Articles

5/20/2008 - Jacques Puffeney is one of the most revered winemakers in the Jura and for good reason. He makes many different wines are they are all of extremely high quality. From Pinot Noir to Trousseau to Poulsard and to blends of all three these are exciting, terroir-focused and ageable wines that have zero manipulation. Honest wines as we like to call them. The...

5/17/2008 - The chatter has started and 2007 is turning out to be a spectacular vintage for Germany. I barrel tasted at a few estates in February (Knebel, Heger, Schnaittman & Van Volxem) and I was very excited as to what I tasted, even if the wines were in an infantile form. They are clear as a summer day with an azure blue sky...

5/16/2008 - Finding traditional Barolo for under $60 is impossible. Under $50 you need to be dreaming. Under $40 you need to slap yourself silly to make sure you have not traveled back in time to 1985 when wine prices were sane. Due to an inventory glitch in our uptown warehouse, we have 19 cases of two great Baroli - - and we are...

5/9/2008 - (The Conterno Cellar) I can only be talking about Giacomo Conterno's Barbera d'Alba from the Cascina Francia Vineyard. Almost every producer of Barolo and Barbaresco attempts to make a serious Barbera. Barbera actually takes to oak very well, better than most varietals, but most of them are oaked to death and are stripped of their character.  Thank goodness that is not the...

5/6/2008 - (Werner Nakel's tasting room in the Ahr - - - an old Roman Ruin) Spatburgunder is hotter than ever and the great ones that have been hoarded in Germany by top restaurants and collectors are finally arriving on our shores. Why is that? Because more and more American tasters are going there and tasting these spectacular wines. At Chambers Street Wines, Lyle,...

4/21/2008 - (Lyle and Marchel Richaud in Deauville) I will admit I am a Grenache hater as the grape, in my mind, when not cared for, makes hot, alcoholic wines that have stewed fruit and a general lack of focus. Most normal cuvèes of Chateauneuf are middling at best because the producers are putting all of their resources into luxury cuveè that few can...

4/11/2008 - For the last 20 years, Catherine and Pierre Breton have making some of the most elegant and age-worthy reds of the Loire Valley. So I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of the 2005 Bourgueil Les Perrières, as everything they have made in 2005 has been nothing short of brilliant. I opened a bottle on a Monday, and I will confess, this thing...

3/26/2008 - The following essay was written by Burgundy winemaker Philippe Pacalet, as an introduction to a collection of Jules Chauvet's studies on yeasts, techniques of vinification, carbonic maceration and malolactic fermentation. Considered to be the "father" of French natural winemaking, Chauvet was a Beaujolais negociant, taster and chemist whose studies and opinions, from the 1940's till his death in 1989, encouraged and made...

3/21/2008 - The great dry wines of Germany, labeled Grosses Gewachs or Erstes Gewachs or Trocken, feinherb or halbtrocken are some of Europe's best white wine values. These wines originate in the greatest vineyards and are rated according to ripeness just like the classically fruity wines. (Kabinett, Spatlese and Auslese) In addition Grosses Gewachs and Erstes Gewachs must be of at least Spatlese level...

3/17/2008 - Long enough title for you?  There are so many great 2005's that it's our duty to guide you in the right direction for value allied with top quality. Gevrey-Chambertin is a village that has many top-class growers, and there are even growers outside of Gevrey proper who are making top class village Gevrey, but there is something about Fourrier's that draws me...

3/11/2008 - I recently tasted with the great Beaujolais producer Georges Descombes, at the natural wine show (La Dive Bouteille) in Deauville, and then again a few days later at his home in Vilié-Morgon where we had a more extensive tasting. In his family kitchen, while eating fabulous homemade charcuterie and helping his daughter with her English homework, we tasted the full range of...

3/7/2008 - None other than the brilliant 1989 Olga Raffault Chinon Les Picasses. The 1989 vintage in Touraine and particularly in Chinon is classic with high acidity and excellent structures for long aging. Chinon growers consider 1989 to be the best vintage after the legendary 1947. If you have a taste of the 1989 Olga Raffault Les Picasses you will see why it is...

3/3/2008 - (Eric Texier) I tasted many great wines on my recent jaunt through France and Germany but Eric Texier's Cotes-du-Rhône-Villages St. Gervais Vieilles Vignes les Cadinières really was a particular stunner for me. I'm not really a Grenache lover so I hesitated when he poured this for me, but as soon as I stuck my nose in the glass I knew this was...

2/26/2008 - Well, Bernhard Breuer would have you think so. If you taste a bottle that has some age on it you might think so too. I have no idea why Nonnenberg does not get talked about in the same breath as Grafenberg, Holle, Kirchenstuck, Grunlack, Schlossberg & Rottland. It should, and hopefully in the future it will. It is a devastatingly complex wine...

2/20/2008 - 2006 has provided some lovely wines in the Beaujolais. They will not be the long agers or have the same serious structure as the 2005's but does every vintage have to be the vintage you sock away for your grandchildren? We need something to drink while we are trying to make our grandchildren, right? I was just in Deauville for perhaps the...