Specials

95 Points! The 2019 Tinto Parcelas is an equal blend of Alicante Bouschet and Petit Verdot aged for 12 months in new oak tonels. It comes in at 14.48% alcohol. This is a blend of the best parcels of the Herdade. Another beautiful wine from this Alentejo outpost of Sogrape, this has the same features of its lesser-priced siblings—polish, moderate tannins, precision and good fruit. Here, though, the Alicante more influences the blend, easily dominating the more neutral Petit Verdot. This is also a bit tighter, thus likely to be even slower to evolve. It has the best structure of the three in this report and the most upside. You could drink this now, but it will be better in a couple of years. It will then age well. - Mark Squires, robertparker.com

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From the winery: Radian Vineyard is the most southern and westerly vineyard in the Sta Rita Hills AVA, and it is perhaps the coolest vineyard we work with, being battered by cool winds off the Pacific Ocean year round. In 2022 Radian Vineyard fully embodies the characteristics of the vintage demonstrating its extreme climate through its texture - rustic, deep, and brooding (for Pinot at least). However, Radian always shows off its finesse through the nose. Think of red fruits, florals, and cedar.

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95 Points! The 2021 Chardonnay Sta. Rita Hills offers a richer, nicely oaked profile that includes honeyed stone fruits, toasted spice, crushed stone, and salted citrus-like nuances. It's rich, medium to full-bodied, and has a concentrated, mouth-filling profile that's grounded by a beautiful spine of vibrant acidity. It benefits from air, and this is another awesome Chardonnay from this team that readers will absolutely love. - Jeb Dunnuck

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95 Points! Crunchy black cherries, raspberries, leather, and peppery floral notes all emerge from the 2021 Pinot Noir Sta. Rita Hills, an incredibly pure, medium-bodied Pinot Noir that has fabulous concentration, a focused, nicely structured mouthfeel, and a great finish. It's a hidden little gem of a Pinot Noir that readers should snatch up! - Jeb Dunnuck

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90 Points! Loaded with ripe, slightly sweet black cherry flavors, which are laced with espresso and toasty oak notes. A style some will enjoy. Drink now. - Wine Spectator

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94+ Points! Disgorged in May 2022, the Paillard NV Extra-Brut Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru is superbly fresh, offering up aromas of orchard fruit, lemon, spring flowers and menthol touches. Medium to full-bodied, expressive and precise with a delicate mousse, it’s seamless, vinous, chalky and harmonious with a clean and precise finish. - Yohan Castaing, robertparker.com

94 Points! Freshly squeezed lemon, green apples, oyster shell and white apricots with subtle brioche and exquisite yeastiness. A fruity entry followed by a medium to full body where you find the fine perlage carrying the intense chalky flavors to a nicely dry but approachable finish. Lovely length with spot-on balance between chalky fruit and autolysis. Disgorged in March 2022. Drink or hold. - JamesSuckling.com

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95 Points! It’s really hard to believe that this is a 2020, such is the youthful energy of this extraordinary wine. I love the intense lemon blossom aroma in the nose. Concentrated, creamy and very elegant, this high-end Savennieres isn’t difficult to understand. Less fundamentally mineral than the very best, but still plenty of wet stone at the long silky finish. From organically grown grapes. Drink or hold.- JamesSuckling.com

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94 Points! Mostly Chardonnay, the 2020 Limoux Blanc is a terrific white that has real class in its aromatics as well as texture. Light gold-hued, with a great nose of poached pears, honeyed citrus, crushed stone, toasted hazelnuts, and white flowers, it hits the palate with medium-bodied richness that carries terrific mid-palate depth, bright, racy, yet brilliantly integrated acidity, and a crisp, clean, lengthy finish that brings an undeniable sense of salinity. A seriously good white, it deserves 2-3 years of bottle age (it needs a decant if drinking any time soon) and will evolve for over a decade. Bravo. - Jeb Dunnuck

93 Points! This has very pretty energy and focus with sliced melon, pears, stone and fresh ginger. Dried flowers. Citrus, too. Medium-bodied with a solid density of fruit with white peaches and honey. Tangy and flavorful. Drink or hold. - James Suckling.com

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94 Points! Hailing from a warm vintage that was one of the best in what would otherwise have been a fairly ordinary decade, the 1985 Moulin Touchais Coteaux du Layon is starting to take on a deep golden appearance, commencing to amber. It offers a gorgeous, suave texture and a very complex nose that's a touch oxidative but that adds a layer of additional intrigue: it's all nuts, raisins, walnuts, olives, warm pastry, cinnamon, cooked orange peel. It's round and sweet (95g/L) but not unctuous with richness on the mid-palate while retaining enough acidity to refresh the mouth on the long finish. A wine that is very comfortable in its own skin, providing a very relaxing experience.

Moulin Touchais produces sweet Chenin Blanc in the Coteaux du Layon appellation. The wines are most often late harvested, although in some vintages - such as 1997 - a high level of botrytis builds on the fruit. What makes the winery special is its late-release policy: the wines must spend a minimum of 10 years in the underground cellars beneath the village of Doué la Fontaine before release. - Rebecca Gibb MW, Vinous Media, 2021

 

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95 Points! The effusive sliced-pear and white-peach aromas introduce you to this extraordinary, contemporary interpretation of this grape, which is so often dismissed as old-fashioned. The abundant fine tannins remind me of natural wines, but there’s a level of brightness here that’s totally Alpine and gives it remarkable drive at the very long wet-stone finish. Drink or hold. - JamesSuckling.com

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95 Points! Such an elegant wine for this Grand Cru that tends towards aromatic richness, the pineapple and basil notes very delicate on the nose. On the medium-to full-bodied palate there’s more succulence, but even there the crushed-stone minerality keeps everything very cool and straight. Very long, focused finish with so great vitality and very fine tannins. From biodynamically grown grapes with Demeter certification. Drink or hold. - JamesSuckling.com

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95 Points! So much candied citrus, angelica, dried sage and thyme in the nose! However, this compact and highly structured Alsace Grand Cru dry riesling is still very youthful and really needs a lot of aeration (decanting and big glasses!) to open it up. Stunning complexity of fruit, herbal and mineral character at the imposing yet very cool finish. From biodynamically grown grapes with Demeter certification. Drinkable now, but best from 2025. - JamesSuckling.com

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96 Points! From just outside the town of Windsor, the 2020 Chardonnay UV - El Diablo Vineyard is energetic with aromas of green apple, lemon verbena, and delicate savory herbs. The palate is juicy and long, with lemon curd and snappy acidity, balancing out with a clean finish. Drink over the next 15 years. - Jeb Dunnuck

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93 Points! The 2019 Winemaker's Cuvee is 80% Cabernet Sauvignon, 14% Merlot, 5% Malbec, and the rest Cabernet Franc and was aged for 15 months in 50% new French oak. It is rich with aromas of lavender, tobacco, and boysenberry compote and delivers ripe fruit through the mid-palate, with notes of blackcurrant, leather, and baking spice. This red has immediate appeal, but it will continue to evolve over the next 10 or more years. - Jeb Dunnuck

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93 Points! Notes of pastry, roasted pineapple, minerals, cashews and fine lees on the nose. This is a flavorful and round verdejo, but subtle and tactile, with a bright streak of acidity passing through the palate and leaving a broad but fresh-toned mouth-feel. From organically grown grapes. Drink now or hold. - JamesSuckling.com

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92 Points! The 2019 Cap de Faugères has tightened up a lot on the nose, showing dense black fruit, tar and graphite scents, quite Left Bank in style. The palate is much more expressive, featuring fleshy red berry fruit mixed with allspice, clove and white pepper. Persistent and quite convincing on the finish. Give it time for those aromatics to get their mojo back – which they will. - Neal Martin, Vinous Media

91 Points! The 2019 Cap de Faugeres is terrific, just as it was from bottle. Rich and expansive, the 2019 is so expressive right out of the gate. Succulent red cherry, spice, leather and tobacco all kicked up in this attractive entry-level offering from Silvio Denz. - Antonio Galloni, Vinous Media

 

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94 Points! The 2019 Chardonnay Sevens Bench Vineyard was barrel fermented and matured for 14 months in 38% new French oak. It offers pure, delicate tones of brioche and toast, lemon drops, beeswax, chamomile and green herbs with an underpinning of shimmery crushed stone character. Tangy and focused to begin, it unfurls from preserved lemon to plusher, perfumed orchard fruits, and it finishes with tremendous length and energy—this is a great candidate for the cellar. 260 cases were made. - Erin Brooks, robertparker.com

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93+ Points! The regular white 2018 Manda Huevos Blanco Carramainas was produced with grapes from the single vineyard that is mentioned on the label. There is a skin-contact version of grapes from this same plot, but these grapes were harvested 12 days earlier than those destined to ferment with the skins, as the aim here was to achieve higher acidity and freshness and let the lees rather than the skins be the ones defining the style of the bottled wine. This is 95% old-vine Macabeo with only 5% Garnacha Blanca, with good ripeness and bright acidity. It fermented after a slow pressing and one night of settling in 500- and 900-liter oak barrels, where it was kept with the full lees for two months. It was then racked into Flextank (plastic) eggs with fine lees and then matured for another 12 months. It has a Burgundian profile, going back to the style of the 2014, in a leesy and smoky style, still very young and undeveloped. There's also something that reminded me of old-style white Rioja. The palate is vibrant and has pungent citrus acidity. It feels like a white to lay down, as it should develop nicely in the bottle. - Luis Gutierrez, robertparker.com Learn More

95-97 Points! Not yet bottled, the 2018 Chardonnay Sanford & Benedict is still resting in 20% new French oak. Coming from a great site on the southern side of the Sta. Rita Hills, it offers a rocking bouquet of lemon curd, chamomile, toasted bread, spice, and a touch of crushed stone-like flinty minerality. Beautifully textured, medium to full-bodied, and elegant on the palate, it's another brilliant wine from this estate. - Jeb Dunnuck Learn More

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