Artisan French Wines
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Rosé may be in vogue of late, but its origins are actually quite old. The people of Provence have made rosé since 6th Century BC, when Phonecean ships brought vines across the Mediterranean. Today Provence remains one of the world’s centers of rosé production.
We’re always on the hunt for overperforming wines. We often find them just over the border of a famous vineyard or village. At their best, these wines provide exceptional value: near-perfect terroir, but without the famous name and ensuing cost.
The primary trend we see in French winemaking today is less intervention. Winemakers treat less in the vines, limit sulfur, and use wild, ambient yeasts for their fermentations.
White Burgundy makes an excellent “by the glass” wine for your house. It pairs with a wide range of foods, and with no food at all — an essential component to a well-stocked cellar. Think of it as wine’s Swiss Army Knife, useful in far more situations than you can think of at one time.
The neighboring towns of Nuits-St-Georges and Vosne-Romanée produce strikingly different wines. In general, Vosne is elegant and ethereal; Nuits is bold and muscly. Taste them side by side and it’s hard to believe they share a border.
In a fast-paced world, cellaring wine has become a rarity. Not all wines are meant to age, and indeed the wine world’s style continues to shift toward early maturity. But for wine that rewards patience, the transformation of bottle aging is nothing short of magic.
Our focus on Burgundy means we spend a lot of time talking about subtlety: the nuances of terroir, the intricacies of weather patterns, etc. But sometimes we like to drink wine that’s a bit simpler — not boring or one-dimensional, just uncomplicated enjoyment in a glass.
Pomerol is a small place. The appellation is home to a mere 150 winemakers, and covers less than three square miles. But the wines of Pomerol are anything but small. In his landmark World Atlas of Wine, Hugh Johnson calls Pomerol “richest, most velvety and instantly appealing form of red Bordeaux.”
There is no more underappreciated wine than Riesling. Many US consumers, burned by syrupy Rieslings with no life and too much sugar, have sworn off the grape. But for lovers of dry wine, there’s enough bone-dry Riesling out there to make avoidance a mistake.
The Côte d’Or is home to nearly all of Burgundy’s most famous wines. As monks learned centuries ago, the region’s combination of soil, exposition, slope, and weather makes it a near-perfect place to grow Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
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Over the years it feels like we’ve sampled nearly every type of French wine – every color, grape, blend, age, technique, region, etc. But last fall we discovered a wine we’d never before tasted in France: orange wine.
Burgundy can be an intimidating place. Its classification rules are complicated, and its wines often require precise and careful cellaring. Even for experienced collectors it can tricky to time the optimum drinking window, and getting it wrong can be disappointing and expensive.
Organic viticulture has taken hold in France. Well more than half the winemakers in our portfolio now farm organically. Even in Burgundy, where long history and continuing demand make an argument for the status quo, many domaines have converted. “It’s the future,” one winemaker last week put it simply.
Champagne is a complicated place. Since its early days the region has been inseparably linked to a sense of glamour and “le marketing.” It can be easy to lose track of quality and distinctiveness amid Champagne’s glossy promotional haze.