France

From 100+ year-old Grenache vines in Bas de La Crau...

97 Points! The 2022 Châteauneuf Du Pape Cuvee Speciale is on another level, with a blockbuster perfume of ripe black cherries, melted licorice, jus de viande, lavender, and roasted garrigue. A rich, opulent style of Châteauneuf du Pape, it brings full-bodied richness while staying graceful, weightless, and flawlessly balanced, with ripe tannins and incredible length. This tour de force 2022 should be snatched up by savvy readers and enjoyed over the coming 15 years or so. - Jeb Dunnuck

90 Points! A destemmed blend of 60% Grenache, 25% Syrah, and the rest Carignan, the 2023 Côtes Du Rhône is ruby/plum-hued and offers a beautifully pure, medium-bodied, elegant profile in its red and black fruits, peppery herb, and leather-like aromas and flavors. This juicy, vibrant, balanced Côtes Du Rhône will drink well for at least 4-5 years. - Jeb Dunnuck

Great value here! The family created this new cuvée separate from their plots in Mesnil to showcase these special terroirs - Montegeux is general more mineral and rounder even when young. All aging in tank. Dosage 2g/L

90% Chardonnay, 10% Coteaux Champenois Pinot Noir. Villages: Fèrebrianges, Etoges, Congy Soil: Clay, limestone Dosage: 7g/L

92 Points!  Floral notes redolent of iris and violet mingled with peony preface the 2023 Vacqueyras from Domaine Santa Duc, a moderately weighted, tense and straight wine with a lot of energy, a juicy texture and a long, ethereal, tangy and endless finish. With time in the cellar, this wine promises to develop greater complexity, revealing its full potential. - Yohan Castaing, robertparker.com

96 Points! A high percentage (75%) of new wood has given this wine a very fine polished character. Along with the structure, it has brought out impressive aromas of black fruits, cinnamon spice and power. The wine is has a fresh black-fruit aftertaste. - Wine Enthusiast

95 Points! Lovely depth to the nose of this young Bordeaux with black currant, ink and walnut aromas that follow through to a medium to full body with a solid core of polished and integrated tannins. This will drink beautifully in 2026 and onwards. - JamesSuckling.com

94 Points! The 2021 Lynch-Bages has a wonderful bouquet with intense blackberry and bilberry fruit, retaining the estuarine element I remarked upon from barrel. The oak here is seamlessly integrated and gains complexity with aeration. The palate is medium-bodied with fine-grained tannins, very supple and focused, a little more peppery toward the finish with impressive grip and depth in context of the vintage. This is a superb achievement in a tricky season. Chapeau, Jean-Charles Cazes. - Neal Martin, Vinous Media

90 Points, Wine Spectator's #29 Wine of the Year 2025! A fragrant, floral rosé, with a burst of watermelon and strawberry lemonade notes. Maintains vibrant energy from start to finish, with a saline mineral foundation offsetting the creamy fruit. Balanced and delicious, showing a waft of smoke on the well-meshed finish. Grenache, Syrah, Cinsault and Rolle. - Wine Spectator

This is a brilliant skin contact Pinot Gris which always comes out as one of our best value Rosé options every vintage!

Made by direct press, Cold maceration before the alcoholic fermentation last 3-4 days, Fermentation lasts 15 days with only indigenous yeasts

From the importer: The Neveu family is fortunate to own land in the Clos des Bouffants, an unusually steep parcel with a very poor, thin soil composed of rocky limestone. Facing due south, the Sauvignon here receives generous sunshine to produce an ample, concentrated wine.

True to its terroir, it possesses striking nerve and minerality that underscore the mouthfilling citrus flavors. This is serious Sancerre made by a family whose roots in the region date back to the twelfth century.

Volnay-Santenots is among the appellation's southernmost sites and closest to Meursault. It's situated on the mid-slope section of the hillside. Michel Ampeau's grandfather acquired the first vines in the early-1900s before his father, Robert, acquired more in the 1950s.

Clay-limestone soils that are notably more red in appearance than its neighbors, signifying a greater presence of clay and a higher content of iron which lends more structure.

93+ Points! The just-released 2019 Viré-Clessé Cuvée E. J. Thevenet is showing nicely, unwinding in the glass with aromas of orange confit, honeycomb, pear and baking spices. Medium to full-bodied, satiny and seamless, it's dense and layered, with bright acids and a charming, suave style despite its concentration. Aromatically, it's still a touch reserved and will really reward a few more years of bottle age. - William Kelley, robertparker.com

When Jean-Luc Thunevin came out with his first vintage (ok, technically, 2^nd) of Chateau Valandraud in the dreadful 1992 harvest, all of us in the business at the time thought, “Oh yeah right… you expect me to believe this is going to be a great bottle of wine coming from one of the worst vintages in Bordeaux and priced at levels we see from “First Growths”?”  But truth be told, it was the wine of that 1992 vintage and Jean-Luc and the “Garage” movement were immediately on the map.

One of his few value labels based on his fine standing and pioneering principals is… Mauvais Garcon.  Well, he actually calls it “Bad Boy” in other markets but our government wouldn’t let that name fly here in the ole U-S-of-A, so we get Mauvais Garcon (‘Bad Boy’ in French).  The wine is made up of 95% Merlot and 5% Cabernet Franc and mainly comes from vineyards in Fronsac. And it is ripe, round, warm, supple and resolved. Pop and pour!

95 Points! Slight hints of wax, earth and lemon show on the still-shy nose. The palate is equally reticent, tightly coiled but speaking of concentrated citrus freshness that verges into zestiness. The bone-dry nature makes it hard to sense ripe citrus slumbering at the core but the fruit will reveal itself with bottle age. Concentration, purity and power promise a future firework, discernible now in the tangerine zestiness on the finish. - Wine Enthusiast

“Hommage à Roger Blachon” comes from the family’s oldest vines of Syrah within their monopole, “Les Côtes Saint-Joseph.” It’s an impressive steep south/southeast facing exposure with decomposed granite soils and marl. Blachon’s Hommage Saint-Joseph is a big wine, vigorous and robust, proving how Mauves can be just as inspiring as its next-door neighbor, Cornas.

The Syrah is 80% destemmed, each block is vinified separately in cement. Delphine and Sylvain prefer a long cool fermentation with routine pump-overs to extract a deeper shade of color. The wine is then racked into a combination of 3, 4, and 5 year-old 400l and 228l barrels, where it rests for 18 months, then bottled unfiltered. Irresistible and beastly, succulent into sanguine and savory… Syrah for the classy carnivore.