Author: Thomas Wilcox

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Delicious, Earthy, Rugged Everyday Rhône Red: $22

France’s Southern Rhône valley produces rich, smooth red blends. At one end of the spectrum there’s Châteauneuf-du-Pape, famous and long-lived; at the other there’s Côtes du Rhône, uncomplicated and inexpensive. Today’s wine is from the middle.

If Beaumes de Venise calls to mind dessert wines, you’re not wrong. The town is famous for its sweet Muscat wines first planted in 600 BCE. But the terroir also produces a small amount of excellent red, with a rugged richness that makes them sturdy and crowd-pleasing.

Goubert’s Beaumes de Venise is a blend of Grenache, Syrah, and Cinsault, with the final grape adding a sauvage quality that makes the wine distinct and delicious. The 2019 is terrific – dense and gorgeous, bursting with dark aromatics and no oak. All three grapes fermented together and raised in concrete tank; the wine is full of spice and garrigue, but all drawn from grapes and earth instead of wood.

The nose is dark and weathered, showing strawberry jam, honey, and earthy notes;. the mouth is lively and juicy, with pleasant structure. This is an astonishingly complete wine at $22. It’s perhaps a bit less refined than its older brother Gigondas, but what it lacks in elegance it makes up in pluck.

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Goubert Beaumes-de-Venise 2019
bottle price: $22

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Exquisite New White Burgundy from a Legendary Winemaker

All of the winemakers we work with in Burgundy are grower-producers, meaning they farm their own grapes and produce their own wine. But over the last few years of severely diminished yields, we’ve seen several winemakers add “négociant” operations, making additional wine with purchased grapes under another label. These cuvées often put winemaker skill on display, and such is the case with the wines of Caroline Letsimé.

Though we no longer offer Caroline Lestimé’s brilliant wines under her traditional Jean-Noël Gagnard label through our regular channels, we’re excited to have a few of her “négoce” cuvées in stock – both of this year’s show off Caroline’s technical cellar chops, and carry the signature glossy Gagnard character.

Caroline’s Savigny-les-Beaune is a bit out of left field, but trust us, you want some of this. No, it’s not really near Chassagne (it’s up a side valley west of the city of Beaune), and it’s the first Savigny in our cellar. But this wine is a tremendous value, and will delight any lover of white Burgundy.

The nose is bright and perfumy, with lemon, stones and faint herbs. The mouth shows beautiful sucrocité, with a sleek round texture that finishes vibrant and fresh. As with all of Caroline’s wines, the interplay of oak, fruit and earth is seamless. With its excellent freshness we expect this to drink well for a number of years.

Tasted blind we’d have placed it in St-Aubin or even Meursault. It’s easily the best Savigny-les-Beaune we’ve ever had, and will make any fan of the Gagnard style smile.

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Lestimé Savigny-les-Beaune blanc 2019
bottle price: $55

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The Essence of Chablis: Pure, Unoaked Premier Cru White Burgundy

More than anywhere else in Burgundy, winemakers in Chablis have felt the impact of recent warm vintages. Earlier harvests and more sun exposure have meant riper grapes and wines with fleshier, richer textures. This style of Chablis can support more oaking, and some winemakers have begun to increase the exposure to oak barrels.

Not Cyril Gautheron. His commitment to original Chablisien style is unwavering, and even today’s premier cru, bursting with an extra dose of citrus fruit and energy, is 100% stainless steel. Gautheron’s 2020 Chablis 1er Vaucoupin is pure, shimmering, and unadorned — a modern Chablis in a perfectly classic style.

Gautheron’s vines here are 50 years old, and produce intense concentrated juice. The clay-rich, south-facing soils produce a wine that Cyril somehow manages to reign into a neat, precise package. We found a terrific blend of fruit, freshness, savory herbs and minerality, with a hint of saline on the finish. Bill Nanson found “saline-edged citrus complexity. Chablis pure!”

Oaked whites and raw fish don’t get along well, but that’s no concern here. Pair this with tuna tartare, crudo, sushi, or – most perfectly – raw oysters. Or a lobster bisque and a fresh spring salad.

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Gautheron Chablis 1er “Vaucoupin” 2020
bottle price: $39

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“Succulent” and “Precise” New 2019 Chambolle-Musigny

Last week we finally met Philippe Cheron, winemaker at the newly created Domaine du Couvent. The new domaine combines the holdings of the shuttered Domaine des Varoilles and Cheron’s family vineyards, including several plots his grandfather planted in the 1930s. It’s a new lineup with a new label, but with a highly experienced winemaker, and vineyard holdings steeped in history.

Cheron’s 2020s from barrel last week were stunning: sleek, elegant, beautifully balanced and packed with flavor. They’ll be bottled later this year, and we look forward to offering them in January 2023. But the 2019s have (finally) just arrived in the states, and we’re thrilled to begin to release them today.

Cheron’s family holdings include an enviable collection of plots in Chambolle-Musigny. Philippe makes two cuvées from the town, one a single vineyard (Clos de l’Orme), and one a blend of a dozen plots across the tiny appellation. This blend, called “40 Ouvrées,” is named for the combined size of the plots; an ouvrée is an old unit of measure for the land one worker could harvest in a day.

Couvent’s 2019 Chambolle Musigny “Les 40 Ouvrées” is a terrific expression of the Chambolle appellation in total. It’s open and accessible, showing deep strawberry fruit and the silky texture for which the town is known. Neal Martin of Vinous awarded 90-92 points, finding it “delicate but precise,” “smooth and succulent, very lush in style, but maintains good balance and freshness,” concluding “very sensual.” Jancis Robinson found it “luxurious” and “delicious.”

Burghound calls Couvent “a domaine to watch,” and Martin writes “It is definitely a grower that I will keep an eye on.” We agree, and we’re thrilled to have them on board.

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Couvent Chambolle-Musigny
“40 Ouvrées” 2019
bottle price: $82

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Delicious, Sophisticated New 2020 Côte d’Or White Burgundy

White Burgundy is an easy wine to pair with food. At the high end, an ageworthy bottle Meursault or Puligny can exceed the subtlety and depth of a red Burgundy. Paired with a lobster risotto or veal in cream, it’s a marriage of opulence and charm.

But white Burgundy also answers the call for something uncomplicated and reliable — a Monday night pasta dish, or a hearty bowl of mussels. Gerard Thomas’s Bourgogne blanc has been our go-to white burgundy for over a decade. It has become a “house white” for many of our readers, and we’re honestly not sure what we’d do without it.

The 2020 Bourgogne blanc at last arrives in our warehouse today, after months in transit. It’s a staple of our cellar, and it’s awfully nice to have it back in stock.

Thomas’s 2020 white Burgundies are unusually good – a hot year with low yields concentrated both the fruit and the acidity, producing wines jam-packed with flavor and freshness. All of Thomas’s 2020s deliver far above their classification, and the Bourgogne particularly so. Classy yellow fruit palate pulses with energy and golden fleshy roundness – this is entry-level only in name and price.

The nose is soft and elegant, with hazelnut and toasty oak notes melting into lemon and baked apple fruit. The mouth is round and mouthcoating, with delicate freshness acidity balancing a shimmering core. It’s delightful on its own – if you open a bottle while you’re still making dinner, better have a second bottle at the ready.

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Thomas Bourgogne 2020
bottle price: $29

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Masterful, Small-Batch Grower Champagne

Over the weekend Pascal Bardoux welcomed us to his kitchen table for an intimate tasting of his terrific grower Champagnes. Pascal’s wines are just like the man himself: subtle, understated, and delightful. In a region where “le marketing” is king, Bardoux’s delicious, hand-crafted, well-priced cuvées stand out.

This time we tasted three magnificent vintage cuvées from magnum, and we’re excited to bring them back to the states later this year. But Pascal’s humble Brut Traditionnel is his calling card, and it’s as good as ever. Much mass-market Champagne that gets to the US fetches between $75 and $100 a bottle; Bardoux’s small-batch Brut Traditionnel doesn’t even crack $50 — twice the wine at half the price.

Bardoux’s Brut Traditionnel is his non-vintage cuvée, and an excellent entrypoint to the collection. A blend of 60% Pinot Meunier, 30% Chardonnay and 10% Pinot Noir, this wine has the complexity and depth to match the finest bottles from Burgundy or Bordeaux. The nose shows plum, chalk, lime zest, and buttered biscuits; the mouth is dry, elegant, and smooth, with notes of apple and toast.

We can’t recommend this wine highly enough. Think of it as a refined, complex wine in its own right; it just happens to feature bubbles. Some of our favorite pairings include: sushi, triple-cream cheese (like Delice de Bourgogne or Brillat-Savarin), or gougères.

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Bardoux Champagne Traditionnel NV
bottle price: $49

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Elegant, Focused $25 Red Burgundy with 400 Years of History

Something that often strikes us when we visit France is the expanded sense of time. The countryside is littered with twelfth century chateaux, Roman era churches, even remains of neolithic settlements. Vignerons in particular have an expanded time horizon – the vines they plant today may not be mature until their children are grown; Champagne producers lay down their vintage bottles imagining what the world will be like in ten years when they finally disgorge them.

The Boursot family in Chambolle-Musigny has been growing grapes on the same hillsides since 1550. The most recent generation has upgraded the facilities and the focus, and their wines have begun to gain substantial critical interest. Our tasting there last week was terrific, as the winemakers blend their considerable history with cutting edge winemaking techniques.

Boursot’s simplest cuvée, their Bourgogne rouge, comes from vines near Vosne-Romanée and Chambolle-Musigny, and this origin helps explain the wine’s unusual refinement. Inexpensive regional level Burgundy can lack complexity or freshness, and in recent hot summers many have devolved into “fruit bombs.” Boursot’s avoids both traps, emerging as a wine with unparalleled subtlety for its level.

Clocking in at 13% alcohol, with fine grained but subtle tannins, the Boursot 2019 Bourgogne rouge is like the Bourgogne rouge of a decade ago. (The pricing may remind you of the aughts as well.) The nose shows wild cherry, chalk, and earth, bursting with unoaked freshness. The mouth is fine-boned and dry with just enough tannin to support the delicate fruit, and a classic Burgundian minerality.

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Boursot Bourgogne rouge 2019
bottle price: $25

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Superb 2019 Premier Cru from Saint-Aubin’s Best Vineyard

The changing climate has caused dramatic shifts amid the tiny microclimates of Burgundy’s Côte d’Or. In a region where a few meters makes the difference between four-figure Grand Cru and $60 village, a couple degrees of warmer weather can have profound effect.

Among the undisputed winners is the side valley of St-Aubin. With some of the highest elevation vines in the Côte d’Or, this appellation once on the margins of ripeness is increasingly right in the middle. During our tastings in Burgundy this week we’ve tasted dozens of St-Aubin cuvées, many of which are perfectly situated to maintain balance amid the ever warming growing seasons.

We’ve long loved the terroirs of St-Aubin, and are pleased to see them increasingly receiving their due – even if it’s meant they’re scarcer and pricier. We have several producers who farm here; but among our favorites is Domaine Bohrmann. Bohrmann’s style is low oak, pure fruit, and exquisitely balanced texture: richness, depth and energy all at once. Raised in only 15% new oak for a year, their St-Aubin 1er cru comes from “En Remilly,” considered one of the town’s top vineyards.

This wine is lively and generous at the same time: thick and full of a rippling intensity, combining perfectly ripe golden fruit with structure and minerality. There’s precision capable of enhancing your most refined dishes — sole meuniere, for example. The use of oak is perfect: support for the minerals and fruit, but without too much spice or toast.

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Bohrmann St-Aubin 1er “En Remilly” 2018
bottle price: $59

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Delicious New 2019 Red Burgundy from Michel Gros

Yesterday morning we tasted through Michel Gros’s 2020 vintage from barrel. It’s a terrific year, with both tremendous density and great energy. Hot, dry growing seasons have become the norm in Burgundy, and while they still make life difficult for the growers, the vignerons here begun to adapt their practices in the vines and the cellar. The resulting wines are as good as they’ve ever been.

Gros’s 2020s will be in the October Futures offering this fall, but in the meantime the 2019s continue to drink beautifully. Gros’s 2019s were universally successful. While most of their village, premier cru and grand cru wines sold out through Futures last year, his regional level wines offer a chance to experience this superb vintage with more modest investment.

Today we’re suggesting the 2019 Hautes-Côtes de Nuits “Au Vallon,” one of Gros’s regional level cuvées, and one that performed particularly well in 2019. The bottle we opened last night was terrific – pure and precise with an expressive nose of red fruits and violets. The mouth is delicious, with excellent concentration and lots of depth.

Vinous’s Neal Martin found “fine grained tannins” and called it “commendably energetic,” concluding “this is worth seeking out.” Burghound awarded it both his Outstanding and Top Value labels, finding it “sleek and fine with a beguiling intensity” and concluding “this is very good and worthy of your interest.”

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Michel Gros Hautes-Côtes de Nuits “Au Vallon” 2019
bottle price: $36

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Tremendous 10-Year-Old Vintage Grower Champagne.

We at last visited the Domaine Jacques Robin in the Côtes des Bar on Saturday. Sebastien Robin gave us a tour of his family’s small domaine, and tasted us through a terrific lineup in his small, cozy tasting room alongside a crackling wood stove.

Robin’s finest wine is their 2011 Cuvée Kimmeridgienne – made from pure Pinot Noir grown in chalk/limestone/clay soils, this wine sat on its lees for seven years, gaining complexity and exceptional depth.

The wine stands on its own as a delicious vintage grower champagne. But after seeing its origin – a small family domaine where Sebastien and his sisters produce tiny quantities of thoughtful, precise, handmade Champagne – it’s even more impressive.

Made from 100% pinot noir, the 2011 Kimmeridgienne has spent eight years on the lees, and the payoff in depth and complexity is immediately evident. The nose is gorgeous and refined, showing notes of cream, brioche, creme brulee, coffee, and hazelnut; the mouth is dry and very long, with notes of candied fruit, chalk, and butter.

Vintage grower champagne of this caliber can easily cost twice this or more, and much of it isn’t half this interesting or complex. Just a few thousand bottles were made nearly a decade ago, and have sat quietly since then, gaining magnificent depth. Our batch in stock was disgorged last fall, and is in perfect condition for enjoyment this year.

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Robin Champagne Kimmeridgienne 2011
bottle price: $75

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Chiseled Premier Cru Chablis: Pears and Saline

We visited Romain Collet in Chablis yesterday morning – he pruned late this year and wasn’t too worried about tonight’s forecasted frost. (It’s another story in the Côte d’Or.) Spring frosts have become the norm in Chablis these days, and Romain has steered his domaine beautifully, making terrific wines in difficult circumstances.

His 2021s tasted in tank were vibrant, energetic wines with classic Chablisienne zip. His 2020s from bottle are similarly excellent, with a generous, approachable lushness laid over a crisp core of minerals. (The 2020s will be in next month’s May Futures.) Romain has long since sold all his terrific 2019s, a very dry vintage with excellent concentration and a laser focus – but we’ve got several of them left in stock in the states.

Today we’re suggesting his 2019 Chablis 1er cru “Forêts,” the cuvée for those who like their Chablis steely and bone-dry.

Wine Critics Allen Meadows (Burghound) and William Kelley (Wine Advocate) have noted a “higher level of refinement” and a “significant upsurge in quality.” Jasper Morris MW writes that Romain Collet “is moving towards joining the pantheon” in Chablis.

From a subsection of the Montmains hillside, this plot is extremely steep and stony. This cuvée is vinified in cement eggs, which allow a long, slow, cool fermentation. The 2019 Forêts is electric and vibrant, with muted fruit and a gorgeous fresh salinity. Drink all spring as the earth awakens from hibernation.

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Collet Chablis 1er “Forêts” 2019
bottle price: $38

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“Succulent” 93 point 2019 Côte Rôtie from Bonnefond

On Wednesday we visited Christophe Bonnefond and his daughter Lea in the Côte Rôtie. Their 2020 and 2021 vintages are extraordinary, some of the best and most balanced wines they’ve made — at once rich, deep, inky, chewy and refreshing. Locals have grown syrah in this tiny corner of the Côte Rôtie for thousands of years, but we’d be willing to bet not much of it has ever been this good.

The 2020s will be in this year’s July Futures issue, but we’re thrilled to have a bit of the 2019s still left in stock back in Newton. Once firmly in the ripe, oaky, “extroverted” camp that made them a darling of Robert Parker, the Bonnefonds have shifted towards subtler expression in recent years: less time in oak, larger barrels, and earlier harvests.

The domaine now achieve an extraordinary subtlety in their wines — it’s still bold, brooding, inky-dark Northern Rhône Syrah, but somehow also with subtlety, grace, and lift.

The 2019s from Bonnnefond were uniformly delicious, and enthusiastically recommend their fancier cuvées (Rochins and Rozier) for the back of your cellar. Today we’re suggesting Bonnefond’s entry-level Côte Rôtie “Colline de Couzou,” a wine we think will continue to improve for a decade, but it’s already flat out delicious today.

Josh Raynolds awarded 91-93 points, finding “blueberry and candied violet,” with a “succulent and penetrating” palate, concluding “hefty and broad yet lively as well.” This is among the best vintages of this wine in recent memory; we’d compare it to the Rochins cuvée in a less favorable year. Pair it with slow-roasted lamb for Easter.

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Bonnefond Côte Rôtie “Colline” 2019
bottle price: $59

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Smooth, Rich, Overperforming Châteauneuf. $35 | VIDEO TRAVEL BLOG

After three years away from in-person tastings, we were worried we might feel a bit rusty as we began our tasting trip yesterday morning. So we chose to begin with Christophe Mestre, a warm, generous winemaker who welcomed us into his cave as though we’d seen him only last week.

We tasted Mestre’s 2019s from bottle and 2020s from barrel, two very different but excellent vintages with lots of potential. Christophe also opened a bottle of his terrific 2018, which we’ve been enjoying since last fall. It continues to be delicious, and we enthusiastically recommend it again.

Mestre’s small-production Châteauneuf cuvée has become a favorite among our readers, offering uncomplicated, full-bodied enjoyment without the usual $50+ investment. The nose is explosive, with a wide range of notes from violets and pan drippings to strawberry jam and lavender. The mouth is smooth and soft and rich, with a dark red complexion and silky tannins. Critic Jeb Dunnock awarded 90-92 points, finding it “medium bodied, nicely textured, and with ample character.”

We shared a lovely lunch with Jacqueline André yesterday afternoon, and her tremendous, beautiful, ageworthy Châteauneuf is as good as ever. But Mestre’s cuvée shows a more accessible, more affordable, and less serious expression of the terroir. We plan to continue to enjoy both, and invite you to do the same.

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Mestre Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2018
bottle price: $35

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Smooth, Floral, Elegant Southern White Blend from Goubert

Nearly all of the domaines we work with here in France are family businesses. Some have been passed down for centuries, others feature three generations in business at once. As a family business ourselves, we love seeing the dynamics of small family enterprises play out on this side of the Atlantic.

And nowhere is this more charmingly evident than with the Cartier Family at the Domaine les Goubert in Gigondas. Florence Cartier took over winemaking duties several years ago and the results have been terrific, but her parents (the original winemakers) are never far from the tasting room. During our visit Monday Florence took us back to see the mise-en-bouteille in progress — and, sure enough, there was mother Mireille running the bottling line, and father Jean-Pierre driving the forklift.

Florence’s wines are excellent on their own, but for us, the cheerful family behind them makes them even more enjoyable.

Our only white wine from Goubert is an unusual and delicious blend of viognier and roussanne. Both grapes are floral and very aromatically expressive, but Florence has expertly steered them into a neat package with excellent tension and cut.

The nose shows white flowers and peaches, with exotic spices and pineapple. The mouth is round and smooth but crisp, with excellent depth and lush notes of pear and citrus. This is a great food wine, particularly with hard-to-pair greens like asparagus or salads. We plan to serve this on Easter Sunday afternoon in a few weeks.

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Goubert Favoris blanc 2019
bottle price: $28

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“Refined,” Delicious $24 White Burgundy

The Ansonia team arrived in France this morning, after the longest stretch away (three years) in more than two decades. The world has changed a bit since March 2019, as has the market for Burgundy, our business, and even your trusty tasters. We’ve added new offspring, new family members, new customers, new vignerons and even a few new gray hairs. But our passion for France and its winemakers has remained unchanged, and if anything we bring a renewed enthusiasm for our overdue visit.

We’ve got a packed schedule for the next few weeks, and we invite you to follow along on our Instagram and YouTube channels as we post (hopefully daily) updates from our trip. And if we answer emails a bit slower than usual, we kindly ask your patience – there’s three years’ worth of foie gras to be eaten over here…

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Aligoté is having a moment in Burgundy. Vignerons have grown the grape here for centuries, but for most of that time it’s been considered an afterthought – a high-acid grape producing humble, refreshing, unserious wines.

But as summers grow ever hotter and growing seasons shorten, Burgundian growers perennially in search of freshness have begun to rethink the grape’s potential. There’s even a movement to consider allowing blending with Chardonnay for major appellations, should the trend of ever warmer and drier summers continue.

Vincent Boyer’s Bourgogne-Aligoté makes a powerful case for the grape’s potential. It’s not in the same class as his magnificent cuvées from Meursault and Puligny, of course; but it’s the classiest Aligoté we know, and a startling bargain.

Boyer’s 2019 Bourgogne-Aligoté continues to get better. The nose is floral and gorgeous, with notes of white flowers, pear, and chalk. The mouth is smooth and round, with far more weight than the grape typically offers. The finish is clean and compact, with precise freshness and a lovely dollop of stones.

This is Aligoté that would beat out many a Bourgogne blanc in a head to head. There’s a regal character to the wine that would have been unthinkable for the grape a decade or two ago. Burghound found it “wonderfully fresh,” citing its “vibrant middle weight flavors” and “unusually refined texture.” Forget what you know about Aligoté; Boyer’s refines the genre.

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Boyer-Martenot Bourgogne Aligoté 2019
bottle price: $24

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