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Organic

94 points James Suckling
Very well structured, yet restrained and elegant with a cool and delicate personality for the warm vintage, this is a really striking Fleurie. I love the interplay of sour cherry fruit with fine tannins on the concentrated, yet sleek and focused palate. Slowly expands in the glass as it aerates. Very long, seriously elegant finish. Drink or hold.

93 points Wine Advocate
A particular success, the 2020 Fleurie Clos de la Chapelle des Bois wafts from the glass with aromas of sweet berries, cherries, rose petals, orange oil and spices. Medium to full-bodied, satiny and fine-boned, it's elegant and seamless, with bright acids and a long, saline finish.

92 points Wine Enthusiast
A single-vineyard wine, this is well balanced. It is full of juicy black fruits, with acidity and a solid backdrop. The taut texture indicates aging potential. Drink from 2024.

Château de la Chaize is one of the oldest, most historic estates in Burgundy's Beaujolais region. Boasting over 250 acres of land, it is also one of the largest. This stunning property – designated an Historic Monument in 1972 – was designed by Mansard, with gardens by Lenotre, designers of the Palace of Versailles, just outside of Paris.

Organic

Located in the Cotes des blancs, it is a micro domaine of 3 ha, certified organic, inaugural release in 2022. He was recommended by Vincent Couche and the quality of his champagnes is just terrific. They age in barrels and sandstone tanks making champagnes that are extremely pure and precise. All 100% chardonnay. Aged 12 months in barrel then 15 months on the lees. Unfiltered & unfined. Only 4 gromas dosage. 500 cases produced.

Organic

95 points Decanter
Chardonnay really suffered with the frosts in 2022, and I was worried about the ripening conditions this vintage, but in general, things worked out,’ says Jean Nicolas Méo. Fruit from Bishop Creek, Spirit Hill and von Oehsen, a site of 20-year-old vines in the Eola-Amity Hills. There is a great deal of minerality. ‘For Chardonnay, this is not a super ripe vintage, it's around 21 or 22 brix. In general, sugars were low, and the wines carry great freshness and the Chardonnays achieved optimum ripeness in a very light way. There is a liveliness,’ Méo concludes. This wine offers great minerality, ample smoky lemon peel, a saline throughline that is the calling card of great Willamette Valley Chardonnay

Organic / Biodynamic

95 points Wine Spectator
This voluptuous, full-bodied, off-dry white shows a lot of power, offering round pear, mango and honeycomb flavors that take a salty turn on the palate, with notes of brine, crushed flint and bitter almond skin, backed by a subtle hint of brioche on the finish. Opening up in the glass, this gorgeous wine offers loads of immediate charm, but should have a long life ahead in the cellar as well. Drink now through 2035.

Organic

Organic

95 points James Suckling
Tremendous spicy and balsamic complexity overlays the ripe (but not a jot overripe) blackberry fruit of this concentrated and imposing Brouilly. Such a beautiful silky texture it’s hard to tear yourself away! Keeps pumping out the fruit at the very long, intense finish. Should age extremely well. Drink or hold.

Château de la Chaize is one of the oldest, most historic estates in Burgundy's Beaujolais region. Boasting over 250 acres of land, it is also one of the largest. This stunning property – designated an Historic Monument in 1972 – was designed by Mansard, with gardens by Lenotre, designers of the Palace of Versailles, just outside of Paris.

95 points James Suckling
A really fresh and serious nose here with mineral, subtle cream and freshly squeezed lemon zest. Lime and a hint of meringue, too. This is really zingy, chalky, fresh and packed with a very taut mid-palate and a long, mouthwatering finish. Effortless drinkability and you barely feel any alcohol here. A hint of white almond at the end. 80% viura and 20% garnacha blanca. Exciting! Drink or hold.

93+ points Wine Advocate
The white 2021 Blanco wants to go back to the traditional whites from Rioja with aging potential but keeping the floral and fruit-driven character using 500-liter barrels. It's mostly Viura, with 20% Garnacha Blanca, and it has a moderate 12.44% alcohol and amazing freshness and acidity parameters (pH 3.07 and 7.01 grams of acidity). This feels like a light vintage, and it's more herbal (fennel emerges with time...), balsamic and with a smoky touch. It has lower alcohol and, therefore, more noticeable acidity and ends with a dry, chalky finish. The oak is nicely integrated (they stopped using 225-liter barrels for this wine), and the palate is fine-boned, lively and lighter than in the initial vintages..

94 points James Suckling
Plenty of menthol, blackberry and blackcurrant aromas in this elegant, medium-weight Haut-Médoc that’s got as much freshness as ripeness and a long, clean, mineral and herbal finish. An incredibly food-flexible wine! Drink or hold.

100% Single Vineyard Tempranillo; 21 months in barrel & 24 months in bottle

"Very deep colour; clean and bright. Intense cherry and purple glints. Very complex and elegant nose, red and black ripe fruits (cherry, mulberry) between complex tertiary aging aromas like liquorice, coffee, vanilla, roasted, leather and tobacco, with a characteristic mineral touch. Very elegant and velvety. With the same aromas founded in nose, complex. Ripe fruit, coffee, liquorice, leather, wood and roasted." Winemaker Notes

Hendrick's Neptunia Gin is a limited release that combines the classic cucumber and rose petal notes with what the distiller calls "coastal" botanicals. Hendrick's doesn't specify what these are but they do lend an enhanced palate complexity along with a very smooth citrus finish. 43.4%abv

Organic

92 points Wine Advocate
I also tasted the 2022 Vi??edos en Labastida. The wines are produced in a similar way to highlight the differences of the places and vintages. In 2022, it's a similar blend of different plots with some 85% Tempranillo, 10% Garnacha and 5% white grapes, and it had a similar vinification and ??levage in 500- and 600-liter oak foudres in their cave. It's very primary and fruit-driven, with a nose of ripe berries and herbs, a lactic twist and a fine thread in the palate, with surprisingly fine tannins for a 2022. 3,600 bottles were filled in September 2023.

These are some of the most exciting new Riojas in the market.
Before modern or traditional Rioja, there was a simpler style of whole-cluster, co-fermented, and shortly-aged wines that were as naked and honest an expression of Rioja as one could find. So it's no surprise that Jos?? Gil followed in his ancestors' footsteps with focus in the vineyard rather than the cellar - which happens to be a cave in the outskirts of San Vicente.

Jose currently farms 5 hectares of vines located in the villages of San Vicente, Labastida, and Briones. Practices are manual and organic although he is not certified. The vines range in age from 5 to 130 years old with the majority Tempranillo, a small percentage of Viura. The oldest vineyard plots are co-planted with tiny percentages of other grape varieties which include Garnacha and Palomino. When the grapes reach the cellar after being harvested by hand, they are fermented either whole-cluster, or partially destemmed. All fermentations are by indigenous yeasts and extraction is gentle. After pressing the wines are racked into 225-300L French oak barrels and transported to the aging cellar in San Vicente.

Organic

93 points Jeb Dunnuck
Not yet bottled, the 2022 Châteauneuf Du Pape is liquid Provence in a bottle, offering a massive nose of mulled red and black cherries, peppery garrigue, leather, and smoked meat-like aromas and flavors. With medium to full-bodied richness on the palate, it has solid overall balance, a meaty, mouth-filling texture, and enough tannins to warrant short-term cellaring. The blend is 70% Grenache, 10% Syrah, 10% Mourvèdre, and the rest a mix of varieties, and this cuvée will spend two years in foudre before bottling.

96+ points Wine Advocate
The nose of the 2023 A Cesteira transported me to the Albariños from yesteryear, fragrant and developed, open, expressive and nuanced, mixing notions of freshly cut grass with flowers, yellow fruit and pollen. It's Albariño from a single plot on schist and clay soils from vines averaging 45 years of age, fermented in stainless steel and matured in 2,500-liter oak foudre for 10 months. It has fine granularity, an incredible texture, sleek and polished, smooth and elegant. All the whites show contained ripeness and around 13% alcohol, like this one, which has a pH of 3.36 and 7.7 grams of acidity. 4,600 bottles produced. It was bottled in August 2024

100% Albariño • sourced from a 0.7-hectare parcel in Villalonga on decomposed schist, 60 years of age on average. The parcel originally belonged to a family of cesteiros, or basket-weavers • whole-cluster pressed and fermented spontaneously • no malolactic • raised for 11 months on the lees in neutral 2500L French-oak foudres • 400 cases produced

Organic / Biodynamic

95 points Vinous
The 2022 Eneo is superb. Rich and expansive on the palate, the 2022 offers up an exotic melange of black cherry, plum, leather, licorice, incense and espresso. There’s gorgeous mid-palate depth and plenty of textural richness, but in the more restrained style that informs these wines today. The long, silky finish is pure class.

45% Sangiovese, 35% Montepulciano, 15% Alicante and 5% Marselan

Organic

91 points Vinous
Vallana's 2020 Gattinara is powerful, rustic and a bit rough around the edges, and yet it conveys so much genuine, uncomplicated character. Dark fruit, new leather, licorice, dried herbs and mint are some of the notes that take shape as this rambunctious Gattinara gradually opens in the glass

Winemaker Notes:
The grapes are hand harvested and manually selected before crushing, and then transferred to cement tanks for a 24 hour cold soak. The cement thermally insulates the must, and the fermentation temperature rises gradually: this is ideal for the extraction of color and structure while preserving the freshness of the bouquet. Fermentation lasts about 10 days and pumping over is performed during the whole fermentation period. Occasionally, a delestage is performed. Vallana’s Gattinara undergoes malolactic fermentation during the first winter. In spring it is transferred into large oak barrels (7-12 Hl) for 24 months, and the wine must age for at least another year in accordance with the rules of the DOCG. However, Vallana traditionally ages the wine in bottle a few more years before releasing it.

"Lively and generous Nectar Imperial distinguishes itself by its extravagant fruitiness, its density on the palate and its crisp finish that instantly surprise and delight. Nectar Roses assemblage is built on the intensity of Pinot Noir, the fruitiness of Pinot Meunier, and the freshness of Chardonnay." Winemaker notes

Its red color is sustained and nuanced with coppery shades.Its aromas are intense and deep with ripe berries (wild strawberry, blackberry, black currant) and cherry, nuanced by herbal and heady flowers notes.On the palate it is a succulent blend of richness and elegance, density and creaminess, extreme fruitiness and vibrant freshness.

Ideal for all sweet and sour, fatty-spicy, sugary-spicy or sweet dishes, Nectar Rose offers amazing pairings with foie gras marinated in red wines and red fruits based desserts.

Organic

23% Pinot Noir, 77% Chardonnay.

All the grapes are hand-harvested in early September from vines aged around 25 years old and planted on clay-limestone soils. This Pinot Noir was vinified in oak barrels and spent a year in barrel, while the Chardonnay was vinified in stainless steel tank. The secondary fermentation occurs in bottle with more than three years of aging before being disgorged, which happens three months before being released with a dosage of 10 grams.

96 points Jeb Dunnuck
Moving to the Russian River Valley, the 2023 Zinfandel Piner-Olivet Ranches is a saturated red color and amplifies things with its more forward, layered feel, offering aromas of kirsch, bright pepper spice, cedar, and fresh flowers .The acidity shines through more vibrantly compared to the Sonoma Valley wines, with a more electric feel, ripe tannins, and a long finish. It reminds me of great Barbera, retaining both ripeness and vibrant acidity. It’s a tremendous vintage of this wine to drink over the coming 12-15 years.