Burgundy – Pinot Noir Dreamland

Join us this Saturday, any time, to sample Pinot Noir at its most glorious. We’ll have a few bottles open for tasting, featuring Bouchard’s flagship 2012 Beaune Grèves L’Enfant Jésus. – 750-ML bottles SOLD OUT

L’Enfant Jésus comes solely from a plot of slightly under 10 acres in the Les Grèves climat of the Beaune commune. Les Grèves is considered one of the finest of the Beaune Premier Crus and Bouchard Père et Fils monopole of L’Enfant Jésus is further considered the best portion of Les Grèves. This is a cool, almost perpetually breezy site that is known for producing fruit that makes lush and velvety wine. In fact, Bouchard often presents this wine at the end of a tasting, following even their Grand Crus.

Bouchard has some of the choicest plots in Burgundy’s most coveted stretch of real estate, the Côte d’Or.  After Joseph Henriot acquired the company in the mid-1990s Bouchard quickly set about affirming their status as one of the top producers in the region.

Today, cellar master Philippe Prost presides over a remarkable new, gravity-fed winemaking facility enabling him to fashion all their wines with optimum efficiency and minimal handling. The grapes for L’Enfant Jésus are hand-picked and undergo a “ruthless” sorting operation to ensure only good fruit makes it into the finished wine. Aging is carried out for 10 to 18 months in French oak barrels. Filtering and fining, if done at all, is with a gentle hand. The result is a bright yet sappy wine with complex aromatics that speaks of the tiny plot of land whence it came.

We love it when French winemakers visit our shop and tell us that we have a selection of Burgundy (from diverse vintages, producers, and communes) that’s more impressive than anything they’ve ever seen. Even in France!

“Of all of France’s wine regions, Burgundy is the only one where minute geological nuance, sensually etched into human consciousness by centuries of winemaking and tasting, is given the force of law.” – Andrew Jefford

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Posted on 2014.12.18 in France, Saturday Sips Wines, Burgundy  |  Read more...

Top Spanish Terroir

2011 Ona (Priorat)
Price: $22/Bottle – SOLD OUT

Although winemaking has been going on for centuries in the tiny mountain district of Priorat, it wasn’t until the mid-1990s, when a group of winemakers moved in and began making revolutionary wines, that it came to international attention. It was back in the 12th Century that Carthusian monks established the Priorato de Scala Dei (the Priory of the Stairway of God) on this terrain of steep slopes and wild, folded hills northwest of Tarragona. Priorat is now one of the most progressive winemaking regions in all of Spain. It is currently one of only two regions in Spain designated as DOCa (DOQ in Catalan), the highest qualification level for a wine region according to Spanish wine regulations, alongside Rioja DOCa.

This is the landscape in which the young Blai Ferré creates wine of intensity and balance. Ona is Priorat in the raw, no elaboration, merely the core of great fruit showing the potential for creating the type of wine Priorat has become known for: Upscale wines intended for the cellar that reveal an insight into time and place after years of development.

He fell in love with winemaking while as a teenager working the fields with Alvaro Palacios — one of the leading winemakers not only in Priorat, but all the world. Blai then purchased two small lots of his own, about 12 acres worth of land. He likes being self-sufficient and doing everything himself – with a little help from his family around harvest time, as you can see – and produces a scant 2000 bottles of Ona, selling the rest of the harvest to other producers.

2011 Ona is a blend of Garnatxa, Syrah, Carinyena and a splash of Cabernet Sauvignon. Cultivation is organic and the harvest is hand-picked and hand-sorted. Half of the wine is aged in stainless steel vats and the other half in French oak for eight months. We’ve found that it’s a wine that always outperforms its price level. A fantastic bottle to have on-hand for guests or to bring to parties. And it’s versatile enough to be paired with a simple cheese plate to roast lamb and everything in-between.

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Posted on 2014.12.16 in Spain DO, Priorat DOQ  |  Read more...

Châteauneuf-du-Pape & Meursault

2011 Domaine La Barroche Châteauneuf-du-Pape Signature
Price $79/bottle

The young and incredibly talented Julien Barrot took over winemaking at Domaine La Barroche during the disastrous 2002 vintage. Despite this trial by fire, Julien has since produced one magnificent vintage after another. While this small domaine is relatively new to estate bottling, the Barrot family that owns these 36 acres of prime Châteauneuf-du-Pape vineyards have been established in the village since the 14th Century.

The 2011 Signature is composed of a blend of about 65% Grenache and the rest Syrah, Mourvèdre and Cinsault. The grapes come from several well-known plots with vines on average more than 70 years old, including the Grand Pierre district on the slopes of Rayas where the vines of the famed Château Rayas reside. Vinification is very traditional with the wine being moved by gravity, aged all in tank and larger foudre, and minimal sulfites used at bottling. The result is a concentrated, medium-bodied, seamless wine with plenty of fruit and spice that drinks well now but capable of developing in the cellar for many years.

2010 Domaine Michel Caillot Meursault
Special Price $44/bottle SOLD OUT

You can taste the fat of the sun’s warmth mingled with a mineral finesse in the 100% Chardonnay-based wines of Meursault. The Caillot estate was founded in 1961 and the vineyards cover approximately 32 acres, in Meursault and other renowned appellations, with vines averaging around 40 years old. Since the mid-90s, Michel Caillot (Son of the domaine founder, Roger Caillot, and also the nephew of Pierre Morey, former winemaker at Domaine Leflaive), has been adopting environmentally friendly winegrowing techniques. He is a fanatic for quality and committed to the principles of non-interventionist winemaking.

Fermentation is accomplished with whole clusters and indigenous yeasts. The wines are kept on their lees as long as possible and racked once before bottling. Michel uses little to no sulfites and typically ages wines up to 24 months before bottling (the latter half of that period in neutral tanks to preserve freshness). Michel’s wines are balanced, combining pure citrus fruit, minerality, a creamy texture, and a complex finish.

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Posted on 2014.12.12 in France, Saturday Sips Wines, Burgundy, Southern Rhone  |  Read more...

Right Bank Bordeaux for the Holidays

Just in time for the holidays we snagged a few cases of Bordeaux wine at a price that makes it easy to keep everyone’s glass filled.

2008 Château Tour du Moulin Fronsac
Price: $100/6 Pack SOLD OUT

The Fronsac AOC is one of Bordeaux’s lesser known winemaking regions. This is an area of back-country roads and tiny vineyards a stone’s throw from the celebrated AOCs of Pomerol and Saint-Émilion. The Merlot grape is natural here. In the right hands, wines made in Fronsac can be as good as many of the wines from its big-name neighbors, and less expensive too.

A trained oenologist and graduate from the university of Bordeaux, Vincent Dupuch took ownership of the château in 1987. He immediately began revitalizing the property and expanded the vineyard holdings to 17 sustainably managed acres. The average vine age is 30 years. The wine is a blend of around 80% Merlot with the rest Cabernet Franc and a touch of Cabernet Sauvignon. It’s perfectly ready to drink with a balanced mix of berry and earth flavors that will bring cheer to any holiday feast.

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Posted on 2014.12.09 in France, Bordeaux  |  Read more...

Chapoutier in Wood Gift Box

Stop by this Saturday to sample a couple of exceptional wines from the Roussillon region of southern France — available in attractive wood six pack boxes for the perfect gift of wine for a loved one or yourself.

$100 wood six pack box SOLD OUT
2013 “Bila-Haut” Côtes du Roussillon Villages

$150 wood six pack box SOLD OUT
2013 Bila-Haut and 2013 “Occultum Lapidem” Côtes du Roussillon Villages Latour (three of each)

The Chapoutier family’s roots in the Rhône date back to 1808, when they first began producing wines in Hermitage and Côte Rôtie. Although the family acquired a number of excellent vineyards throughout the Rhône over time, and became one of the most important names in the region, the winery began to languish in the 1980s. That all changed when Michel Chapoutier took over the family business in the early 90s. He lowered yields, began cultivating the vineyards using organic and biodynamic practices, and sought to create wines with more finesse, making Chapoutier one of France’s first great merchant houses to follow the path of leading private domains at the time.

Michel Chapoutier is now regarded as one of France’s superstar winemakers and he has taken his passion and commitment for viniculture to some of the best slopes in Roussillon around the River Agly in the foothills of the Pyrénées. The Domaine is located in Terres Catalanes, in the Côtes du Roussillon Village of Latour de France. This is a land of sunshine – an average of 325 days per year. Black and brown schist give the wines a solar touch, gneiss adds minerality and freshness, and then a combination of limestone and chalk provide the strength and balance. These are serious wines from a region that continuously shows its potential for greatness as more ambitious winemakers move in.

The 2013 Chapoutier “Les Vignes de Bila-Haut” Côtes du Roussillon Villages (90-92 points Wine Advocate) offers a fresh and layered profile. It’s a blend of mostly Grenache, Syrah, and Carignan brimming with earth and red fruits. It drinks well now and will evolve in a cellar for a few years to come.

A step up in concentration, the 2013 Chapoutier Domaine de Bila-Haut “Occultum Lapidem” Côtes du Roussillon Villages Latour de France (94-97 points Wine Advocate) is made from a mix of Syrah, Grenache and Carignan. Although full-bodied and intense, and exuding mineral and dark berry aromatics, it’s never cumbersome, and will develop in a cellar for another decade.

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Posted on 2014.12.05 in France, Saturday Sips Wines, Languedoc-Roussillon  |  Read more...

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