Domaine Jean Collet and Christophe et Fils amplified my perception of northern Europe’s unexpectedly successful 2022 white wines. (Perhaps southern Europe was also successful, but that’s not where we have a strong position with white wine.) And I mean unexpected only because I thought they would be shorter on energy. But they’re not. They have plenty but are even maybe less corpulent and rich than I expected. They go down easy, but they don’t have the premature notes I associate with struggling vines and sun-tested clusters in other warm seasons in Chablis. We tasted Christophe’s 2022s for context with his recently bottled 2023s. The 2023s were sparer in body at the time because of their recent sulfite addition at bottling just some weeks before. 2023 was yet another sunny year, and we’ll see how it will compare to the 22s. In any case, the 22s showed very well. Maybe this vintage won’t live forever in the context of age-worthy Chablis seasons, but who cares? I suppose that in the three years after their release, 95% of every bottle of 2022 will already be down the hatch, and that seems like a good time for them. Curious to see what others thought of the year, I checked out a critic’s website and how they tasted and scored the Chablis growers of 2022. A lot was tasted blind at BIVB, the Bureau Interprofessionnel des Vins de Bourgogne gathering. Of course, no critic would dare blind taste and score certain domaines for fear of giving accidental poor marks, which they might be tempted to alter once revealed for fear of dismissal from their readers, or a cold welcome from the celebrated winegrower on the next visit to the domaine. While so many well-made wines are analyzed in minutes, or seconds, in a snapshot with no personalized fluffing and far too early in the wine’s development, others have them isolated for the pitch—pharmaceutical sales 101. I’m fortunate to still drink the two elites from Chablis here and there because of my regular visits to the appellation, where restaurants are forced to sell them at fair markups from the cellar pricing or risk losing allocations; no grower wants to see their 15€ ex-cellar premier cru sold for 200€ on a wine list in their hometown. There are also a few hidden restaurants in France, or close to it, with relatively fair prices on the Big Two. In the past, wine pros would say, “I love Chablis!” But when you’d peruse their list, they only had the Big Two on the bottle list and something else on their glass-pour program. Is that a true love for Chablis? Or, at the time, just a love for the cheapest ticket to extraordinary white Burgundy? Sometimes blind tasting is useful. Sometimes it’s not. Five minutes of excessive swirling, exhausting the wine and your palate as you try to discover its clues … The best outcome? When we are wrong …  especially after we were so certain, it’s humbling. It’s always a test of what we think we know—a harmless learning experience, though maybe not so great for the ego. Sometimes we look like a boss. Other times, a World Market wine department specialist—no offense: ya gotta start somewhere! And sometimes we’re not humble enough in spirit and develop an immediate negative bias that, sadly, can stick around when we’re wrong. “No, not me,” you say. Never … “Oh! I should’ve said that … I was going to say that!” Or, “I can’t believe that’s that. It doesn’t have X, Y, and Z (otherwise I’d have nailed it). The post-mortem play-by-plays are often best left unsaid. Blind tasting doesn’t work well with Chablis. Especially within only five minutes of opening it … Chablis is a journey, and the best may seem spare at first, sometimes even awkward. If it outshines others in a blind tasting within the first ten minutes, maybe there’s something more off than on. Most compelling Chablis start and remain snug, withholding, and can even be Willy Wonka quirky. And in an instant after waiting, almost pressuring it to perform, they strike deep into its Kimmeridgian limestone marl, the salty brine now rising to ocean’s spray, the phenolic blob now cutting minerally textures and acidic flare. No worthy Chablis is as quick a read as an Instagram post. By the very nature of this region’s wines, its best traits can be slow to get out of first gear. Like with any serious wine, depth takes time to discover. Analysis in a minute, six months after bottling for a few minutes of swirling it to death? Folly. So many Chablis just won’t give their all so quickly—whether just uncorked, or within the first two years after bottling. It ain’t Côte d’Or nowadays, where an immediate blast fizzles quickly or grows into a sixth-gear, high-rpm hum but rarely goes to the salty clouds of the taut Chablis. If there’s any blind-tasting category with the greatest probability of missing the wine entirely, it’s Chablis. So, congrats to Sébastien and Romain for scoring some solid 80s with their AOC Village wines when tasted blind at a BIVB events by critics. Sébastien Christophe Romain Collet We tasted with Romain Collet out of the various vats they employ to highlight each cru’s qualities: Montmains in steel to memorialize the edges of its rocky terroir; Vaillons, with its brown but light textured clay and rocky topsoil, aged equally in 20-year-old 85-hl and 228-liter French oak, a great balance of vat choices to gently “sculpt the clay” and preserve the strong minerally compaction of Vaillons, the wine of their range that helps me best understand each vintage; the exotic Fôrets nestled up in its furthest western part inside a small heat-trap amphitheater raised in an egg-shaped concrete; the remaining 1er Crus—Butteaux, MdM, MdT, and grand crus, Valmur and Clos, all in more marne-rich (calcareous clay) topsoil—in variations of two-to-seven-year-old 228-liter French oak barrels (none new) to sculpt the clay once again. No matter what Romain employs in the cellar, each wine speaks its truth. There’s some new excitement from Collet labeled ‘Vallée de Valvan,’ but it hasn’t arrived yet. If you look at a map of Chablis, there is a “village” section of the backside of Montmains facing northeast, mirroring Vaillons and most of Vaillons is inside Valvan. I asked Romain since my first visit with them in 2010 about this long stretch of vines they have that makes up a good chunk of their AOC Chablis. It seemed obvious and still does, that it has the same geology as its neighbors. When they classified the area the southerly exposure needed for premier cru classification was missing eighty years ago, but the soil was premier cru. But things have changed, and these “less favorable” expositions can now chalk that up as an asset, and that’s clear in this minerally fresh new bottling. Collet’s Vallée de Valvan represents Chablis’ future. We finished our day at the Richoux’s cellar in Irancy. We work with the Richoux family only in California and a few other states, but Remy needed to meet them and their wines as they’re one of the central pillars of our company’s French portfolio. Our first imported vintage from them was the 2005 Veaupessiot and 2007 Irancy. Since Gabin and Félix were given more input into the production, things have changed a bit from a more rustic, classic, striking and clean style raised in 55-85-hl old French oak foudres to something more in line with a Côte d’Or style, smaller barrels with some a little newer than the past. The first moment for their cellar filled with 500-600 L barrels was with Thierry’s “Ode à Odette,” a unique wine made in honor of his grandmother who used to work a certain parcel of ancient vines. Seemingly on a whim, they bought a massive batch of new barrels and aged it for three years in them. Well, then they had to do something with all these leftover barrels! The Richoux boys also experimented with softer extractions and withheld sulfite additions until the bottling. These changes resulted in much more fruity wines but it was harder to understand all the changes at the time because the seasons were going haywire and particularly impacted Irancy. Fast forward to 2019 and 2021, two of their finest vintages demonstrating the balance of those changes. 2019 is richer, as the season was warmer, but balanced with denser fruit and well-managed alcohol levels still around 13.5%. While the 2019s may be the crowd-pleaser between these two vintages, the extremely low-yielding 2021s are nearly perfect wines for my preference: elegant, lifted, red-fruited, finely structured, fresh, floral, and without any impression that the sun abused a single berry. After the cellar tasting and the open bottles of 2019 and 2021, we tasted and tasted and tasted, Remy became a deep believer in the mythology of Richoux. Our first shipment of the 2021 Richoux Irancy wines will arrive in California this month.