Everyone needs a pantry wine — something to open without too much consideration or care. Thirsty guests looking for something to wet their whistle? Pantry wine. Back home after a long weekend away, with no energy for anything but takeout pizza? Pantry wine. NBA Finals game go into overtime and you need just one more glass of something simple? You guessed it.
St-Aubin may not be the secret source for white Burgundy it once was, but it’s not because of the quality. Soaring prices for Burgundy from its famous neighboring towns of Puligny, Chassagne, and Meursault mean that the spillover demand has nudged prices for St-Aubin well. But the quality has more than kept pace, and despite the demise of its anonymity, it’s still a source for exceptional value.
Cornas is a tiny appellation of only 50 growers. By rules and heritage, it’s the Northern Rhône: its wines are pure, unblended Syrah. But in spirit and character, it’s not far from the South. Cornas (which means “scorched earth” in Celtic) harvests a week earlier than Hermitage (just 20 minutes north), and the vertiginous slopes […]
Jean-Louis Tribouley practices organic farming, biodynamics, and low intervention. His property is high in the hills of the Roussillon, a remote winemaking area near France’s border with Spain. The vines grow on schist and gneiss/granite, and range from 40 to 70 years old.
Chassagne-Montrachet is a town synonymous with opulence and richness. Its wines combine weight without heaviness – everything you want in a top class white Burgundy. When we want to really impress someone with a Chardonnay, we often reach for a bottle of Chassagne from Roger Belland. Belland’s Santenay 1er cru “Beauregard” blanc is not as […]
Great winemakers make great wines in good vintages and bad. They channel their terroir into the best expression possible, trimming their viticultural sails based on the subtleties of the growing season. But sometimes a vintage provides such exceptional materials that just about everything it produces is terrific. And 2019 was just such a vintage.
Riesling continues to be a severely underrated varietal. Its sweet examples can be transcendent and delicious, but it’s also capable of excellence in dry form. Pound for pound, dry Rieslings make up some of the best values in our portfolio.
With the first heatwave of the summer upon us, we’re in the mood for something simple and crisp. The usual hot-weather answers from our cellar are Chablis, Sancerre, or dry Riesling, but recently we’ve been reaching for Grüner-Veltliner from our lone Austrian source
Each town in Burgundy produces wines of a distinct character. Some are dark and brooding, others are lightweight and ethereal – but the boldest and most intense is Gevrey-Chambertin. One of our sources here, the Domaine des Varoilles, owns vineyards first planted in the 12th century – their vines today aren’t quite 800 years old, but they’re well over 70, and produce magnificently dense and concentrated juice.
The Northern Rhône is a small region, and new winemakers can be hard to come by — limited supply, steady demand, etc. So when we received a prospecting email from a new winemaker touting his terroirs in Côte Rôtie “Côte Blonde,” we took note.
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.
The 2019 vintage produced outstanding wines in red Burgundy, white Burgundy, and the Rhône valleys. But the success of this vintage stretched further, across the Mont Blanc and into Tuscany. The 2019 Chianti Classico from Poggerino is as good as ever, and is finally in stock.
For centuries Burgundy has swung back and forth between two models of winemaking: domaine bottling, where a winemaker makes wines from grapes he grows himself; and negociant, where a house buys grapes from local vignerons and crafts them into wine. With a few exceptions, most of the top names in Burgundy are the former (grower-producer) model, with the winemaker shepherding his product all the way from vine to wineglass.
With the temperature barely cracking 50 in recent days in New England, it appears Spring may have had some supply chain issues of its own. But yesterday’s warm sunny afternoon was worth the wait – we reinflated the bike tires, put on some sunscreen, and soaked in some long awaited Vitamin D.
“Crémant should never try to be Champagne.” That’s how winemaker Philippe Chautard answered when one of our guests asked him to compare the two. “Crémant is from Burgundy, and should act like it.”