We've been drinking the wines of Garaudet for many years, and have long admired them for their excellent value. But in our most recent tasting of the wines, something was different. And the difference was very positive.
How about a trio of naturally-farmed and extremely delicious Provençal wines from a trailblazing family that has been at the center of the natural wine movement for more than 30 years? What if we told you that the wines were the best they’ve ever been? Maybe it sounds too good to be true, but in the case of Domaine Henri Milan, we assure you, it is no dream.
Guillaume d’Angerville is famous for world class wines from Meursault and Volnay. But the Marquis d’Angerville is no one-trick pony. Several years ago he purchased land in the Jura, including some vines previously tended by revered Jura vigneron Jacques Puffeney. We’ve just received a shipment of wines from Domaine du Pelican, and they are as elegant, precise and delicious as ever.
Olga Raffault is best known for red Chinon from the Les Picasses vineyard, an incredibly long-lived, classic expression of limestone terroir through a Cabernet Franc lens. Their most undeniably joyous wine, however, is this rosé.
Chianti — like Beaujolais or Sicily or the Loire Valley — is a region of incredible terroir where you can still actually buy land and start a winery. Thus, we have had an explosion of biodynamic farming, natural wine-making and other experimentation. Not all of the results are good. But the wines of Le Boncie are truly great.
The best deal in Sancerre this year doesn't say Sancerre on the label. In 2020, our pals at Domaine du Nozay were thrilled with the fruit from their top site, the Clos du Nozay, and they put it all into large earthenware amphorae, called Dolium, instead of the usual mix of wood, amphorae and stainless steel.
Tiberio is a father, daughter and son team that got started in 2000 when they were excited to come across some very old vines of the heirloom Trebbiano variety known as Abruzzese, on fields high up above 1000 feet. They have been maintaining these old vines and planting new ones, using selection massale (that is, taking cuttings from the best of the old vines), ever since
Great sparkling wine doesn't have to come from Champagne, but it does have to come from great terroir. Arnaud Lambert has one of the best white wine terroirs in the Loire valley, the iconic hill of Brézé .
Lapierre's Morgon set the wine world on fire. It sparked a revolution in Beaujolais, introduced American palates to lighter, fresher reds, and practically single-handedly birthed the natural wine movement. But the Gamays we'll be drinking this summer are Lapierre's baby wines, Raisins Gaulois and Le Beaujolais.
Cabernet Franc, in our opinion, makes some of the very best rosés. It’s fruity, spicy, herbaceous and bright, and it deftly translates terroir. Of course, it helps when the terroir is as impressive as Guiberteau’s (and when the person making the wine has sat at the feet of one of the finest and most celebrated winemakers of the last half century).
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?
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.
