December 2023 Newsletter

Fattoria San Giuliano is a farm with a total of fifteen acres in Roero and Barbaresco’s Neive. Giulio Pastura and his wife Mariella do most of the farming and vinification themselves, producing a range of wine from Arneis and Moscatto through Barbera, Dolcetto, and Barbaresco. With a mixture of traditional and modern techniques, they aim to make wine that is distinct, sharply defined, and – at least with this Dolcetto – powerful. Peacocks roam their vineyards to control pests, and the wine has a similarly colorful personality. Aromas of deep, juicy black cherry, cranberry, rose petal, calcareous limestone clay, and black pepper burst out of the glass vividly dark. The palate offers more intensely dark cherry fruit and a bundle of Piedmontese herbs wrapped around long, silky tannins that reveal the measured yet vigorous skin extraction technique used in the winery, to express every ounce of Dolcetto’s vivid, dark and spicy palate.This is a wine for hard cheeses, savory meat dishes and herb-rich stews.

Vincent Roussely’s vineyard is on the banks of the Cher river, a few miles south of the Loire and not too distant from Chateau de Chenonceau, the river-spanning castle that gives AOC Touraine Chenonceaux its name. This quarter of the wide and diverse Touraine appellation is interspersed with forests and frequent ravines, a slightly less settled part of the Loire. Roussely converted all his vineyards to organic in 2007, and makes a wide array of wines, from Sauvignon Blanc – ever-present here and thought to have originated just a couple miles up-stream – to this sturdy, winter-weight Gamay. This grape flourishes in the Loire Valley, where it tends towards earthy spice in keeping with the local clay-rich terroir, and the Canaille is a neat balance of Gamay’s complex personality, structured yet lively. Deep black cherry and pomegranate fruit comes alongside rich clay and black pepper. Full bodied with more tannin than we’re used to in Gamay, forest floor and chalky soil notes balanced with blackcurrant and cranberry that lead to a pepper streaked finish. This may be a Gamay, but it’s a substantial wine for winter dishes involving potatoes, roast chicken, and squashes.

Valeria Antolin is an artist who works in two media. On the one hand, she’s a winemaker in Mendoza, heir to famous winemaking lineage and a great winemaker in her own right with a deft eye and nose for balance and varietal character. She is also a painter, whose work is featured both in Loscano’s winery and on this bottle of wine, a deftly balanced Cabernet Sauvignon from the Uco Valley. The key element in great wines from Mendoza is restraint. The dry, sunny terroir here offers the temptation to turn the volume all the way up and produce syrupy gobs of fruit, but this cuvée is refreshingly light on its feet. Blackcurrant, blackberry, cinnamon toast, oak spice and vanilla bean feature on the nose, no one element dominating the rest. The palate has Cabernet Sauvignon’s signature bouquet of herbs like oregano, sage, and tarragon bundled together with plums, blackcurrants, and deep, resonant earth. This is a brilliant Argentine wine, and we’ve rarely seen one so complex and well balanced at this price. Priced for midweek burger night, but good enough for slow cooked pot-roast.

“The goal of Chateau de Brague’s Bordeaux Superieur is to make a wine that is supple and elegant, while still maintaining freshness.” In 1936, Maurice Trève purchased a vineyard in the area of Fronsac on the eastern edge of Bordeaux. For him, planting the vineyard took him away from his day job building railroad equipment, but his granddaughters today run the estate full time. Chateau de Brague’s Bordeaux Supérieur has been a mainstay in Portland for years, one of the best values available in Bordeaux. The just-released 2019 edition is a worthy successor to the great 2016 vintage of the last several years. Spicey blackcurrant and plum, cinnamon, violets and gentian root on the nose. The palate has the sort of fresh picked black cherries that stain your fingers, earth and rich leather and tobacco notes that linger through a finish with building tannins and a hint of roasted coffee. It’s a sturdy wine that holds up to the mission statement. Fresh enough to match with food, suave enough to enjoy by the fire with a good book.

To be honest, proper Riesling season is 365 days long, but if there is a special season to enjoy the grape’s unmatched ability to pair to any dish, to suit any occasion, and to bridge the gap between thirst quenching drinkability and mind-bending complexity, that season is winter. Consider this wine from Weingut Josef Leitz, since 1985 under the direction of Johannes ‘Josi’ Leitz. In the small Rheingau region, Leitz is considered one of the most important producers and a champion of high quality wine, something the Rheingau was once famous for. Most of his wines come from the western side of the Rheingau, a steep embankment of quartz and slate that faces almost directly south over the Rhein planted nearly solid with Riesling. Josi farms for low yields and has resurrected several ‘grand cru’ vineyards that had fallen out of use, but his Dragonstone cuvée is a neat summation of the estate; clean cut, vibrantly mineral, and delicious. A nose of orange, strawberry, lemon curd, slate, and a touch of salt leads to a palate of strawberry peach sundae with honeycomb and citrus fruits, a kiss of residual sugar is more than balanced by waves of acidity that lead to a razor sharp, crisp finish. Pair with most anything, but it will do special favors for spicy dishes.

When René Devine started selling barrels of wine to passing merchants in 1936, he was selling the sort of rich, full bodied and sun soaked wines that caused a sensation in Paris when railroads first connected the city to the vineyards of southern France. René’s granddaughter Agnes runs the domaine today with her husband Bertand Burle, and they look for balance in the wines. Balance between intensity and finesse, between fruit and savory earth, between the present and the future. They have the highest organic certification available and work as sustainably as possible. Font Sarade means ‘dry land’ in the Provençal dialect, and the grapes struggle even in normal years, so sustainable practices are always part of the conversation. The 2020 edition of the entry tier Ventoux is a blend of Grenache, Syrah and Carignan, full of dark cherry and boysenberry fruit, clay, leather, and a note of smoked ribs (that’s the Syrah talking). On the palate, the wine is impressively rich, with crusty earth and leathery fruit, black forest bacon with the peppery edge, and tar. Drink this wine with roasts or cook roasts with this wine.

Eugene Carrel, alongside his son Olivier and son-in-law Sebastian manage their Domaine in the village of Jongieux, the warmest appellation in Savoie on west-facing slopes near Lac du Bourget. The Marestel Altesse is considered the premier wine of the winery and Savoie as a whole, a white with the depth and weight of Chardonnay or Roussanne, but the bright appley fruit and zest of all Savoie wines. Planted at 1500 feet, Carrel’s vineyards get 2 or 3 more hours of sun than most other vineyards in Savoie, so the grapes develop more flavor compounds before harvest. Thus, in a scintillating, sunny 2019 vintage, this wine shows deep, powerful aromas of apple sauce, gardenia, vanilla crème brûlée, salt and white pepper. The palate is luxurious, creamy, silky, and filled with apple, baking spices and white strawberry. This is a white wine for pork dishes, cold nights, steelhead salmon, and fireside card games.

One of our favorite moments as wine merchants is when we meet a new winemaker with one of their first vintages, and the wine is great. It’s always exciting to taste a new wine from a fresh perspective. This is why we’re happy to present Arabilis Chardonnay in our newsletter for the first time. Several weeks ago, Allison McMahon came into the shop to sample us on her latest vintages from the Willamette Valley and Columbia Gorge. She and her husband Kenny met while studying viticulture and have been making wine since 2018, and arrived on the scene with a clear eye for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. This delightful Chardonnay from the Gorge offers Meyer lemon, fresh peach, and salty sourdough aromas before a buoyant palate of pear butter, amaretto, lemon zest, lime leaf, and candied orange peel. Fermented and raised in neutral oak, with 11 months on the lees, this Chardonnay shows impeccable balance with a core of racy acidity that keeps the wine aloft on the palate. This is a delicious wine with Chardonnay’s trademark versatility for food pairing, and we’re excited to see what’s next for Allison and Kenny.

In 1793, Raffaele Castorani – a noted eye surgeon and inventor of cataract surgery – married Adelina Ruggeri De' Capobianchi, whose family gave a hunting estate in Abruzzo as a dowry. Of course, the estate included vineyards. Over the centuries, ownership changed hands several times, the estate was broken up into separate parcels, and came close to disappearing altogether, until in 1999, a group of friends from the Trulli and Cavuto families came together to reconstitute the property and revive vineyards that were at the time lost in an obscure sea of bulk wine. Under the guidance of Jutto Trulli, the vineyards were converted to organic farming, and a new winery built to improve the standard of winemaking. In Abruzzo, the Montepulciano grape is king, and the Cadetto cuvee is Podere Castorani’s entre to their portfolio of solidly built, savory Montepulcianos. The nose is a rich bundle of cherries and blackberries, with touches of violets and baker’s chocolate. Study tannins define the palate with a core of crushed berries and tarragon, sage and oregano at the core and a lingering note of chocolate. A wine for all seasons and a variety of hearty dishes.