Articles

12/3/13 - (Brunate, with La Morra on the hilltop; May 2013) A year or more has passed since we last wrote about handling old wine. A happy number of fine bottles have passed across our table since then, and the additional tasting experience has reinforced our conviction that old Piedmont wines need to be decanted, and that they only benefit from time in the...

(Vincent in the Vines.) It might seem counterintuitive, but there’s a school of thought amongst some wine lovers that very fine Champagne represents good value in comparison to equivalent wine from other prestigious regions. Yes behemoth Champagne négociants drive up the prices of their luxury brands, but Champagne is also costly to produce, requiring extensive labor and long periods of sur lie aging. While...

11/21/13 -  (Plowing at Domaine du Traginer) "Banyuls and Banyuls Grand Cru are the appellations for France's finest and certainly most complex vin doux naturel" says The Oxford Companion to Wine, and we have enjoyed fine examples from Dr. Parcé, Domaine de la Rectorie, La Tour Vieille, and others. Recent tastings of the Banyuls and Collioures from Jean-Francois Deu at Domaine du Traginer have...

11/15/13 - Armagnac – perhaps France’s most underappreciated brandy region.  Where else can one buy a spirit aged in barrel for 30 years for just over a hundred bucks?  When we look at what Bourbon of a similar age costs these days, it’s as if the Gasconians haven’t heard of Van Winkle or Macallan and the prices that they sell for!  We think that...

11/12/13 -  We grew up in a Francophile world of wine; we had hardly ever tasted old Rioja before our introduction in 2001 to Lopez-Heredia. Anyone who has been lucky enough to taste those wines will testify to their splendor in old age. Being Francophiles, the finesse and depth of the Lopez wines reminded us of fine vintages of old Haut Brion and La...

11/7/13 -  (Gnarled Old Vines in Bedrock Vineyard (July 2013)) We are thrilled to host a special tasting this Saturday to celebrate the release of "The New California Wine," the eagerly anticipated new book from San Francisco Chronicle Wine Editor, Jon Bonné. We have been stashing some of our favorite and most limited bottles to crack for the occasion; please stop by between 4...

11/6/13 - (The imposing Ayler Kupp) We’ve written at length many times about these two favorite Saar growers: the Webers at Hofgut Falkenstein and Florian Lauer. We don’t need to repeat ourselves any more than you want to re-read the same prose, so let’s cut straight to the salient points: 1. New 2012s from both estates have arrived. 2. The vintage is absolutely tremendous...

11/2/13 - (The famous 'cube' at Ceretto in Castiglione Falletto makes a very visisble and useful landmark. It's not clear that anyone realized in advance just how hot it would get inside the cube, but the view from it is spectacular.) Last Sunday we had a great dinner with a bunch of old friends at Maialino, Danny Meyer's Roman-style trattoria.  After a glass of...

11/1/13 - How is the 2011 Red Burgundy vintage? These are wines that are delicious now and have very good aging potential.  Michel Lafarge compares it to 1952,  which to this day is a great vintage.  Marie Christine Mugneret Gibourg compares it to 1985 and 2002, two fantastic vintages that are still drinking beautifully. All of these vintages have superb ripe fruit and drank...

10/30/13 - (An old map of Wagram's Feuersbrunn slope showing Spiegel and Rosenberg in the center) We get as excited as anyone by the exotic, the unfamiliar, the new and intriguing. This is no less true in the Austrian department than anywhere else in the store. Want biodynamic field blends from Vienna? We have them. How about late-release Gelber Muskateller that has spent almost...

10/29/13 - Maison F. E. Trimbach has been producing top Alsatian wines since 1626, none greater than the most famous wine of the region, Clos Ste. Hune.  Now under the twelfth generation of family ownership and winemaking, the Trimbachs have not strayed from traditional styles of dry Alsatian wine even when fashions in the region shifted to wines with large amounts of residual sugar. ...

10/28/13 -   To be frank we think the concept of “Wine of the Vintage” is marketing bs. Even under lab-like conditions, each time a truly great wine is tasted, we’re only provided with a snapshot of that wine at that moment. It’s artificial and even annoying that one wine must be anointed Wine of the Vintage; it’s certainly as subjective a judgment as...

10/22/13 - (Nelly Busch keeping watch over the Pündericher Marienburg) We love Clemens and Rita Busch. Not only do they make some of the most distinctive, unexpected wines of the Mosel Valley, they also have some of the biggest hearts of anyone in the wine world. Their humility and gentle, giving spirit comes through in their wines and Clemens’ careful biodynamic stewardship of their...

10/20/13 - Of the three grapes varieties that go into most Champagne, Pinot Meunier is generally considered to be rustic and fruity in comparison to Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. We believe that everything depends on the maker, and top-notch Meunier specialists (like Jérôme Prevost and Aurélian Laherte) produce Champagnes based on Meunier that rival the region’s great Grand Cru Pinots and Chardonnays. We’d like...

10/18/13 -   European wine producers working in denominated wine districts are obliged to submit samples of their wines to tasting panels on a regular basis. These panels are supposed to ensure that all wines bearing the official local designation (“Chianti Classico DOCG”, “Appellation Beaujolais Villages Controlee”, etc) conform to established standards of taste, aroma, color, and general quality. In principal this is a...