Morey-St-Denis is a most Burgundian style of Burgundy. The wines are firmly rooted in the old world -- precise, refined, and sophisticated. Difficult vintages sometimes require deliberate aging in Morey-St-Denis, though they nearly always reward it handsomely.
“If gold were a flavor,” Matt Kramer once wrote, “it would taste like Meursault.” Though it has no Grand Cru, the wines of Meursault are some of the most sought after in the world. For most, the name recalls white Burgundies of decadence, opulence, and style.
“Puligny-Montrachet is where Burgundian Chardonnay is at its most complete,” writes Clive Coates MW. The tiny town, covering less than one square mile, has made highly sought after wine for nearly a thousand years. Today most consider it, as Coates puts it, “the greatest white wine commune on earth.”
Gevrey-Chambertin is known for its bold, powerful red Burgundies. Located at the northern end of the Côte d’Or, Gevrey’s wines are at the masculine end of the Burgundy spectrum. Pinot Noir never makes wines as big and extracted as those from the south of France -- but for Burgundy, Gevrey is about as bold as it gets.
The 2015 red Burgundies are a delight: they’re popular, delicious, and built to last. We’ve stocked up on as many as our shelves can handle, and hope to have them around to offer for some time to come.
Burgundies have been the world’s most sought after white wines for centuries. The region produces an enormous range of wines, from everyday Petit Chablis to the extraordinary whites of Montrachet and its neighbors. In the glass White Burgundies among the most popular wines we know, a perfect balance between fruit, minerals, freshness and weight. We’ve collected three new samplers at…
Michel Gros is as much a part of Vosne-Romanée as its pointed steeple, its ancient vineyards, and its narrow crooked streets. He is a lifelong resident of the town, as were his father and grandfather before him -- his mother was even mayor. The Gros family name has been synonymous with Vosne-Romanee for centuries.
Chablis is a singular place. Its combination of deep stony soils and cool climate exists nowhere else on earth. These factors produce a similarly unique wine — mineral and crisp, pure and clean. Our goal as importers is to find wines that reflect the place from which they come, and there is no better place to find such wines than…
“Oaked” or “unoaked” sounds like a yes-no question, but it really is a range. Most of the wines we import spend some time in oak, but the strength of its influence depends on the age and size of the barrel, the chauffe (how heavily the inside is charred), and time in the barrel.
The 2015 red Burgundies are nothing short of a sensation. After months of hype and a frenzy of enthusiasm upon release, they’ve lived up to nearly all of their acclaim. With sturdy tannins suggesting long and happy lives, the wines also offer near-term hedonistic delight -- the best are juicy, lively, and, as the French say, gouleyant (gulpable).
The wines of Meursault may be popular today, but it’s hard to describe them as a passing fad. The monks of Citeaux first planted vines there in 1098, and over the last nine centuries the village has proudly earned its glowing reputation. Though it has no Grand Cru vineyards, Meursault’s wines are among the most sought after in the world.
Morey-St-Denis is a tiny town. After our tasting yesterday at the Domaine Amiot, we strolled a few hundred yards down the town’s main street to lunch with Chantal and Jean-Louis. In a four minute walk we paused half a dozen times to exchange greetings with neighbors and friends, and then got waves and handshakes from nearly everyone in the restaurant.…
Yesterday afternoon we visited Michel Gros, our best known winemaker for Côte de Nuits reds. We barrel-tasted his 2016s, which are exceptionally good -- this vintage will be far better than critics’ early predictions. At the end of a long tasting, Michel poured us tastes of his only white wine, from the Hautes-Côtes de Nuits, in both 2015 and 2016.
The best kept secret in a Burgundy collector’s cellar is his stash of St-Aubin. From a forgotten valley wedged between the superstar towns of Chassagne-Montrachet and Puligny-Montrachet, the wines of St-Aubin are some of the most overperforming wines we know. Jancis Robinson calls it now “virtually the equal” of its famous neighbors.
Of the 12,000 acres of vineyards planted in Chablis, only 250 (2%) qualify as Grand Cru. This highest tier includes seven distinct vineyards, each famous in its own right. But among the seven, the Grand Cru “Les Clos” is generally considered the finest. As Master of Wine Clive Coates puts it, Les Clos is “Chablis at its very, very finest……