Articles

11/21/12 - Sometimes superb wines take circuitous routes in reaching Chambers Street: Our Burgundy maven John Truax got a call from his friend Russel Hone at Becky Wasserman Selections concerning a delicious Chiroubles they drank at a combination meat market/restaurant in Chablis. Only 20 cs of 2009 and 2010 were available, would we like them? The wines were made by the talented Philippe Jambon...

11/17/12-   We first met Cyril Fhal in 2004 at the Dive Bouteille, a "natural" wine show in the Loire Valley, where he was showing his 2002 Carignan/Grenache red and a 2003 white from 100% Maccabeu. The wines were elegant, balanced and full of character, certainly among the finest from the new generation of wine-makers in the Languedoc-Roussillon. Subsequent vintages from the quietly talented...

11/7/12 -   Our friend Paul Grieco at his chain of wine bars called “Terroir,” bills a portion of his snack roster as “Things You Must Eat.” And it’s precisely that: an eclectic little list of assorted tasty morsels. As we look at our Champagne shelf going into the holidays, we see an assortment of new and tasty morsels from our favorite small growers,...

 10/21/12 - (The office at Romeo del Castello) Sicilian wine is gradually encroaching on Tuscany on our shelves (we realize that they aren’t entirely logical neighbors, but such is real estate). More and more excellent wine is coming from Sicily; the future potential there is tremendous, and this will present a serious editing problem for us, but for now it’s exciting to add to...

10/18/12 - (Nothing says fall like a glass of Trousseau...)   Once in the recent past, we didn’t buy Puffeney. We wanted to make room for some new faces in the Jura. If it were up to some of us, we’d allow the Jura section of our store slowly to expand, spilling over into Burgundy, the Rhône, Alsatian Riesling, etc… until the fabulous vignerons...

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...