December 2024 Newsletter Wines
The Last Month of the Year is here already. At the end of the month, the four of us - Rae, Liv, Kevin and Sam - will celebrate exactly two years owning Liner & Elsen after taking over from longtime owner Bob Scherb. If you are still reading these pages, know that we are thankful specifically to you, because there are no wineshops without their loyal patrons. We wish you a holiday season filled with good wine and cheer, and a brilliant new year to come.
The Newsletter Wines from France
Seven fantastic French wines from all across the nation. No matter what your favorite region, we’ve got something to offer.
Domaine de Couron Cotes du Rhone 2020 $16
Domaine de Couron is at home in the quiet village of Saint Marcel d’Ardèche, a village in the rolling hills of the Cotes du Rhone appellation where nothing much happens. Jean-Luc and Marie-Lise Dorthe represent the ninth generation of their family to make wine here. They make warm, straightforward, savory Cotes du Rhone on terraced vineyards of limestone scree, granite, and river-born clay. The wine is a blend of 60% Grenache and 40% Syrah, picked by hand to select only the healthiest fruit, then fermented slowly and at low temperature to preserve the pure fruit aromas and textural balance of the wine. Notes of dried black cherries and blackcurrants with a pastille-like quality share the nose with sun-baked earth, oregano, and thyme. The palate is well rounded with velvety tannins and deep set flavors of dark fruits, dried herbs, and a hint of graphite. This is about as traditional as Cotes du Rhone gets, with old school flavors that call for old school recipes; pot roast the way mom makes it, or chili that’s been simmering all day.
Jean Maurice Raffault Chinon Les Galuches 2022 $18
Most independent wine shops have a ‘house palate’. Any given wine set is at least partly a reflection of the people purchasing the wines, because at the end of the day it is much easier to sell a wine we might buy ourselves. At L&E, the house palate is more or less whatever Rodolphe Raffault is making. His wines are never particularly flashy, the farming and winemaking are meticulous but not avant garde, but Raffault wines always manage to be just right. This is prototypical Chinon: Cabernet Franc that has not evolved far beyond the stony clay soil the grapes grow in. There’s violets here too, white pepper and pipe smoke, dried raspberries and dried roses. The texture is tense with mineral extract, taut with tannins soaked in notes of pitch black cherry, pepper, clay and tomato leaf. The texture is powerful but not heavy, and will complement a range of pork stews, squash quiches or mushroom risottos.
Chateau Magneau Graves 2018 $24
Graves is often forgotten in Bordeaux, a sleepy, unfashionable neighborhood southeast of the city, far away from all the hubbub of Medoc and the trendy garagistes of the right bank. In truth, Graves was once the heart of Bordeaux wine country, before vineyards were even planted in Medoc, it was wine from vineyards planted on gravel soils just outside the city that first drew the attention of the founding fathers, that filled wine shops in London, and set the example that all of Bordeaux now follows. Chateau Magneau is an ancient Graves estate run by the Ardurat family since before the reign of Henri IV began in 1589. The family have always made good wine for a reasonable price, and this classic, full-yet-elegant red is no exception. 50% Merlot, 45% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 5% Cabernet Franc, this is Bordeaux as it has always been. Aromas of blackcurrant and blackberry, tobacco, gravel and iron-rich clay with a whiff of lavender. Full with a sturdy frame of tannin, there’s more black fruits, blueberries, heather and pepper that lands neatly on the earthy finish. Bordeaux’s appellation law states that it must be paired with steak – preferably filet au poivre – but we won’t tell so long as mushrooms are involved in the recipe.
Plaisance Penavayre Fronton Le Rouge 2020 $17
In 1989, a family friend told Marc Penaveyre that he was due to retire, and the French government was offering to pay him $50,000 to pull out his Fronton vines unless Marc left his work as a government viticulture researcher behind and returned to the village of Vacquiers just a few miles north of Toulouse. Freshly married to his wife Anne - an engineer - Marc returned and saved the vineyard. In the 30 years since, Plaisance-Penaveyre has led a renaissance for this modest variety. Marc has converted to biodynamic farming and vinifies in a restrained manner without any new oak, nor too much extraction. Le Rouge is a blend of Negrette with Syrah and Cabernet Franc, and a beautiful example of how much potential is in this once forgotten corner of France. This wine shows aromas of blackberry, black plum, black raspberry, black pepper, black dirt, and black violets. The palate is neatly balanced and corded with tannins that reveal themselves on the finish, with flavors of black cherry, orange oil, and chalky earth and cacao. Drink this charmer with full bodied winter meals featuring caramelized vegetables and red meats.
Vignoble Duffour Cotes de Gascogne 2022 $14
Nicholas Duffour makes traditional southwest French country wines in Lagraulet-du-Gers, a village in the middle of a wide patch of gently rolling countryside of Gers. Like his father Michel, Nicholas farms his vines organically, and raises this cheerful wine in stainless steel. It is a blend of 70% Colombard with 15% Gros Manseng and 15% Ugni Blanc, and the wine competes for these vines with the brilliant Armagnac the family also makes. With characteristic SW French economy, this wine offers more than its share of aroma and flavor, with notes of apple pie, lemon curd, almond and whipped cream leading into a palate with more weight than wines at this price usually have, apple and lime and acacia before a refreshing burst of stone ground minerality on the finish. This wine is perfect for parties, light cheeses, fresh seafood ceviche or veggie frittatas.
Domaine des Cognettes Muscadet Sevre et Maine Les 2 Terres 2022 $17
Muscadet is a wine made of stone and salt. France’s Breton coast traditionally begins at the mouth of the Loire, and while the modern departments put Nantes in the Loire-Atlantique, it is still a city full of buckwheat Galettes, oysters, fish stews and Celtic motifs. Meanwhile, the jumbled granite shore that lines the coast of Morbihan and Finistere are broadly similar to the bedrock underneath the vines of Clisson and Les Gorges, two of Muscadet’s finest emerging Crus, and where Stephan and Vincent Perraud manage Domaine des Cognettes. Les Deux Terres is a barrel selection drawn from both these prized sites, and brilliantly captures the scent of granite bedrock and brine in the Atlantic air. Aromas of yellow apple, dragonfruit, and lemon curd are here too, before a full bodied palate tense with acid and well defined mineral notes. Powerfully strong flavors of apples and melons and lemons drift off to a delicately salty finish.
Jean Paul Versino Cuvee Le Petit Oursan Blanc NV $15
Jean Paul Versino’s day job is running the Bois de Boursan Chateauneuf-du-Pape domaine, one of the best and oldest-school wineries in the appellation. The hallmarks of the Boursan wines are complexity and restraint. No grape is picked after its time and even in warm vintages their wines have acidity. These attributes are just as true for the Petit Oursan wines they make. Just outside Chateauneuf, there is a curious vineyard in the village of Jonquieres that doesn’t quite fit into any sort of appellation, but produces beautiful fruit in both red and white. The Versino family purchased the vineyard and dedicated it to making excellent and shockingly inexpensive Rhone wines. This white cuvee is made entirely out of the Clairette grape from the 2022 and 2023 vintages. Clairette is perhaps the best variety in the whole Rhone Valley at ripening with acidity intact. The wine gives aromas of Asian pear, peach, acacia, and salted lemon. The palate is a starburst of lemon and orange zest, plantain, and kiss melon that finishes with a touch of salty minerality. Most white Rhone at this price tastes confected and standardized by commercial yeast, but the Versino family doesn’t use commercial yeast, so even at this everyday price, there’s definition and soul here.
Newsletter Selections from Italy, Spain, and Portugal
A set of wines not from France. These are five showstoppers perfect for any sort of winery menu.
Ferrando Canavese Rosso 2022 $20
Alto Piemonte is home to a particular sort of wine that doesn't quite exist anywhere else. The vineyards of the large Canavese region are carved onto the eaves of the Alps around the city of Ivria at the mouth of the Valle d’Aoste. This is Nebbiolo country, but where southern Piedmont traditionally makes structured, brooding Nebbiolo, here the wine is as bright as sunlight on a snow capped mountain. The Ferrando family are perhaps the most important winemakers this side of Barolo, responsible for saving the legendary wines of Carema from total obscurity. While their soaring Carema both deserves and commands prices similar to superb Barolo, they also produce this charming blend: 65% Nebbiolo, 30% Barbera, and 5% Neretta, picked early and vinified gently to make wine that walks the line between liquid and gaseous states, giving aromas of red clay, red cherries, red cranberries, red roses, red peppercorns and red vines. The palate is crisp, clear, and seamless with surprising weight and packed to the rim with red berries, pepper and dusty soil. Delicate tannins build slowly, and the finish is fresh and outrageously long. A crowd pleaser in any setting, this Rosso would cut a particular dash with a great cheese board.
Gota Prunus Dao Tinto Private Selection 2021 $15
Natalia Jessa’s first career was wine buying for Tesco in England. When she moved to Portugal, she saw an opportunity to help small organic farmers throughout the country to get their wines to market. This appealing Dão Tinto is one result of her efforts, a remarkable wine for a very fair price. Farmed organically towards the bottom of the wide and warm Dão valley, this vineyard would be too hot to produce compelling wines without the daily Atlantic winds that filter through the region to restrain the summertime heat. The wine is a blend of Jaen – the Portuguese version of Mencia – with small proportions of Tinta Roriz, Alfrocheiro, and other more obscure grapes. Hand harvested and aged in a mix of cement and neutral oak, this is a sumptuously rich and fruit forward wine. The nose shows marionberry and inky black plum accented with orange peel and granite, before a palate of black raspberries and plums and smoked orange peels and granite laced soil. Lush textured but light on its feet, this is a great wine for charcuterie boards at your next party, but it will serve just as well with mid-week leftovers.
Casa Balaguer Alicante Monastrell Tragolargo 2022 $17
Casa Balaguer’s red grapes come from a property in the rugged, dry mountains of Alicante along Spain’s southeast coast. This is the ancestral homeland of Monastrell – what the French call Mourvedre – and the grape thrives in the hot, dry winds from the interior. Marta Ribera and Andres Carull both grew up in Valencia but met while working harvests in France. A chance meeting with natural wine in Bordeaux inspired them to bring the concept home to the 18th century Balaguer estate. Tragolargo means “long gulp”, a wine meant to be easy to approach and enjoy. The harvest is done by hand to ensure only healthy grapes are used, and grapes are gently handled to make sure Monastrell’s always imposing tannins don’t overwhelm the wine. Aromas begin with black raspberry, orange oil, cinnamon stick, leather and chalky soil before the palate arrives, dense with tannins yet neatly balanced by acidity and powerfully flavored with cherries, raspberries, scrubland earth and burnt orange peel that lingers on the finish. This one would be excellent alongside Pork Valenciana, pan seared chicken, or a stew full of root vegetables.
Can Sumoi Penedes Xarel-lo 2022 $22
Pepe Raventos gives his name to one of Spain’s best and most important sparkling wine houses, Raventos i Blanc. In his spare time, he manages this 400 hectare property in the limestone mountains that line Catalonia’s coast. Can Sumoi is dedicated only to native Catalan varieties, and this white is made from the region’s most iconic white variety, Xarel-lo. One of three varieties that make up the traditional cava blend, Xarel-lo is increasingly popular on its own as Barcelona’s favorite white wine. The Raventos family manages the Can Sumoi estate organically, and there is nothing added to the wines except a small amount of sulphur at bottling. The result is a dazzling display of fruits and flowers – apple blossom and pear and pineapple – that comes out fresh and clear on the nose. The palate is full of verve and limestone minerality framing abundant orchard fruits and a note of lemon that lingers on the finish. This is a wine for some sort of white fish, for scallops, shrimp, and other things that live in water.
Cantina Furlani Bianco 2023 $23
The vineyard where this granite crusted wine comes from lives high above the city of Trento in the Italian Alps. The grapes ripen in the bright alpine sunshine under the direction of the Furlani family for four generations, now practicing purely organic methods. While the summers can be very hot and the harvest season dependably sunny, by the time the ferments are finished there’s generally a thick blanket of snow outside, and the family puts their finished wines outside for the most natural sort of cold stabilization. This is wine from a cold, sunny, windswept place, and you can taste it in this delicious blend of Muller Thurgau, Nosiola, Verdealbara, Lagarino Bianco and other white varieties native to the Alps. The nose arrives like an aromatic geyser of lemon and tangerine and gooseberry, acacia and lime zest and sage and slate. The palate is filled with nervous energy and a surprising amount of weight, with flavors of lemon and juicy orange that give way to a crunchy crisp mineral finish. Serve with alpine cheese plates and peppery chicken.
The Winemaker's Barrel: Sacred Shore
Andrew Reichers’ winemaking career has taken him all over the world, to California, Burgundy, New Zealand and back to Oregon. Over the years he has worked with luminaries like Clair Naudin, Jim Prosser, and Maggie Harrison. Sacred Shore is his latest venture, a winery devoted to off-beat varieties that are still rare in the Pacific Northwest, but which have a bright future.
Sacred Shore Willamette Valley Albarino Treos Vineyard 2022 $34
Most Albarino comes from Spain or Portugal, but this exceptional willamette Valley edition speaks to the grape's untapped potential as a real "international" variety. There's some of the grape's signature salt in here, alongside waves of crisp and snappy peach and lemon fruit.
Sacred Shore Columbia Gorge Chenin Blanc Threemile Vineyard 2022 $34
Chenin Blanc is difficult to grow.It is frankly a miracle that it's so famously grown in the cool and damp Loire Valley, because it's a temperamental variety that doesn't like the cold. The folks at Threemile Vineyard in the Columbia Gorge are up to the challenge, and the results speak for themselves in this full, fresh Chenin Blanc equally packed with fruit and minerals.
Sacred Shore Willamette Valley Rose of Sangiovese Treos Vineyard 2023 $29
Sangiovese is new to the Willamette Valley, but just as the grape is grown all over Italy with a hundred different results, curious growers in Oregon are starting to find out what this classic grape has to offer in the relatively cooler parts of the state. In this case, it's a delicious, fruit and herb filled, winter weight rose.
Sacred Shore Willamette Valley Sangiovese Treos Vineyard 2022 $34
Sacred Score's 'flagship red', this is a beautifully textured wine with just the right sort of tannins to hold in layered flavors of strawberry, earth, tarragon and oregano. This wine has us wondering why this Sangio-vese grape isn't more popular in its native Italy.
Holiday Sparkling Selections
Sparkling wine is a drink for all seasons, but it is especially a drink for this one! These three bubbly wines are our favorite go-to selections for all your festive needs.
A light, fresh take on Italian sparkling wine from Emilia Romagna that offers delicious white peach, acacia, and fresh yeasty notes, as dry as can be. Made from a blend of the native Pignotello grape with a helping hand from Trebbiano and other local curiosities.
Pineau d'Aunis made as natural sparkling wine. It tastes like sunshine and fruit salad, with ginger spices, basil, lemon pepper, tangerine, and lime, with a touch of yeast. The wine has the same kinetic energy suggested by the label.
A brilliant, singsong Champagne made from a blend of all three main varieties, Pinot Meunier, Pinot Noir, and Chardonnay. Notes of apples, lemons, and sourdough brioche on a palate as silky and creamy as Champagne gets before a dry, crisp burst of minerality on the finish.