Available Wines — In Stock / Ready to Ship and Future Arrivals

Baby Côte-Rôtie in everything but name, from a vineyard so close to the AOC line I could practically spit into it. Floral, smoky, black-fruited, mineral, structured, and wildly serious for the money. At $22.99 on a case, this is the greatest red wine value we sell. A $60 Northern Rhône soul in commuter-wine clothing.

Just utter perfection. 10/10. No notes.

Nuova Regina is Ar.Pe.Pe. Riserva in full nervous-system-reset mode: smoke, tar, iron, wild strawberry, ghost cherry, dried rose, licorice, tobacco, orange peel, crushed rock and alpine air, all moving with satin glide and cold Sassella geometry. Old-vine mountain Nebbiolo, weightless but carved in granite, with a finish that keeps echoing like stone after thunder.

Old-school Côte-Rôtie at its finest: floral, smoky, mineral, precise, and all finesse instead of makeup and bulk. Burgauds 2024 is classic Syrah on a high wire, with violet, blackberry, pepper, iron, smoked meat, chalky tannin, and granite lift. One of the great wines of the vintage, tiny allocation.

Black raspberries, wild strawberries, spice, and hints of garrigue define the . . ., a stunning, classic effort from this great site of sandier soils in the heart of the appellation. . . .it reveals ultra-fine tannins and beautiful balance, with a pure, seamless texture that carries through to a gorgeous finish. This floral, exotic, seamless, Rayas-like beauty . . .. - 96 points, Jeb Dunnuck

Black raspberries, spicy wood, and smoked meats emerge from the 2022 Côte Rôtie Lieu-Dit La Brocarde, which shines for its incredible purity of fruit. Medium to full-bodied and aged in third-year barrels, it delivers gorgeous mid-palate depth, fine tannins, and outstanding overall balance. My money is on it being a truly brilliant Côte Rôtie. - 95-97 Jeb Dunnuck

This is the producer that takes Cornas out of the valley and wires it into the sky. I didnt even know the name when I first drank it. Just the year: 2010. I remember the silence that fell over the table. The electricity. The way it didnt taste like any Cornas Id ever had, because it didnt behave. It lifted. It glowed. It moved like Keller. It shimmered like Brisset.

2024 St. Joseph red in full granite grammar: black pepper, olive tapenade, violets, smoked herbs, wet stone, iron, blackberry, black cherry and plum skin. Medium-bodied, wiry and vivid, with fine tannins, bright acidity, saline drive and a long savory finish of spice, stone and dark fruit. Classic Northern Rhône, no makeup.

I loved the 2022 Hermitage Cuvée Emilie, a pure, full-bodied, concentrated Hermitage revealing gorgeous crème de cassis, graphite, burning ember, and spicy oak-driven aromatics. Offering polished tannins, a great mid-palate, and a blockbuster of a finish, its going to shine with just a few years of bottle age yet evolve for two decades. - 94-96 Points, Jeb Dunnuck (2022)

The 2021 Cornas Vin Noir is even better and clearly a candidate for the wine of the appellation. Ripe blackberries, smoked herbs, cured meats, iron, and spice all flow to a medium to full-bodied, beautifully concentrated, balanced Cornas offering ripe, velvety tannins, plenty of mid-palate depth, and a great finish. Bravo. - 93-95 Points, Jeb Dunnuck

From the old Jean-Louis Grippat vineyards. Yes, that Grippat. Peygros is only in its third vintage. The vines date back to 1920. Tournon parcel. Granite. 80% destemmed. Cap-punched and pulped by hand. Raised in 1–3 year oak for 14 months in a literal stone tunnel carved through the mountain.

Glass-staining violet color. Expansive, finely detailed aromas of blackberry and boysenberry, with exotic spice, floral oil, olive and sandalwood nuances building in the glass. Deep but energetic on the palate...... - 94 VINOUS

Domaine Philippe Naddefs 2023 Mazis-Chambertin is Grand Cru Gevrey in full blood-and-iron mode: black cherry, wild raspberry, spice, earth, smoke, crushed stone and that feral Mazis depth. Powerful but not heavy, structured but alive, this is serious cellar Burgundy from one of the great old souls of Gevrey.

Clos de Gamot is Vermeer in Cahors: overlooked, exact, quietly immortal. The 2023 is the best young vintage since 2010, maybe 2005, packed with black fruit, earth, violets, wild minerality and absurd structure. Under $35 for a 30-year red is a trapdoor in the market. Buy deep.

The best Pernand Ive ever had: 2023 Buffet Les Vergelesses is cherry-drenched limestone with mid-season cherry, sour cherry, black cherry, violets, damson, earth, underbrush, black licorice, saline mineral and flower-water lift. Coiled, classical and electric, with serious structure under crystalline fruit, this is Pernand behaving like elite Côte de Nuits Burgundy and asking for cellar time.

Village Volnay that forgot its place: 2023 Buffet delivers sour cherry, ripe cherry, black cherry, rose, violet, wild mint, spice, sous bois, tree bark, blood orange peel and stone dust in pure Volnay silk. The fruit moves like music, bright, sweet, darkening, then ghosting into mineral perfume. A 9.5 villages that drinks right behind Champans, and the bottle you open while the 1ers sleep.

This is all Chaillot which really shows. Its got a gorgeously mineral nose with granite and really shows the mineral side of Cornas which is why it reminds me of a small scale Fauterie.

The ripe and refined mirabelle nose pulls you inside, where you find a beautifully proportioned dry riesling with very good concentration for 12% alcohol. Tons of minerality, but it sits in the medium-bodied palate so neatly. Fantastic freshness at the long finish. Drink or hold. - 94 Points, Stuart Pigott

The 2022 Lelektsoglou Côte-Rôtie is one of the most thrilling Syrahs Ive tasted in years. Explosively floral, intensely mineral, and built on layers of black fruit, olive, spice, and smoke, it delivers the complexity and aging potential of elite Côte-Rôtie at a price that feels almost impossible. A haunting, cellar-worthy masterpiece.

Foillard Morgon Classique is Beaujolais in its purest dialect: pale in color, huge in flavor, and utterly transparent. One of Morgons iconic producers and an OG natural-wine reference, Foillard delivers red cherry, wild strawberry, earth, flowers and mineral lift with featherweight elegance and serious depth. Classic, alive, unmistakable.

Girards straight Savigny is the soul of the domaine: honest, brambly, red-fruited Burgundy with dirt under its fingernails. Dusty cherry, sour cherry, violets, mint, spice, cold loam, and noble grip. Drink now for pure village charm, or age five years for the good Savigny ghosts.

2023 Peuillets is Savigny 1er Cru in full ritual bloom: black raspberry, sweet cherry, violets, mint, menthol, saline vapor, rose petal, cracked stone and cool spice, with cherry compote and raspberry cordial gliding over supple tannins and crisp acid. It drinks like Volnay with a sharper jawline, finishing long, creamy, mineral and quietly feral.

This is a blend of Le Combard, Lancement and Côte Blonde in 2022 and a few other less famous parcels. Its almost like a Bordelaise interpretation of all the fantastic terror.

The most hedonistic vintage of the lineup. Black fruit, rose petals, smoke, graphite and volcanic energy wrapped in a plush, seamless texture. Rich without heaviness, it captures the warmth of 2018 while preserving the lift and perfume that define Cœur de Combard.

One of Julien Barges finest achievements. Dark fruit, violets, smoke and rain-on-stone minerality combine with immaculate tannins and extraordinary lift. Pure, focused and hauntingly aromatic, this is volcanic Côte-Rôtie in perfect balance.

Julien Cruchandeaus 2024 Hautes-Côtes de Nuits Les Valençons is the high-end Hautes-Côtes red that drinks like village Burgundy with Premier Cru voltage. Half whole cluster, only 10% new oak, and all slope, sap and intent: black cherry, dark raspberry, cocoa, earth, iron, spice and wild Pinot perfume, with plush fruit, precision tannins, electric 2024 clarity and a finish that refuses to act like

The greatest value German Pinot I have ever sold. Jürgen Von der Marks 2023 Merdinger Spätburgunder is German Burgundy in a leather jacket: cherry, raspberry, incense, wet earth, spice, limestone, velvet tannin, and shocking Côte de Nuits texture. $25.99 by the case is basically illegal.

Hauts Brins sits in that sweet spot between elegance and backbone, the kind of place that makes you wonder why Monthelie still flies under the radar when sites like this exist.

Bousseys 2023 Auxey-Duresses Le Closeaux is real Burgundy at a price the Côte de Beaune forgot to update. Red cherry, damp earth, iron, spice, limestone snap and serious structure, all with 2023s sappy energy. Old-school, blood-and-stone Burgundy with joy now and 8-12 years of runway.

Laurent Bousseys 2023 Beaune Les Prévoles is sexy, honest, old-school Burgundy at $39.99: strawberry, watermelon, red cherry, black cherry, licorice, cherry pit and that tweed-jacket Beaune rusticity. Silky, sappy, vivid and alive, it drinks like a humble lieu-dit that quietly knows it can embarrass wines three times the price.

The 2021 Lyle Fass / Lelektsoglou Cuvée Ariane Vieilles Vignes is the most classical, precise Ariane yet: 75% Grenache, 25% Syrah, 80-year-old vines, four years in cement, no oak, no makeup. Black cherry, plum skin, pepper, iron, thyme, lavender and stone, with 2021s cool spine giving it structure, freshness and truth. My name is on the label. That means something.

The 2023 Brisset Bourgogne Rouge Gabrius is not simple Bourgogne. It is the portal into Pierres 2023 reds: dark cherry, sour cherry, cranberry snap, limestone electricity, silky tannins and surreal fruit purity. Same obsessive Brisset treatment as the top wines, at $43.99 on a case, and one of the clearest values in Burgundy.

This is a highly expressive and pours a jeweled ruby/magenta color. A wine that Evan wants to be drinkable at all times, it’s hitting that mark right now, with a fruity aromatic profile in its notes of mixed berries, wildflowers, white pepper, and dusty earth. Ripe and effusive in the glass, it’s medium-bodied, with fine, chalky tannins, and while it’s lovely and refined,it’s still playful. 93 AF

Michel Naddefs micro-négoce Champeaux is Gevrey with the roof blown off: cherry blossom, black cherry, red plum, blood orange, roses, game, bouillon, iodine, smoke, graphite, loam and wet limestone. North-slope voltage, cathedral structure, silken tannins and feral fruit depth, finishing savory, floral, mineral and absurdly long.

The nose violates the Geneva Conventions. The palate rewrites thermodynamics. The finish colonizes your soul. Welcome to Champeaux.

2024 Rebourgeon Santenay Vieilles Vignes is the beautiful hard year in a glass: red cherry, cranberry skin, wild strawberry, rose, crushed herbs, black tea, damp limestone and spice, with old-vine sap giving flesh to 2024s live-wire frame. Juicy but not soft, tense but complete, this is stony, honest Côte de Beaune Pinot with red lightning and real village soul.

The best Maranges Ive ever tasted from Rebourgeon: 2023 Clos Roussots turns minor village into serious Burgundy. Cool cherry, wild strawberry, redcurrant, rose, violet, cranberry skin, blood orange, thyme, pink pepper, clove, tea leaf and wet limestone ride silk-over-steel tannins, vivid acid and a long cran-raspberry, chalk-dust finish.

The best Maranges Ive ever tasted from Rebourgeon: 2023 Clos Roussots turns minor village into serious Burgundy. Cool cherry, wild strawberry, redcurrant, rose, violet, cranberry skin, blood orange, thyme, pink pepper, clove, tea leaf and wet limestone ride silk-over-steel tannins, vivid acid and a long cran-raspberry, chalk-dust finish.

Spider-silk Pinot from the Swiss Alps, 9.8 from me with upside, and one of the most elegant bottles I tasted in Graubünden. Red berries, cherry, incense, dried flowers, spice, bark, salt and glacier-rock minerality glide over an impossibly satin texture. 30% whole cluster gives lift, the finish hangs forever, and in 2–3 years this should be devastating.

2019 Motalli Renato Le Urscele is the Grand Cru of a disappearing Valtellina god: a monopole Nebbiolo of roses, violets, wild strawberry, cherry, black tea, licorice, iron, stone and chestnut-raised soul. Silky, alpine, ancient, and built for decades, this is one of the greatest wines Ive ever offered under $50.

This wine is a relic from a world we are no longer worthy of. I dont care if youve tasted La Mouline in magnum or drank Chave from the barrel in 1990, you are not ready for this wine. Because this is an artifact. A living, howling monument to the ancestral energy of old vine Côte-Rôtie, pulled straight from the slope and bottled before it could be worshipped into extinction.

Gorgeous all the way, the 2020 Côte Rôtie La Dédicace has a full-bodied, round, supple, sexy style to go with classic Côte Rôtie notes of black raspberries, spring flowers, incense, and hints of smoked game. Its rich, concentrated, yet light on its feet, with sweet tannins. Its a beautiful effort in a great vintage that will evolve for two decades..95 Points, Jeb Dunnuck (2020)

Ostreichers 2023 Rosen is cult Pinot in the making, a cherry storm from Frankens new godfather: wild cherry, cranberry, redcurrant, oolong, sweet earth, spice, mineral static, velvet tannin, and haunting lift. Blink and it becomes someone elses mythology.

Skip the hard part: 2014 Später-Veit Pinot Noir Reserve comes straight from Niklas Welters cellar, already glowing. Mature Mosel Pinot with sour cherry, forest floor, black tea, smoke, spice, rose, mushroom, blue slate, and silken tannins. Drinking out of its mind now.

Jan Luzis top cuvée is Swiss Pinot on the podium: one of the three best Ive tasted, from the steep Pfaffen and Calander sites near Malans. Dark cherry, black raspberry, wild strawberry, violets, rose, cedar, smoke, alpine herbs and crushed schist ride a lush but razor-cut frame, with Grand Cru gravity, glacial precision, insane tannin finesse and 15+ years of cellar life ahead.

1994 is allegedly “average.” Whatever that means. Came after the limp noodle years of 1991–1993 and before the golden Nebbiolo Renaissance of 1995–2001. But 1994 in Bramaterra it went rogue. Warm, but not cooked. Like a perfect summer where no one dies. The fruit from this vintage is unholy. Plump. Vivid. Radiant. Demonic. Alive.

Very deep and dark yet cool and youthful, this is an extraordinary pinot with great mineral freshness and incredibly fresh wild berry and sour cherry flavors. Very long, chalky finish that ripples over the palate into the smoky and stony distance. From organically grown grapes. Matured for 18 months in well-used, small oak casks. 98 points SP

Welcome to the dark forest with its berries, dry floor and wildflowers. Incredibly deep and complex on the nose, but that barely prepares you for the density of spices, dried Mediterranean herbs, licorice and sandalwood on the rich, medium- to full-bodied palate. Theres a huge structure behind all this, but its beautifully integrated. - 98 Points, SP

"Already the intensity and vibrancy of the sour cherry and forest berry aromas in the nose are astonishing. Yes, there’s some oak in the mix, but it is just the very exciting spice in the soup. The super-fine tannins and vibrant acidity interlock almost perfectly on the super-focused palate, then the racy finish blasts off in the direction of the next star." - 96 SP

“What an incredibly complex nose this has. The cardamon and clove aromas at first are very intense, but then the extravagant mulberry and amarena cherry aromas power through. Enormously structured with a ton of licorice character. So concentrated, but the freshness is remarkable. Built for the long term and will probably develop positively for decades. From organically grown grapes." - 96 SP

"Enveloping nose of black raspberry and amarena cherry with a slew of subtle spicy notes. Enormous concentration and energy, but also great super-fine tannins that almost perfectly underline this brilliance. Staggering freshness at the super-long and clean finish that must be tasted to be believed. From organically grown grapes. Drink or hold. " 97 SP

"What a staggering fragrance of amarena cherries and summer flowers! For a village wine the concentration and vibrancy are breathtaking on the barely medium-bodied palate. Such an energy and purity at the very long finish. From organically grown grapes. Drink or hold." - 95 SP

Thörles 2023 Vom Kalk is entry-level only on paper: black cherry, wild raspberry, limestone, mint, spice, velvet tannin, and shocking mineral depth for $24.99 by the case. Stuart Pigott gave it 92 points and wrote, Some GGs dont get close to this.

“Aromatic and deeply pitched, the 2019 races across the palate with remarkable depth and intensity. Crushed red berry fruit, rose petal, mint and cinnamon all open in the glass, but it is the wines silkiness and suppleness that impresses most. A kick of acids and tannins puts an exclamation point on the finish.” - 98 points, Vinous, AG

Ledy maxes out Hautes Côtes de Nuits and makes the label look guilty: La Vacherotte gives dense sour cherry skin, macerated cherry, violets, smoke, sous bois, warm earth and dark stony mineral, with silky texture, serious concentration and Nuits-like depth. Juicy, taut, sappy and long, this drinks like top village Burgundy that slipped through the classification trapdoor.

2023 Ledy Hautes-Côtes de Nuits La Vacherotte drinks like top-flight Nuits-Saint-Georges village, maybe even a sneaky 1er Cru that slipped through the bureaucratic cracks. The concentration, precision, and beauty of fruit are absurd for the label. A clear sign Vincent is playing at a much higher level now.

2023 Ledy Nuits-Saint-Georges 1er Cru Les Porêts Saint-Georges Jeunes Vignes is flat-out awesome. Sappy blackberry, black cherry, lurid red fruit, riveting intensity, freshness, and astonishing purity. With 30–45 minutes it turns refined, seamless, and mineral-drenched. Drink while the VV sleeps.

2023 Vincent Ledy Nuits-Saint-Georges 1er Cru Les Porêts Saint-Georges VV is the best wine I have ever tasted from Vincent. Refined, elegant, nimble, aristocratic Nuits, with outrageous inner-mouth perfume: fruit, mineral, spice, and soil exploding in controlled detonation. His pièce de résistance.

2023 Ledy Hautes-Côtes de Nuits La Vacherotte VV is 100% whole cluster from vines planted in 1954. Refined, classic Burgundy aromatics: red plum, spice, that tweed-jacket depth, and serious old-vine perfume. Structured but velvety, with inner-mouth aromatics and the 2023 finesse Vincent has never shown this clearly before.

Wegelins 2023 Bothmarhalde Blauburgunder is the crown jewel of Malans: high-altitude, organic Swiss Pinot from slate-and-lime soils behind Bothmar Castle. Raspberry, cherry, rose, lilac, spice and mineral glide into silk-on-silk texture, refined tannins and a palate-staining finish. Reinhardt called the 2022 his finest Wegelin Pinot in 20 years, and 2023 goes even higher.

Swiss Grand Cru Pinot with 92+ WA already on the board and Mathilde Hugs precision all over it. Cherry blossom, red berries, crushed rock, smoked bark, rain-wet earth and floral spice glide through spectral silk, hidden density and 30% whole-cluster lift. Gevrey-like in its structure, alpine in its freshness, and underpriced before Malans becomes impossible.

German Cabernet Franc that cracked open into liquid architecture: violets, cassis, cherry skin, cranberry, redcurrant, graphite, river stone, thyme, smoke and camphor. Saint-Émilion gravitas, Saumur lift and Baden fruit, with silken texture, sweet noble tannins and a long salt-stone finish. Decant hard now or hide for 3 to 4 years.

When I say vibrating on the edge of forever I mean that this wine has that special something that only a few wines on earth have. It goes right up to and then it stays just on the edge of excess. It vibrates with that electric Adank tension. It just lingers there on the edge and your mind is trying to comprehend it, but really cant fully because the perfection is just too much to process.

Its got the density of 2016 but sharper, straighter, higher in acid, more blade, less blur. Think molten cherry fruit poured into a glass prism. The tannins are ripe and velvety, the texture halfway between Volnay and confession. Its powerful but never loud, precision wrapped in perfume.

A brand-new Ziereisen superstar. Hermann is basically the Jaspis version of Talrain: 50-year-old vines, volcanic darkness, chalk, iron, sour cherry, spice, and shocking intensity at just 12.5% alcohol. I gave it 9.8. Wine Advocate gave it 93. A new German Pinot legend being born.

Schulen is the whole Ziereisen Pinot thesis in one bottle: delicate, architectural, and wildly alive. Cranberry, sour cherry, raspberry, herbs, rose hips, limestone, spice, and electric acidity, all carried on freakishly refined tannins. Chambolle grace with Baden nerve.

Rhini is Ziereisens Pinot blade in velvet: 100% whole cluster, dark cherry, black raspberry, plum skin, violets, iron, herbs, graphite, and limestone voltage. Deeper and more structured than Schulen, but still all glide and finesse. German Premier Cru energy at human pricing.

Rhini is the Ziereisen middle child that drinks like Premier Cru Vosne with a broadsword. 100% whole cluster, black plum, dark cherry, violets, iron, pine tar, graphite, herbs, and limestone voltage. Silk over steel, built for 15-20 years, and wildly underpriced

Martin Woods’ 2025 rosé is a rare Oregon Cabernet Franc rosé inspired by the great Saumur wines of Guiberteau. Serious, food-loving, spicy, floral, and built with enough structure to age, this is not disposable pool wine. Buy cases, drink now, and hide a few.

The Meunier-driven day-two miracle: 50% Pinot Meunier, 35% Pinot Noir, 15% Chardonnay, full of red fruit, sap, green tea, almond, smoke, brioche, citrus zest, iodine, wet rock and mineral perfume. Reflets is generous but precise, creamy but saline, a little feral but beautifully clean, with the old Marne soul of the estate and a finish far too serious for under $45.

The style of this wine, which is 100% Chardonnay, is refinement, insane acidity and richness. That combo of refinement, insane super high intense acids and an equal amount of richness makes this irresistible. It is packed.

The village cuvée that drinks like a top parcel: 40% Chardonnay, 35% Pinot Noir, 25% Meunier from Premier Cru Chamery, with crushed chalk, green apple skin, lemon oil, white cherry, wild strawberry, sourdough crust, fennel, verbena and wet limestone. The mousse is static-on-silk fine, the acidity is surgical, and the finish vibrates with salt, citrus peel and chalk.

Jürgen von der Marks 2021 Brut Nature Blanc de Noir is German sparkling at cathedral level: 50% Pinot Noir, 30% Chardonnay, 20% Grünfränkisch, with microscopic mousse, brioche, chalk, lemon oil, cherry skin, salt and alpine precision. Champagne quality, Baden postcode, and a price the market still has not understood.

2021-fruit Blanc de Blancs at mid-$40s is the Demets loophole: 1.5g dosage, Extra Brut, all citrus skin, green apple peel, pear, mandarin oil, white flowers, chalk, sea spray, iodine, lemon cake and cold mineral wind. Surgical, juicy, saline and alive, with the new Demets precision fully online. This drinks like $75+ grower Champagne hiding under the old price tag.

The Cassaneas of Champagne: Perseval-Farge Terres de Sables delivers two-rung value violence, with ultra-fine mousse, minerals, brioche, hickory smoke, raspberry, blood orange, morello cherry, citrus, guava and pineapple over sandy-soil lift. Air turns it from excellent to explosive, with sap, saline grip, chewy depth and top-flight finesse that should cost far more.

For $64.99 that is an absolute insane screaming mimi of a value for a Champagne this good. It needs air, as all Perseval-Farge wines demand, but once it aired out it shows why it is so good. I think 40 minutes gets you there.

Später-Veits NV (2019) Blanc de Blancs is Mosel Chardonnay with Champagne architecture: 75 months on lees, 100% Chardonnay, and $28.99 by the case. Brioche, salted butter, lemon oil, green apple, yuzu, almond, chalk and crushed slate ride a tiny, elegant mousse and a long saline finish. German sparkling is in its golden age, and this is the sleeper-cell bottle.

Very cool, restrained and precise, this has fascinating aromas of lemon curd, dried flowers and wet slate. Very juicy and filigreed on the light-bodied palate, which sounds like a contradiction in terms, but is not. Long, totally vibrant and delicate finish. Drink or hold. - 96 Points, SP

Here is a beautiful and very classic riesling Kabinett from this very famous site. Elegance, silkiness and purity all converge in this delicate and light-bodied masterpiece. Then comes the fantastic interplay of juiciness and savoriness in the very long, beautifully balanced finish! - 95 SP

Domberg is the intellectual of the pair compared to Marbach. Cooler, more mineral, and laser-focused, it delivers electric acidity, slate, citrus, and orchard fruit in perfect balance. Eight years of bottle age have only sharpened its voice. One of the finest, most serious Spätlesen Andy Schneider has ever made.

Marbach is pure Spätlese joy. Orchard fruit, citrus, flowers, and soaring acidity come together in a wine that somehow finishes dry despite its richness. I have scored it 9.7 twice. Eight years old and still breathtakingly youthful, this is my favorite Marbach Spätlese Andy has ever produced.

The 2022 Riesling Wehlener Sonnenuhr Auslese *** (Golden Capsule) is very clear, refined and elegant on the nose that shows perfectly ripe fruit reminiscent of lush peaches. Intense yet crystalline and thus refined and uplifted, this is a very elegant yet tensioned and stimulatingly frisky Auslese with precise and savory fruit. There is great finesse and weightlessness here. - 98 Points, WA

2024 Molitor Zeltinger Himmelreich Kabinett Green Capsule is fineherb fury from Slate Death Mountain: nectarine, lime, green apple, salt, herbs, sunlit slate and savage 2024 acidity. Green-capsule Kabinett from Molitor is rare for a reason, the sugar is invisible under the voltage. Cheap, elite, dangerous and built to age.

The wine offers an intense and warm but highly refined and elegant nose of saline and flinty notes of finely weathered rocks, lemon zests, apricots, pastry and mocha bean nuances. Silky and refined on the first palate, this is a full-bodied, intense and tight ZSU with great expression, fine tannins and a crystalline character. - 97+ WA

97-point Schmoll Auslese, and the best wine Ive had this year: apricot in its purest form, caramelized mandarin, peach skin, honey, citrus oil, wet slate, salt, spice and Mosel electricity. Dense but floating, sweet but surgical, with Muellens 2023 acid shock lifting all that stone-fruit richness into an endless, fresh, mythically balanced finish.

This is the most graceful Goldtröpfchen Kabinett Ive tasted in years. It has the sites signature opulence, but filtered through the prism of 2023s completeness. Its decadent and transparent. Hedonistic and pure. There is nothing to fix, nothing to critique. It just is. A wine that doesnt demand attention, but earns reverence.

"Fabulously bright aromas of nectarine, bergamot, melon and fresh mint! Then staggering mineral freshness on the very pure and precise palate, which is at the upper limit of light-bodied. So much fruit, but also such great focus at the enormous, barely off-dry finish. Excellent aging potential! From organically grown grapes. Vegan. Drink or hold." - 95 SP

Le Fossile is the anti-Mâcon: 2023 Pierreclos Chardonnay with lemon blossom, acacia, green apple skin, pear, mirabelle, vineyard peach, yuzu, grapefruit pith, fennel, wet chalk, iodine, smoke and crushed shell. Built on enormous but clean acidity, saline force and real mid-palate depth, it drinks like Puligny wired with Mosel voltage at a human price.

Marc Jambons 2024 Mâcon-Pierreclos Le Carruge is the Mâcon white Burgundy unicorn: old-vine Chardonnay with Côte dOr density, Puligny-like iodine, green apple, pear, lemon flowers, wet stone, salt and huge 2024 acidity. At $31.99 by the case, this is serious white Burgundy in disguise, all nerve, mineral and voltage.

This needs 25+ years to show its best! I dont make the rules! But Its a nice tipple young but watch out as it ages!

Steinmetzs 2024 Brauneberger Juffer Kabinett Trocken is dry Mosel lightning: 96 Pigott, 9.8 from me, and $26.99 by the case. Green apple, lime zest, mint, crushed slate, sponti lift and 11 g/L acidity somehow glide like silk over wire. Feral, surgical, weightless, and the best dry Juffer Kabinett Ive tasted.

Steinmetzs 2024 Dhroner Hofberger Reserve is 98 Pigott, 9.9 from me, and Stefans Coche-in-the-Mosel statement piece. Only 500L from brutally low yields, it marries Meursault density to Mosel lift: acacia, peach skin, mirabelle, wet stone, mint, ginger, saline grip and a finish that echoes like a relic.

The 2024 Steinmetz Brauneberger Juffer GB is 97 Pigott and, for me, the greatest Juffer Ive ever tasted. Yellow peach soul, Fuji apple, Mirabelle, herbs, custard, slate, salt and a finish that fans out forever. Medium-bodied but staggeringly concentrated, this is golden filigree Mosel: polished, electric, original and emotional.

Steinmetzs 2024 Zeltinger Sonnenuhr GZ is 97 Pigott and pure Mosel elegance sharpened to a blade. Green apple, delicate peach, herbs, rainwater, crushed slate, citrus oil and airborne minerality, all lifted by 2024s acid and nerve. Limited, allocated, and one of Stefans most refined dry Rieslings.

“A mineral giant with a ton of smoke, wild herb and bergamot complexity. Enormous concentration and energy with racy and extremely stony acidity. And the sweet fruit complements this beautifully at the very long and complete finish. From organically grown grapes with Fairn Green certification. Drink or hold.” - 98 Points Stuart Pigott (2021)

Girard Corton-Charlemagne in full King Lear mode: hazelnut, ripe green apple, iodine, grilled nuts, wet stone, apple pie crust, brown sugar, pear, caramel, spice and saline mineral wrapped around massive dry extract and whip-crack acid. Dense but aristocratic, young but already regal, this is cold golden architecture built for 20+ years. Buy, bury, thank yourself later.

This wine gets better and better every vintage and out of all the St. Joseph Blancs we work with this drinks the best young and also ages without a problem.

The eye-opener German Chardonnay of the year: 2024 Laible Am Bühl GG gives wet stone, lemon oil, blood orange pith, green apple skin, hazelnut, iodine, elderflower, jasmine, chalk and cold salt. Burgundian in structure, pure Laible in lift, with Riesling-like cut, Chardonnay flesh, invisible oak and a crystalline finish that hovers. Puligny, Meursault and Chablis Grand Cru echoes at $55.99.

The wine that convinced me America had been importing the waiting room instead of the concert. Laibles Klingelberger is one of the original pillars of Fass: razor-sharp, mineral, impossibly pure, and built to age for decades. The 2024 is the finest young Klingelberger Ive tasted. A $35 bottle that drinks like a serious GG.

One of the finest white Burgundies in the portfolio. From the tiny 1.5-hectare La Taupine Premier Cru, Laurent Boussey has crafted a wine of remarkable depth, electric minerality, and Grand Cru poise. Dense yet weightless, with soaring florals, white orchard fruit, and a long saline finish, this is the bottle that proves Monthélie Blanc now belongs in the same conversation as Meursault and Puligny

The terroir Les Roucoles is the best for Marsanne in the whole world. This is from Les Roucoles and Maison Blanche. That is some tip top terroir. I mean top top. The price for this wine cannot be beat.

Brisset Saint-Aubin Sur Roche du Gamay is the smiling assassin: Meyer lemon, lime blossom, green apple skin, white peach, cold mint, wet earth, crushed slate, chalk dust, flint smoke and saline shimmer. Dense but weightless, opulent but electric, it drinks like white Burgundy crossed with dry Riesling and pure light. Benchmark Saint-Aubin, full stop.

The 2023 Brisset Meursault Les Grands Charrons has made the leap from great to absurd. A 9.9 wine and the greatest Meursault Ive sold, it is all white flowers, silk, controlled richness, citrus electricity and endless mineral poise. No 2024 exists, so this is the bottle, Meursault through Brissets finest lens.

Its very well-articulated and has remarkable finesse. Dense and generous on the palate yet also crystalline and filigreed in structure, this is a very intense but elegant and sustainably saline and mouthwatering Riesling of great class. Fine and crunchy tannins give hold and add gastronomic qualities to this elegant and refined beauty 97 Points, WA

Mature dry Mosel from Martin Müllens home hill. The 2014 Hühnerberg Spätlese Trocken is all anatomy and voltage: grapefruit, lime, juniper, green tea, slate, salt, and old-school acid now perfectly integrated. A 12-year-old Riesling skeleton that has learned to sing.

From the Chehalem Mountains, further north and less saline, the 2023 Aligoté La Belle Promenade is zesty, fresh, and springy, with notes of lemon balm, lime, melon rind, reductive smokiness, and delicate savory herbs. Medium-bodied, it’s elegant, pretty, and fruit-noted with a polished frame. 92 AF

Pirchers 2024 Pinot Gris is the best Pinot Gris Ive ever sold, a 9.5 alpine orb from Eglisau. White flowers, peach skin, pink grapefruit, apricot, herbs, wet stone, bee pollen and citrus silk, with density, lift and knife-edge acidity in perfect balance. Forget wedding Pinot Gris. This is liquid sculpture from the Swiss Alps.

Pirchers 2024 Räuschling is the alpine ghost grape with a grapefruit knife: 38-year-old vines, no oak, and pure Swiss voltage. Melon, hay, sea air, lime, green apple, honeydew, limestone, salt and glacial minerality, all floating and flashing across the palate. Dense, razor-clean, wildly fresh, and built to age like a secret in ice.

This bottle is proof. The man took ten leaps while you were looking the other way. He knows it. I know it. And soon, you will too.Buy like youre catching a comet.

The original Fass cult white Burgundy is back after eight vintages away. Garaudets 2023 Monthélie Blanc Sous le Cellier is richer, sharper, and more refined than ever: pear, green apple, iodine, wet earth, salt, spice, electric acidity, and a finish that does not quit.

96-point Hölle GG, and final-form Thörle Riesling: lemon dust, grapefruit rind, tangerine oil, pink citrus static, white pepper, salt crust, vineyard peach, wet rock and limestone electricity. The 2024 has 2021 bones, 2023 muscle and massive dry extract, creamy yet stony, racy yet powerful, with a long citrus-salt finish built for 15+ years.

"Welcome to the deep end of the Rheinhessen dry riesling pool! Jump in and lay back in this world of floating beauty. The stunning stone fruit aromas expand exponentially as the wine aerates in the glass, slowly edging in the tropical fruit and gardenia direction. Gigantic concentration and structure, but somehow this feels almost weightless at the spectacularly elegant finish." - 98 SP

"While it might be perceived as a negative, I love the broad spectrum of pear aromas, ranging from underripe to overripe. The astonishing silvaner character is so enveloping here. Mind-blowing concentration on the full-bodied palate that’s underlined by a huge fine tannin structure. With aeration, a ripe mirabelle character develops that’s married to a stunning chalky freshness." - 96 SP

96-point Thörle Reserve Chardonnay, and the leap is complete: smoky seashell, grilled baguette, beeswax, salted butter, green apple, pear, wet stone, almond, citrus blossom and limestone voltage. Medium-bodied but Grand Cru-coded, with invisible oak, cashmere texture, Meursault power, Puligny line and a long mineral finish that clarifies on day two.

Lets get this out of the way: Yes, its Swiss. Yes, its expensive. And yes, absolutely yes, its one of the greatest Chardonnays Ive ever tasted.

The Rödelseer 2023 Riesling Hoheleite GG is clear and intense on the elegant nose that shows white stone fruit as well as herbal aromas. Elegant, pure and saline on the palate, this is a dense and lush, vivacious and nervy as well as tensioned Riesling with serious mineral and tannic grip on the aromatic, long and stimulating saline finish. 12.5% alcohol. - 95, WA

The only Gutedel I have ever cared about. Ziereisens 2023 Jaspis Alte Reben 10-4 is Chasselas turned grand cru: limestone, smoke, herbs, citrus oil, wax, salt, and immense mineral density. Wine Advocate compared the 2021 to Coche-Dury. This is white wine from another planet.

Nägelin is Ziereisens world-class Chardonnay: chalk, lemon, white flowers, iodine, pear, apple, salinity, and serious Burgundy architecture. Wine Advocate gave the 2023 94 points. I think it is the first German Chardonnay that can stare down top Puligny or Corton-Charlemagne without blinking.

Würmlin is Pinot Gris dragged into grand cru territory. From 60-year-old vines, the 2023 is rich, electric, and wildly mineral: peach, apricot, citrus, bergamot, kumquat, chamomile, limestone salt, and fine tannic grip. Wine Advocate gave it 95 points and called it Ziereisens favorite white.

2023 André François Quinet is the greatest $22.99 red we have ever sold: violets, black pepper, smoked meat, herbs, red cherry, raspberry and granite, with creamy texture, juicy tannins and real Northern Rhône lift. It smells like Côte-Rôtie, drinks like a $60 Syrah and disappears like a house wine. Buy the case before the label catches up.

This is the best value Côte-Rôtie Ive ever sold. Full stop. There are no runners-up. The value is disrespectful. Borderline insulting. I should charge more just to preserve the sanctity of the AOC.

Inferno with the mountain still inside it. The 2022 ARPEPE Fiamme Antiche is roses, sour cherry, wild strawberry, blood orange, herbs and crushed stone, with the extra flesh of the vintage pulled tight by Alpine acidity and ultra-fine Nebbiolo tannins. Silk over granite, and a finish that seems to get colder as it leaves. Only about 6,500 bottles made.

Nuova Regina is Ar.Pe.Pe. Riserva in full nervous-system-reset mode: smoke, tar, iron, wild strawberry, ghost cherry, dried rose, licorice, tobacco, orange peel, crushed rock and alpine air, all moving with satin glide and cold Sassella geometry. Old-vine mountain Nebbiolo, weightless but carved in granite, with a finish that keeps echoing like stone after thunder.

2018 Buon Consiglio is Ar.Pe.Pe. with more flesh on the bones. Roses, ripe cherry, tea, herbs and granite move through a warmer, silkier Grumello frame, but the Alpine acidity and Nebbiolo tannin keep everything lifted and exact. The mountain is still there, just wearing velvet. One of Ar.Pe.Pe.’s great Riservas, $101.99 on three.

The house Nebbiolo came back with shoulders. The 2022 ARPEPE Stella Retica keeps the roses, sour cherry, mountain herbs, tea and granite-dust transparency of 2019, but adds more sap, more midpalate density and firmer tannin without losing altitude. Silk over a skeleton that has been doing pushups. Warm-vintage Valtellina, still cold in its bones. $54.99 on four.

A defining Ar.Pe.Pe. experience: mature Valtellina Nebbiolo with rose garden perfume, alpine cherry, tar, chestnut, fennel, thyme, tobacco, crushed stone and cold mountain air. Satin-textured, laser-cut, ethereal and endlessly mineral, with Chambolle-like glide, old Barolo gravitas and a finish of flowers, rock dust and altitude that refuses to leave.

The greatest bottle of Nebbiolo I have ever had. 1996 Ar.Pe.Pe Rocce Rosse is mature Valtellina in full miracle mode: roses, alpine cherry, tar, chestnut, fennel, cold stone, satin texture, spider-silk tannins, and endless mineral lift. Old Barolo gravitas, Burgundy grace, and mountain air. This is not background wine. This is the night.

The overlooked Gripa to buy by the case: 2024 Saint-Joseph in a 2016 key, black cherry, blackberry skin, black olive tapenade, smoked meat, cracked pepper, blood, granite dust, violet, lavender, mint and dried herbs. Dark, savory, structured and alive, with noble tannins, real lift and a long olive-stone finish that belongs at the dinner table. Regular only in name, elite in the glass.

Berceau is the Saint-Joseph that bites back. The 2024 is almost black, packed with crushed granite, blackberry, lavender, game, leather and herbs, with monstrous old-vine density somehow carried on silk. It feels like 2016 spliced with 2021, power plus cut, Pauillac architecture with Northern Rhône blood. One of the defining Saint-Josephs. $82.99 on three.

2023 Gripa Parady is the spinoff that stole the show: blackberry, black cherry, cassis, mulberry, violets, pepper, olive and smoky granite moving in soft, insistent waves. Lush but never heavy, with immense tiny-berry concentration, cashmere texture and serious tannin rising from inside the wine. 96-point pedigree, microscopic production, and a 15-year runway.

Black wine with flowers in its teeth. The 2020 CaLaFe Taurasi gives you volcanic darkness, plum, violets, licorice, iron and smoke, then reveals slate-like Aglianico tannins built for twenty years or more. Powerful but never lumbering, it has the posture of serious Cornas and the soul of Irpinia.

Blachon’s 2023 Saint-Joseph Margiriat is the masterpiece: old vines planted in 1930 on granite, velvet tannins, black fruit, olives, violets, game, and endless mineral drive. The finest Margiriat yet, maybe the best Saint-Joseph being made, and part of a final act that ends in 2025.

The best Vin de France Syrah I’ve ever tasted, and Blachon’s cheapest wine: black raspberry, dark cherry, blueberry skin, violets, blood, meat, pepper, mint and cool mineral line, with shocking purity and tannins melted straight into the fruit. Silky, dense, wildly drinkable and serious beyond its label, this is table Syrah with Saint-Joseph manners from Blachon’s second-to-last vintage.

Bordeaux with Petrus bloodline and 1970s New York grit: 90% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Franc from Montagne-Saint-Émilion, made by Jean-Claude Berrouet’s son. Plum, cherry, cassis, violets, mint, cedar, graphite, tobacco, iron and wet clay move through crushed-silk tannins, saline lift and classical 2023 tension. Soulful now, serious for the cellar.

The closest thing to Rayas without buying Rayas. Old-vine Grenache from deep sand literally bordering Rayas, with wild strawberry, kirsch, lavender, herbs and warm mineral dust moving through a texture that somehow stays weightless. Dunnuck called the 2019 “the closest thing to an older Rayas” and the 2022 “Rayas-like.” Now the 2023 is here.

The Southern Rhône wine I actually buy for myself. The 2024 Lelektsoglou Cairanne Vieilles Vignes is lavender, garrigue, wild mint, pepper, cassis and cherry wrapped around old-vine sap, sweet tannin and real stony structure. Cooler, finer and more lifted than recent vintages, it gives me the Châteauneuf experience without the heat or sensory overload. $29.99 by the case.

Pure Chaillot, one barrel, and a wine still tasting almost embryonic at seven years old. The 2019 Cuchet-Béliando Cornas is crystalline blackberry and blueberry locked inside a granite fortress, with colossal tannins that turn velvety after extreme air. A 9.8 benchmark that may surpass 2015. $106.99 on three.

A perfect 10.0 Cornas from one barrel of pure Chaillot, aged five years in cask: wild strawberry, sour cherry, blood orange, violet, olive, smoked meat, iron and cold granite. Monumental concentration rises vertically through fine tannins and electric acidity, yet the wine glides with astonishing delicacy. Possibly the greatest Cuchet-Beliando ever, and built for 30 years.

The greatest wine I’ve tasted from Mikael Desestret. Ancient Saint-Joseph vines, some nearing 200 years old, give Syrah of dark berries, violets, olive, granite dust, and unreal texture. Velvet over granite is the whole story: seductive, mineral, seamless, and built on old-vine memory.

Domaine de la Côte St. Épines 2024 Saint-Joseph Cuvée LÉlégance is the Northern Rhône value that should not exist: old-vine Syrah, up to 140 years, at $24.99 by the case. Blackberry, currant, violet, pepper, licorice, smoke, meat and granite run through polished tannins, vivid freshness and classic Saint-Joseph soul.

The best Revirand since 2019. The 2023 is pure Northern Rhône Syrah pornography: blackberry, violets, lavender, olive, incense, meat and crushed granite, with 9.8-level depth and tannins that seem to melt directly into the fruit. Côte-Rôtie perfume, Saint-Joseph bones, and dangerous drinkability. $59.99 on four.

The greatest wine of my Rhône trip and a 9.9 young-vine Cornas lightning strike: 2024 Lionnet Terre Brûlée is black cherry, blackberry, wild berries, violets, ash, olive, iron, herbs, smoke and granite cut like black diamonds. From 2008/2012 vines, it has shocking clarity, powder-fine tannins, immediate beauty and real 20-year architecture. At $67.99 case price, the value is violent.

Philippe Naddef’s 2024 Fixin Les Clos is discovery Burgundy at full voltage: dark cherry, spice, cedar, crushed rock, 50% whole cluster lift, and serious structure braided into sappy fruit. Fixin with its own face, not baby Gevrey, and one of the shock stars of the trip.

A 9.5 Marsannay for $44.99 that makes Burgundy feel briefly merciful: 2024 Naddef Les Genelières is 55-year-old vines, 40% whole cluster and pure Côte de Nuits voltage. Cherry, raspberry, dark berry, violet, peony, spice, stem perfume, earth and mineral ride sappy fruit, clean 2024 acidity, gorgeous texture and real structure. Serious, fragrant, alive and absurdly underpriced.

A 9.5 Côte de Nuits red for $39.99 on a 4-pack should not exist. Dark cherry, raspberry, orange rind, flowers, bark, damp earth, mint and crushed stone ride sappy Naddef fruit, silky tannins and real Fixin structure. Gevrey authority without the tax, village pricing with serious Burgundy architecture, and an 8 to 12-year runway.

Real Hermitage, real inheritance, real Bessards gravity. Darnaud now carries part of Bernard Faurie’s old hill architecture, and this 2022 is massive, closed, mineral, smoky, and built for decades. Jeb Dunnuck gave it 96+ and flagged the dark fruit, smoked meat, flowers, polished tannins, and mineral-drenched finish. Cellar it

My biggest Buffet Taillepieds collector tasted at the domaine, came home, and bought all 24 bottles of my Le Village allocation. That tells you the story. The 2023 is cherries, violets, spice, earth and limestone translated into silk, with pitter-patter tannins and intensity that seems to lose weight as it moves. The worst name in Burgundy. One of Buffet’s greatest Premier Crus.

Village Volnay that forgot its place: 2023 Buffet delivers sour cherry, ripe cherry, black cherry, rose, violet, wild mint, spice, sous bois, tree bark, blood orange peel and stone dust in pure Volnay silk. The fruit moves like music, bright, sweet, darkening, then ghosting into mineral perfume. A 9.5 villages that drinks right behind Champans, and the bottle you open while the 1ers sleep.

The early drinking Pommard 1er Cru at Buffet. Confectionary and supple with terrific freshness and clarifying acids.

The Pernand that forgot its place. Buffet’s 2023 Les Vergelesses is sour cherry, peony, rose, limestone and graphite wrapped around bright acidity and fine, slowly melting tannins. Give it hours and the taut frame turns silky and seductive without losing an ounce of freshness. A true sleeper that can run with Buffet’s Volnay Premier Crus, for $51.99 on four.

2023 Buffet Champans is Volnay’s welcome mat and cathedral: pale, fragrant and devastatingly pretty, with ripe cherry, violet, rose, lilac, ginger, clove, sandalwood, wild mint, blood orange, licorice root, tea and crushed stone. Velvet texture, hidden grip, silky tannins and mineral tide carry the fruit into a long floral finish. Generous now, serious for 10 to 15 years.

Mosel Syrah is real, and 2024 Steinmetz proves it: violets, black pepper, black cherry, blackberry skin, smoked meat, licorice, herbs, cold tea and wet slate. Day one was 9.3, day two climbed to 9.4 as the tannins melted, perfume detonated and the wine went full slate-grown Saint-Joseph ghost. 13% alcohol, only 300 bottles, serious, strange and thrilling.

Steinmetz’s 2022 Mülheimer Sonnenlay Pinot Noir is Mosel Pinot in full voice: dark cherry, cranberry, mulberry, moss, slate, spice, velvet tannin, and serious warm-vintage depth. Stuart Pigott gave it 95 points, calling it “a gentle giant” built for the long haul.

9.6, the greatest Girard Narbantons I have ever tasted: bright cherry, wild strawberry, redcurrant, rose, tea leaf, damp earth, spice and crushed stone, with dense pure fruit, molten tannins and outrageous freshness. Classical Savigny with real architecture, a melting palate and an echoing mineral finish. This is no longer Tuesday-night Burgundy. It is first-choice Burgundy.

J.J. Girard’s 2024 Beaune 1er Cru Clos du Roi is classical Burgundy with the knife out: red cherry, wild strawberry, raspberry skin, violet, moss, tea, iron, spice and cool limestone grip. From a serious royal Beaune climat, this has 2024’s lift and precision with Clos du Roi’s darker structure. At $49.99, real Premier Cru Burgundy still has one sane door left.

The 2023 Barge Les Côtes is The Leap: Stockinger texture, old Côte-Rôtie soul, violet, tapenade, smoke, granite and black silk precision. The rustic haze is gone. What remains is Barge in 4K, traditional, floral, deep, seamless and suddenly hunting at the very top of the hill.

Barge’s 2023 Côte-Rôtie Coeur de Combard is Julien in final form: volcanic-site Syrah with black olive, cassis, violets, wild mint, smoke, meat and crushed stone all fused into one seamless object. The new Stockinger calm is here too, broadening the texture without adding weight. Power, perfume, precision, and a finish that refuses to leave.

Julien Cruchandeaus 2024 Bourgogne Hautes-Côtes de Nuits Les Cabottes is pure Pinot joy at $31.99 by the case. Tank-raised, vivid and wildly drinkable, it bursts with black cherry, plum, cherry blossom, spice, wet earth and limestone snap. Big sap, polished tannins, electric 2024 freshness and the kind of deliciousness that makes analysis feel rude.

The savory counterpoint: sour cherry, wild strawberry, menthol, violets, clove, cardamom, crushed limestone, earth and a cleaned-up meaty edge. More structured, mineral and north-Côte in feel than the Beaune, with velvety tannins and a long, sappy finish. Sleeper-village Burgundy with real spine.

Beaune with its hair down: dark cherry, wild strawberry, violets, rose, peony, licorice, menthol and chalky lift, with 50% whole cluster adding air and sap. Pretty, sexy, floral and elegant, but with Pommard-border bones under the silk. A 9.4 now with 9.5 upside.

The greatest value German Pinot I have ever sold. Jürgen Von der Marks 2023 Merdinger Spätburgunder is German Burgundy in a leather jacket: cherry, raspberry, incense, wet earth, spice, limestone, velvet tannin, and shocking Côte de Nuits texture. $25.99 by the case is basically illegal.

The greatest Alto Piemonte Nebbiolo we have ever sold. The 2021 La Psigula Bramaterra Riserva Vigna Torre is the estate’s first Riserva, only 300 bottles made, with Barolo-scale structure, Volnay-like movement, and a cathedral of cherry, leather, roses, iron and volcanic stone. A 9.8 built for decades. Final 30 bottles at $69.99 on three.

2022 La Psigula Bramaterra is the $47.99 pricing error still hiding in plain sight: roses, cherry blossom, black cherry, tar, tobacco, Earl Grey, wet leaves and volcanic iron, with satin tannins and twenty-year structure. Barolo authority, Volnay glide, Alto Piemonte lift. Give it hours now, or watch Day Two turn perfume, fruit and black rock into one seamless current.

A one-vintage-only Volnay unicorn from old vines in Les Grands Champs, village on paper but Premier Cru voltage in the glass. Deep 2023 cherry fruit, violets, spice, velvet tannin, limestone drive, and a finish that refuses to leave. One of the best wines I’ve ever had from Laurent Boussey.

2016 Louis Sozet Cornas is the final sermon of an extinct Rhône world: black olive, blood, bacon, violets, lavender, blackberry, iron, wild herbs and crushed granite, with architectural tannins, savage freshness and velvet texture. Ancient vines, old-school Cornas, fully awake and still built for another decade. The last 132 bottles on Earth, $99.99 on three.

2023 Luyton-Fleury Hermitage Rouge Les Vercandières is Hermitage with the body armor removed. Blackberry, cocoa, olive, smoke, herbs, iron and crushed granite sit inside a remarkably airy, elegant frame, with beautifully drawn tannins and real 9.7 depth. Same great parcels, less oak, more transparency, and serious Hermitage for $66.99 on four.

"2010 Chapoutier Ermitage Le Méal is a monumental, classically structured Hermitage of liquid rock, graphite, spring flowers, cassis and black raspberry. Massive and full-bodied, yet polished and elegant, with bright acidity, formidable tannins and decades of life ahead." RP 99+

"2012 Chapoutier Ermitage Le Méal is a voluptuous, blockbuster Hermitage loaded with cassis, black raspberry, leather, dried violets and wild herbs. Full-bodied and incredibly textured, with brilliant purity, abundant sweet tannins and the depth to drink beautifully throughout its long life." RP 98

9.8 to 9.9 Brisset Meursault Les Grands Charrons, now $87.99 instead of $109.99: crystallized lime, sea air, white flowers, pear skin, silver-mine mineral and pulverized limestone, with immense sap, silk texture and perfectly integrated acidity. Coche power, Roulot glide, complete Brisset architecture. The greatest Meursault we have ever sold, now more than $20 cheaper.

My platonic ideal of Burgundy. The 2024 Brisset Aux Thorey is red cherry, tea, flowers, cool stone and spice rendered almost weightless, with limpid fruit, fine tannin and astonishing transparency. I followed the bottle for four days and it never dropped below 10.0. One of the most beautiful red Burgundies I know, and $94.99 on four

The 2024 Pierre Brisset Échezeaux Grand Cru is a 10.0 wine pulled from a brutal, tiny vintage like a jewel from wreckage. Forest floor, black cherry, blackcurrant, violet, soy, hoisin, dark reduction, salt, stone and a massive mineral finish, all rendered with Brisset’s impossible velvet gravity. Complete, precise, ecstatic Grand Cru Burgundy, and one to bury for five years if you can stand it.

2021 Pierre Brisset Pommard Premier Cru existed for just two vintages before Pierre abandoned the cuvée because nobody bought enough. Today it’s showing better than ever, with a perfect 10 nose of preserved cherry, limestone, spice and white flowers, a 9.9 palate, and a new price of $93.99 on three.

The awkward phase is over: 2022 Brisset Aux Thorey has emerged in full pheromone mode, with black cherry, dark raspberry, blackberry skin, violets, spice, damp earth, mineral and that lit-from-within Brisset fruit gloss. Dense, chewy, creamy and absurdly sensual, with a malted-milk texture wrapped around serious Nuits architecture. A 9.9 wine now, with the upside to go perfect.

Three bottles. Three perfect 10.0s. Pierre Brisset’s 2023 Aux Thorey is the most consistently flawless red Burgundy I have ever sold, with the greatest Nuits-Saint-Georges nose I have experienced and a finish that seems impossible at this price. At $87.99 by the case, this is not just an extraordinary Premier Cru, it is the greatest Burgundy value I have ever offered.

The 2023 Brisset Bourgogne Rouge Gabrius is not “simple Bourgogne.” It is the portal into Pierre’s 2023 reds: dark cherry, sour cherry, cranberry snap, limestone electricity, silky tannins and surreal fruit purity. Same obsessive Brisset treatment as the top wines, at $35.99 on a case, and one of the clearest values in Burgundy.

The 2022 Brisset Bourgogne Rouge Gabrius is drinking outrageously well right now, all silky red cherry, crushed raspberry, limestone snap, floral lift and that electric Brisset clarity. It earned a 9.5, which I do not hand to Bourgogne Rouge. Entry-level label, full Brisset treatment, and one of the purest values of the vintage.

2023 Maison Stephan Cornas is Côte-Rôtie perfume fused to Cornas geology: violets, lavender, blackberry, cassis, red berries, game, wet earth and crushed granite, with lurid tiny-berry fruit, mouthwatering freshness and velvet-wrapped tannins. Rich but nearly weightless, wild yet precise, and one of the most singular Syrahs in the Rhône. $67.99 on four.

The 2024 Noizons is a 9.6 village Pommard that has apparently forgotten it is village. Vines planted in 1942 give black cherry, earth, iron and enormous old-vine depth, but William Whitehead has somehow made all that material transparent. Noizons still envelops the palate. Now there is light inside it. Premier Cru soul hiding behind the wrong label.

2024 Arvelets is the moment Rebourgeon changed species. Iron, red cherry, stone and soaring florals rise through a Pommard frame that feels drawn with a needle, with microscopic tannins and essentially invisible oak. The old armor is gone. What remains is tension, transparency and verticality. William has not softened Arvelets. He has clarified it.

One of the great values in Burgundy. Beaune Premier Cru still gets looked down on, which is exactly why wines like the 2024 Rebourgeon Les Choucheaux remain sane. Stunningly floral, with elegant cherry fruit, a skeletal frame and far more transparency than past vintages. Gorgeous, precise, serious Burgundy hiding behind the wrong reputation.

The best Maranges Ive ever tasted from Rebourgeon: 2023 Clos Roussots turns minor village into serious Burgundy. Cool cherry, wild strawberry, redcurrant, rose, violet, cranberry skin, blood orange, thyme, pink pepper, clove, tea leaf and wet limestone ride silk-over-steel tannins, vivid acid and a long cran-raspberry, chalk-dust finish.

9.8 Pommard from William Whitehead’s breakout 2024 vintage, and the graceful twin to the sold-out Rugiens. Dark cherry, raspberry, plum skin, violets, peony, wet clay, iron, spice, crushed stone and a little wild Burgundian funk ride outrageous density and microscopic tannins. Grands Epenots is Pommard with perfume, power without weight, and the new Rebourgeon era in full bloom.

2019 Motalli Renato Le Urscele is the Grand Cru of a disappearing Valtellina god: a monopole Nebbiolo of roses, violets, wild strawberry, cherry, black tea, licorice, iron, stone and chestnut-raised soul. Silky, alpine, ancient, and built for decades, this is one of the greatest wines I’ve ever offered under $50.

Tuesday-night Barolo is back. The 2022 Palazzo Schiavino Barolo from Verduno, the Chambolle-Musigny of Barolo, is all roses, sour cherry, spice, tea, chestnut and cool menthol wrapped around firm, finely woven tannins. Real perfume, real structure, real village identity. At $32.99 by the case, this is economic vandalism.

A glorious La Chapelle from one of the most famous vineyards on the Hermitage hill. The 1988 is drinking exactly where you want it now: perfectly mature, deeply savory, hauntingly complex and still carrying enough structure that there is no rush. This is old Northern Rhône with the lights fully on.

9.5 Swiss Pinot and the most perfumed Pinot I’ve ever sold: cherry skin, wild raspberry, red apple, rose, violet, alpine herbs, smoke and silk-thread tannin at just 12.5%. Pircher’s 2023 Eglisau is Volnay/Chambolle spirit through Swiss mountain air, delicate but sap-stained, hauntingly floral, and tariff-free because the grower stepped up.

2023 Rémi Poisot Corton-Bressandes Grand Cru is wide-open Burgundy in full royal procession: red, black and sour cherry, cherry blossom, rose, peony, licorice, wet earth and limestone. Silken and succulent, with live-wire freshness and serious Grand Cru tannins, it offers immediate seduction and decades of life. $116.99 on three.

Romanée-Saint-Vivant in a classical, high-wire 2024 key: red cherry, wild strawberry, crushed raspberry, dried rose, violet, tea leaf, exotic spice, cool earth and mossy mineral shadow. Fine, powdery tannins hold the wine in mid-air while clear acidity stretches the fruit into a long Grand Cru line. Perfumed, tensile, aristocratic and built for the cellar.

The best Grand Cru red Burgundy value in the world: 2022 Poisot Corton-Bressandes is real Grand Cru from 40 to 50-year-old vines, now under LVMH’s Burgundy umbrella, still at $116.99 on 3+. Cherry in 4K, roses, limestone dust, potting soil, licorice, iron and silk-over-steel tannins. 9.7 now, 9.9 runway, 20 to 30-year bones, and absurd village-wine pricing.

Real named-site Cornas at human pricing. Rémi Nodin’s 2024 Les Eygas is classical, savory Syrah from granite: black cherry, blackberry, olive, smoked meat, pepper, herbs, lavender, and firm mineral structure. Cooler-vintage tension, real Cornas bones, and a 10-15 year future.

One of the great white wines we sell, period. The 2023 Östreicher Augustbaum is white flowers, citrus, oyster shell, salt and limestone carried on a silken texture with enormous hidden density and electric acidity. I gave both 2022 and 2023 9.8. Grand Cru Côte de Beaune poise in Franconian Silvaner clothing

Rocche dei Barbari is one of Fass’s true cult wines, and the 2020 Morasi brings it roaring back. Old-school Barbaresco with roses, laser-cut cherry, tar, chestnut, iron, fine tannin, and serious cellar bones. It drinks like a famous-label $125 bottle hiding under a $64.99 price.

The greatest Langhe Nebbiolo I’ve ever tasted: pale, lifted, old-school and absurdly serious, with red cherry, rose, tar, tobacco, chestnut, mint, wet iron, dried orange peel and cold stone. The tannins are Barbaresco-fine, the acidity pure 2021 voltage, the finish endless. This is baby Barolo/Barbaresco soul under a Langhe label, and a true case buy.

The room stopped talking. Florent Garaudet’s 2021 Le Mons Helios is the greatest Monthelie I have ever tasted and the best red wine he has made, a 9.8 of wild raspberry, roses, autumn leaves and crushed stone. Seventy-five-year-old vines give it depth without weight, with Grand Cru transparency and a finish that sharpens as it fades.

One of the best Barberas I have ever tasted, and one of my wine revelations of the year. Scarpa’s 2020 La Bogliona is dark, earthy, minty and mysterious, then explodes into black fruit, velvety tannin and almost weightless concentration over twenty-four hours. Cascina Francia-level seriousness, built to age 25+ years, and $51.99 on four.

Traditional Barolo in high definition. The 2021 Scarpa Tettimorra is tar, burning embers, dried roses, earth and savory spice wrapped around extraordinary tiny-berry cherry concentration and serious tannins that turn velvety with air. I gave it 9.7, with a 9.7–9.8 nose. Distinctive enough that I think I could learn to identify it blind.

The return of Sven Enderle’s Buntsandstein after five years. Just 600 bottles produced, this Grand Cru Pinot is all soaring black cherry, violets, roses, sandstone minerality, and haunting finesse. Delayed until the wine was truly ready, it is one of Sven’s most profound, soulful, and collectible releases to date.

Sven Enderle’s 2023 “Village” Pinot is the drink-now heart of the comeback: black cherry, wild strawberry, cranberry, wet bark, rose petals, smoke, crushed rock, and fine tannins. Less austere than the Grand Crus, but pure, feral, emotional, and wildly alive.

Not your average Lemberger. Insane depth of fruit.

Twenty-six years old and apparently refusing to age. The 2000 Gilodi Bramaterra Riserva still has vivid cherry, violets and wild mint pushing through leather, tea, graphite, soy and spice, with tannins that actually gain strength in the glass. Old wine with several clocks running at once, estate-direct and absurdly alive. $26.99 by the case

Thirty-six years old and fully surrendered to time. The 1990 Gilodi Bramaterra Riserva is dried cherry, soy, leather, black tea, chestnut, iron, violets and game, with powdery tannins and astonishing acidity keeping the whole autumnal thing alive. Estate-direct mature Nebbiolo from the Father of Bramaterra. $26.99 by the case.

Old red wine has been gatekept into absurdity, so I negotiated these estate-direct Gilodi Bramaterra prices down until normal people could actually drink it. Nearly thirty years of dried cherry, iron, roses, tea, tobacco and volcanic earth for the price of a forgettable young red. This is what time tastes like when nobody puts velvet ropes around it.

Twenty years has transformed this Bramaterra into something haunting: dried cherry, rose, black tea, graphite, iron, tobacco, and volcanic minerality, all carried by remarkable freshness. Estate-direct from the Gilodi cellar, this is mature Alto Piemonte at its most honest, savory, and quietly profound. Give it air and let it tell its story.

Thörles 2023 Hölle GG is German Pinot history in real time: red cherry, wild strawberry, rose, black cherry, herbs, wet limestone, and endless mineral drive. I gave it 99. Pigott has given Hölle 98-99 every vintage since 2018. This is the summit.

"Already the intensity and vibrancy of the sour cherry and forest berry aromas in the nose are astonishing. Yes, there’s some oak in the mix, but it is just the very exciting spice in the soup. The super-fine tannins and vibrant acidity interlock almost perfectly on the super-focused palate, then the racy finish blasts off in the direction of the next star." - 96 SP

The greatest Pinot Noir in Germany just got the receipt. The 2024 Thörle Hölle earned 99 points and was the highest-rated wine in the entire report, with crystalline red fruit, silky texture, chalk, herbs and a savory finish that lasts for minutes. Hölle now belongs among the great Pinots of the world. Somehow it is still $89.99 on 3.

The most articulated fruit bomb I know. The 2024 Wegelin Bothmarhalde is a torrent of cherry, raspberry, blackberry, Alpine herbs and Christmas spice, yet every flavor keeps its outline as schist and acidity pull the wine into focus. Silk, mineral pressure and absurd fruit purity. Three straight vintages, three straight 9.6s. This is now one of Europe’s great Pinot sites.

2023 Achim Dürr Hard 200° is the next German Pinot unicorn before the market closes the door: red and sour cherry, roses, violets, citrus peel, exotic spice, wet earth and mineral electricity, with silken fruit, Riesling-like acidity and phenomenally fine tannins. A 9.6 red-Riesling Pinot, microscopic in production and already drifting toward allocation.

A 9.8 Swiss Pinot in the sweet spot of the Adank lineup, richer and deeper than the village wine but still pure alpine restraint. Cherry flesh, wild strawberry, redcurrant, violet stem, pine, lavender, wet granite and cool smoke move through spider-silk texture, crystalline acid and perfectly judged tannins. More sensual in 2023, but still all posture, precision and mountain nerve.

The entry point to Patrick Adank’s world drinks like a secret door into elite Swiss Pinot: mid-season cherry, red currant, strawberry, rose petals, alpine herbs, white pepper and mountain air, all moving with old-oak transparency and gravity-defying finesse. At $54.99 on a 4-pack, this is class, precision and pure Graubünden lift from one of Europe’s most visionary young winemakers.

2023 Patrick Adank Pinot Noir Herrenacker is the Swiss Grand Cru moment. It opens reduced and coiled, then explodes into wild, perfumed, high-acid Pinot of staggering complexity: Chambertin meat and forest crossed with Vosne spice, rose, cherry skin, and weightless intensity. A 30-year wine and one of the greatest Pinots I tasted this year.

Adank’s 2024 Fläscher Pinot Noir Alte Reben is the doorway wine: old-vine Swiss Pinot in perfect 2024 focus. Pure cherry, wild strawberry, alpine herbs, rose, pine needle, crushed stone, silk-fine tannin, and a cool endless finish. Harmony, not flash. This is how you understand Patrick.

2023 Adank Spondis Pinot Noir is Grand Cru B only because Herrenacker exists: red and black berries, Alpine herbs, flowers, spice and deep mineral drive, with outrageous concentration and dancer-like movement. Sweet-fruited without sweetness, dense without weight, powerful without force. The best Spondis yet, and a wine that refuses to leave memory.

2011 Josef Walter Centgrafenberg “J” is mature Spätburgunder in its calm, adult voice. Spice, old paper, dried leaves, cherry, tea, earth, and fine sandstone structure, all rounded by time into something spherical and seamless. No waiting, no guesswork, just serious aged Franken Pinot drinking beautifully now.

Estate-cellared 2008 Josef Walter Centgrafenberg “J,” fully mature and absolutely in the zone. Think aged Gevrey through a Franken lens: spice cabinet, crushed roses, black tea, iron dust, cherries, sandstone, and wild aromatic lift. One of the best mature German Pinots I’ve ever sold, with another decade-plus ahead.

Yvon Métras is the lost original cut of Beaujolais: wild, unfiltered, almost mythical, and usually gone before you even know it existed. The 2023 Beaujolais-Villages is all crushed red berries, violets, damp earth, spice and feral energy, yet somehow weightless and silken. Métras for $56.99 is the rarest kind of opportunity.

Germany’s answer to Hermitage. Ziereisen’s Däublin Syrah combines dark fruit, smoked meat, black olive, violet, pepper, and limestone-driven precision in a wine of remarkable depth and structure. Jancis Robinson’s famous 19.5-point 2018 put it on the map, but 2023 may be even more complete. One of the most serious Syrahs under $100 anywhere.

One of the only rosés I’d put in the same conversation as Château Simone and López de Heredia Rosado. 100% Nebbiolo from Motalli Renato, with early strawberry, cherry skin, orange blossom, alpine rose, mint, grapefruit pith, smoke, limestone and wild herbs. Satin-textured, vinous, structured and wildly juicy, this is rosé with mountain bones and a soul.

Caillez-Lemaire Rosé is Champagne for the dinner table, not the cocktail hour. Give it ninety minutes and wild cherry, citrus, peach and almond unfold over a savory Meunier core, ultra-fine mousse and a firm mineral spine. It keeps changing with food, broadening, tightening, getting stranger and better. Real wine that happens to be pink and sparkling.

The Meunier-driven day-two miracle: 50% Pinot Meunier, 35% Pinot Noir, 15% Chardonnay, full of red fruit, sap, green tea, almond, smoke, brioche, citrus zest, iodine, wet rock and mineral perfume. Reflets is generous but precise, creamy but saline, a little feral but beautifully clean, with the old Marne soul of the estate and a finish far too serious for under $43.

The aperitif blade of the pair: 50% Chardonnay, 25% Pinot Noir, 25% Meunier, with barrel giving architecture instead of oak flavor. Grapefruit, tangelo, tart cherry, citrus peel, chalk, crushed rock, yeast, salt and biscuit ride a bone-dry but juicy frame, with fine mousse and serious mineral grip. Extra Brut Champagne that drinks like a Mosel laser in Damery clothing

The most elegant Jadis Caillez-Lemaire has ever made: a warm-year 2013 somehow sculpted into chalk, white flowers, lemon oil, almond, sea spray, cold brioche and saline lift. If 2012 was the Dom-coded power statement, this is Jadis turned into vapor: same depth, same prestige-cuvée seriousness, but featherweight, precise and haunting.

CaLaFe Kami is Greco di Tufo from another planet: lemon blossom, almond skin, salt, bitter herbs and cooled lava carried by a silky mousse and surgical Brut Nature acidity. It has the bones of Champagne and the volcanic soul of Campania, a serious sparkling wine that makes safe non-vintage bottlings look half-asleep.

9.6 late-disgorged Cramant Blanc de Blancs from old-vine Chardonnay, now with even longer lees aging: citrus, white flowers, brioche, pastry, chalk and cold stone, with richer texture, finer mousse, laser acidity and outrageous sapidity. Bottle 300 was the best bottle, so we forced an encore. Only 300 more exist, and this release begins where the first one peaked.

100% Pinot Noir from Premier Cru Chamery, eight years on lees, and one of the most complete NV Blanc de Noirs I’ve ever tasted. Brioche, pastry, white cherry, chalk, clay, toast and mineral dust ride Perseval’s ridiculous ultra-fine mousse, all sap, serenity and vinous depth. Pinot in ascension, with a finish that annexes the room.

The best rosé Champagne we have ever offered: salmon-copper, crystalline, dense and electric, with strawberry skin, watermelon rind, sour cherry, redcurrant, blood orange, rose petal, white pepper, citrus pith and crushed chalk. It drinks more like serious Côte de Nuits under pressure than decorative pink bubbles: sapid, tensile, mineral, and better with air.

The straight NV Blanc de Blancs is Perseval’s Chardonnay signal in its cleanest form: Premier Cru Chamery limestone, Extra Brut definition, green apple, gooseberry, citrus oil, lemon pith, white flowers, brioche and chalk. Razor-sharp but wrapped in silk, with saline lift, serious lees texture and the kind of mousse that makes “regular” Champagne feel like a category error.

The wilder, deeper bottle, and a 10 for me in spirit: Pinot Noir and Meunier with chalk, acid, roasted citrus, dried cherry, raspberry, tea, fennel, smoke, graphite, wet leaves and dark savory Meunier depth. Les Tremblaies is Champagne for the whole table, not the toast, all torque, weather, microscopic mousse and a finish that keeps changing after you stop speaking.

100% Pinot Noir from Chamery, and 9.9-level Champagne refinement: crystalline raspberry, pomegranate, cherry skin, rose, seashell, chalk, salt, white pepper and cold stone, carried by mousse so fine it feels like silk pressure rather than bubbles. La Luth is Blanc de Noirs with the swagger removed and the poise turned up to impossible.

2019 David Léclapart L’Aphrodisiaque is Trépail Champagne at full transcendence: wild flowers, chalk dust, white chocolate, cherry, ginger, pastry and cold metal fused into one seamless, weightless orb. Eighty percent Pinot Noir, no dosage, microscopic production and staggering sap. The 2017 was 9.8, the 2018 was 9.9, and 2019 may go higher. Only 36 bottles.

Serious Jura bubbles with teeth: 100% Chardonnay, 36 months on laths, Extra Brut dryness and real limestone snap. Brioche, fresh yeast, white peach, pear skin, Meyer lemon, grapefruit pith, hawthorn, hazelnut, chalk, oyster shell and saline Jura hum move through fine mousse, high acid and a long lemon-salt finish. Alt-Champagne that drinks like the side door to luxury.

Jürgen von der Mark’s 2021 Brut Nature Blanc de Noir is German sparkling at cathedral level: 50% Pinot Noir, 30% Chardonnay, 20% Grünfränkisch, with microscopic mousse, brioche, chalk, lemon oil, cherry skin, salt and alpine precision. Champagne quality, Baden postcode, and a price the market still has not understood.

Marie Demets used to be pleasant. Pierre Demets turned it into one of the great Champagne estates of the Côte des Bar. La Forêt is the smoking gun: Grand Cru Chablis with bubbles, all chalk, salt, lemon, vibrating mousse and impossible weightlessness. A 9.8 wine still priced for the domaine’s old reputation. That window will not stay open.

The only Pinot Blanc Champagne I sell, because nothing else in the category comes close. Marie Demets Singularité is sea air, wet stone, green apple, lime and wild mint wrapped around enormous sap, elite mousse and a texture that somehow turns density into weightlessness. I have scored it 9.5 or 9.6 every time. The value play at Demets. Only 96 bottles.

Marie Demets Tradition used to be great-value Champagne. Now it feels like identity theft. The current Blanc de Noirs Extra Brut is all fine mousse, white cherry, brioche, sea air, salt and serious Pinot extract, with enough structure to actually improve in the glass. World-class Champagne hiding behind the estate’s entry label, and somehow still $37.99 by the case.

The 2021 Champagne that forgot its price tag. Marie Demets Harmonie is bread dough, green apple, pear, lime, sea air and wet stone carried by a laser-fine mousse and savage salinity. Lean, sapid, skeletal and ridiculously precise, it actually gets better with air. Serious Blanc de Blancs architecture for $42.99 by the case.

Deep sanguine saignée Champagne with the new Demets precision fully online: blood orange, raspberry skin, red licorice, bitter citrus, chalk, dried earth, spice, Pinot skin and a Campari-Chinato flicker, carried by freakishly fine mousse and real red-wine structure. The old joy is still there, but now it has bones, grip, food-worthiness and a long chalk-and-fruit echo.

NV Perseval-Farge Jean Baptiste 1er Cru Chamery is Champagne for people who think they have already tasted everything. Brioche, oyster shell, iodine, citrus oil, smoke and old-library wood glide across the finest mousse of the trip, then the finish simply refuses to die. A 10.0, a former sparkling wine of the year, and the bottle that converts cynics. $115.99 on three.

Mature Champagne at its most compelling. The 2006 Perseval-Farge Millésime Brut Nature has reached that magical point where the mousse disappears into the wine itself, leaving layer upon layer of golden orchard fruit, porcini, toasted hazelnut, preserved citrus, sea salt, and chalk. Joyful, profound, and seamlessly integrated, this is Champagne as great wine, not just celebration.

Später-Veits NV (2019) Blanc de Blancs is Mosel Chardonnay with Champagne architecture: 75 months on lees, 100% Chardonnay, and $28.99 by the case. Brioche, salted butter, lemon oil, green apple, yuzu, almond, chalk and crushed slate ride a tiny, elegant mousse and a long saline finish. German sparkling is in its golden age, and this is the sleeper-cell bottle.

The Pinot Magician can apparently also make world class sparkling wine.

Grand Cru Champagne energy from a Swiss WWII bunker, built from 100% Pinot Noir with a 2020 base, 1.4 g/L dosage and Patrick Adank’s freakish precision. Salted brioche, red berries, iodine, apple skin, chalk, yeast and cherry glide through impossibly fine mousse, vinous depth and a salivary, mineral finish. Extra Brut, alpine, atomic, and one of the great non-Champagne sparklers.

Steinmetz’s 2024 Wintricher Großer Herrgott Kabinett is a 96-point Pigott, 9.6 Fass debut that already belongs in the canon. Lemon curd, dried flowers, green apple skin, white peach, wet slate and rainwater purity ride 10.7 g/L acidity with shocking finesse. Juicy, filigreed, vibrant and delicate, this is Kabinett lightning from a forgotten Mosel site.

Marbach is the seducer. The 2025 K.H. Schneider Marbach Spätlese is apricot, peach, white cherry, citrus oil and flowers, broad and caressing at first, then tightened by salt, acidity and Nahe mineral structure into a long, precise finish. Stuart Pigott gave it 95 points. Single-vineyard Spätlese this good should not cost $24.99 by the case.

A generous, mature expression of one of the Rhône’s rarest wines. Dried Marsanne brings enormous concentration, while Hermitage supplies shape and mineral authority. Think apricot preserve, fig, candied citrus, honey, spice and a long amber finish.

Estate-direct 1983 Ürziger Würzgarten Auslese from Benedict Loosen-Erben, pulled from the Mosel trapdoor: burnished gold, saffron, dried ginger, mint tea, honeyed apple, apricot, mandarin oil, beeswax, pressed flowers, smoke, wet slate and red-rock spice. The sugar has become silk, the acid still glows neon, and the finish floats on tea, herbs, citrus oil and old Mosel eternity.

Ex-estate 1990 Mosel Kabinett under $60 is the whole alarm bell: Ürziger Würzgarten, red slate, 36 years of perfect cellar age, and still alive with candied lime, saffron, honeycomb, dried flowers, tea, petrol, warm iron and citrus peel. The sweetness has turned into silk, the acid still pulls upward, and the finish glows with Würzgarten spice and old Mosel magic.

Direct-from-source old Mosel magic from Stefan Steinmetz’s latest cellar find. 1989 Erdener Prälat Spätlese from Benedict Loosen-Erben is all baked apple, peach, honey, saffron, smoke, red slate, petrol, and endless mineral glow. Fully mature, still alive, and hauntingly long.

The best Figuiers I have ever tasted. The 2024 Gripa Saint-Péray is lemon oil, orange blossom, herbs, lanolin, stone and bitter citrus packed into a texture that is rich, electric and almost Rieslingesque. Dense without weight, with limestone grip and a finish that refuses to leave. $150 white Burgundy consciousness hiding inside a $44.99 Saint-Péray.

2024 Gripa Le Berceau Blanc is old-vine Marsanne at Northern Rhône summit: quince, apricot, roasted peach, citrus, wax, white flowers, nuts, spice and crushed granite. Dense, silky and hugely concentrated, yet 2024 gives it bright lift, flawless balance and a peacock-tail finish. The quality tier of $300 white Burgundy, with 25 years ahead and only 36 bottles.

2010 Berthet-Bondet Château-Chalon is from one of the great vintages for the appellation, and Berthet-Bondet belongs in the same conversation as Puffeney, Macle and Labet. Haunting, endlessly complex and built for decades, this is one of Jura’s great wines at a price that makes absolutely no sense for something this rare.

2009 Berthet-Bondet Château-Chalon is from one of the great vintages for the appellation, and Berthet-Bondet belongs in the same conversation as Puffeney, Macle and Labet. Haunting, endlessly complex and built for decades, this is one of Jura’s great wines at a price that makes absolutely no sense for something this rare.

Ariavecchia is the anti-Greco: long-aged, architectural, volcanic white wine that drinks closer to serious white Burgundy than trattoria Greco. 2021 is monumental: apricot, hazelnut, citrus oil, fennel, seashell, salt, and a finish that echoes. Concrete that learned how to pray.

2018 Caves Jean Bourdy Vin Jaune is Jura time-sculpture in a 620ml clavelin: Savagnin aged over six years under voile, built for weeks open and decades asleep. Citrus, roasted walnut, saffron, curry spice, salt, umami and Jura electricity unfold slowly, strangely, beautifully. One of the world’s great singular wines, from one of the Jura’s old-school masters.

2018 Caves Jean Bourdy Château-Chalon is Vin Jaune in its sacred register: deeper, more mineral, more lifted, more haunting. Preserved lemon, crushed almond, curry spice, mushroom broth, salt air and ghostly limestone finesse stretch across a finish that keeps changing for days. Open it with Comté, poultry, patience, and the right people. This is Jura as revelation.

The most singular white wine of my trip. Sylvain Gauthier’s Cuvée Perpétuelle layers 2022, 2023 and 2024 Roussanne into a perpetual reserve of honeyed fruit, citrus oil, granite and thunderous concentration, all pulled through insane freshness and endless movement. I gave it 9.8. Grand Cru white-wine architecture for $59.99 on four.

One of the greatest dry Chenins in France. Clos Romans is Thierry Germain’s 11th-century walled-vineyard masterpiece: pear, lemon oil, almond, chamomile, beeswax, salt, and immense limestone architecture. Massive concentration, weightless finish, and Grand Cru white Burgundy seriousness with Loire electricity.