Author: Thomas Wilcox

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Violets, Thyme, Wild Cherries, Plums: Exuberant, Living Grenache/Syrah Blend

The primary trend we see in French winemaking today is less intervention. Winemakers treat less in the vines, limit sulfur, and use wild, ambient yeasts for their fermentations.

Though this “naturalization” of winemaking means more work for the vignerons, the results speak for themselves. Low-intervention wines can be hard to get right, but when they’re good they can be extraordinary.

The winemakers at the Mas Foulaquier aren’t new to the natural game — in fact they no know other way. Foulaquier has been biodynamic and organic since its founding two decades ago. Their wines are clean and perfectly formed, marrying ripe fruit with earthy notes from their rugged terroir.

Whenever Spring gets around to showing up, Foualquier’s 2017 Orphée will be the perfect red for the season. We’ve imported the Orphée for almost a decade now, and 2017 is the best it’s been. The Grenache/Syrah blend cool and fresh in the nose, showing berries, bay leaf, violets, and earth. The mouth is dark and beautifully textured, with softened tannins and notes of cassis, roses, and spice.

The bursting, juicy texture of this wine makes it effortless to like and hard to put down. Close your eyes and plunge your nose into the glass. It’s a wine full of life, and it might just make you feel the same. (NOTE: Foulaquier’s wines are always best enjoyed outside, free to commune with the natural world from which they spring. Maybe next week you’ll finally be able to try it.)

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Foulaquier Orphée 2017
bottle price: $28

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“Quintessential” Chablis: Unoaked Everyday White Burgundy. $26

White Burgundy makes an excellent “by the glass” wine for your house. It pairs with a wide range of foods, and with no food at all — an essential component to a well-stocked cellar. Think of it as wine’s Swiss Army Knife, useful in far more situations than you can think of at one time.

Jean Collet’s entry level Chablis is particularly versatile, with enough freshness to match veal and mushrooms in a cream sauce, but enough ripeness for a glass after a long day of work. Collet’s 2017 Chablis is even better than usual, from a year with perfect balance between ripeness and tension.

The Wine Advocate’s excellent new Burgundy reviewer William Kelley called this “well worth seeking out,” awarding 90 points, and calling it “glossy and textural, with good concentration, racy acids, and a long, delineated finish.” He goes on to say “the combination of ripe fruit with quintessentially Chablisien cut and tension is compelling.” Kelley named one his “six great values on the market.”

We agree and are pleased to be well stocked with the wine. The nose is clean, pure, and precise, showing pear and stones. The mouth is brisk and lively but also intense and smooth, with an enticing roundness punctuated by vibrant minerality. We plan to serve it all spring and summer, and we’re sure your guests would welcome the same.

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Collet Chablis 2017
bottle price: $26

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Two “Outstanding” 93-Point 2015 Premier Crus from Michel Gros

The neighboring towns of Nuits-St-Georges and Vosne-Romanée produce strikingly different wines. In general, Vosne is elegant and ethereal; Nuits is bold and muscly. Taste them side by side and it’s hard to believe they share a border.

Michel Gros is a sixth generation resident of Vosne (his mother was the mayor), but he makes several cuvées from Nuits as well. Today we’re suggesting two ideas from Gros, one from each town — both premier crus, both from the legendary 2015 vintage, both 93 points and “outstanding” ratings from Burghound.

The good news is you don’t have to pick just one.

The Vosne-Romanée 1er cru “Clos des Réas” is a terrific wine in any year — in 2015 it’s magnificent. Look for notes of dry raspberries, spice, and violets. Burghound awarded 93 points, finding it “vibrant,” “sleek,” and “outstanding.”

Gros’s Nuits-St-Gerges 1er cru comes from two plots tiny plots of very old vines, which produce only three barrels in a good year. In the 2015 look for dark, juicy notes of cassis, briary woodsiness and a muscular mouthfeel. Burghound gave 93 points, finding “excellent volume,” and calling it “bold and very Nuits,” and “outstanding.”

 

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Gros Vosne-Romanée 1er cru “Clos des Réas” 2015
bottle price: $159

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Gros Nuits-St-Georges 1er cru 2015
bottle price: $115

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Mixed Half-Case (3 of each wine)
bottle price:  $822  $750 + free shipping

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“Delicious,” 8-Year-Old Premier Cru Red Burgundy with Impeccable Provenance

In a fast-paced world, cellaring wine has become a rarity. Not all wines are meant to age, and indeed the wine world’s style continues to shift toward early maturity. But for wine that rewards patience, the transformation of bottle aging is nothing short of magic.

Today we’re suggesting 2011 Morey-St-Denis 1er cru “Millandes” from Jean-Louis Amiot — it’s proof that ageworthy wine doesn’t have to cost hundreds of dollars. Located about ten yards from the famous Grand Cru Clos de la Roche, Millandes is a premier cru that always punches above its weight, but that also needs a few years to reach its potential.

Patience may be a virtue, but in this case someone else has done the work for you.

This lot of 2011 Millandes comes with impeccable provenance — it just arrived this week from Morey-St-Denis, having spent the last eight years resting peacefully in the cellar where it was bottled. Burghound awarded 90 points, finding it “delicious, balanced and solidly persistent,” and suggesting it would be perfectly mature beginning in 2019.

We think his timing prediction is spot on. Opened last night this wine is just delicious. It’s bursting with dry fruit and secondary flavors — think woodsy notes like tobacco, leather, plums, morel mushrooms, and well worn leather. It’s in an excellent drinking window today — carafe for fifteen minutes after opening (not longer).

Serve this with pan seared duck breasts and potatoes in duck fat. Some things are worth waiting for, and with this one the wait is already over.

 

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Amiot MSD 1er “Millandes” 2011
bottle price: $75

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New $25 Sancerre: Uncomplicated Pleasure

Our focus on Burgundy means we spend a lot of time talking about subtlety: the nuances of terroir, the intricacies of weather patterns, etc. But sometimes we like to drink wine that’s a bit simpler — not boring or one-dimensional, just uncomplicated enjoyment in a glass.

The WSJ’s Lettie Teauge once described Sancerre as a wine about “pleasure not profundity.” And often, particularly in warm summer weather, this is all we’re looking for. After years of searching we landed a new Sancerre source last year, and readers quickly made them a staple of their summer tables.

We’ve just received the new crop of 2018 Sancerres from the Domaine de la Garenne, and they might even be better than last year’s.

Located along the banks of the Loire River in central France, Sancerre produces wines from pure Sauvignon Blanc. The wine typically combines ripe, juicy grapefruit notes with a lively minerality, often notes of flint, and pleasant herbal finish.

Garenne’s 2018 Sancerre fits this ideal perfectly — it’s bone dry with pure sauvignon grapefruit in the nose. In the mouth it’s lively but with no astringency or grassiness. Its terroir is a mix of Sancerre’s three soil types (limestone, clay/limestone, and flint), and shows an appealing ripeness alongside the stones.

Serve this with goat cheese on crackers, or chicken on the grill, or a warm summer afternoon.

 

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Garenne Sancerre 2018
bottle price: $25

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Bold New 2015 Pomerol, “Powerful & Exuberant”

Pomerol is a small place. The appellation is home to a mere 150 winemakers, and covers less than three square miles. But the wines of Pomerol are anything but small. In his landmark World Atlas of Wine, Hugh Johnson calls Pomerol “richest, most velvety and instantly appealing form of red Bordeaux.”

Merlot is the dominant varietal here, thriving in the gravely and iron rich soils. Planted in the wrong location, Merlot can produce soft wines that lack acidity and character. But the terroirs of Pomerol were made for Merlot, and here the grape produces some of the world’s most powerful and expensive wines.

Our longtime source in Pomerol is the Chateau la Clemence, where biopharma executive turned winemaker Christian Dauriac is the owner. Dauriac goes all in on the “bold” Pomerol theme: his 50-year-old vines produce dense, concentrated fruit, and he restricts their yields to a startlingly low 20 hectolitres per hectare. Dauriac blends in 15% of Cabernet Franc for a bit of backbone and definition.

The result is an intense, mouthfilling wine that can age for decades. The 2015 in particular is bold and seductive, showing notes of violets, dark chocolate, and, licorice, tobacco. Antonio Galloni of Vinous called it “bold, powerful, and exuberant.” Drink this over the next 15 years — we can’t promise all Merlot is this good, but, then again, that’s why they call it terroir.

 

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Clemence Pomerol 2015
bottle price: $115

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Wildflowers and Granite: Electric, Dry Grand Cru Riesling

There is no more underappreciated wine than Riesling. Many US consumers, burned by syrupy Rieslings with no life and too much sugar, have sworn off the grape. But for lovers of dry wine, there’s enough bone-dry Riesling out there to make avoidance a mistake.

One of the liveliest and most delicious dry Rieslings in our portfolio comes from the Domaine Mersiol’s Grand Cru vineyard Frankstein. Grown organically from 30 year old vines, this wine perfectly conveys the landscape of its origin. The Mersiol family has lived in Dambach for centuries, and their wines represent a long and intimate knowledge of this stony terroir.

 

 

The 2016 Mersiol Riesling Frankstein is a delight. Crisp notes of lime zest and melon with a vibrant, precise minerality bolster an expressive nose of elderflower and peach. Warm weather’s arrival may be slow this year, but this symphony of spring will call to mind a landscape of wildflowers and vines sprouting from the granite slope.

This is as good a food wine as any in our portfolio. Serve this with seared scallops (Thomas Keller’s simple preparation is hard to beat), or with a crisp spring salad of greens and grilled chicken breast. Beside those, consider sushi, steamer clams, veal in cream, etc. etc.

The famous importer Terry Theise once wrote, “there are times when I think that any sip of wine that isn’t Riesling is wasted.” Take a sip of this wine, and you’ll know what he meant.

 

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Mersiol Riesling Grand Cru “Frankstein 2016
bottle price: $29

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Punchy, Delicious, Everyday 2015 Red Burgundy. $25

The Côte d’Or is home to nearly all of Burgundy’s most famous wines. As monks learned centuries ago, the region’s combination of soil, exposition, slope, and weather makes it a near-perfect place to grow Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.

But it’s a mistake to ignore the rest of Burgundy. It may be more difficult to produce great wines outside the Côte d’Or, but with a skilled winemaker and a great vintage, the results can be excellent. Gautier Desvignes’s 2015 reds are juicy, complex, and delicious. We’ve just restocked, and they’re better than ever.

Gautier Desvignes is a young winemaker who took over his family’s domaine a few years ago. He has brought new energy and modern techniques to the winemaking, and the results have been nothing short of exceptional. He’s managed to transform a humble, traditional family winery into one making some of the most popular wines in our portfolio.

Vinous describes the Desvignes wines as having “wonderful balance,” “great clarity,” and being “excellent” and “really quite superb.” His 2015 village level Givry “Meix au Roy” 2015 drinks far above its $25 price tag. The nose is ripe and beautifully textured, with notes of cherry jam, violets, stones, and baking spices. The mouth is fresh and young but not at all harsh, with a rich, juicy attack followed by a smooth, perfectly balanced, mouthfeel that’s far more refined than most Givry.

 

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Desvignes Givry “Meix au Roy” 2015
bottle price: $25

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Wedding Gift Samplers

Looking for the perfect gift for a wedding this summer? Try one of our four new Wedding Gift Samplers. They won’t be on the couple’s registry, but you can be sure they don’t already have one.

Shipping for each sampler is FREE, and we can send them right to the recipient.

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Wedding Gift: Anniversary Sampler ($250)
Here are three wines to open over the next 10 years. Champagne for the first anniversary, Côte Rôtie for the fifth, and Pomerol to be opened in 2029.

  • 1st Anniversary: Bardoux Champagne Millesimé 2010
  • 5th Anniversary: Bonnefond Côte Rôtie 2015
  • 10th Anniversary: Clemence Pomerol 2015

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Wedding Gift: Ageworthy Sampler ($250)
Four bottles to put in the back of the cellar. They’ll toast you when they open them, or if you’re lucky, they’ll invite you over.

  • André Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2015
  • Bonnefond Côte Rôtie 2015
  • Poggerino Chianti Classico Riserva 2015
  • Gros Vosne-Romanée 2015

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Wedding Gift: Magnums ($350)
There’s nothing more festive than magnums…

  • Bardoux Champane 2002 (1.5L)
  • André Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2015 (1.5L)

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Wedding Gift: Best of France ($395)
For the Francofiles or oenophiles on your list. Six iconic French appellations: Champagne, Chassagne-Montrachet, Vosne-Romanée, Côte Rôtie, St-Emilion, and Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

  • Bardoux Champagne Millesimé 2010
  • Thomas Morey Chassagne-Montrachet 2016
  • Michel Gros Vosne-Romanée 2015
  • Bonnefond Côte Rôtie 2015
  • Destieux St-Emilion Grand Cru Classé 2015
  • André Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2015

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And now for something different: Orange Wine!

Over the years it feels like we’ve sampled nearly every type of French wine – every color, grape, blend, age, technique, region, etc. But last fall we discovered a wine we’d never before tasted in France: orange wine.

Also called vins de maceration (skin-contact wines), orange are wines made from white wine grapes but vinified like reds. Most white wine is pressed off its skins before fermentation; red wines ferment with their skins (the source of their color). “Orange” wines are made from white grapes but fermented with their skins.

Today we’re excited to introduce our first ever two orange wines. They’re both from the our new source in Alsace, Vincent Gross.

Gross’s oranges wines are made from Gewurztraminer and Pinot Gris, varietals whose skins are purple but whose juice is clear. Gross leaves both cuvées on the skins for 26 days before pressing, then raises them 10 months in large foudres. The technique extracts tannins and other elements from the skins, and results in a complex and fascinating palate.

The Gewurztraminer Neuweg VDM offers a wonderfully spicy nose along with what resembles the citrusy hops of a summertime session beer. The spicy nose creates an expectation of sweetness on the palate, but in the mouth the wine is completely dry. The texture is lovely, substantial but showing plenty of energy — look for notes of wild berries and white pepper.

The Pinot Gris Osperling VDM is also mouthfilling and rich on the palate, but without a hint of sweetness. The nose is savory and dry, with notes of herbal honey and dried flowers. There’s ripe stone fruit with good supporting acidity and hints of salinity in the mouth, making the finish clean and precise with notes of anice and citrus.

These aren’t likely to become your new house wine. But they’ll pair beautifully with spring vegetables and strong cheeses (think real Munster a tomme from Alsace). Give them a try — we doubt you’ll be disappointed, and we guarantee you won’t be bored.

 

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Gross Gewurztraminer VDM 2016
bottle price: $32

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Gross Pinot Gris VDM 2016
bottle price: $32

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Smooth, Juicy 2016 Premier Cru Red Burgundy: “Vibrant” & “Outstanding”

Burgundy can be an intimidating place. Its classification rules are complicated, and its wines often require precise and careful cellaring. Even for experienced collectors it can tricky to time the optimum drinking window, and getting it wrong can be disappointing and expensive.

But not all of Burgundy’s wines are complicated. In Santenay, a town at the southern end of the Côte d’Or, Roger Belland and his daughter Julie make wines that are neither pretentious nor pricey. The Bellands use a cool, slow fermentation to preserve the fruit in their wines, and the results and friendly, attractive, delicious red Burgundies that need no patience.

In fact Belland’s wines age quite well, but they’re so drinkable young that most don’t make it past a year or two in our inventory. Today’s we’re suggesting the Santenay 1er cru “Gravières” 2016 — it’s lovely and elegant today, but should continue to improve for another 5 years if you can keep your hands off it.

The nose is classic Belland, with bright red fruits, spring flowers, and intense berries. The mouth is punchy and dense, with attractive, juicy tannins and a silky palate bursting with raspberry and wild cherries. Burghound awarded 91 points, calling it “outstanding” and finding it “generous and vibrant,” and “beautifully persistent.

In a world of red Burgundies that need time and investment, here’s a less fussy but no less complex premier cru for under $50.

 

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Belland Santenay 1er “Gravières” 2016
bottle price: $42

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[Advance Order] Exciting New Organic 93-point Gigondas: Velvet and Inky Fruit

Organic viticulture has taken hold in France. Well more than half the winemakers in our portfolio now farm organically. Even in Burgundy, where long history and continuing demand make an argument for the status quo, many domaines have converted. “It’s the future,” one winemaker last week put it simply.

But for some winemakers, it’s also the past. The Domaine du Joncuas in Gigondas turns 100 years old next year, and they’ve practiced organic winemaking, as they put it, “depuis toujours” (“since forever”). Whether past or future or both, the Joncuas wines prove at least one thing about organic winemaking: it works.

 

 

We stumbled across Joncuas earlier this month, and they’re one of the most exciting additions to our portfolio we can remember. They’ll be featured in next Sunday’s May Futures issue, but we’re spending a bit more column space to introduce them today.

Today two sisters Dany and Carole Chastan are third generation vigneronnes practicing old-school winemaking — whole clusters, limited sulfur, all wild yeasts. They use no new oak, and neither fine nor filter. Their wines are juicy and deep and very expressive, with gorgeous fruit. For readers familiar with our portfolio, combine the ethos of Foulaquier or André with the terroir of Goubert.

We’re beginning today with the Joncuas Gigondas 2016, a magnificent vintage in the Southern Rhône Valley. It’s 80% grenache (some from centenarian vines), with the rest Mourvèdre and Cinsault. The fruit is clean and very pure, with a gorgeous silky texture and notes of violets, raspberry, garrigue, and spice. Think of it as Grenache that wants to be Syrah.

The Wine Advocate awarded 93 points, finding it “big and balanced,” “plush,” and “velvety and long.” On complexity, depth, and intensity, this wine way over delivers for its $27 Futures pricetag. We weren’t planning to add a new Southern Rhône producer this trip, but this one is too good to pass up.

 

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Joncuas Gigondas 2016
Ansonia Retail: $420/case
Futures: $325/case


Email Tom to place an order.

 

 

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Small-Batch Grower Champagne under $50

Champagne is a complicated place. Since its early days the region has been inseparably linked to a sense of glamour and “le marketing.” It can be easy to lose track of quality and distinctiveness amid Champagne’s glossy promotional haze.

But Pascal Bardoux, our tiny grower Champagne producer, cuts through the noise. His small-batch Champagnes are quietly exceptional — his tasting room is his small untidy office, where we taste slowly and thoughtfully from an old beat-up leather sofa.

And his wines, humble and delicious, are comparative bargains. 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 entree 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. Don’t limit yourself to Champagne only on special occasions — it’s refined, complex wine in its own right. And from Bardoux it’s not even that much of a splurge.

 

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Bardoux Champagne Brut NV
bottle price: $49

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Extraordinary New Organic Alsatian Pinot Gris: Orchard Fruit and Stones

We’re excited about our new Alsatian source. Vincent Gross is a skilled young winemaker making organic wines from classic Alsatian varietals. His vibrant, bone-dry Riesling has already become popular among readers; his orange wines made from Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer are unusual and exciting.

Today we’re suggesting his 2014 Pinot Gris Neuweg. Made from natural yeasts and biodynamic grapes, this wine pulsates with life and tension. Gross leaves it on the lees in a foudre (large wooden barrel) for nearly a year, an unusual move that gives this wine extraordinary complexity and depth.

Forget everything you know about Pinot Gris (or Pinot Grigio for that matter) — this is complex, unique, and just delicious.

We served this without introduction to the family on Easter Sunday, and heard lots of “yum, what’s this?” and “any left in that bottle?” The nose is gorgeous and very expressive, with clear orchard fruit and faint hints of spice. The mouth is mature and very long — it’s dry but with loads of richness. It begins soft and smooth but finishes lively and refreshing.

This was an excellent pick for ever-tricky asparagus pairing, and it’s not the last time this spring we’ll make the match. Otherwise serve it as an aperitif, with goat cheese on crackers — it’s thick enough to stand up to some cheese with authority, so if you’ve got a taste for fromage “bien affiné”, this should work beautifully.

 

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Gross Pinot Gris 2014
bottle price: $29

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Shimmering, No-Oak Premier Cru White Burgundy. $32

Chablis is a singular place. Its combination of deep stony soils and cool climate exists nowhere else on earth. These factors produce a similarly unique wine — mineral and crisp, pure and clean. Our goal as importers is to find wines that reflect the place from which they come, and there is no better place to find such wines than Chablis.

The traditional interpretation of Chablis shows little or no oak. In recent years, some vignerons have begun to oak their wines more aggressively, particularly among their higher-end cuvées. But winemaker Cyril Gautheron uses oak sparingly and carefully — when he thinks the wine doesn’t need it, he doesn’t use it.

Today’s wine, the Chablis 1er cru “Vaucoupin” is pure, elegant Chardonnay. Gautheron keeps his entirely unoaked, allowing the stony soil to show through as delicate minerality. One taste and we think you’ll agree: the wine doesn’t lack anything.The new 2017 Vaucoupin has just arrived in our warehouse. It’s a particularly vibrant vintage, with a beautiful ripe core laid over an intense beam of stony freshness. This is pure, elegant, and remarkably long — it begins with flowers and fruit, and finishes (after a while) with freshness and minerality. The nose shows lemon rind and salt air; the mouth is long, tense, and full of energy.

It’s hard to imagine a purer interpretation of the Chardonnay grape. The briny freshness of oysters (or a lemony-prepared fish) is a perfect foil for the brisk energy of the Vaucoupin.

 

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Gautheron Chablis 1er “Vaucoupin” 2017
bottle price: $32

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