Articles

[Cédric Bouchard] Let’s face it: mass-produced, extensively marketed Champagne is all around us: TV shows, billboards, music videos, glossy magazine ads telling us that expensive bubbly wine in a shiny bottle or box is the ultimate representation of luxury and pleasure, the beverage equivalent of a Carnival Cruise. When did we stop viewing this beverage as a wine, an agricultural product with a connection...

[Paiagallo, April 3, 2011. Vines planted in 1987. No herbicides in use here!] A couple of trips each year to Piedmont have given me the chance to taste a great many wines there – and to taste them a number of times. Combine those trips with Nebbiolo Prima, the annual event staged by the producers association called Albeisa (500 to 600 current vintage wines...

4/24/2011 [Many thanks to Justin Chearno for the use of his picture] As you cast your gaze over the crowd at the Dive Bouteilles, one of the world’s legendary natural wine trade events, you catch a glimpse of an eccentric, mad-hatter-ish figure. As you survey these chilly, dimly lit vaults below the Chateau de Brézé, you notice an energetic, distinctively clad gentleman in a...

We love the wines of Jean-Francois Ganevat more and more with each vintage. His wines prove him to be, without a doubt, one of the most exciting growers of the region. The latest batch is no exception; these are, quite possibly, some of the best wines from Ganevat we've tasted to date. Jean-Francois learned wine-making in Burgundy, where he spent nine years at Domaine...

[Bottling line at Ameztoi] If you are a Chambers Street Wines regular client you know we freak out about Muscadet here as we love it. Crisp, minerally, very well-priced and most of the better examples will age for a very long time. The 1982 Luneau-Papin l'Dor is still young according to some pundits around here. But we are not talking about Muscadet here today...