WHAT WE'RE CRUSHING ON THIS MONTH -FEBRUARY

esa has an ideal east-southeast exposure on a long slope at the base Mount Yerga, 550 meters/1,804 feet above sea level. Alvaro and his team farm this vineyard organically and there is no irrigation. Harvest—all done by hand with very strict grape selection in the vineyard—

PLÁCET DE VALTOMELLOSO PALACIOS REMONDO, RIOJA ORIENTAL, 2017

Palacios Remondo is aLVARO pALACIOS’ family estate, tucked in the far eastern corner of the Oriental district. For Alvaro, the story in this rugged, high-altitude scrubland is about Garnacha. But Plácet is pure Viura—and it is the only white wine Alvaro makes. (The wine’s name is a play off the word for “approval,” a nod to his father, who had an affinity for white wines). Red or white, by focusing on elevating the native varieties that are expressive of and authentic to this stunning side of Rioja, Alvaro is continuing to reshape the future of Spanish fine wine.

A natural, authentic, and honest wine made exclusively of Grenache Blanc without the addition of sulfur. It has a pale yellow hue with orange tones. The nose has aromas of orange peel and candied white fruit. It is broad and unctuous on the palette. An orange wine with a distinctive personality, ideal to be served with pan-foie gras, poultry, seafood, oily fish, and Roquefort cheese.

Castell d’Age 100% Garnatxa Blanca, Catalonia, Spain, 2019

Castell d’Age is the creation of 3 generations of women in the Junyent family, located in the Beguda Baixa, in the heart of the Alt Penedés region. Anne Marie is a pioneer in introducing organic farming in the region. The Bodega is certified organic - a method that respects the relationship between humans and earth. It is biodynamic at the strictest levels. This comes from young Grenache Blanc vines grown in Can Pujades on Clay soils. The grapes are harvested in the second half of September. It undergoes cold maceration on the skin for 5 days followed by spontaneous fermentation at controlled temperatures with indigenous yeast from Castell d'Age vineyards. Made without the addition of sulfur. No filtration or clarification. A natural, authentic, and honest wine. Limited production.

BAVA PIANOALTO NIZZA DOCG Monferrato Piemonte

The Bava Family has grown grape vines in Cocconato, a village that rises steeply up the hillsides of the Monferrato Astigiano territory in Piedmont, Italy, since 1600. In 1911 the family built their first wine cellar there. Since then, over a hundred vintages have gone by, with six generations following one another. The best Bava Barberas are renowned in the world thanks to their high quality. Now the family estate extends over 123 acres of vineyards & 50 acres of natural fields & woods, cultivated with the same awareness, care & attention of the olden times; a sustainable agriculture with a reduced environmental impact. tHIS IS 100% BARBERA GRAPE.

The Pianoalto estate in Crena hosts wonderful Barbera vineyards. BAVA’s oldest vineyard produces Pianoalto; and since 2014, a Barbera d’Asti Superiore boasts the appellation DOCG Nizza, which is the best area for this great red. Grapes are hand-picked and fermented in wooden vats. The must is tasted daily to ensure quality with punching down. Aged in custom-made wooden-vats for 18 months followed by a long aging in bottle before being released. A harmonic, rich & soft wine; the wooden ageing gives it balance & majesty – two elements that indicated a great longevity.

100% Malbec (cot)

The vines were planted in 1980. After a pre-dawn harvest, the wines are fermented in temperature-controlled stainless-steel tanks, with a maceration period of 20 days. The wines then age for two years in stainless steel tanks before bottling.Deep ruby color. Elegant notes of black cherry, cassis & raspberry with soft tannic elements & juicy acidity with a light, lingering, mineral-driven finish. Light-framed, fresh & elegant. From grapes grown in a privileged location with gravelly soils on the second terrace of the right bank of the Lot river. Organic

CHÂTEAU DU CAYROU Cahors Malbec 2015

Château du Cayrou is a historic Cahors pioneer with a storied terroir that has produced some of the most compelling Cahors wines of the past decades. The wines are currently being made with the the best parcels of the estate located entirely on well-drained gravel in the horse-shoe bends of the Lot river. Cahors is all about the rocks. Château du Cayrou has been certified organic since the 2012 vintage with the region’s indigenous malbec grape, known locally as cot constituting the entirety of the plantings at Cayrou.

WHAT WE'RE CRUSHING ON THIS MONTH

This vintage is kind of an outlier from the usual. It’s fuller bodied and deeper and textural.

Aroma: the smells toasty and rich, like toasting bread or a cooking grilled cheese sandwich. There's rich fruit: cooked lemon or lemon meringue pie. It smells zippy but also creamy as well

Taste: rich, juicy, and deep. Ripe crunchy apple up front, followed by cooked peach and some pineapple, then a deeper spicy finish. It has some candied orange, orange peel, and a hint of some kind of spice that I can't quite put my finger on. Maybe there's a little bit of lavender as well? The texture is pretty lush, like it went through malolactic and it lingers on the palate but still has that cool climate piedmont focus going on.

The First Italian Winery Dressner Ever Worked With

Long long ago, there was a time when Louis Dressner didn’t import or sell any Italian wines. Then in 2002 they started getting messages from a young woman in Piedmont. Alessandra Bera and her family had been making exciting natural wines and many of her wine making friends told her that she belonged in the Dressner Portfolio; friends like Thierry Puzelat, Pierre Breton, and Claude Marechal. So Joe and Denyse Dressner agreed to taste her wines at that winter’s La Dive tasting in the Loire. They did and the wines were in fact lovely. However Joe and Denyse were a little worried about how it would work if they only had 1 Italian winery in their portfolio…. so they asked Alessandra if they could come visit the winery and maybe meet some other wine makers. Alessandra organized a tasting with some other Italian wine makers that she knew; Italian wine makers who would go on to become the core of Dressner’s Italian book. She brought together wine makers including Cascina degli Ulivi, Cascina Tavijn and La Biancara.

Bera Vittorio & Figli VDT Bianco Arcese

The name Arcese is a playful mash-up of Arneis and Cortese, historically the base of this field blend white. The different varieties are largely co-planted and co-fermented. The grapes are destemmed and gently pressed, then fermented spontaneously with indigenous yeasts in concrete tank without the addition of sulfur. The wine goes through malolactic fermentation and ages on its lees for up to a year in concrete tank. It is bottled unfiltered and with a touch of residual sugar, allowing for a small refermentation which adds a lift of CO2 to the wine upon opening, an intentional effect. The addition or omission of S02 is dependant on the vintage. If it is applied, only one gram per hectoliter is added at bottling​​​​​​​.

For a relatively small winery Laurence makes a lot of wines!  It seems like it would make more sense to just make a few wines in larger quantity, but Laurence looked at it from another perspective. If all she grew was Sauvignon Blanc, she said, then all the grapes would ripen at about the same time and how could she harvest 13 ha all at once?! Way too much for a 1-woman winery. So thanks to the panoply of grapes she grows (Orbois, Gamay, Cab Franc, Chenin, Sauv Blanc, Cot, Pineau d’Aunis, and Grolleau) all the vineyards are smaller plots that need attention at different times enabling her to juggle it all.  Also I think she’d see it as defeatism and boring to give up her traditional grapes!

Laurence’s Pineau D’Aunis comes from older vines (40+ years) planted on sandy clay topsoil over a denser clay and limestone subsoil. The grapes are destemmed and then ferment in neutral tanks. This vintage is beautiful and vibrant and just 12.5% alcohol.

Aroma: oh my gosh this has so much vivid beautiful blood orange! And tart wild cherry, and some juicy fresh raspberry, and a little bit of a wild heady aromatic herbal thing like a touch of mint and sage. Wow this is expressive and beautiful!

Taste: Wow. Beautiful vivid red raspberry, tart cherry, and cranberry fruit up front but then the wine gets darker and the fruit gets more deeply wound and textural. The mid palate has this slightly ashy dry texture alongside this deep red cherry fruit. It shows off some red currant and an earthy brambly plus old wood stove savory dimension. Then these substantial tannins come in and balance out the fruit up front. They’re grippy and textural but not green and not too aggressive: in balance and what you would expect with a 12 and a half percent alcohol red. They give the fruit more of a serious blackberry or even sort of an autumnal blackberry reduction flavor. Another lovely wine from Laurence Dinocheau!

Laurence Dinocheau: exciting woman wine maker in Touraine!

Her wine making career began in 2010 when her father sort of unexpectedly decided to retire from running the small family winery founded by her great grandparents. Laurence was living in Paris helping to handle international art transport for the Louvre and the family didn’t have any kind of transition plan in place. Laurence and her brother considered selling the vineyards and winery but her mother still lives in a cottage there and they didn’t want to let it all go for many reasons. So Laurence quit her job and moved back to the Loire! During her first year she took a continuing studies vocational sort of crash course in how to run a vineyard and winery at the same time as she was trying to effectively work the vines, make passable wines, and make ends meet!

Vignoble Dinocheau Touraine Pineau D’aunis 2020

On the one hand Laurence is a passionate wine maker who wants to make delicious wines that express her various parcels. On the other hand her father had been in poor health and the operation she inherited was bare bones and kind of run down. Then on top of that French inheritance laws make it expensive to transfer a winery and she’s had to face some terrible vintages devastated by frosts. So she’s had to be extremely careful and cautious because she really doesn’t have a safety net. If she takes a risk and it doesn’t work out it could sink the winery…. hearing her struggle to express how she balanced these different priorities was powerful. Along the way she’s converted to organics, re-planted vineyards, added a few new parcels, and she keeps experimenting with new wines! After some hard years the winery is doing well enough now that her brother Fabien has come on board to help her handle the work in the vineyards. He had been helping part time when he could but to a great extent the 13 ha Domaine had been a one woman show!

100% Chenin Blanc. Fresh & vivid with fine, light bubbles. Aromas of crunchy pear, white flowers & eggshell. Flavors of fresh lime & white fruit with a marked saline minerality & smoky complexity. Delicate with a wonderfully creamy mouthfeel. Long, chalky, mineral-infused finish. Drink as an aperitif or in place of a dry white wine. Outstanding with seafood! Organic

Chidaine Montlouis Methode Traditionelle Brut Sparkling

Francois Chidaine, Loire, France

In a region rich in greatness, François Chidaine stands out. He is arguably one of the finest white wine-makers in the world. His father’s wines were always well regarded, but when Francois started his own domaine in 1989, with just a few acres, it was with the ambition of expressing terroir at the highest level possible. The estate gradually expanded, and today extends over 91 acres: 49 in Montlouis, 25 in Vouvray, and 17 in Chissay in the Touraine appellation.

The vines are 20 to 50 years old. The soil is composed of clays and coarse flint elements. The subsoil consists of Tuffeau, limestone and soft and white calcareous rock through which the roots create a passage. The climate is continental with oceanic influences. The grapes are harvested by hand successively. After pressing, alcoholic fermentation is done with indigenous yeasts in 600 liter-capacity oak barrels for up to six months. "Malolactic fermentation" is not part of the process. Foaming is carried out in the cellars. The bottles remain on slats for a minimum of 12 months. The vineyard is organic, uses bio-dynamic practices, and no chemicals are used in the vineyard. The soils are plowed in order to retain the qualities and peculiarities of each terroir

Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. Pale yellow hue with gold highlights. Intense and fresh on the nose with hints of fresh tree fruits, such as apple and quince. On the palate, a beautiful balance between orchard fruit and light toasty aromas which bring a crispy sensation. Magnificent balance and a lingering finish. A perfect aperitif. Pairs beautifully with oysters, shellfish or fish tartare.

Pinot Noir (Sermiers, Aÿ, Avenay-Val-d’Or, Verzenay, Mailly-Champagne), Chardonnay (Vertus, Avize, Bergère-Les-Vertus) and Pinot Meunier (Janvry). 20% from Grands Crus & 33% from Premiers Crus. Reserve wines account for 30% of the blend. Cellar-aged for 4-8 years to attain its finest expression.

Champagne Thienot, Champagne, FR

With almost 20 years’ experience as a wine broker in Champagne, Alain Thiénot had acquired an in-depth knowledge of the vineyards, having scoured the hillsides for the rare & exceptional, in the constant quest for wines that revealed the finest expressions of each Cru vineyard. It was from this that he sowed the seeds of a dream, to establish his own Champagne House, which takes real nerve when the first were begun more than three centuries ago. In 1985, he developed his project & launched his eponymous Champagne House; a precision-managed adventure & a challenge that paid off, Champagne Thiénot has found its place among the greatest Champagne Houses, favoring quality over quantity & creativity over traditionalism.

OCTOBER- FEATURE OF THE MONTH: ALSACE WINES

 

CRUSH OF THE MONTH: Domaine Bohn, Reichsfeld, (Bas-Rhin)

The Bohn family members have been winegrowers for well over three centuries in Reichsfeld, handing over prime terroirs and passing down savoir-faire from generation to generation.

at the age of 18, Bernard Bohn took over the family winey and has since crafted an individually unique style of wines on the only outcrop of schist terroir IN alsace. NOWADAYS, Bernard and his son arthur LOOK AFTER THEIR HERITAGE WITH BIODIVERSITY AND WILDLIFE CONSERVATION AS CORE VALUES. THEY FARM JUST OVER 9 HECTARES. SOILS ARE NOT WORKED. THEY go beyong organic agriculture to incorporate uncommon techniques, such as completely abandoning vineyard plowing and allowing cover crops to coexist to create balance in the vines.



WHAT WE’RE SIPPIN’ ON:

Crémant D’Alsace Brut Nature NV - this sparkler is a 50/50 blend of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from 35yr old vines grown on sandstone-volcanic soil. Fermentation on indigenous yeasts.

“En Vrac” Cuvée - this is a non-vintage blend of Riesling and Sylvaner that gets aged for two years in foudres (wood barrels) then bottled a l’ancienne (the old fashioned way). Unfined and unfiltered.

Pinot Noir Les Roches Rouges - this is 100% Pinot noir that spent 14 months on fine lees in oak barrels. Complex structure with native yeasts.

Ready to sit back with boundless curiosity and appreciate the innovations from this far away village?

In Northeastern France, between the Rhine river and the Vosges mountains lies the sunniest region in the country: Alsace. A patchwork of scenic towns, rolling hills, and ancient vineyards, which produce some of the finest white wines in the world.

The area’s historical Germanic influences are reflected in the wines. Each region used the distinctive Rhine-shaped bottle and cultivates some of the same grape varieties. With it’s long dry seasons and varied soils, Alsace offers up seven distinct wines named for those grapes: Pinot Blanc, Gewurztraminer, Pinot Noir, Riesling, Tokay Pinot Gris, Sylvaner, and Muscat. These wines are sometimes called the white wines for those who love reds; rich, complex freshness, purity and fruitiness.

You don’t typically find a lot red wines in this region. Pinot Noir for example, is mostly used for the production of Crémant and Rose wines.

bragging right: there are more Michelin star rated restaurants here than anywhere else in France. One could say the word Gastronomy originated here. JUST IN CASE YOU NEEDED ANOTHER REASON TO GO VISIT THE REGION!