INSIDER'S PICK: 2021 CLEMENT & FLORIAN BERTHIER COTEAUX DU GIENNOIS ROUGE (Pinot Noir/Gamay)-$24.99

​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.

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