Ask a group of sommeliers to name their favorite wine region and most will say Burgundy. But ask them for just one favorite grape varietal, and it’s likely Riesling. Aside from its excellent food friendliness, Riesling communicates terroir with as much honesty and precision as any other grape.
The Domaine Ravaut is the ultimate local wine source. For over a century the Ravaut family has cultivated a loyal clientele of friends, neighbors, and local workers — our tasting visits are frequently interrupted by neighbors stocking up their cellars. The domaine continues to sell nearly half its wine to folks who walk in their front door.
The best kept secret in a Burgundy collector’s cellar is his stash of St-Aubin. From a once forgotten valley wedged between the superstar towns of Chassagne-Montrachet and Puligny-Montrachet, the wines of St-Aubin are some of the most overperforming wines we know. Jancis Robinson calls it now “virtually the equal” of its famous neighbors.
Drinking multiple vintages of the same wine is an excellent way to get to know a wine. In Burgundy, vintages play an important role in the character of a wine, and tasting the same wine in vertical be an educational (and delicious) experience.
Climate change is hard to ignore when you’re a farmer. Warmer summers and earlier harvests have provided Burgundian growers with new challenges, as balance and freshness have become trickier to achieve. But in some corners of Burgundy, the warmer weather has been welcome. For decades the Côte Chalonnaise has produced wine on the margins of […]
More than anywhere else in Burgundy, winemakers in Chablis have felt the impact of recent warm vintages. Earlier harvests and increased sun exposure have meant riper grapes and wines with fleshier, richer textures. This new style of Chablis can support more oaking, and some winemakers have begun to increase the exposure to oak barrels.
The Domaine Pierre Amiot is an old school Burgundy estate based in Morey-St-Denis. They’ve just welcomed the 6th generation into the business, and year after year turn out humbly delicious red Burgundies. They’re never the loudest or boldest wine in a lineup, but they can often be the most subtly beautiful.
Today’s wine comes from one of the most famous names in Chassagne-Montrachet. We’ve imported their wines for our Futures group for decades, but their national importer kicked up a fuss about us a few years ago. So to avoid conflict we’ve taken them out of our main sales channels.
The Languedoc is one of the world’s oldest winegrowing regions, tracing its history back to 125 BC. For many years it has been known for abundant, cheap, and uninteresting wine, but in recent decades a new wave of small winemakers has earned the region a new reputation.
Much of the world’s Merlot is undistinguished. Its default expression is a soft, rounded wine lacking tannin, acidity, and character. “Global” merlot is smooth and easy, but neither distinctive nor particularly interesting. But in Bordeaux, Merlot thrives as an essential component to the region’s most iconic wines.
The soils of Sancerre are famous for their flint. This unusual rock gives the region’s wines a note of smokiness and minerality — a perfect foil for Sauvignon Blanc’s lush grapefruit notes. This unique balance has made Sancerre one of the world’s most popular wines.
In Burgundy, there’s no end to how deep you can go. Knowing the town from which a wine hails is not enough — to understand a wine you must know the grower, the vintage, the individual plot, age of the vines, cellar practices, and so on. These details aren’t crucial to enjoying the wine, but in Burgundy they can have an enormous effect on the final product.
We’ve imported Chablis from the Domaine Gautheron for nearly a decade. Cyril Gautheron’s precise, elegant, well-priced white Burgundies have become a staple at our warehouse tastings, our kitchen table, and the cellars of many of our readers.
As spring arrives and we begin to engage more with the natural world, we find ourselves more drawn to natural wines. When they’re made carefully, natural wines embody the exuberance and vitality of nature. And nobody in our portfolio does this more skillfully than the Mas Foulaquier.
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 have 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.