Wines:

Rodolphe Demougeot

2019 Meursault

$98.00

Collet Chablis

Jean Collet

2023 Chablis

$33.00

Nebbiolo d'Alba

David Fletcher

2020 Langhe Nebbiolo

$39.00

Manuel Moldes

2021 Albariño Peai

$54.00

Wasenhaus

2022 Chardonnay

$47.00

David Duband

2019 Vosne-Romanée

$108.00

Malat

2021 Gelber Muskateller, RAW

$30.00

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Of Corse, Last Chapter: A Reflection on Experience from the Inexperienced

At precisely 4:15 Manu insisted that we leave the tasting. Traffic could be a bear going north on a Friday and we had a three-hour drive from Porto Vecchio to Bastia to catch our boat. Last year our trip was a more fluid route with less back and forth across the island. We started in Bastia and made one loop around the island and left from Ajaccio. Manu was nervous about the time but we made it with plenty to spare. On the boat’s ninth floor lounge we ordered a couple of Pietra beers, the most well known Corsican suds. The waitress reluctantly took our order and that of a table next to us and then seemed to disappear. After twenty minutes passed I told Manu to forget it and to go to the bar to order what he wanted. He returned with a couple of beers and some peanuts and told the table next to us that someone told him she wasn’t coming back. We never did see her again. A pair of singers started performing with recorded background music, occasionally playing a saxophone or guitar to add some complexity to their set. They were surprisingly good for a couple of ferry singers; the man sounded like Art Garfunkel and I had to look twice to make sure it wasn’t him. The ferry was a time warp between the music, the deteriorating décor and all the people dressed in 1980s fashion. I couldn’t decide if it was a rundown version of The Love Boat, or an at-sea version of the first act in The Shining. We had a great view of the port of Bastia with the city lights illuminating the town’s colorful buildings and church. The light of our last day on Corsica was almost gone when the boat pushed off and curved north and the view changed to the dark sea between Corsica and Italy. Dinner was quick and passable. We drank a bottle of Dolcetto di Dogliani and had the seafood pasta special (a perfect pairing, I know…). After dinner I was toast. I went to my cabin, brushed my teeth and hit the sack—hard. People joke that I live the easy life and my trips are a vacation, but they are by far the most exhausting days of my work. These trips throw the body off rhythm for weeks, and in my case, months. My body temperature changes dramatically between being in vineyards in the freezing wind, rain and sometimes snow, with hours a day in cold cellars. It’s not hard physical work, but with all the standing, talking and tasting, it’s a slow breakdown and it can take forever to get the chill out of the bones. All of my senses are activated for more than fourteen hours a day. My eyes feast on the scenery and the people, and my nose is in the gym doing rep after rep. My tongue feels like a snake that sheds its skin every three weeks—loving high acid wine has its drawbacks. I’m hard of hearing, so I sometimes have to strain to catch and understand all the French thrown my way what with all its dialects that contain so many subtleties. My mind is on overdrive and my limitations are tested regularly, especially after first six weeks straight of tasting and travel on a ten-week trip. I woke up at six with the help of the cabin crew announcement of our arrival to Toulon in one hour and as I showered I was thankful for the seven hours I slept. I met up with Manu and we headed down to his truck to disembark. It was early in France and late back home. No one was around and Manu and I took advantage of the free mental space of the early morning drive back to Avignon and stared off into road ahead without saying much. We were bushed and happy for the arrival of the weekend. Manu dropped me at the Avignon TGV station. I grabbed my new rental car—number two of what would end up as seven on this trip—and headed back to La Fabrique to get some sleep and await the arrival of my wife the following Monday. I had thirty-six hours off and I took them. There is no département in France quite like Corsica. Its separation from France by the sea and closer proximity to Italy is evident in every bit of its culture. I have been to France and Italy many times over the last two decades, and aside from the French language, the preservation of its Italian roots is obvious within the wines made from the island’s ancient varietals. Corsican wines weren’t love at first taste for me; nor were many wines I’ve come to adore with time. There are many generic, rustic and unnecessarily heavy red wines that I could do without, Nielluciu for one, a beast that has yet to inspire me. I keep asking myself if I’m missing something and I look forward to my ah-ha moment with this grape. Vermentinu is without a doubt a white wine of great potential. There is a broad range of styles from dense to lithe, and most are loaded with smells of ocean spray and minerals, unless they’ve been obliterated by oak. Rosé is an obvious talent for Corsica. The red grapes there lend themselves perfectly for this kind of salty fresh wine with no shortage of aromatic expression and beauté. They’re tremendously pleasurable, many are seductive, and at the top domaines it’s easy to find sophistication. The simplicity employed in the making of these wines seems to serve them well and it’s when they’re done in this manner that they most carry the taste of the island. Sciacarellu is the most compelling prospect, at least for me. Granite soils encourage a greater degree of elegance and salinity in the wines and this combination is one of the rare matches made in wine heaven. (I would also be interested to see more of it produced in the Patrimonio area on limestone and bottled alone). Sciacarellu has plenty of x-factor and will stand alone as a complex and pure wine of nobility without the addition of other grapes, no matter what soil it’s grown in. I’ve fallen for this grape and can’t wait to see it blossom even more with the rise of so many domaines. I have no profound conclusion from my trips to the island and the time in-between, I’ve only found a better idea of what Corsican wine is to me. There are compelling high-end wines made by a select group of vignerons, and the quality across the island seems to be on the rise. Yet it is the basic range of wines from top producers, the least touched and overwrought, that best capture the joy and the charm of the island and its people.

Masson and the Mountain, Part Nine of An Outsider at The Source

Just to the south of Apremont is Mont Granier, a colossal roughly-hewn trapezoid of limestone with a thick evergreen forest at its base. Its sheer cliffs suggest the usual erosion and fall away, but in 1248, the entire twenty-three hundred foot north face of the mountain broke off. The resulting rockslide rumbled across many miles, destroyed five villages and killed three thousand people. The limestone spread out and covered the surrounding terrain so that the lines of the Apremont appellation are actually drawn by the stones from the mountain. Beyond all this limestone, the surface soil has different types of metamorphic rock as well, such as schist. Like the Jura, the Savoie has some grapes that aren’t usually grown elsewhere. Though the region also grows varietals such as Gringet, Altesse and Roussanne, wines in Apremont are exclusively whites made from Jacquère. Ted prefers the Jacquère from Apremont, citing its “electric charge,” a descriptor he uses often and one that really drives his selections. Jacquère is not known to be a great aging wine, but the producer we were going to see makes some that does so surprisingly well. Jean Claude Masson came stomping down the stone steps of his contemporary two-story house that would have been at home in any Midwestern suburb. He let Andrea know where the facilities were and when I indicated that I could use them as well, he pointed up the hillside toward his vineyards. Ted translated his rapid-fire French: “that’s where the men go.” He’s big and barrel-chested (and bellied) from years of playing rugby and drinking beer—not your usual wine snob. His face is deeply tanned and lined from spending decades in his fields and pursuing myriad other activities outside. He had a constant smile on his big round face, with its thin graying beard and a mischievous look in eyes. Without a lick of English, he was constantly jocular, chuckling at all his punch lines in a contagious manner that made me laugh even though I had little understanding of what he was saying. Ted would translate and it was usually something self-effacing about his own whacky behavior, partying a lot when he was younger and his affinity for sports, all as he floored his SUV up the narrow winding dirt road without really needing to look at it. If opposing traffic came our way, he hit the gas even harder and the other car flinched and made way every time. When Ted fired off questions about the soil and vines, Masson switched in and out of an earnest tone, while never losing that wry smile. Though he can come across as irreverent most of the time, I gathered from much of what Ted translated that he takes his craft very seriously. As part of the natural wine movement, he uses organic, plant-based vineyard treatments that don’t harm the bees, the most important of all insects. He prides himself on being a free man who will do what he needs to do to survive, but aims for the highest of ideals in accordance with nature. While he isn’t confined to the strictures of organic certification, he tries to adhere to those guidelines as much as possible, without putting his business in danger, which can happen when emergencies like epidemics occur. But he added that people who always do whatever they want in the vineyard and the cellar are no different than those who misbehave all week, then go to church on Sunday to ask for forgiveness. We got to the top of the hill where the bulk of his plots spread out on a rolling slope. There was an incredible view of the verdant valley below, beyond clusters of houses and countless more vineyards. Masson gestured to a bush and said that’s where I could do what I needed to do. As I excused myself, I wondered if all male guests were encouraged to take care of business out in the vineyard. Maybe out of sheer masculine principle, because we can. When I returned, Masson was pointing way off to the south at our right where loomed the rock of Mont Granier, the mother of all the soil beneath our feet. He then gestured down the valley, recounting the history of the catastrophic slide. He and Ted talked about it like a favorite old subject that one never minds repeating with someone who knows it well, in case some uncovered piece of information might be exchanged. They both spoke with a sort of reverence reserved for those who never lose their awe of something so monumental. Ted put his loupe to his eye and held a piece of limestone up close as Andrea shot photos of the land, vines and Masson from every angle. Masson mugged for the camera and also did his fair share of ignoring it as he watched Ted with amusement; he seemed to be one of the producers who’s a little mystified by Ted’s intense enthusiasm for geology. He pointed out a couple of plots he had recently purchased and talked of new vines that he would plant in the coming year. With a quick drive across the hill and down, he showed us a few more of his vineyards and pointed out a rock the size of a big house covered in graffiti, which struck me as incongruous out in the middle of that grassy field. It was a piece of Granier that somehow ended up there in the slide, rolling for many miles, who knows how fast, crushing everything in its path—a thrilling thought. Next: Masson the Caveman

Cume do Avia Is The Source’s Most Revelatory Producer In The Last Years

If your wine world revolves around natural wines, wines of true terroir identity that are as unaltered as possible by the hand of the grower so as to remain pure, with high-tones, and vigorous, deep textures, then read on and get ready to buy. You won’t want to miss these. Cume do Avia’s wines are rare. Most of them are limited to just over a hundred bottles of each wine for the entire US market, and it wasn’t anticipated that we’d still have them in our inventory at this point. But Covid-19 has opened the door for you, and I am thrilled to introduce you to these wines if you don’t know them already. This lot that just arrived in California was transferred to us from our New York warehouse, where they barely missed their opportunity to put on a show in the Big Apple for some of the world’s most talented sommeliers running wine programs in the city’s best restaurants. Our California team’s 2018 allocation evaporated in days upon arrival and these wines certainly would’ve been long gone out east, too. The Wines at a Glance (A more in-depth write-up is further below) The Colleita Tinto is simply too good for the price. Its delivery is astounding and profound for those who like high-toned, low octane wines that drink as much like a white as they do a red. Brancellao is a grape that can render a wine as brightly hued as a glass of Campari and is the most seductive and elegant in the range. Caiño Longo, a bright red in its youth that can quickly take on a darker hue with only a little age, has an electrical charge and vigorous energy. The Viño Tinto Sin Sulfuroso is a marriage of red and black grapes and bottled without any added sulfur. It continues to surprise as it matures, and keeps getting better, despite its naked life free of sulfur. Their other red varietal bottlings available on our website, Sousón and Ferrón, are ink-black beasts, tight and trim, gritty and earthy and almost savage when young. Be forewarned, these last two wines must be experienced but they will not be for all takers, only those who don’t discriminate against unbridled energy, because they are that. All of the Cume do Avia wines are aromatically intense and have a mouthfeel full of tremendous freshness and intensity. Their range of red wines is a unique and exciting addition to the resurgence of the Iberian Peninsula’s many awakening wine giants. A short story and a deeper dive into the wines Constant Evolution On the narrative arc of our lives inside the wine world, some producers come along that redirect our compass. For me, the first was the legendary California Pinot Noir producer, Williams Selyem, whose wines I was able to drink with surprising regularity at a restaurant where I worked in Scottsdale Arizona back in the late 1990s. The chef and owner, Ercolino Crugnale, came out from California and brought his personal wine collection out to the middle of the desert, where he opened his own seafood restaurant. He planned to put his collection on his wine list, but once he got there, he was told that in order to legally do so, he would have to sell it to a distributor first so they could sell it back to him. Lucky for me, Ercolino decided we would drink it all together after dinner services instead. At Restaurant Oceana I was generously treated to so many of California’s best 80s and 90s wines from Ridge and all the names in California Cab, but it was the Williams Selyem Pinot Noirs that really made an impression on me. What came next was Jean-Marie Fourrier, with his 1999 vintage. I was spoiled by Fourrier's wines early on thanks to the late Christopher Robles. Chris carved out a massive allocation of Fourrier’s wines for the Wine Cask Restaurant, in Santa Barbara, where I ended up working as a sommelier, back when it had a list of more than two thousand carefully selected wines. There were many life-altering wines on that list during the year and a half I worked there, and we were drinking wines like Fourrier’s famous Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru Clos Saint-Jacques for a mere $57 a bottle after our employee discount, and it seemed we had an endless supply of the stuff. Now his Clos Saint-Jacques runs from three hundred to a thousand dollars a bottle, depending on the vintage. We had about a full mixed pallet of his entire range of wines from that truly great vintage that we soaked up daily, along with tons of the other best wines in the world generously allocated to Wine Cask. Once I became a wine importer, things changed drastically. I got to know my heroes personally, which upped my game considerably from those years as a wine-country dreamer to the full, daily immersion of someone in the thick of it. There were soon countless producers that few knew about yet that eventually became synonymous with The Source. Austria’s Veyder-Malberg showed up on my radar in 2010 (thanks to Circo Vino, an Austrian wine importer), along with France’s Loire Valley rising star, Arnaud Lambert, and the discovery of his laser beam Chenin Blancs of Brézé, followed by Thierry Richoux and his singular, giant-slaying Pinot Noirs from the unassuming and minuscule ancient village, Irancy, in the far northwestern corner of Burgundy. Poderi Colla, one of the greatest and all too often overlooked families in all of Piedmont, suddenly caught my attention at a Barolo party overflowing with great wines, when I’d never heard of, had or seen their wines among the vast sea of Barolos, a region I thought I knew a fair bit about at the time. And at the same moment I fell head over heels (like so many others worldwide) for Jean-Luis Dutraive’s wines, which he kicked off with his spectacular run from 2012 to 2014, before Beaujolais blew into the mainstream. Then there was Green Spain… In northwestern Iberia, just above Portugal is Galicia—a part of Green Spain. Galicia is one of the most obvious places in all of Europe clearly with the ability to achieve so much, but with enormous unmet potential. It has a rich history, a deep well of indigenous noble grape varieties and terroir systems, perfectly suited to produce a broad diversity of deeply complex wines. I only began learning about it in depth about four years ago, shortly after my wife and I took our month-long honeymoon in Spain in an attempt to actually get away from wine for a moment. On our journey in the heat of late September and early October, we found ourselves off the wine path and in the world of the tourist, and it took only a couple nights of the famous bruiser red wines from Spain before we began our retreat to beer and Albariño in an attempt to stay fresh and clear-headed so we could enjoy each oncoming day. Once we got home, my friends, Rajat Parr and Brian McClintic, who both resided at my house in Santa Barbara at different times (the latter for years), kept pushing me in the direction of Galicia with so many good wines from Envínate, the now famous producer from the Ribeira Sacra with a ubiquitous presence on all serious wine lists, worldwide. Then JD Plotnick joined our Source team and stoked my Galician embers into a full raging fire. He’s freaky about Galician wines (and wine in general, which makes him a particularly effective and respected salesperson) and it has been a major focus for him for many years, long before Envínate nearly single-handedly put Galicia into mainstream wine pop culture. Enter Cume do Avia The most beguiling wines give the impression that you’ve never truly fallen in love like you have with the one currently in your glass. My first taste of Cume do Avia was at a restaurant in Sanxenxo, at Bar Berbereco, with Manuel Moldes (known to his friends and family as Chicho) and the owner of the restaurant, José (Salvo) Esperon and all of our better halves. Salvo brought out a bottle of Cume do Avia’s Colleita 5 Tinto. I asked if I could taste another wine from this producer because I loved one I was drinking, but was trying to temper my excitement since one-offs happen a lot. But if they could back it up with another wine, it was on. Brancellao was that second wine, luckily for all of us it was incredible, and the rest is history. The wines I first tasted out of barrel with Diego Collarte, one of the family partners of Cume do Avia, seemed to carry the full weight of his family’s collective dream—I’ve never been so moved by the energy of a moment as I was the day I met him and heard his unfiltered, brutally honest view of the challenges they needed to overcome to arrive at that moment, and I knew that I had found as true a diamond as I’ve ever found in the rough. The grit and heart-filled determination of this tribe has led to a range of red wines in 2017 that are raw, honest and inspiring. The nature of the spare and intensely focused wines from the 2018 vintage turned what little noise was left in already impressive wines into wines of greater precision and stark clarity. Diego assures me that this is just the beginning. I believe it. Cume Do Avia Wines In-Depth Raw and enticingly naked, the Colleita 6 Tinto is the charming starting block for Cume do Avia’s range of honest and sparsely touched wines, made from a blend of indigenous red Galician varietals. Caiño Longo (40%) and Brancellao (26%) bring elegance and taut red fruits, and the balance from Sousón (34%), the dark, agile beast side with a deep, vigorous acidity. It’s angular but still soft and restrained, and drinks as much like a white when its young as it does a red, save its glorious, dainty and fluttery red wine characteristics, and the influence of its three-week fermentation with more than a third from whole bunches. A shade over 11% alcohol, it’s aged in an ancient, restored chestnut foudre, and is replete with mineral and metallic impressions derived from its soil mixture of granite, schist and slate. (No matter the scientific debate on how these characters come to a wine, these soils vividly mark their vinous offspring.) Its freshness is a waterlogged forest with tree bark spices, exotic sweet green pastoral herbs and wild red and black berries never touched by a direct ray of sunshine. It’s refreshingly cool, like fog rising from a slow moving river; like rain; like wet, brisk wind. It’s a wine from the Ribeiro and it tastes like that land looks and feels. Cume do Avia’s Brancellao is dainty, thin framed, soft spoken, and subtly powerful. It’s equally as compelling as the other wines in their range of reds, but its charm flows ceaselessly from the first sniff and sip. It’s more suave and with far less than one hundred cases produced annually, Brancellao is still the largest production of their single-varietal wines. It’s extremely fresh, bright and beautifully transparent, and reveals many facets in time, all filling out together as it unfolds. One moment it speaks of Italy’s alpine influenced wines such as Premetta and Schiava; or France’s Massif Central red, Saint Pourçain, a Mugnier-like Pinot Noir from Burgundy; Poulsard from the Jura; lightly extracted old school California Russian River Pinot Noirs from the 80s and 90s like Williams Selyem’s coastal vineyard sites after decades of cellar time. In the glass it smells and tastes of the first red berries of the season, sweet green citrus and bay spice. The palate ceaselessly expands in depth and weight, with the start as light as a darker rosé and that evolves like a fresh, cool vintage red Burgundy from a high elevation site on stony soils. That said, I have no illusion about this wine’s pedigree when comparing it to Burgundy because it is not constructed like one in the cellar. It was crafted for a shorter life, but over hours of tasting it finds unexpected heights that show what its potential could be if modifications were made with the intention of aging it longer. It’s hard to imagine a more compelling prospect in the resurgence of the Spain’s Ribeiro (and perhaps within Galicia) than Caiño Longo. If there were ever an extroverted bright light within all of the noble red grapes of the world, this could be a contender for the top prize. Cume do Avia’s interpretation is almost outrageous and appears to be some kind of mythical legend from a fantasy land. It’s grown on a mix of granite, schist and slate soils, and is a lightning bolt of freshness with an atomic level of expansive energy. In its youth, it bursts with a broad, mouthwatering spectrum of piercing lines, sharp angles, seductive curves and concentrated energy. (My descriptions may seem indulgent, but this wine is like a high-grade stimulant for the nose and mouth.) When I first tasted Cume do Avia’s 2017 Caiño Longo from a restored chestnut barrel of over a hundred years old, it was a hair-raising and somehow illusory experience, and one of the most vivid moments of my entire wine career. Instantly smitten by its flamboyantly profound beauty and depth, I asked if it was made from old vines and was surprised when I was told that they were planted in 2008 and 2009. Its sappy palate and lengthy finish is deceptive and easy to associate with a wine rendered from ancient vines whose energy focuses on fewer but more concentrated grapes. When compared to the entire range of Cume do Avia’s red wines, the mood of the Viño Tinto Sin Sulfuroso lands squarely between the opposing bright red and ink-black single varietal wines. Nearly half the blend is Sousón (known in Portugal as Souzão, Sousão or Vinhão), which brings darkness to the color and a strong virile sense of spice, animal, iodine and belly to the wine—though not as much of a belly as many other solar-powered red wines grown on heavier soils. The difference, a blend of one-third Caiño Longo, both the backbone and horizontal core of the wine, along with the radiant Brancellao (25%), bestow together ethereal wild red berry nuances, unremitting acidity and pure joy. It’s spare on fat, but rich in character and personality. Once past its coy first fifteen minutes, this elegant but firm wine begins to aromatically blossom with pointed thrust and beautifully long lines.

Jean-Noël Gagnard & The Magical 2017 White Burgundy Vintage

It's been a long wait, but Jean-Noël Gagnard's 2017s finally made it. Within our group of restaurant sommeliers, Jean-Noël Gagnard has some seriously devout fans that have snapped up our minuscule supply for their restaurant programs since we began to import her wines a decade ago, starting with the 2008 vintage. Perhaps it’s because the range is a match made for classical French countryside cooking that doesn’t stray too far off the path and into trendy winemaking. While Gagnard's Chassagne-Montrachets drink beautifully without an accompaniment of food, it’s a pity not to pair them up with something like slow roasted chicken, or even a richer French classic fish preparation, like à la meunière—a dish I think could be a top choice with the aromatic and taste profile of these Chardonnay wines.Is 2017 one of the white Burgundy vintages of a generation? For a quick anecdote about the 2017 Côte d’Or whites, I will borrow the words of Pierre Morey (by way of a conversation with his daughter, Anne), a quiet legendary winegrower who made his reputation as the régisseur (the wine director) for Domaine Leflaive during twenty years’ time. He played a largely influential role in Leflaive's conversion to biodynamic farming, along with his own biodynamically-run domaine, Pierre Morey. As I recall, Anne stated her father said it was among the most beautiful Chardonnay fruit he has ever seen. What else is there to say? A Brief Story & Details On The Wines The style at this Chardonnay focused domaine is one of subtlety led with gentle sweet golden earth tones. Often found in Caroline’s range of whites are beautiful wild mushrooms scents of chanterelles and porcinis, brown butter, dried herbs and always some kind of citrus tones, often like a Meyer lemon or the unique purity of an Amalfi Coast lemon grown on steep limestone terraces overlooking the Mediterranean. It’s hard to know exactly why her style is unique in this way—I can’t find another that I could say is a mirror image—and even to ask her why her wines are the way they are brings her to a full smile, often bursts of laughter, followed by little explanation except that it’s just the way she does it. In the cellar, the wines are made in a straightforward style, and thankfully gimmick-free within a white Burgundy world of too much of one thing, or not enough of another. There are no games with reduction, so the perception of mineral nuances is textured and aromatically present and finely tuned. Flashy wood techniques and other fooling about simply aren’t her style either, just a confidently crafted set of wines that demonstrates—and concedes to—the differences between their terroirs with striking clarity. When one does organic farming like she does (along with certification for it), as well as following many biodynamic principals and treatments, a soft touch in the cellar seems the logical approach. We begin with Gagnard’s Hautes-Côtes de Beaune "Sous Éguisons." This small Chardonnay parcel was planted in the early to mid-2000s high above Saint-Aubin, west of Chassagne-Montrachet. It’s delicious and serious Chardonnay deeply marked by its terroir: 430-450 meters of altitude (30% higher than most that lie on the Côte), colder weather than vineyards on the Côte d’Or main slope, spare clay and limestone rock topsoil and limestone bedrock. This is the highest energy and frequency in her range of still white wines and over delivers on expectations, even from this special winegrower. Gagnard's Chassagne-Montrachet "Les Chaumes" is always a tough one for us because of the quality of the wine and its price—at least for those who have a budget for Burgundy—and the minuscule quantity we get each year. Burgundy can be confusing and when one tries to dig into the lieux-dits of premier cru wines it can get a little hairy, but few more than the south side of Chassagne-Montrachet. In this specific area of the commune, known for its darker red clay soil, the premier crus, Boudriottes and Morgeot, are singular parcels in their own right, but they can swallow many of the less famous premier crus surrounding them and put their names on the label despite being different vineyards. To make it more confusing, there is a parcel of premier cru also named Les Chaumes, but Gagnard’s village parcel Les Chaumes abuts the premier cru, Boudriotte, just to the south. This wine always exceeds the expectation and given its proximity to one of the village’s most well-known vineyards, it’s no surprise. Gagnard’s parcel of Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Chaumées (not to be confused with the previous village wine, Les Chaumes) begins at 300 meters altitude and faces northeast on a relatively steep slope composed of shallow rocky white clay soil and limestone bedrock. It sits within the mouth of the east to west valley that opens up into Saint-Aubin and is exposed to cooler winds than those more protected in the middle of the Côte and far away from the valley. The characteristic trait of this type of terroir is expressed by Caroline through strikingly fine cords and a harmoniously high, but gently flowing analog frequency. Given this terroir’s natural tendency for tension, freshness and excesses of stone and mineral-like impressions, it’s all tucked into its read-between-the-lines style. This is not a tour de force Chassagne, but a tour de finesse. Les Chaumées' discreet nature will resonate with those who enjoy quietly beautiful, confident and thoroughly complex wines. The Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru Blanchot-Dessus is one of Gagnard’s best wines. It’s grandiose in a grand cru way with its heavyweight body and richness for a good premier cru price. The premier cru, Blanchot-Dessus, (not the village lieu-dit close by), is the story of seemingly an unlucky fault break in the limestone bedrock that may have led to this vineyard ultimately being stripped of the name, Blanchot-Batard-Montrachet, which if it weren't it would have catapulted it into eternal glory as the sixth Montrachet grand cru. Now it's one of the few remaining secrets for Burgundy insiders. There’s a lot more story behind this vineyard (which you can read about here), but suffice it to say that with only three cases imported each year into California, and with this banner year, it's a no-brainer for those with a bit of money set aside for special and rare bottles. The Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Caillerets is Gagnard's top premier cru; some consider it to be the grandest cru on the south hill of the commune. Gagnard’s parcels are prime, and located in En Caillerets on the spine of the hill and Les Combards, higher up on the slope. The other two vineyards within the commune that can be labeled as Les Caillerets are Vigne Derrière and Chassagne—yes, a vineyard in Chassagne-Montrachet is simply named Chassagne. What’s interesting about Gagnard’s parcels is that they are either quite steep (Les Combards) or on what appears to be more of a strongly convex section (En Caillerets), making for—in theory—even less topsoil than others that have a more concave slope, like much of Vigne Derrière, the vineyard just north of En Caillerets with the village on the other side. What a convex hill slope means is likely more cut, freshness and stoniness to go along with Les Caillerets’ fabulous body. The only critique I would dare to send the direction of Les Caillerets (and this is a stretched criticism) is that sometimes it’s too good at everything—like the MVP-type quarterback in American football that can throw perfectly and run with the speed and agility of a spooked deer. Caillerets’ imperfections are few. However, its shortcomings may be found by those who adore the imperfections in a wine that make it stand out, so long as the losses are made up with authenticity and honesty—for me, this is often the case with wine, and friends too. Everything is in line with Les Caillerets and it’s a tough one to beat, and criticize. Once the cork is pulled, take your time; this wine needs it. It will show you its magnificence one slow layer at a time and will surely earn your respect, as it confidently carries the reputation of Chassagne-Montrachet on its very capable shoulders. One extremely memorable bottle of Gagnard's Santenay Rouge 1er Cru Clos de Tavannes was opened for me on a recent visit to Caroline's cellar. It was decades old (I’m embarrassed to say that I can’t tell you what vintage it was!), and it floored me. It made a permanent believer out of me concerning the quality of Pinot Noir that is often overlooked in Santenay and Chassagne-Montrachet. Clos de Tavannes sits just across the border toward the southeast from Chassagne-Montrachet on perfect red wine soil: iron and calcium rich red clay and limestone. My suggestion is to forget about this wine once in your possession and occasionally check out its pretty label—one of my favorites in Burgundy. Caroline L’Estimé, the winegrower for decades now, and daughter of Jean-Noël Gagnard, destems the grapes completely but isn’t afraid to extract old school tannins to create a wine designed for the long haul. This renders a young wine with a stern palate but strikingly bright red fruit aromas that can be misleading for its early approachability. We were allocated only 48 bottles of this wine and a few will make it to my cellar, as they do each year. 2017 should offer a wine with much more upfront appeal than past years, but I’d still suggest to wait.