Articles

9/26/19 - Benoît Marguet is one of our favorite Champagne producers for many reasons. First, it's fascinating to see someone's wines improve with every vintage as his dedication to biodynamics bears fruit. Second, while some vignerons embrace biodynamics to improve their wines, one gets the sense Benoît believes that embracing biodynamics improves his life, while the farming and wines follow suit. Blessed with old...

9/25/19 - Swick wines are officially back in stock! I am new to Joe Swick's wines, but I can already see why they have such a big following. These wines are fresh, unique, and fun to drink. I had the pleasure of meeting Joe on his recent visit to New York and was taken both with his commitment to organic and dry farming, and...

9/24/19 - Cava and Spanish Sparkling wine in general is going through some changes. Earlier this year, nine of the most respected members of the D.O. left Cava to form a separate category, Corpinnat, with stricter rules and ambitions for a higher quality of Spanish sparkling wine from Penedes (this follows the departure of Raventós í Blanc in 2012 – more on Raventós and...

9/19/19 - As the buyer for New World wines at Chambers Street, I am having a wonderful time discovering the talented winemakers of the Americas and beyond. Reading Jon Bonné's The New California has given me a greater appreciation for the work being done on the West Coast to challenge the idea that the only wines to be found there are big, overripe, and...

9/16/19 - The last time I passed through Burgundy, I had a very interesting conversation with the wine director of La Dilletante, my favorite wine bar/restaurant in Beaune. We were talking about the hype and attention around "natural wines," and his worry that people were clumping very disparate things into a somewhat polarizing genre. To him, there were three different categories of natural wines:...

8/28/19 - The Cavalieri del Tartufo – the “Knights of the Truffle” - is a society based in Piedmont, dedicated to the preservation of the traditional food and wine of the region. Those things are so popular now that it’s a little hard to believe that they were ever threatened, but in the 1960s they were rapidly disappearing, and the diligent work of the...

8/28/19 - Under the best of circumstances, organic and biodynamic viticulture is never easy. When you combine that with a marginal climate like that in Chablis the level of difficulty only increases. This is why we have such admiration for father and son vignerons Gérard and Lilian Duplessis. In an area known for industrial farming, the Duplessis family makes a beautiful array of terroir-specific...

8/26/19 - We eagerly await each year's release of Gonzalez Byass' Tio Pepe en Rama as it is one of our favorite fino sherries, and an exceptional value for the complexity it always offers. This year marks the tenth release of this wine, for which the head winemaker Antonio Flores selected 67 casks across 22 soleras. Richard Hemming MW (in jancisrobinson.com) describes the 2019...

8/26/19 - For many years now we've been working with the great father and son team of Guy and Thomas Jullien at La Ferme Saint-Martin in Beaumes-de-Venise, one of the first estates in the southern Rhône to practice organic farming and low-sulfur vinificatons. The high-altitude vineyards produce complex, powerful reds that retain freshness and balance, as well as full-bodied whites and a fresh and...

8/22/19 - We have anticipated the arrival of Wink Lorch's second book, Wines of the French Alps since the last in-depth profile on the Savoie was published 30 years ago by Madeleine Kamman. But you know what they say, "The Alps weren't formed in a day." And now that we have Wink's impressive companion piece to Jura Wine in our greedy paws, we understand...

8/20/19 - We’re excited to introduce a surprising newcomer to our short list of very fine Barolos. Surprising because if you’re not a member of a local clan – or very rich - it’s hard to imagine how you can get a start in Barolo; good vineyards are now going for about $2m / acre, or more. Surprising because making a very high quality,...

8/18/19 - I'm just going to put this out there, chillable red is the new rosé. Now, we're lovers of rosé as much as the next group of vinophiles, but sometimes you need a wine with a little more oomph. As summer starts to wind down, and you're dreaming of fall and crunchy leaves, consider switching to light-bodied or thin-skinned red grape varieties. We...

8/14/19 - Cyril Milochevitch, Domaine de la Sarbeche  While traveling with Pascaline Lepeltier, MS, of Racines NY last winter, we were fortunate to taste with the young Cyril Milochevitch of Domaine de la Sarbèche at a natural wine show near Montpellier. We tasted his 2017 Vin de Pays Syrah, from vines in Saint-Peray, the 2016 Saint-Peray from the lieu-dit "Fauterie" and the 2016 Saint-Joseph...

8/9/19 - Ismael Gozalo is renowned for his work with the Verdejo grape, native to his village of Nieva, in the province of Segovia in Castilla y Leon. This is the land of industrial Verdejo production, and Ismael's commitment to producing genuine and exciting wines with the traditional local grape makes him an outlier: while other vineyards have focused on intensive agriculture and mechanization,...

8/7/19 - We are proud to offer today the wines of Domaine Chantal Lescure, an important organic estate based in Nuits-Saint-Georges, proprietors of 18 hectares from Meursault in the Côte de Beaune to Chambolle-Musigny in the Côte de Nuits. Founded in 1975 by Chantal Lescure and Xavier Machard de Gramont, this family domain is now owned by their two sons Aymeric and Thibault and...