For much of its existence Muscadet was considered a very basic wine region with little potential for making 'great' wines, only straightforward white wines that go great with local seafood but offer little to the outside world. In the late 1980s/early 1990s, a 'New School' developed looking to make more substantial wines from some of the older and more unique vineyard sites, helping them to stand out by aging them on their lees for an extra long period of time to give them more body. The best producers of the time - Pepiere, Michel Bregeon, Luneau-Papin- earned quite a fan following as their wines were routinely described as 'baby Chablis' for their seashell-like saltiness. That 'New School', has now not as new as they once were, but it's great to see more of the new generation they helped to inspire coming into play. New to the area and with a youthful family member at the helm, Bouet checks all the right boxes for making excellent Muscadet. Crisp apple and leesy pear aromas pop from the glass with a hint of wet seashell are the hallmarks of Muscadet, and they're all here. Plenty of natural weight give the apple and pear fruit an extra juiciness on the palate, with a mouthwatering salinity that just begs for something from the sea to pair with it. The brinier the better!
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Even though the calendar isn't quite ready to say it for another two weeks, all the signs of Spring are here. The temperature, the budding flowers, the impending Madness that is March, and of course major league baseball's Spring Training (it's in the name, for crying out loud!). Best then to get an early jump on finding your wine choices for the season. While you don't have to limit enjoyment of this wine to just these months, it doesn't need saying Spring on the label for it to just scream it from the glass. Crisp pear and red apple in with the signature Vouvray honeyed aromas, but absolutely dry (sec) and even slightly herbal in a lavender/tarragon way. The palate is cool, clean and mouth-wateringly juicy with a bit of skin tannin to the texture, lots of apple flavors that feel almost crunchy with all the acidity. Very all purpose wine capable of working with creamy fish or white meat courses, lighter Spring salad or just chilled down while you enjoy the sunshine for a change. Much of the Wine Warehouse origin story can be traced back to a profound love for the great Sauvignon Blanc wines of the Loire, particularly the racy and vibrant fruit character of Sancerre. So when a New Zealand version not only gets us excited but can be touted as a 'significant house pour' for us, it has to be noteworthy. Owner/winemaker/name on the label Jules Taylor came from a career of running some of Marlborough's most visible wine brands to start her own personal label with her husband and a small crew of employees, Like so many of our favorites, they only look to make wines they are excited for, managed the way they want (certified Sustainably Farmed and Vegan), and judging by the results in the bottle they like to drink exactly what we do. Fruit for their Sauvignon Blanc comes from vineyards in the cooler Wairau and Awatere Valleys, and the fresh pop of acidity on the nose immediately cuts through the classic NZ tropical fruit to show bright green apple and minty herbs. Intentionally less fat with fruit on the palate than typical, but still with a full mouth of flavor to enjoy with immensely mouth-watering citrus skin, kiwi fruit and the lingering herbal note often compared to jalapeno (but without the heat). Under the radar for not trying to be as 'in your face' as the stereotypical NZ Sauv Blanc, and precisely why we like it so much. INSIDER'S PICK: 2021 CLEMENT & FLORIAN BERTHIER COTEAUX DU GIENNOIS ROUGE (Pinot Noir/Gamay)-$24.992/22/2024 With the prices for even the most basic Red Burgundies continually creeping upward, it makes more and more sense to explore other parts of France to find good values. Giennois sits just North of Sancerre and Pouilly-Fume on the Loire River, but the geography has almost as much in common with Burgundy as it does with others further downstream. Sitting around 50 miles away as the crow flies (corbeaux if we're being accurate), Chablis is the northenmost end of Burgundy and far closer in soils and climate to Giennois than those near Tours and Nantes, but it sits on a different river system than the Loire so they very rarely get thought of together. Pinot Noir has always existed in both places, but never produced wines to the heights of the heart of Burgundy so they stayed more of a local entity. Today they can go shoulder to shoulder with most anything you can find from Burgundy at the dollar mark. This producer plays with blending a portion of Gamay into the wine (called 'Passetoutgrain' when done in Burgundy), mostly there to soften the edges a bit but does not dilute or get in the way of the wine's Pinot-ness. Lovely dried cherry nose with a touch of cool raspberry, slowly getting a pop of Gamay's tart berry and game as the wine opens up, but that's about as present as the Gamay gets. The palate is pure Pinot silky texture, savory dark fruit with nice weight, and a fine dusty tannin through the finish with a bit of tart berry. This shows more and more the longer you let it be open and play around with it, delivering a surprisingly satisfying Old World style Pinot experience for the money. INSIDER'S PICK: 2021 BODEGAS CATENA CABERNET FRANC SAN CARLOS (Wine Advocate 93points)-$24.992/15/2024 Malbec is the dominant grape variety across the Mendoza region of Argentina, but it isn't the only game in town. Nor should it be, with the subtle diversity of soils and climates available among the more obvious and dramatic changes in elevation along the Andes Mountains. One of our favorite producers, Bodegas Catena, has been at the forefront of exploring this diversity, most prominently in their 'Maps' label series. Each wine showcases one of the many subregions with a variety that benefits the most from that terroir, which does include a couple Malbecs, of course, but also explores the likes of Chardonnay, Bonarda, and Cabernet Sauvignon. In the case of San Carlos, they focus on the mix of clay and sandy soils that tend to aid in giving wines a brighter and more floral character, a perfect setting for Cabernet Franc. Vibrant red in the glass and a bit of a modern aroma of darker raspberry fruit and a touch of oak at first, but quickly gets more floral and savory with spice and hints of cut green peppers. The palate is impressively bright and vibrant with plenty of complexity and staying power, surprisingly also light on its feet and allowing the fruit to be pretty without trying to saturate your taste buds. Definitely a New World version of Cabernet Franc, but it learned some important lessons from the great regions of the Loire and has some great food pairing capabilities. INSIDER'S PICK: 2020 BONIPERTI VESPOLINA COLLINE NOVARESI 'FAVOLALUNGA' (Vinous 92points)-$24.992/8/2024 The Alto Piedmonte wine region was once considered the equal of Alba and Asti, with their most famous Nebbiolo based wines (Gattinara, Boca, Ghemme) just as prized as Barolo and Barbaresco. The phylloxera blight of the late 1800s put a sizeable dent in the region's production, and after World War II much of the population left rural life for the hopes of finding work in Milan, reducing the region to less than 5% of its original vineyard acreage. Recent decades have seen a gradual return for both agriculture and vineyards here, especially around the improvement and exposure of their more 'everyday' wines using the Vespolina grape. Parallel in many ways to the Barbera grape further south, Vespolina is brighter in fruit, softer in tannin, and generally more approachable for wines than Nebbiolo (also called Spanna here). The cooler climate really kicks up the brightness of the fruit and makes it easier to producer wines at lower alcohol levels while still achieving great complexity. This is a bottling we have carried in many vintages, and this is likely their best to date. Unoaked but full of natural cedar-y aromas, along with peppery red berry and dried fruits, very savory at first and gaining some warmth and spice as it opens. The palate is bright, almost quenching with tart cranberry fruit and herbs, light and dusty on the finish, immensely easygoing and full of food pairing possibilities. The Grenache Blanc grape has long been a workhorse white wine grape in Southern France and along the Mediterranean, made most famous by its featured use in White Chateauneuf-du-Pape but quite present throughout the warmer growing regions. In its original growing areas, the plantings have reduced some in recent years, losing ground to increased red grape demand and yield issues that tends to be easier to be easier for bulk production. In that same time Grenache Blanc has been on the rise in the New World areas that have earned fame for doing well with other Rhone varieties, such as California, Washington, South Africa, and of course Australia. The winemakers in these regions have also helped the grape buck its long-standing reputation for making low acidity, 'fat' wines that need to be blended with high acidity grapes; with freshness and lower alcohol becoming more emphasized, picking Grenache Blanc early can make fantastic offerings like this one all on its own. Lovely peach and white flower aromas right from the start, but also with a hint of lime and minty coolness, especially when first out of the fridge, never heady or overtly tropical. The palate is equal parts round and vibrant, loads of white fruits and crunchy pear at first that gets more green apple-y the longer it sits in your mouth, finishing quite bright and zesty with a light green apple skin tannin note. A great wine to have on hand for seafood or lighter white meat dishes that need a wine with some body, or whenever Spring decides to roll into town for us. INSIDER'S PICK: 2021 CARLOS RAPOSO/WORLD WILD WINES TOURIGA NACIONAL 'IMPECAVEL' DAO $22.991/25/2024 There is ALWAYS something new to learn in wine, always a reason to taste something that will challenge your expectations. Much of the recent red wine explosion from the Douro and Dao regions in Portugal has evolved around developing more robust and hearty wines, which grapes like Touriga Nacional are more than capable of producing. Here, and in other parts of the world where Touriga is planted, its reputation for adding intensity to the flavor of great Port is also sought in the unfortified red wines, usually resulting in sappy, extracted and naturally tannic wines. The surprisingly cool and dry alpine areas within the Dao provides a much different opportunity for the grape, more similar to the capabilities of Syrah in the Northern Rhone to provide elegance and refinement. Winemaker Carlos Raposo is a native of the Dao region, and after years making acclaimed still wines for the famed Niepoort's Port house has moved on to create his own label focused on making his own wines from the oldest vineyards in the Dao. Dark plummy fruit at first on the nose with some smoky spice and dark pepper notes, and with the lighter (13%abv) character always staying on the more savory side of the street. The palate is almost a revelation for Touriga Nacional, truly elegant with very fine tannins and no extracted weight to the fruit, bordering on refreshing with no oak present. The nerve and fine dryness on the finish absolutely validates the comparison to a Northern Rhone Syrah, just with a little different fruit profile. Great multi-purpose food wine and a definite sign of things to come from producers in the region. The Rhone is probably our favorite wine region for finding diversity in character, even among what should be similar tasting basic or 'value' wines. There are a lot of grape varieties permitted for use, to start with, so you have an almost endless flavor palate to choose from. Add to that the immense geological variations, temperatures, and winemaking styles to bring shading even to the same grape grown all over, like Grenache. This bottling comes to us from one of our long time favorite producers, made from old vine Grenache sourced from the foothills of Mount Ventoux on the eastern edge of the Rhone (still close enough to cast its shadow on Avignon). It's intention is to be made in an approachable easy drinking style but with exceptional quality fruit; and when we say 'easy', we mean eeeaaasssssyyyyyyy. Almost TOO easy. Juicy dark kirsch cherry and soft raspberry with a hint of herb and black pepper to the nose, with the fruit getting more briary on the palate. Initially the texture is mouthfilling and almost Pinot-y soft, but the fine tannins and sense of structure from the older vines come through to give a more savory finish than expected and keep it from feeling weighty. Not overly complex, but never boring, you will want to have this on hand to enjoy with great frequency. New vintage of an old favorite, and one of the wines that first drew us to the Mary Taylor selection of wines. The project aims to source fruit from small quality growers and make value oriented wines that represent the identity of the appellation or region. Each wine comes from a single source of grapes, and the name of the producer shares recognition on the labels (Sophie Siadou here) as a partnership. Along with wines from the more famous regions, they do an excellent job of shining the spotlight on regions like Valencay that consumers rarely see on their shelves. South of the Loire along the banks of the Cher River and off the beaten track of the famous tourist cities, they are probably more known for their ashen goat cheese than the wines. There aren't any blockbuster high level producers here, so everything is made to be at an everyday level of consumption and pricing, which is just how we like them. The blend of grapes here is also a bit unexpected, combining the softer stylings of Gamay and Pinot Noir with the relative heartiness and tannic nature of Malbec (here called Cot), but here they meld quite nicely. Savory, almost peppery herbal nose over dry black cherry and red fruits that build a little juiciness as it opens up. Unique combination of polished first notes on the palate with fine tannins coming in quickly afterwards, the Gamay and Pinot give the body and fruit, while the Malbec hits on the finish. Last time we referred to this as a 'backdoor Burgundy', a wine for those that like the earthier and more structured side of Pinot Noir. That style remains, and for those that enjoy it will remain an excellent value. |
The Best of the Best.We offering free tastings on these wines in the store every Thursday and Friday, and a 10% discount off the retail price through the duration of the day. Come on by and give them a try! Archives
November 2023
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