Articles

10/15/12 - Stony Hill Vineyard and Mayacamas Vineyards are both historic Napa Valley properties. Stony Hill is arguably the greatest source for mountain grown Chardonnay. With age these Chardonnays put on weight and become full flavored, much like Chablis. The vineyards are high up on Spring Mountain, 725 feet above the valley floor and the cool night temperatures preserve the natural acidity in the...

10/14/12 - (Thanks to the kind folks at Rosenthal Wine Merchant for the use of their photo.)   My awareness of Mas Jullien dates back to a period of scholarship that consisted of long afternoons reading about wine in the fall sunshine. This was exactly five years ago and I was reading Andrew Jefford’s The New France, a book that may seem a bit...

10/10/12 - (Garon vines in "Le Combard")   For a few years now we've been reading about the fine Côte-Rôties coming from the Garon family - landowners in Ampuis since 1836, but winemakers only since 1992. Given the sensational quality of the 2010 vintage in the Northern Rhône, we have brought in a small quantity of the Garon wines, most notably their "Les Rochins,"...

9/25/12 - (Christian Ducroux with new tractor) We're happy to announce the arrival of our final shipment of the wonderful 2011 Regnié from Christian Ducroux, accompanied by delicious new Beaujolais from Jean-Claude Chanudet, Michel Guignier, Bruno Debize and Cyril Alonzo at PUR. It's exiting to have some great new-comers joining our old favorites in the Beaujolais and we hope you'll give them a try....

9/22/12 - Freshness and delicacy are not your usual Garnacha traits. Called Grenache in France and Cannonau in Italy, it’s a grape more known for producing lusciously fruity wines, generous in style, but often at the expense of definition and balance, qualities many wine lovers are looking for these days. One of the great pleasures of my tenure as a buyer of Spanish wines...

9/18/12 -   The arrival of the 2010 Baudry Chinon Cuvée Domaine is really a reason to rejoice. This small production from Bernard and Matthieu is one of my favorite house reds, with the added bonus that it ages beautifully as well. While it must be said that this vintage is not as ready to drink as in past years, it is a wonderfully...

9/12/12 -   Our last shipment of Saint-Joeph from Domaine Pierre Gonon, surely one of the finest and most traditional estates in the Northern Rhône, has just arrived. 2010 is a great vintage in the Northern Rhône and we urge those of you who missed it last spring to take advantage of the superb quality and value of this wine. The Gonon's vineyard work...

9/7/12 -   It was at dinner with our friend from Champagne Salon, that we first heard the name Raphaël Bérèche. Though our penchant at Chambers is for grower Champagne, we reckoned this experienced taster knew his Champagnes. His exact words were: “Do you know who the best new Champagne grower is? It’s Raphael Bérèche.” This conviction sparked our curiosity; we sought out Bereche’s...

9/3/12 -   (John Paul in the cellar at Cameron) I’m not sure I’ve ever met (or read about) a Pinot Noir producer outside of Burgundy who doesn’t say “We want to make Burgundian-style wine”. What does this mean? For this aficionado, Burgundy means wine with a strong sense of place, reasonable alcohol levels, healthy levels of natural acidity, and a degree of finesse...

8/25/12 -   We've written a bit in passing about Enderle & Moll before, but today we wanted to take the time to emphasize how exciting we find their project in Baden. As the modern face of German wine continues to evolve (and the global climate warms), dry red wines from the southwestern parts of Germany are becoming more and more popular. There is...

8/13/12 -  Customers who purchased the 2010 Barou Saint Joseph last Spring have been raving about the fantastic quality and value of this lovely wine. Exuberant aromas and lush, complex fruit are here combined with the bright acidity and good structure of this wonderful vintage in the Northern Rhône. The last twenty cases available have just arrived along with the delicious 2010 Condrieu, the...

8/6/12 -  (Jordi, Alice and Kevin in the vineyard) “Food is of and from a place; it needs a context to give it authenticity.  A dish that comes from nowhere lacks weight, lacks resonance.  Catalan cuisine comes from somewhere, to be sure.” – Colman Andrews, Catalan Cuisine ​One of my favorite cookbooks. ​Jordi firing up his sound system.            ...

7/31/12 - I recently bought a couple of coupes. Wikipedia defines these as “a shallow, broad-bowled, stemmed glass, commonly used at wedding receptions, often stacked in layers to build a champagne tower.” It’s popular mythology that these sparkling wine vessels were modeled after Marie-Antoinette’s breast, but we learn that in fact they were devised in Britain, almost a century before her life. Quite popular...

7/30/12 - (Rich but very rocky soil in the vines at Calabretta) One of the charms of our time on Etna this April was that each of our winery visits was very different, ranging from the super-clean, laboratory-like cantina at Cornelissen, to the funky but very cool operation at Calabretta. They’ve very cleverly figured-out how to make due in tight quarters – the place...

7/28/12 - We are perennially obsessed with Champagne. We love it in all styles and from all sub-regions, and we constantly find ourselves wondering how we can further provoke a similar love amongst our customers. Of course we acknowledge that a bottle of Champagne is a commitment; this is a category in which “intro” level wines begin in the mid-$30 range. We suspect that...