Insights
Rosenthal on the Road
Introducing Château Bardins and Stella Puel
Our travels led us recently to Pessac-Léognan, the tranquil and heavily forested northern sector of the larger Graves subregion, and one of the few pockets of Bordeaux where we had never before worked. The appellation, famously, is home to Château Haut-Brion, the only estate in the original 1855 classification outside of the Haut-Médoc, and its gravelly soils—less sandy than those of Graves proper—yield age-worthy wines that combine silkiness and spinal fortitude.
A Treasure Trove: Closerie du Pelan
During our most recent visit with the team at Le Puy, we excitedly tasted through a near-unbroken vertical of Pelan vintages, from 2015 back to 1999, and the magnitude of this unexpected bounty revealed itself to us more and more with each passing bottle. While Pelan presents a bit more broad-shouldered—Moro employed traditional punch-downs, in contrast to Le Puy’s distinctive “infusion” method—a deep kinship is evident between Pelan and Le Puy’s flagship “Emilien” bottling.
Introducing Grégoire Bichot’s Domaine des Clos
Gregoire is a dyed-in-the-wool Burgundian vigneron who broke off from his family (owners of the large Albert Bichot negociant house) in the early 2000s and founded this domaine which is situated on the outskirts of Nuits-Saint-Georges.
The Vibrant Classicism of Champagne Franck Bonville
While they have long produced Champagnes of great character and typicity—as evidenced by an impressive lineup of older bottles we drank at our first visit—Bonville’s improvements in farming, along with their increasing emphasis on single-cru, single-vintage bottlings and a more nuanced approach to dosage (determined by blind trials), have elevated quality here to new heights.
Nathalie Richez: A New Grower in Burgundy
We discovered Nathalie Richez through a bottle of her Bouzeron during a quick lunch in Nuits-Saint-Georges. Struck by its frankness and its satisfying depth, we arranged a visit for our next pass-through, and indeed both Nathalie and her simple setup proved to be a breath of fresh air.
Introducing Cascina Luisin
It is a particular privilege to commence a relationship with one of Barbaresco’s oldest and most iconic producers: Cascina Luisin. Nebbiolo from Piedmont’s great terroirs, after all, has been a cornerstone of our portfolio since the very beginning.
New Releases from Levet, Gérard, Gilles, and Lionnet
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...