Author: Thomas Wilcox

Bordeaux is best known for its Grands Vins, the famous chateaux whose pricey wines improve for decades. But the varied terroirs of Bordeaux also produce some terrific “petit vins,” which share the same soils and grapes, but are more accessible for both the palate and the pocket.

Fleuron de Liot is a tiny, Burgundy-sized domaine run by the Negrier family. Their Saint-Estèphe is 50/50 Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, a humble, traditional, simply delicious Left-Bank Bordeaux. It doesn’t carry the prestige or airworthiness of Cos d’Estournel or Montrose, but that’s not its game.

The 2019 Fleuron de Liot is a delight – with notes of plums, tobacco, pencil shavings, and gravel in the nose, the mouth remains sturdy and juicy, perfect for a weeknight plate of steak frites. Pour it into a decanter a few hours before your meal, and let it come to room temperature. Nobody will guess you paid less than $50.

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Fleuron de Liot St-Estèphe 2019
bottle price: $32

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The Loire Valley continues to be one of the most exciting corners of winemaking in France. Organic viticulture, balanced wines, and affordable prices are the rule here rather than the exception. We find ourselves reaching for Loire reds often these days, whatever the occasion – they’re characterful, refreshing, complex and downright tasty.

Our favorite source for these delicious reds is the Domaine des Sanzay, an organic fixture of Saumur-Champigny in the central Loire. Their unblended Cabernet Franc wines have become highly popular in our warehouse, with their simple Saumur red and old-vine cuvée opening tasters’ eyes to a new expression of the grape. But today we’re focused on their most impressive wine, an old-vine single parcel cuvée – a Cab Franc with real presence.

With 60+ year old vines and giving small yields and very intense fruit, Sanzay’s 2018 “Dares” cuvée has taken a few years to settle down. But today it’s magnificent and is only beginning to show its character. Vinous’s Loire Valley reviewer Rebecca Gibb MW found “masses of well-handled tannins, fruit depth and classy vanilla oak…powerful and well-made.” Well-aged Cabernet Franc can rival Burgundy for subtlety and depth, and this is a perfect example.

This isn’t quite to the level of its iconic neighbor Clos Rougeard, but at $32 (rather than $320), it might be a better buy.

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Sanzay Saumur-Champigny “Dares” 2018
bottle price: $32

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Michel Gros tends vines in some of Burgundy’s most famous towns: Vosne-Romanée, Chambolle-Musigny, Nuits-St-Georges, etc. But he also makes terrific wine in the Hautes-Côtes de Nuits, a hilly sub-region just west of the famous Côte d’Or. The terroirs are more varied and the grapes ripen a bit slower, but Michel coaxes terrific wine from these less famous hillsides, and their pricetag is far friendlier

Gros’s finest wine from the Hautes-Côtes is “Fontaine-St-Martin,” a cuvée from perfect soils that in good vintages offers the complexity and elegance of his village wines, if perhaps a bit less site specificity. Today we’re offering up our last few cases of the 2016 Hautes-Côtes “Fontaine-St-Martin,” a wine at peak maturity, and one to be had for under $50.

The 2016 Fontaine-St-Martin punches well above its weight. It sports the vintage’s intricate, fine-grained tannins, with dark blue fruit, and floral notes of violets and roses. Now 7 years on from harvest, it shows delicate dried red fruits and a beautiful patinated palate.Master of Wine Julia Harding (via JancisRobinson.com) called it, “Dry, tight and fresh, elegant and refined … just a lovely, complete wine and well priced.”

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Gros Hautes-Côtes “Fontaine-St-Martin” 2016
bottle price: $45

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The South of France has always been hot, but like everywhere else, it’s getting hotter. Even with grape varietals adapted to warm climates, winemakers often struggle to achieve freshness in their wines.

One winemaker who doesn’t struggle is Nicolas Haeni of the Domaine Malmont in Séguret. Haeni’s vines lie on a terraced slope in the hills above Séguret, perfectly positioned to offset the blazing hot Provencal sun. The Malmont terroir is cooler and breezier, enabling the grapes to reach maturity without becoming baked or dried out.

Now with a few years in the bottle, Nicolas’s 2019 Séguret “Petit Rouge” is simply delightful, and a real bargain. It’s 70/30 syrah/grenache, raised in stainless steel, and alcohol clocking in at a cool 13.5%. The nose is dark and complex with classic syrah notes of violets and blackberry — by nose you might mistake it for a Northern Rhône pure syrah. But in the mouth the grenache shines through a bit more, with beautiful depth a splash of red fruit and cinnamon.

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Malmont Séguret “Petit Rouge” 2019
bottle price: $22

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The 2020 white Burgundies have been almost universally terrific. The drought caused many chardonnay vines simply to shut down mid-season, stalling the production of their sugars and in the end producing wines with both a ripe concentration and tremendous energy. We’ve bought just about all the 2020s we could get our hands on, and they’ve rightly disappeared from the warehouse at quite a clip. We’ve just added what’s likely our final cuvée from the vintage.

Nicolas Maillet is a well-known organic source in the Maconnais, Burgundy’s southernmost region. Maillet is a bear of a man with a quick smile and burly enthusiasm to match his impressive stature. His wines are characterful and charming, and still a bargain – William Kelley calls his Macon-Verzé “one of the Mâconnais’s perennial values.”

Maillet’s Macon-Verzé 2020 comes from vines on chalk-limestone soils, and offers beautiful tension, with terrific length and structure, and not a hint of wood. There’s a shimmering golden character to this wine that makes it irresistible. William Kelley found notes of “green apple, honeysuckle and orange blossom,” calling it “ample and lively wine that’s pure and mouthwatering.” It’s a perfect aperitif wine – a complete mouthful on its own. Serve it with anything and nothing.

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Maillet Macon-Verzé 2020
bottle price: $32

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Chablis continues to be a haven of terrific value Burgundy. After several scorching hot vintages in which the crisp, piercing soul of old-school Chablis seemed temporarily offstage, 2021 provided a return to traditional form. A cooler, wetter, trickier growing season pushed harvest into late September, and the wines are effortlessly tasty in a vintage that was anything but.

Romain Collet dabbles with modern, oak-infused Chablis, and the wines are tasty if not exactly traditional. But our favorites are always the classics: plenty of stony freshness, low or no toast, and clean zippy finishes. Romain’s 2021s are exquisite – Burghound called them “entirely classic” – and lovers of old school Chablis will find much to like. Collet’s vines in the Vaillons 1er Cru are between 55 and 60 years old, and they produce a nicely balanced wine, with good concentration and well-supported ripeness.

Jasper Morris found the bouquet “both stylish and typical, stones with lemon zest.” Burghound praised its “cool and airy aromas,” its “intense and attractively sleek” flavors, and its “lovely minerality.” The Burgundy pricing bubble still hasn’t floated up to Chablis, and we think this is tremendously polished sub-$40 white Burgundy.

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Collet Chablis 1er “Vaillons” 2021
bottle price: $38

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Much of the world’s syrah is rich, velvety and mouthcoating. But in the Northern Rhône Valley, syrah draws its strength from subtlety. Here delicate aromas of violets, perfume, smoke and stones combine with fresh mouthfeel and vibrant texture. Northern Rhône Syrah is a marriage of dark-fruited complexion with elegance and pep.

Our best value here are Denis Basset’s organic Crozes-Hermitage cuvées. They sport the texture of a fresh Beaujolais but with the dark fruits of Syrah. Basset’s “Etincelle” cuvée is the sort of wine you’d find in a wine bar – simple, refreshing, punchy and delicious.

This is wine you can snack on: settle into an armchair after a long day of work, or sip a glass while you cook dinner.

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St-Clair Crozes-Hermitage “Etincelle” 2020
bottle price: $25

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Our first two vintages with the Forces Telluriques have been wildly popular. The magnificent, unoaked, biodynamic white Burgundy has quickly become a reader favorite. It shouldn’t surprise anyone, really – you won’t find the Forces Telluriques label on any CellarTracker accounts (except Ansonia customers), but the wine in the bottle is from an iconic Mâconnais source with an exclusive importer for the primary label.

The family who creates this wine are true believers in the theory of biodynamics — minimal vineyard intervention in the vines, meticulous and hands-off winemaking. William Kelley calls them “one of the best producers in the Mâconnais “ producing “ honeyed, concentrated wines that are imbued with remarkable concentration and energy.”

The 2021 has just arrived in our warehouse, and it’s both exceptional and unique. Our last two vintages (2018 and 2020) were lush and ripe, with gorgeous golden richness and plenty of body. The 2021 vintage brought cooler and wetter weather, resulting in more botrytis than usual in the vines. This “noble rot,” generally considered a malady in Côte d’Or white Burgundies, is often embraced in the Maconnais. The resulting wine is dry, but with exquisite, delightful notes of botrytis.

The 2021 Forces Telluriques is a triumph. The domaine harvested slowly, over about 15 days, achieving 13.2% naturally – a real feat in a cool vintage. The resulting wine is superb, showing ripeness without weight, a wine that is lively and alive. The Wine Advocate’s William Kelley gave 93 points, finding “Aromas of clear honey, white flowers, beeswax and sweet spices” calling it “a suave and vibrant wine that’s satiny, bright and fine-boned, concluding with a bright, gently exotic finish.”

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Forces Telluriques Viré-Clessé 2021
bottle price: $45

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Christophe Mestre and his wife are from old Châteauneuf du Pape families. Like many such families, their vines are in plots scattered across the town’s remarkably diverse terroir. The Mestres makes a single red cuvée from these terroirs, seeking an expression of the appellation as a whole. It’s always delicious, and always well priced.

Mestre’s just arrived 2020 Châteauneuf-du-Pape is rich and beautiful, with lush fruit and an easy, appealing texture. The Wine Advocate awarded 91 points, calling it “an attractive effort” with “softly dusty tannins” and a “silky impression on the full-bodied palate.” We agree, and think this should offer pure, uncomplicated delight for the next five years. Some Châteauneuf requires years of patience to reach its potential – Mestre’s is delicious today.

The nose explodes with ripe strawberry fruit and a pleasant cool earthiness. Despite a blistering hot year, Christophe managed to build tannins behind the fruit beautifully, and this wine is well defined and not the least bit flabby. With chilly weather here for a while, this is as useful and cozy as a new pair of wool socks.

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Mestre Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2020
bottle price: $35

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Every January we search our lineup for an early bird Futures offer that isn’t Poggerino’s Chianti Classico, and every year we come up short. It’s simply one of the best values in our portfolio, and somehow seems to get better every single year. This year’s sample is even more packed with flavor than usual, and its many (many!) fans will be delighted.

“The 2021 Chianti Classico is exceptional.” Thus begins Antonio Galloni’s review of Poggerino’s flagship wine, and having just tasted a sample, we wholeheartedly agree. We found the same gorgeous floral, dusty nose as always, with perhaps a deeper plum fruit profile than usual. The mouth carries an extra dose of richness and length.

Galloni awarded 93 points, finding “lavender, spice, menthol, licorice, and tobacco,” and calling it “racy and layered.” Jancis Robinson’s reviewer found it “fantastic,” calling it “long, intense and concentrated, with bags of polished tannins that never dominate the fruit.” This is many readers’ house wine, and loyal customers will be thrilled with the new vintage. For those unfamiliar, this is good a value as any in our cellar, and one you won’t regret adding to yours.

Poggerino Chianti Classico 2021: $250/case

Email Tom to reserve this wine

Available by the case and half case; expected arrival March 2024

Philippe Cheron is one of the most exciting winemakers in our portfolio. He’s not new to the job – indeed he’s spent his life making wine around the Côte d’Or. But his newly created Domaine du Couvent, a combination of his family plots and the old Domaine des Varoilles, is an outstanding collection of properties, and Cheron himself is a master.

He told us that Chambolle has always been his favorite town, and so when the opportunity arose to acquire some vines there last year he jumped at the chance. Cheron’s newest cuvée is Chambolle-Musigny 1er cru “les Fuesselottes,” and even though he had to give up some Grand Cru Charmes-Chambertin wines to get it, we’re awfully glad he did.

The inaugural vintage 2021 Couvent Fuesselottes is magnificent, with distinctly floral aromas of violets and briary blackberries. Burghound awarded 90-93 points, as well as his “outstanding” distinction, finding “a wafting, airy and elegant nose [that] displays perfumed notes of rose petal, herbal tea, spice and essence of red cherry.” He concluded: “This is classic Feusselottes.”

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Couvent Chambolle-Musigny 1er cru
“Fuessellotes” 2021
bottle price: $150
2+ bottle price: $127.50 (use code FRIDAY)

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The style of winemaking in Chablis is somewhat in flux these days. Recent hot summers in Chablis have meant a departure from the stony, crystalline expression of old. These richer, rounder wines can handle more oak, and some winemakers have extended their elevage, creating wines with richness and complexity to rival those of the Côte d’Or.

Not Cyril Gautheron. To him such wines may be tasty, but they’re not Chablis. Gautheron has doubled down on the classic style, dialing back his oak in some places, and relying solely on terroir and fruit for expression. The results are magnificent. From a cool, wet vintage, his 2021s may be small in number, but they are nothing short of exquisite.

One of our favorite Gautheron wines in recent years has been his “Fourneaux,” a premier cru raised entirely in steel. White peaches and lemon peel join chalk and minerals in the nose. The mouth is pure and lithe with exquisite tension and a long, beautiful finish. A perfect example of classical Chablis, and exceptional pricing that somehow still accompanies it.

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Gautheron Chablis 1er “Fourneaux” 2021
bottle price: $42

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Roget Belland’s wines are too tasty. His wines age well, but they’re so delicious and approachable young that most don’t last long in our cellar. He uses a long, slow fermentation to produce reds with ripe fruit and beautiful aromatics.

In 2020 Belland’s friendly style compliments an unusually dense vintage, and the resulting wines are elegant, refined, and packed with flavor. Winemaker Martin Boyer has expertly balanced the lush fruit of the vintage with clean freshness and stony precision.

Belland’s Santenay 1er Gravieres 2020 is fresh and lively, with exquisite floral notes and a fine mineral nose of stones and roses. The mouth is crisp and fresh with excellent length. There’s classic juicy 2020 fruit, but it’s not a bit overripe – the stony fruit is perfectly supported by careful tannins. Burghound gave 90 points, finding it “attractively textured,” “seductive,” and “refreshing.” Serve with roast chicken or pork chops.

 

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Belland Santenay 1er “Gravieres” 2020
bottle price: $49

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The Clos de Vougeot is one of Burgundy’s great landmarks. First planted with vines in the 11th century, the wall around the vineyard dates to 1336, and the majestic Chateau to 1551. It’s a Burgundian icon, both of culture and viticulture.

With more than 80 owners across an astounding 50 hectares (120 acres) of vines, the wines from the Clos de Vougeot vary widely in character and quality – so much so that the different “neighborhoods” within the Clos are often included on the label. As with many things in Burgundy, you can’t get too specific.

Michel Gros is among our most talented and best known winemakers. His two tenths of a hectare in the Clos represent just 0.4% of the vineyard – but if you had to pick a corner of Clos Vougeot for your couple rows of vines, Gros’s plot is where you’d pick. The “Grand Maupertuis” is considered one of the finest sectors in the massive vineyard, and Michel’s tiny sliver of land here produces magnificent wine.

The 2017 vintage is offering beautiful early drinking – Gros’s premier cru 2017 are magnificent today – and we think even the Clos Vougeot, typically Gros’s longest lived wine, will not require the decade of patience it often does. Writer Sarah Marsh MW calls it “layered and powerful” with “no lack of structure…nicely refined and compact.” With an hour in a decanter, this will be an impressive and regal presence on your Christmas dinner table this year. Or if you’ve got patience (or someone on your gift list with a cellar), give this another 3-5 years and enjoy a delicious slice of history.

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Michel Gros Clos de Vougeot Grand Cru 2017
bottle price: $250
24hr sale price: $212.50 (use code FRIDAY)

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Lots of wine drinkers will tell you they don’t drink Merlot; but we bet far fewer would turn down a glass of this wine. After seven years in the bottle, the Chateau Destieux’s 2016 Saint-Emilion Grand Cru Classé is pure, hedonistic pleasure. It may not be as complex as Ausone or as long lived as Cheval Blanc — but it’s proof that in the right terroir, Merlot can profound and outstanding.

Antonio Galloni of Vinous was blown away by the 2016, calling it “gorgeous, modern St-Emilion,” offering “tremendous depth,… dark, jammy fruit, chocolate, spice, and new leather.” He awarded 94 points, and called it “a terrific showing.” His Vinous colleague Neal Martin, often a harder grader than Galloni, called it “among the best wines I have tasted from this estate.”

This is a wine of boldness, glamour, texture and intensity. Open it today and enjoy it over several evenings — there’s impressive stuffing and backbone. But put a few bottles in the back of your cellar, and pull them out over the next few years — the wine ages magnificently, and by your last bottle we guarantee you’ll wish you had more.

 

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Destieux St-Emilion Grand Cru Classé 2016
bottle price: $85

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