November 2023

A QUICK LOOK BACK: DELICIOUS, AFFORDABLE BURGUNDY

Around here we’re usually pretty occupied talking about the newest stuff that comes our way. We rarely have time to repeat ourselves. We do drink wine on our own time as well and drink pretty well as you might guess. That said, it seemed worth a note on something from the floor tasted the other night that really lit us up, the Domaine Etienne Delarche Pernand-Vergelesses Les Boutieres 2020.

The short story is that this wine, on that night, was hitting on all cylinders. The nose is an effusive mix of boisterous red and black fruits, dark spices that persisted all the way through the finish, and accents of subtle minerality. On the palate there were layers of flavors almost like fireworks hitting all parts of the palate. Maybe it was just the day but it was a memorable bottle.

Here is a quick recap of the story we told many months ago…

“Though we know the importer is writing to sell wine, his descriptors for this wine are ‘spot on’ when he says, “… Delarche Burgundy offers a clarity and purity of flavor that is captivating; whites are creamy and concentrated, taking a cue from Corton-Charlemagne, while reds are spicy and refined, seductive from the moment they’re bottled yet able to age effortlessly for years…” The Pernand, in fact all of these, follow those descriptors pretty much to the letter.

The star of the show, Domaine Etienne Delarche Pernand-Vergelesses les Boutiers Vieilles Vignes 2020, comes from vines that are quite ‘vieilles’ at age 70+. This lieu dit sits in deep, clay-rich soils facing southeast at the foot of the slope, touching Pernand Premier Crus ‘Vergelesses’ and ‘Les Fichots on one side and Aloxe Corton Premier Crus Vercots and Guerets on the other. It’s a very nice neighborhood. As to the vintage, we have spoken many times already about our love of the 2020s, one of the few times in memory where both reds and whites excelled.

The reds from 2020 are like nothing in recent memory. The colors are deep and saturated and there is an uncommon richness and authority to the mouthfeel of the best examples. With a little air, the les Boutieres virtually jumps out of the glass with notes of deeply ripe black cherry, spice, violet and underlying sweet earth.

Urgent fruit is the order of the day with intense, energetic black cherry and brambleberry from front to back and the kind of cohesive statement of fruit and terroir that makes Burgundy so special. Yeah, it’s not a Premier Cru but it sure tastes like one and, at $34.98, certainly doesn’t cost like one. Even among all of the exciting 2020 reds we have been tasting thus far, this one is memorable.

The importer’s notes called this small estate ‘one of the Cote du Beaune’s best kept secrets’ and it still is with regard to the media. Bur that’s find with us. More attention usually means higher prices and less availability. This is another shrewd buy for Burgundy lovers and you will never regret having a lot of 2020s.”

TASTY ‘LITTLE’ SAUMUR FROM A TOP SOURCE

The central figure in this story is Arnaud Lambert, author of the Chateau de Brézé Cremant we sold a while back and the owner of forty hectares of vineyards of serious vineyards in the Loire. The holdings are principally within three communes: two within the Saumur-Champigny appellation (Montsoreau and Saint-Cyr, on opposite sides of the appellation—north and south, respectively) and the resurrected, historic commune, Brézé, on the southernmost border of the AOP Saumur-Champigny.

Lambert bottles nearly twenty different cuvees under Chateau de Brézé and his own eponymous label. He is highly respected in the region and has garnered some strong press for his still wines from a number of writers, particularly the reds. So when Lambert does something, we pay attention. This cuvee is new to us and a little less specific than most of his work which focuses on specific sites. That’s fine by us as the combination of Lambert’s skills, the quality of his sites and the riper 2022 vintage combine to make an engaging, complex, rather accessible window into this producer’s style.

As we have said many times, we are de facto fans of Chenin Blanc and consider it one of the world’s great whites by virtue of not only it’s quality when it is at its best, but also its versatility to perform beautifully in every expression from bone dry to exotic, botrytised dessert wines. This one is dry and fairly easy going as Chenin Blanc goes, making it a perfect ambassador for both Chenin and Lambert.

The nose on the Arnaud Lambert Saumur Blanc Les Parcelles 2022 is an inviting mixture of classic Chenin with notes of orange, peach, and quince with streaks of earth and chalky minerality. All of this comes through on the palate in a dry but fruit focused style, with a rounded, supple palate feel and without the sometimes searing acidity that can make this varietal difficult for some folks to appreciate. Because of Lambert’s approach to Chenin emphasizing the varietal purity and unique terroir of Saumur, and this wine’s relatively gentler demeanor make it a wine to win friends for the region.

The modest fare ($21.98) for this blend of a variety of properties (hence the title Les Parcelles) also make this a marvelous option for a broader range of people and more food applications. It is particularly good for lighter Asian and fish dishes as well as offering up a lovely aperitif option that, while it is an easy approach to the varietal, it is definitely not the ‘same old thing.’ Holiday ham? You bet! Classy, workhorse, versatile Chenin from an impeccable source, yeah we got that.

A WONDERFUL, ‘HISTORIC’ WHITE FROM ALSACE

There are many less traveled paths in the wine world where some truly special things can happen. We feel it is our duty as wine merchants to point things like that out for you consideration. Sometimes we wonder why we do it. Guess it’s just the wide-eyed geekiness that we still haven’t lost after all these years. Take this wine. A Alsace white made by a cooperative without a varietal designation for over $30? What next? Hungarian Cabernet Franc? Oh wait, we already did that. Orange wines from Georgia (the country not the state)? Yeah, did that too. If it’s worth knowing about, we’re on it, and this striking little gem is definitely something worth knowing about.

We’ll start with the producer. Cave de Ribeauvillé is a well-run cooperative in Alsace. In their words, Cave de Ribeauvillé covers a unique vineyard of 235 hectares with 8 Grands Crus and numerous high-value terroirs. The entire estate is managed by a quality charter which guarantees manual harvesting, strict control of yields, work in the vineyard using sustainable management or organic farming. All the grapes are brought to the press in whole bunches and the juice then flows by simple gravity into the vats. Thanks to state-of-the-art equipment, the wines from Cave de Ribeauvillé respect the purity of the grape variety and the identity of each terroir. The wines are frank, straight, fresh, fruity and express all the richness of the great Alsatian terroirs.

In other words this isn’t some local cooperative just phoning it in as some do and we have brought to your attention a number of high functioning operations like this over the years like Produttori di Barbaresco, Terlano, and Domaine Wachau to name a few. This is our first experience with Cave de Ribeauvillé but, if they can do things like this, we need to dig a little deeper. The cooperative itself dates back to 1895.

As to the wine itself, this is a stylistic take on the work of Alsace icon Marcell Diess. Deiss’s thing is to highlight terroirs in great vineyards. In this mindset, he does not highlight specific varietals but harvests the various grapes from a vineyard as a field blend and identifies them by the name of the vineyard only. These wines are dazzling and highly sought after, as well as not cheap. The Clos de Zahnacker is planted to Riesling, Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer.

The history of this Clos is pretty interesting. The oldest writings date its origins back to the 8th century, to the time when Benedictine monks divided their time between prayer and work on the land. The creation of this walled vineyard is attributed to monk-knight Martin Zahn after returning from the crusades. It was a subject of dispute among the Lords of Ribeauville in the Middle Ages and was said to be a favorite of the Sun King Louis XIV. It has been a part of the Cave de Ribeauvillé since 1965.

The nose of the Cave de Ribeauvillé Clos du Zahnacker 2015 speaks of lemon zest, tea, mineral and stone fruits with faint hints of lychee. In the mouth is it rich, rather ample, a little exotic, yet with just the right amount of lift to support its frame and maintain appropriate freshness. It almost feels the weight of a vendage tardive but isn’t particularly sweet and it is loaded with character. At age 8 it shows no signs of fading and has palate coating extract. We’ve had a few nice surprises from the 2015s recently.

We found one review from Wine Enthusiast that kind of captures the essence of this grand but surprising effort, “Chalk, chamomile tincture and dried lemon peel have immense lift on the nose of this wine. They also pervade the bright, balm-like but concentrated palate with their aromatic intensity. This wine is fluid and layered, showing signs of evolution that is set to continue for many years. Gentle sweetness balances the bracing freshness and makes this a real experience. The finish is off dry but very balanced and long. Drink until 2040…94 points.”

We don’t have a lot of it but we had to tell the story.

SHOCKING CHARDONNAY BUY FROM THE LAND OF GAMAY

The thing about wine is that the story is ongoing. There are always new regions and new personalities coming along to broaden one’s selection and unusual things coming from places you might not expect. Yes, they do grow some Chardonnay in Beaujolais, some of it pretty good but mostly utilitarian stylistically. Here in the land of granite, Gamay is king. With that in mind, there are apparently rare exceptions. In this case, in and among the Gamay in the Cru Beaujolais villages are plots of Chardonnay. A few of them (well, this one anyway) have soil conditions more akin to those of the Cote d’Or.

Located near the dividing line between Macon and Beaujolais, Domaine de la Sorbiere is the new name for an existing estate that was purchased by Jacques Juilliard and his wife Anne Marie. It was not Jacques original intent to dive deeply into either farming or winemaking. But there was a commitment to making wine in the most non-interventionist way possible and, once he got his hands dirty, it was ‘game on’. Like a lot of small estates these days, the golden rule was to showcase the terroir. In this case, for this area, the ‘terroir’ has more in common with those famous Chardonnay plots to the north. Yeah, it’s the limestone that makes this plot so Chardonnay-friendly here in the land of granite, something rather rare in this part of the world.

Since it was legitimately ‘natural’, it quickly found an audience. But unlike a lot of wines made this way, it is meticulously clean and bright. The juice is fermented with native yeasts and aged in a combination of amphorae and neutral, 600-liter barrels. No sulfur is added during winemaking and only tiny amounts are used during bottling.

This has all of the trappings of something from the Cote de Beaune with crisp minerality and a touch of salinity in the nose. The flavors run from yellow stone fruits to apple with flecks of grilled nuts and stones. It is round in the mouth, reflecting the warm vintage, but has sufficient cut to keep everything lifted and fresh. Very classy juice for the fare.

In the end, the Domaine de la Sorbière Bourgogne Blanc Terre de Roche 2022 bears a strong resemblance to a Chardonnay from more famous terroirs with its unexpected nuance and purity of fruit save for one important aspect…the price ($17.98)!