Chão de Sal — which translates to ground or earth of salt — is a wild, briny co-ferment, or palhete, of red and white varieties. Arinto and Verdelho are two of the whites, while the reds include Tinta Negra and Isabella, a cold-hardy hybrid. It’s technically “illegal”, as the blending of red and white grapes (not to mention the inclusion of a hybrid), is forbidden, but rules are meant to be broken, no?
Posted on June 09, 2024
Valerie Pimpinelli
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We've told the story of Cantina del Pino before, including the tragic early death of Renato Vacca in 2020, and the taking over of the Cantina by his wife Franca (who we were honored to host at our shop for a staff tasting a few weeks ago). We have just received another small allocation from the winery, and this time it is a few cases of their insanely delicious Langhe Nebbiolo. It was so good that it made us stop to think about what made all this deliciousness happen.
Posted on June 05, 2024
Jeff Patten
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Though comparing Rioja to Burgundy is like comparing apples to oranges, there's no arguing that clay and limestone soils impart something very special to a wine; Bosconia evokes the supple fruit and heightened minerality of the latter. The 2012 has just been released, and it’s another terrific wine from a most iconic winery.
Posted on June 02, 2024
Valerie Pimpinelli
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The Dunites wine project was established in 2015 by the husband-and-wife winemaking team of Tyler Eck and Rachel Goffinet Eck. They like, but do not overuse, whole-cluster inclusion, as well as gentle pigeage, lees aging, neutral oak and minimization of sulfites. Their wines represent everything new and fresh and modern about today's Central Coast style.
Posted on May 22, 2024
Julia Burke
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Paul-Henri Thillardon is one of the finest wine-growers in Beaujolais, making wines with an irresistible balance of ripe fruit, crunchy acidity, and mineral verve. They are the embodiment of joy in a glass.
It’s no surprise that the wines are quite special, because Paul-Henri had some pretty iconic mentors: Yvon Métras and Jean-Louis Dutraive.
Posted on May 19, 2024
Dan Weber
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Dry Tokaji may be obscure today, but we think it’s poised for a breakthrough. The best examples are simply too good, too interesting, and too age-worthy to be ignored much longer. And it’s hard to think of better examples to hold up than these two stunningly complex 2006 library bottlings from the cellar of Geza Lenkey.
Posted on May 15, 2024
John Truax
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Maybe you’ve never tried Deschamps wines, and want to know what they taste like. They are certainly not piercing or thin, qualities which Sauvignon Blanc can sometimes be guilty of. Instead, they are nuanced, relaxed, and generous. Much of this is because of the great soils, mostly kimmerdigian marl, that can be found in the hamlet of Les Loges, one of the best parts of Pouilly-Fumé.
Posted on May 12, 2024
John Truax
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Wine has been made at Peyrassol for 800 years. That’s a lot of time in which to perfect your recipe. And they've got it down. As New York Times’ Eric Asimov has noted, Peyrassol makes “the archetypal Provençal rosé” wines that are “especially delicious” with an “underlying mineral edge”.
Posted on May 08, 2024
Joshua Cohen
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Today’s wine comes from a single site, ‘Les Boucauds,’ which has kimmeridgian marl soils. The dense, silky-fine texture of the wine is enough to turn heads, but the vivid and intense nature of the wine’s flavors, redolent of lemon, peach, salt and rocks, is pretty shocking, too.
Posted on May 05, 2024
John Truax
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San Leonardo today produces one of the greatest Bordeaux blends of Italy, comparable in quality — but not in fame — to Sassicaia. Why is Sassicaia more famous (and so much more expensive)? Is it because it came first? Is it the “Super Tuscan” brand? Is it because the wine is more plush, a bit less edgy, and therefore more appealing to international tastes?
Posted on May 01, 2024
Jeff Patten
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