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To all Wine Exchangers, “Here is another…domaine to keep your beady eye on, especially those that appreciate but can ill-afford the likes of Roumier or de Vogüé… This is straightforward, uncomplicated winemaking respectful to their terroir. There is nothing pretentious or showy here: just delicious, complex Pinot Noir that offer purity on the nose, mineralité […]

To all Wine Exchangers, How does this kind of thing keep happening?  Sometimes we don’t even believe some of the offers that come across the table.  But ours is not to question why, ours is but to hope whatever causes deals like this keeps happening.   When it happens with something we have been big fans […]

To all Wine Exchangers, What a success story! Reading Bob Betz’s ‘timeline’ over the last 40+ years is pretty much the timeline of a perfect career in the wine biz. 1974 – Bob and Cathy Betz complete their year of “training” in vineyards of France, Italy and Germany. 1975 – Bob starts his 28-year career […]

To all Wine Exchangers, What, another new Chardonnay?  Well, yes, on the surface it would appear that way.  But there is much more to the story than that, starting with the name.  Not many folks will know the name Thomas Pico off the top of their heads, but he is a Chardonnay producer of some repute, known for […]

To all Wine Exchangers, Yes, it’s that time again.  We have done an early-in-the-game offering of the Wine Spectator Top 100 for as long as we have been doing our email outreach program.  This year’s Spectator ‘100’ list follows the more established pattern of years past…a number of the wines were sold out already (some […]

To all Wine Exchangers, Sometimes simpler is better. Today’s story isn’t a long one.  It’s actually a pretty basic call to action on a helluva Pinot Noir deal. Roth Estate was established in 2001 as a separate program established by the founder of Lancaster, Ted Simpkins.  In 2012, Ted sold Lancaster and Roth to the […]

To all Wine Exchangers, I was blown away by these wines from the Produttori del Barbaresco. The straight 2014 Barbaresco is sublime…Over the last few years, the Produttori have quietly set about moving into a new, spacious winery that includes new fermentation tanks and new casks that have replaced the old, very large casks of […]

To all Wine Exchangers, It’s possibly starting to get a little redundant, us constantly singing the praises of the 2015 vintage.  But the reality of it is that not only was it a spectacular, sunny, juicy year, but a wide swath of areas enjoyed this uncommon success.  It’s one of those vintages where, if you […]

To all Wine Exchangers, Fifteen years ago, Eric Mailhe came into the office and poured me a glass of his 2001 Château Coufran.  During the tasting of his wine, he explained how they were moving into organic farming and bringing on the silent but super First Growth (Château Lafite, Margaux, both Pichons, etc..) oenologist Eric […]

To all Wine Exchangers, One of our long-time tenets has been to explore ‘other offerings’ from iconic wineries.  If you haven’t heard our reasoning, it’s pretty simple.  ‘Iconic’ wines are wines that have achieved a certain status because of continued excellence over a period of time, and our thought (which has proven true time and […]