Contributing writer / columnist to the Rosenthal Wine Merchant and Madrose Group
Our launch earlier this year of Josef “Joe” Fischer’s ebullient wines from the Danube’s southern banks met with immediate success, and we are thrilled to expand our work with this up-and-coming Wachau superstar this fall.
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Within Tuscany’s relatively conservative winegrowing culture, Maria Sole Gianelli’s wines are a breath of fresh air. Maria Sole’s farm is called Ficomontanino (roughly, “Little Fig Mountain”), a property her grandfather acquired in the 1960’s
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Domaine Levet in Côte-Rôtie has been a cornerstone of our portfolio since the 1983 vintage—the first they ever produced. Bernard and Nicole Levet started their domaine with three and a half hectares of enviable holdings around Ampuis, passed down through Nicole’s father Marius Chambeyron…Read More
We at Rosenthal Wine Merchant have always relished working with small producers, and we have grown our portfolio over the years by continuing to forge alliances with people who work their land on an intimate, human scale. Read More
Domaine Georges Lignier possesses among the more astonishing collections of vineyards in the Côte de Nuits, but it wasn’t until young Benoit Stehly—Georges’ nephew—took the reins in 2010 that the wines began to fully articulate the greatness of their terroirs. Read More
The Lionnet family has been farming in Cornas since 1575, and the five-hectare domaine today comprises an impressive array of very old vines in some of the area’s greatest sites. In 2003, Corinne Lionnet and her husband Ludovic Izerable—originally from Grenoble—assumed control of the family holdings…Read More
Though technically part of Burgundy, Chablis is adamantly its own place, not only for its colder, grimmer climate, or its entirely different geological origins, but for its distinct traditions of élevage. Read More
Along with its neighbors Puligny-Montrachet and Meursault, Chassagne-Montrachet is viewed today as one of white Burgundy’s “big three”—a world-famous village synonymous with layered, mineral-driven, age-worthy Chardonnay…Read More
Over the past 35 years, Giampiero Bea—both through his own deeply personal wines and his far-reaching influence—has become a cornerstone of our family of growers. Building on the work of his father, a through-and-through farmer whose Umbrian dialect is so thick as to be nearly incomprehensible to outsiders…Read More
A source of pure, chiseled red Burgundy for us for over 25 years now, Domaine Jérôme Chezeaux is undergoing a particularly exciting phase. While the wines have always been honest and delicious, the last few vintages show a level of finesse and precision which places them squarely into the top ranks of the Côte d’Or’s elite. Read More
Maria Sole Giannelli’s wines won immediate acclaim among our clientele earlier this year, with her inaugural shipment selling out within a few short weeks of arrival. Happily, we are slated to receive a second order from her later this month, comprising the new vintage of her terrific rosato “Noble Kara,”…Read More
The histories of Rosenthal Wine Merchant and the village of Carema have been intertwined since January of 1980, when Neal purchased a small lot of wine from Luigi Ferrando—the very first wine he ever imported. Over the ensuing decades…Read More
Sylvain Morey’s career path is a far cry from that of a typical Burgundian vigneron. As a boy, he worked among the vines with his larger-than-life father Jean-Marc and his grandfather Albert—two dyed-in-the-wool old-schoolers with whom we at Rosenthal partnered joyously for many years. Read More
These regions, often but not always peripheral to the countries in which they find themselves, harness their historical and cultural tensions to produce some of the greatest, most intriguing wines that we at RWM have the pleasure to include in our portfolio.
For us here at Rosenthal Wine Merchant, as well as for countless drinkers across the country, Château Le Puy has greatly expanded our notion of what Bordeaux can be—aesthetically, philosophically, and historically. In a region teeming with commercially minded product and still suffering from the excesses of an era during which power was seemingly prized over grace, Le Puy is a beacon Read More
The Recaredo estate in Sant Sadurní d’Anoia is justly regarded as the greatest producer of sparkling wine in the Penedès. Their long-lees-aged, zero-dosage, single-vintage, hand-disgorged wines are ubiquitous on the greatest wine lists in Catalunya and in Spain in general, and we at RWM have greatly relished building their reputation here in the United States over the past dozen years of our partnership. Read More
The traditionalism of the Cappellano family in Serralunga d’Alba is not one of blind adherence to the past. It is a searching, intelligent traditionalism, one which prioritizes accumulated wisdom and connectedness to the land over the allure of technology and the pressures of the market. Read More
Sancerre is not exactly a hotbed of experimentation. Knowing that it can generally be sold on name alone, its growers hew toward conservatism, and it requires a particularly driven vigneron to veer from the citrus-and-chalk orthodoxy the market has come to expect from the appellation. Read More
With only 11 domaines and 220 cultivated hectares of vines, the gorgeous seaside appellation of Cassis produces distinctive wines of sun-soaked Mediterranean generosity and marked salinity, the vast majority of which are consumed locally. We have worked with the Domaine du Bagnol since the early 1980s, first with former owner Claire Lefevre, and since the early 2000s with the magnetic Genovesi family, proudly representing among the very few examples of this historic appellation to be found in the American market. Read More
Few American drinkers are well acquainted with the Luberon, the picturesque interzone between the southern Rhône and the
northern part of Provence, as its production for many years has been geared toward simple bulk wine. However, our good friend Sylvain Morey—the youngest in a 400-year line of Moreys in Chassagne-Montrachet—is deeply engaged in unlocking the potential of the region, Read More
This domaine possesses among the more astonishing collections of vineyards in the Côte de Nuits, but it wasn’t until young Benoit Stehly—Georges’ nephew—took the reins in 2010 that the wines began to articulate fully the greatness of their terroirs. Read More
One of the oldest partnerships in our entire family of winegrowers is with this enviably landed domaine, with their staggering collection of holdings throughout Meursault and Volnay. We began our work here first with the hugely talented classicist Vincent Bitouzet—from the 1978 vintage through the 2009 vintage—and, under his son Francois’s stewardship from 2010 on, the wines have gained even greater precision and complexity. Read More
With over thirty harvests under his belt, Regis Forey exudes the calm, warm confidence of a seasoned Burgundian vigneron operating at the apex of his powers. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Regis crafted robust, dense wines from his family’s enviable holdings in the Côte de Nuits—impressive wines which have aged superbly, but which do occasionally bear traces of a certain youthful striving. In recent years, however, he has honed a style that prioritizes subtlety in numerous ways:…Read More
With his impressive array of holdings throughout Chassagne-Montrachet, complemented by parcels in Puligny-Montrachet, Santenay, Montagny, and Rully, Jean-Marc Pillot is among our most important suppliers of Burgundy. Since our first vintage together over twenty years ago…Read More
Over the past 35 years, Giampiero Bea—both through his own deeply personal wines and his far-reaching influence—has become a cornerstone of our family of growers. Building on the work of his father…
The story of the legendary Montevertine estate in Radda-in-Chianti begins in 1967, when Milanese industrialist Sergio Manetti purchased the property …
Stunning 2015s, plus a new wine
The past decade has witnessed a massive influx of interest in the Alto Piemonte, as a younger generation whose forebears may have fled the area for big-city comforts came to realize the specialness of what was left behind…
Introducing Two Spectacular New Cuvées of Menetou-Salon Rouge
Philippe Gilbert produces Pinot Noir as one who understands the variety to its core—its charms, its challenges, and its ability to display utmost finesse. Some eastern Loire Pinot Noir suffers from a “Burgundy inferiority complex,” with extraction and oak employed to compensate for the terroir’s tendency toward leanness; other examples display the opposite, with a simple, curt elevage overstating Pinot’s relative simplicity in these zones vis-à-vis the Côte d’Or. Philippe, on the other hand…
Joseph Dorbon’s setup is simple: three hectares of organically tended vines on prime south-facing slopes above his home village of Vadans; a horse to help him plow; and a subterranean 16th-century cellar in which his soulful wines slowly take shape. We met Joseph through Michel Gahier, and indeed the two men share a certain combination of…
Langhe maverick Nicoletta Bocca, in her “Valdibà” and “Vigna Dolci” cuvées, issues forth among the finest examples of young-bottled Dolcetto in the entire region. It is with her ultra-long-aged wines, however, that Nicoletta establishes herself as a true visionary: one who pushes Dolcetto and Barbera into little-explored realms—into spaces usually reserved for the haughtier Nebbiolo (on the rare occasions it even reaches such heights). With her beloved “Austri”…
Some wine lovers will run for the hills at the mere mention of Châteauneuf-du-Pape—a bogeyman whose alcohol-driven wallop of overripe fruit threatens to bully the palate and dull the senses. The appellation has certainly seen its share of gloppy, overbearing wines through the years, particularly as global warming and the predilections of a certain prominent palate took sway over the past couple of decades. Indeed, trying to drink wines like these is like trying to dance with a bag of bowling balls.
At a time in which American wine drinkers are spoiled for choice, Swiss wine—which traces its origins back at least to Roman times—remains an enigma. Switzerland’s self-sufficient and insular nature accounts for this in part, as locals consume nearly 99% of the country’s 15,000 hectares worth of production each year. Price has traditionally presented another hurdle, as Switzerland’s relative wealth, combined with the labor-intensive nature of its Alpine viticulture…
… A hunched figure, barely visible in the twilight, barred the great subterranean cellar’s modest entrance. Ragged and weary from their journey, the five sommeliers looked at one another with surprise; the old book had mentioned nothing of a gatekeeper. They had followed the map with great care, the promise of long-buried vinous spoils, theirs for the taking, having sustained them through the endless Krug-less days—but it seemed a final challenge awaited. The sentinel scowled at them from beneath his large hood.
Long before Cava became a brand, a category, a marketing term, a beverage sourced from disparate lands across all of Spain, it was an experimental artisanal wine produced by a handful of visionaries in the Alt Penèdes—the gorgeous rolling hills west of Barcelona in the long shadows of Montserrat, within striking distance of the Mediterranean Sea. The dictates of rapid industrialization transformed Cava from a local Catalan curiosity into a highly marketed juggernaut, with power and influence concentrating in the hands of several enormous bulk producers; but a few holdouts…
Though technically part of Burgundy, Chablis is adamantly its own place, not only for its colder, grimmer climate, or its entirely different geological origins, but for its distinct traditions of élevage. Chablis oaked like a Chassagne-Montrachet loses the ability to articulate its Kimmeridgian intricacies, while a stint in thermoregulated stainless steel often sacrifices texture, resulting in Chablis that feels more like Sancerre—just with slightly different aromatic and flavor signifiers.
The Jura’s meteoric rise among American wine drinkers over the past decade has been well documented, but the wines from the tiny appellation of L’Étoile remain somewhat less known. Perhaps that’s due to its comparatively diminutive size, or perhaps to its lack of appellation-status red wines—much initial fervor over the Jura in the US was driven by the region’s light…
Introducing the 2017 “Montevertine” and 2018 “Pian del Ciampolo”
A new round of releases from the legendary Montevertine estate, high in the hills above Radda-in-Chianti, is always a cause for celebration. Montevertine as we know it today began back in 1967…Read More
Edgar Coulon is a rare talent. At just 26 years of age, he is quickly becoming the guiding force of his family’s 215-year-old winery in Vrigny, in the heart of the Montagne de Reims in Champagne. Working in tandem with his tireless and supremely talented father Eric, ninth-generation Edgar has worked to steer the estate’s production toward ever-more uncompromising terroir expressivity…Read More
Sylvain Morey’s career path is a far cry from that of a typical Burgundian vigneron. As a boy, he worked among the vines with his larger-than-life father Jean-Marc and his grandfather Albert—two dyed-in-the-wool old-schoolers with whom we at Rosenthal partnered joyously for many years. In the early 2000s…Read More
Yves Cuilleron, one of our most internationally recognized growers, gradually transformed his family’s domaine from the handful of hectares he inherited from his uncle in 1987 to a 75-hectare master class on the entire region. He is perhaps most renowned for his outstanding…Read More
Sancerre is not exactly a hotbed of experimentation. Knowing that it can generally be sold on name alone, its growers hew toward conservatism, and it requires a particularly driven vigneron to veer from the citrus-and-chalk orthodoxy the market has come to expect from the appellation. Enter Cyril de Benoist de Gentissart…Read More
While Barolo’s style pendulum continues to swing away from the excesses of a few decades back, it is a true reward to work with an estate who never succumbed to modern technology’s seductive promises. The Brovia family established themselves as winegrowers in the hamlet of Castiglione Falletto in 1863, amassing over time an enviable collection of vineyards in some of the zone’s greatest crus…Read More
From his five-and-a-half hectares of prime real estate in Puligny-Montrachet—with a sliver in Chassagne-Montrachet—Jacques Carillon produces among the most focused, mineral-drenched, age-worthy white wines in the Côte de Beaune. Read More
The histories of Rosenthal Wine Merchant and the village of Carema have been intertwined since January of 1980, when Neal purchased a small lot of wine from Luigi Ferrando—the very first wine he ever imported. Over the ensuing decades, Ferrando’s Carema has gone from a wine virtually unknown outside of its immediate vicinity to one of the most iconic wines in our portfolio, revered by enthusiasts across the United States and well beyond, and allocated down to the bottle. Read More
By any imaginable metric, Château Simone, the undisputed “Grand Cru” of Provence, is among the very greatest estates in all of France. In their home country, one would be hard-pressed to find a serious wine list without them represented…Read More
To discuss the white wines of the Jura as either “topped up” or “oxidative” is to impose a strict binary on what is in fact a broad continuum. The greatest white wines of the Jura are never monolithically oxidative… Read More
Chianti suffers from a profound identity crisis: at one extreme, an ocean of under-farmed, over-cropped wines riding on brand recognition and pretend-paisano authenticity; at the other, starched-shirt Super Tuscans with Bordeaux envy and appropriately aspirationalist pricing.Read More
Few French appellations have the brand power of Sancerre. Zippy, citrusy Sancerre coats the throats of millions of drinkers per year, many of whom don’t know that it’s a place, not a grape variety. And, as with other appellations that become household names—Chablis, Champagne, and Bordeaux, for starters—its inherent marketability disincentivizes growers to go the extra mile. Read More
The release of a new vintage from Ghislaine Barthod is always an eagerly anticipated and joyous occasion. There is perhaps no grower with a wider range of great vineyard holdings in Chambolle-Musigny, and Barthod’s lofty status in the pantheon of top Burgundy estates is firmly established and beyond well-deserved. Read More
I love when a bottle reaches out and grabs you by the scruff. I taste my wines frequently—heck, I taste lots of wines frequently—so I feel like I usually have my expectations calibrated pretty accurately as to what I’m about to experience when I pull a cork. Read More
The 2013 Crémant du Jura Réserve “Brut Zero” is spellbinding, and the finest example of the category we have ever encountered. Few pitches in sparkling wine sales are as hackneyed as the “Champagne substitute” angle, but in a very few…Read More
It would require superhuman coldness not to be immediately smitten by Elvio and Annalisa, proprietors of the Ada Nada estate in Barbaresco. Working alongside one’s spouse day in and day out is not for the faint of heart, but these two make it look like utter joy. Elvio, tanned and…
There is simply no other estate like Château Pradeaux, a pillar of the Rosenthal Wine Merchant portfolio for over 35 years now, and the perennial torchbearer for viscerally traditional Bandol.
Succession is an inevitably precarious affair in the world of wine, which is not only a product of its geology and climate, but the actualization of an individual grower’s aesthetic sensibilities—and, unavoidably, the expression of a grower’s personality as well.
Precision, Finesse, and Approachability
The wines of Domaine Hubert Lignier in Morey-Saint-Denis have stood at the apex of our Burgundy portfolio for four decades now. Our partnership began in 1981, when Neal purchased a small amount of 1978s from the preternaturally talented Hubert, who was then selling off much of his wine to…
At Rosenthal Wine Merchant, the Alps have always been close to our heart. After all, the iconic Carema from Luigi Ferrando—situated at the grand entryway to the Valle d’Aosta—was the first wine Neal ever imported into the United States, back in early 1980.
We initially met Michel Gahier ten years ago through his neighbor Jacques Puffeney (a man who truly needs no introduction), just as wider awareness in the region was beginning to crest.
With his impressive array of holdings throughout Chassagne-Montrachet, complemented by parcels in Puligny-Montrachet, Santenay, Montagny, and Rully, Jean-Marc Pillot is among our most important suppliers of Burgundy. Since our first vintage together over twenty years ago, we have…
We have been working happily with the Rollin family in Pernand-Vergelesses since 1982. Over the years, first with Maurice and his son Rémi, and today with Rémi and his son Simon, this rock-solid domaine has always provided us with wines of finesse, character, and startling purity—
The story of the legendary Montevertine estate in Radda-in-Chianti begins in 1967, when Milanese industrialist Sergio Manetti purchased the property and immediately planted two hectares of vines.
It’s difficult to believe that we are preparing to receive our fourteenth vintage from the sisters of Monastero Suore Cistercensi. Led by Adriana and Fabiola (pictured left), this convent of 70 Cistercian nuns has been…
Those who decry the lack of access to fine Burgundy at palatable prices need look no further than Domaine Henri Prudhon in Saint-Aubin. While it is undeniably true that the prices of many wines from the most battled-after growers have reached the level of pure commodity, there are still areas of this hallowed region where one can find great Burgundy at affordable prices—villages like Saint-Aubin, with vineyards on a high slope, in a cool microclimate, mere paces away from grand cru turf.
With over thirty harvests under his belt, Regis Forey exudes the calm, warm confidence of a seasoned Burgundian vigneron operating at the apex of his powers. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Regis crafted robust, dense wines from his family’s enviable holdings in the Côte de Nuits—impressive wines which have aged superbly, but which do occasionally bear traces of a certain youthful striving. In recent years, however, he has honed a style that prioritizes subtlety in numerous ways: a shift from traditional 228-liter Burgundy barrels to 500-liter demi-muids in order to reduce the influence of oak; less manipulation of the cap during fermentation (once-per-day punching down at most) to promote gentler extraction; an increasing incorporation of whole clusters (which reduce color and emphasize higher aromatic tones); and a markedly reduced sulfur regimen.
France harbors a vast multitude of talented growers, fascinating appellations, and deep veins of viticultural history. Even among this embarrassment of riches, however, the Rougier family’s Château Simone is a true jewel—an estate with a singular terroir, owned by the same family for many generations, with no break in tradition along the way. A bottle of Simone from fifty years ago was produced in the same way, in the same cellar, with literally the same vines, by the same family, as the soon-to-be-released new vintages.
Georges Lignier, Bitouzet-Prieur, and Meix Foulot
To get ahead of the potential effects of the threatened tariffs, we at Rosenthal are front-loading the year with great wine, and we encourage you to take full advantage. Over the next few weeks, we will welcome new releases into our warehouse from three stalwart growers: Georges Lignier in Morey-Saint-Denis, Bitouzet-Prieur in Volnay and Meursault, and Domaine Meix Foulot in Mercurey. Among these arrivals are the benchmark 2015 reds from Georges Lignier, Bitouzet’s finely wrought 2016 whites, and the full lineup of 2015 premier crus (plus the 2017 village-level Mercurey) from Meix Foulot.
Over the past 35 years, Giampiero Bea—both through his own deeply personal wines and his far-reaching influence—has become a cornerstone of our family of growers. Building on the work of his father, a through-and-through farmer whose Umbrian dialect is so thick as to be nearly incomprehensible to outsiders, Giampiero realized what made Paolo’s wines so special and built a working philosophy around it.
Some folks are so productive, you’d swear they had figured out a way to clone themselves—or at least bargained to add a few extra hours to each of their days. The indefatigable Yves Cuilleron is one such person. When Neal began working with the Cuilleron family in the early 1980s—with Yves’s uncle Antoine—there were three wines in play: a Saint-Joseph Rouge, a Saint-Joseph Blanc, and a Condrieu. Today, Yves produces…
A Jewel of Châteauneuf-du-Pape
Châteauneuf-du-Pape at its greatest and most traditional is a testament to its lofty historical reputation, channeling one of the viticultural world’s most visceral expressions of terroir. When the appellation’s sun-drenched ripeness comes across as a mere fact of being rather than as a calculated aim, and when it is not exaggerated through cellar technique, it is as natural and lovable as acidity in Alpine wine or salinity in Mediterranean wine.
The Sesia River originates high in the Italian Alps, just below the Monte Rosa glacier on the border of Switzerland, and flows 140 kilometers southeastward before joining the Po River near Casale Monferrato. Along its path, the Sesia passes neatly through the center of the Alto Piemonte, bisecting its winegrowing communes into western and eastern appellations. One hundred and fifty years ago,
It is no exaggeration to count Josko Gravner among the most influential winegrowers of the past half-century, and in the world of non-interventionist wine his impact is perhaps unmatched. His revival of the ancient practice of white-wine skin-maceration over two decades ago was certainly not an inevitability, especially considering technology’s ever-increasing role in the winemaking process, and it took someone of Gravner’s vision and tenacity to forge such a path.
We at Rosenthal Wine Merchant take great pride in the portfolio of small-grower Bordeaux we’ve assembled over the years. The inception of the company aligns closely with a drastic shift in the region toward modern technology and blockbuster-styled wines, but we have always sought vignerons here who prize balance and classicism over showiness. And it all began with Château Haut-Segottes… In 1980, at the very outset of his importing career, Neal made the acquaintance of Danielle Meunier, proprietor of this nine-hectare estate in the heart of the Saint-Emilion Grand Cru appellation.
It has been a joy to witness the slow and careful passing of the torch from Gérard Harmand to his son Philippe at Domaine Harmand-Geoffroy over the past decade. The Harmand family has tended land in Gevrey-Chambertin since the late 19th century, and over the years they amassed nine hectares of Pinot Noir—all within the confines of Gevrey, and encompassing an impressive and varied range of parcels throughout the village. Over our nearly twenty years of partnership, we have seen gradual but marked improvements in the wines’ clarity and expressiveness, as this father-and-son team coaxes new depths from their tremendous holdings with each passing vintage.
While Barolo’s style pendulum continues to swing away from the excesses of a few decades back, it is a true reward to work with an estate who never succumbed to modern technology’s seductive promises. The Brovia family established themselves as winegrowers in the hamlet of Castiglione Falletto in 1863, amassing over time an enviable collection of vineyards in some of the zone’s greatest crus (Rocche di Castiglione, Villero, and Garblet Sué), as well as a sizable holding in the cru Brea in Serralunga d’Alba.
Giampiero Bea—both through his own deeply personal wines and his wide-ranging influence—has become a cornerstone of our family of growers. Building on the work of his father—a through-and-through farmer whose Umbrian dialect is so thick as to be nearly incomprehensible to outsiders—Giampiero realized what made Paolo’s wines so special and built a philosophy around it. In a series of decades that saw Italian winegrowers embracing modern technology whole-hog, Giampiero—as co-founder of the ViniVeri (“Real Wine”) group—advocated for respectful vineyard work, biodiversity, a de-emphasis on technology in the cellar, non-engagement with professional critics, and an overall trust in old agrarian wisdom.
One of the more exciting developments at Rosenthal Wine Merchant in recent years has been the expansion of our efforts in the Loire Valley. The “garden of France” is a vital part of our DNA, of course: our partnerships with Lucien Crochet and Philippe Foreau date back to the early 1980s and constitute some of our most important relationships, and we have worked with others there for nearly as long. In terms of our more recent discoveries, last year we debuted the pure and classic wines of Château du Petit Thouars to immediate acclaim, our clients seemingly as excited as we were to once again represent a great source of Chinon. And now, we are thrilled to introduce to the US market our newest partner: Château de Chaintres, in the heart of the lovely appellation of Saumur-Champigny, perched high above the Loire River just to the west of Chinon.
Over the past two decades, Jean-Marie Fourrier has justifiably ascended to the upper ranks of Burgundy’s pantheon, and his thrillingly pure and articulate wines are among the most coveted in our entire portfolio. A former protégé of the legendary Henri Jayer, fourth-generation Jean-Marie assumed control of his family domaine with the 1994 vintage, and today he controls nine hectares spread among Gevrey-Chambertin, Morey-Saint-Denis, Chambolle-Musigny, and Vougeot.
From his five-and-a-half hectares of prime real estate in Puligny-Montrachet—with a sliver in Chassagne-Montrachet—Jacques Carillon produces among the most focused, mineral-drenched, age-worthy white wines in the Côte de Beaune. We at Rosenthal Wine Merchant enjoyed the privilege of working with his father Louis for nearly three decades, and Jacques’s methodology follows directly from his father’s—as does the character of the wines.
Our biannual visits with the Foreau clan in Vouvray have developed a certain reassuring rhythm over the many years of our partnership. We convene in the house, toasting with the latest disgorgement of their peerless Brut (which routinely spends at least five years on its lees).
The story of the Conti sisters in Boca is a twofold triumph: as ultra-committed winegrowers who are reclaiming and replanting old vineyards in this difficult-to-farm zone, they are part of a larger effort to restore the Alto Piemonte to its pre-phylloxera glory and productivity; and, as visionary, trend-bucking women in a deeply conservative rural area,
The histories of Rosenthal Wine Merchant and the village of Carema have been intertwined since January of 1980, when Neal purchased a small lot of wine from Luigi Ferrando—the very first wine he ever imported. In the ensuing four decades, Ferrando’s Carema has gone from a wine virtually unknown outside of its immediate vicinity to one of the most iconic wines in our portfolio, revered by enthusiasts across the United States and well beyond, and allocated down to the bottle.
A rock-solid source of pure, chiseled red Burgundy for us for over 25 years now, Domaine Jérôme Chezeaux is undergoing a particularly exciting phase right now. While the wines have always been honest and delicious, the last few vintages show a level of finesse and precision which—in a just world—would vault them into the top ranks of the Côte d’Or’s elite. Furthermore, Jérôme’s daughter Lyse, having completed a series of international internships, has now joined her father full-time, her brightness and enthusiasm adding a wonderful dimension to our visits to the family cellar.
2016s from Guillaume Gilles and Domaine Lionnet.
The whole of Cornas comprises 145 hectares of vines—smaller than many individual mid-sized estates in a region like Bordeaux or Tuscany—and its punishingly steep slopes ensure, in Darwinian fashion, that only the most committed growers will forge wine here. We at Rosenthal Wine Merchant have always had a penchant for the gutsy, wild Syrah that issues forth from this southernmost Northern Rhône hamlet, and our long relationship with the legendary Robert Michel (who retired after the 2006 vintage) provided us a succession of ruggedly traditional wines which still dazzle to this day.
Broad and imposing, the hill of Corton visually dominates its immediate environs, announcing the commencement of the Côte de Beaune in dramatic fashion as one heads from north to south. Here, the rigorous unbroken east-facing procession of the Côte de Nuits yields to a circular orientation, as the vineyards of Ladoix, Aloxe-Corton, and Pernand-Vergelesses fan out 360 degrees from Corton’s densely forested cap—echoing the more variegated orientations and multiple diversionary combes of the Côte de Beaune itself.
Each new release from the tiny Cappellano estate in Serralunga d’Alba is a cause for celebration. Although they have never courted the press—the legendary late Teobaldo Cappellano famously forbade critics from scoring his wines—they have developed a riotously enthusiastic following over the years for their uncompromisingly traditional, scintillatingly pure creations.
It is telling that the name for the geology of the Carso is also the name of the region itself; Carso/Karst/Kras, after all, means both the stone and the place, and this picturesque stretch of the Istrian Peninsula between Trieste and the Isonzo River is defined by the hard limestone on which it sits. Winegrowing here, indeed, is no mean feat, and the labor required simply to cultivate the vine in this unforgiving terrain speaks to the admirable tenacity of its inhabitants.
Laurent Lignier, now in his fifteenth year at the helm of his family’s hallowed domaine, has achieved an unprecedented level of purity and precision in his 2016s—which are slated to reach our shores in mid-April. During his tenure, he has steered the family’s already impeccable vineyard work towards a fully organic regimen, and the domaine has been certified organic as of the 2018 vintage.
It is always immensely satisfying when a great grower finally gets their due. Domaine Levet in Côte-Rôtie has been a cornerstone of our portfolio since the 1983 vintage—the first they ever produced—and, while they have always had a loyal following, it is only in recent years that demand for their uncompromisingly feral wines has exploded.
Those who decry the lack of access to fine Burgundy at palatable prices need look no further than Domaine Henri Prudhon in Saint-Aubin. While it is undeniably true that the prices of many wines from the most battled-after growers have reached the level of pure commodity, there are still areas of this hallowed region where one can find great Burgundy at affordable prices – villages like Saint-Aubin, with vineyards on a high-slope, in a cool-microclimate lying paces away from grand cru turf.
We at Rosenthal Wine Merchant have been working with the Rollin family in Pernand-Vergelesses since 1982. Over the years, first with Maurice and his son Remi, and today with Remi and his son Simon, this rock-solid domaine has provided us with wines of finesse, character, and startling purity—and at prices that put to rest the
Thirty years ago, a regular customer at the Rosenthal Wine Merchant retail shop presented Neal a bottle of 1985 Montefalco Rosso Riserva from Paolo Bea—a wine he had brought back in his luggage because he wanted so much to share it with him. Neal, no stranger to that sort of pitch, wasn’t expecting much, but the bottle so ignited his imagination that he built in a trip to Umbria a few weeks down the road to make the acquaintance of Giampiero, Paolo’s young son.
Martino Manetti remarked during our visit last April that no two consecutive vintages at Montevertine have had remotely the same character since 2007, and perhaps no pair underlines that more forcefully than 2014 and 2015.
With his impressive array of holdings throughout Chassagne-Montrachet, complemented by parcels in Puligny-Montrachet, Santenay, and Montagny, Jean-Marc Pillot is among our most important suppliers of Burgundy.
France harbors a vast multitude of talented growers, fascinating appellations, and deep veins of viticultural history. Even among this embarrassment of riches, however, the Rougier family’s Chateau Simone is a true jewel—an estate with a singular terroir, owned by the same family for many generations, with no break in tradition along the way.
For the vigneron, aging can be a beautiful thing. Youth frequently seeks to announce its place in the world with maximum volume; age, more comfortable in its accumulated prowess, understands that a softer voice can be just as powerful.
Some folks are so amazingly productive, you’d swear they had figured out a way to clone themselves—or at least bargained to add a few hours to each of their days that the rest of us can’t access. Our old friend, the indefatigable Yves Cuilleron, is one such person. When Neal began working with the Cuilleron domaine in the early 1980s—with Yves’s uncle Antoine—there were three wines in play: a Saint-Joseph Rouge, a Saint-Joseph Blanc, and a Condrieu.
When we hunker down with Michel Gahier in his modest cellar just off the main square of Montigny-les-Arsures (known locally as the “Capital of Trousseau”), we never quite know what he’ll unearth from his library. During our last visit, he blind-tasted us on an enchanting 1990 Chardonnay “La Fauquette”—made with no added sulfur, and as fresh as the day it was born.
Certain viticultural areas possess a serene, understated sort of visual beauty: the subtle undulations of the Côte d’Or, for instance; or the Médoc’s stately expanse of gravel. Much of the action happens below the earth’s surface, of course, and the accompanying topographies are more soothing than arresting to behold. However, there are other vineyards where
“Orange wine” is a bona fide category now, one whose amber-colored tentacles have crept further and further into the mainstream over the past several years. Still, amidst an ocean of skin-contact white wines from every corner of the globe, those of Josko Gravner stand apart. His resurrection of this ancient practice two decades ago was certainly not an inevitability, especially considering technology’s ever-increasing role in the winemaking process, and it took someone of Gravner’s vision and tenacity to forge such a path for himself.
Mountainous, Magical, Microscopic
We at Rosenthal Wine Merchant have always relished working with small producers. Over the years, we have grown our portfolio not through assimilating big brands, but by continuing to forge alliances with people who work their land on an intimate, human scale.
Peter Hahn is making some of the most dynamic, complex, and satisfying Vouvray in the entire appellation today. An American by birth, Peter acquired the four-hectare Clos de la Meslerie in the commune of Vernou-sur-Brenne in 2002, and rehabilitated it through fastidious organic viticultural work the estate’s old vines of Chenin Blanc, producing his first