Louis Michel

Three wines from Louis Michel are on the table this Saturday, fresh from our visit to the domaine last month.

The family has farmed Chablis since the 1850s. Guillaume Gicqueau-Michel is the sixth generation, and the house style has not moved: extensive Premier Cru holdings, three Grands Crus, stainless steel only, no oak anywhere in the cellar. Kimmeridgian limestone and nothing in the way.

The most telling thing Guillaume said over the table is that he cannot keep up with demand for his Grand Cru. The world has worked out what Chablis is: white Burgundy at fair value, from a village where the top of the pyramid is still within reach.

1er Cru Forêts 2023, $44

Left bank, a lieu-dit within Montmains. Lemon pith, white peach, wet stone, and a saline finish. Open now, built to hold.

1er Cru Montée de Tonnerre 2022, $50

Right bank, the Premier Cru that sits alongside the Grand Cru slope and shares its exposure. More weight, more grip, and a year further along.

Grand Cru Vaudésir 2023, $92

The amphitheatre at the heart of the Grand Cru hill. Ripe citrus, crushed shell, real length, and the cut that keeps it Chablis. This is the allocation Guillaume struggles to fill.

Pian dell’Orino

Three wines from Pian dell’Orino are on the table this Saturday. One small estate on the southeastern slope of Montalcino, sharing a boundary with the Il Greppo vineyards of Biondi Santi. For any serious collector of Brunello, these wines must be in the conversation.

Caroline Pobitzer and Jan Hendrik Erbach planted their first vines in 1998. Five and a half hectares of Sangiovese, farmed biodynamically from the start, native yeasts, long macerations, years in large botti. The estate makes very little, and we take what we are offered.

Our belief is that these wines need extra time to reach their full potential. Sangiovese on Montalcino’s soils carries a line of acid that rewards patience, so we cellared these ourselves and waited until they were ready to show.

Piandorino 2019

The Toscana Rosso, from the parcels closest to the house. Sour cherry, dried orange peel, tobacco leaf, iron.

Rosso di Montalcino 2017

Same hands, same hill, a shorter rest in cask. Darker fruit, a warm vintage’s ripeness held in check by Montalcino acid. Nine years on, it has settled into itself.

Brunello di Montalcino Vigneti del Versante 2016

The estate’s single vineyard on the far slope, 7,556 bottles from the benchmark vintage. 98 points from Vinous, “simply stunning.” Crushed stone, wild herbs, black cherry, and a decade of life still ahead.

Three wines, one hill, and time on their side. Stop by the warehouse between 10 am and 5 pm to give these wines a try.

Terroir al Limit

Torroja del Priorat sits on llicorella, the black slate that defines Priorat. It is a hot, sun-struck place, and Dominik Huber farms it for freshness: early picking, whole clusters, infusion rather than extraction, old foudres and concrete. Village and vineyard are bottled separately on the Burgundy model, and the wines read that way too. Perfume, fine tannins, balance, finesse.

Four wines are on the table:

• Terra de Cuques Negre 2022, the village wine, Grenache and Carignan. Our Wine of the Week
• Dits del Terra 2019, old-vine Carignan on pure slate, $65
• Arbossar 2020, Carignan from north-facing terraces, $65
• Les Manyes 2019, Garnatxa from 800 meters, the summit of the estate, $200

Village to mountaintop in four glasses.

Pomerol, Both Banks

The Barbanne is a modest stream with an immodest job: it draws the line between Pomerol and Lalande-de-Pomerol. This Saturday, we poured the 2019 vintage from both sides.

Château Grand Ormeau Cuvée Chevalier 2019, our Wine of the Week, comes from the Lalande bank. Merlot-led, dark plum and mocha, supple and ready. $26.

Château Latour à Pomerol 2019 sits on the clay and gravel of the plateau proper, farmed by the Moueix family alongside Petrus and Trotanoy. Old-vine Merlot, black cherry, truffle, plush tannins. $100. Built to hold for a decade.

Castello di Ama

Castello di Ama is new to the portfolio this month, and it arrives off the estate’s biggest year yet. Wine Spectator ranked the San Lorenzo 2021 No. 9 in the world last year, James Suckling put the 2022 at No. 6 in Italy, and Vinous placed the Bellavista 2022 in its Top 100. From the hamlet of Ama, 500 meters above Gaiole, Marco Pallanti and Lorenza Sebasti built one of the defining estates of Chianti Classico.

This Saturday, four wines from the estate are on the table at the warehouse, 10 to 5. Purple Rose 2024 ($32), the estate Sangiovese rosato, made every vintage since 1982. Chianti Classico Ama 2023 ($35), the annata. Riserva Montebuoni 2021 ($42), from the vineyard Pallanti bought in 1997. And Haiku 2021 ($60), Sangiovese with Cabernet Franc and Merlot.

La Rioja Alta

A break from the whites this week. Three classics from La Rioja Alta are on the table.

The house has made wine in Haro’s Station Quarter since 1890: American oak barrels from their own cooperage, long aging underground, nothing released until it is ready. This is one of the magnificent parts of Spanish wine culture. You are not buying a young wine to cellar. The bodega has done the hard work for us, and the bottle arrives ready for the table.

The Viña Ardanza 2019 ($46): Tempranillo with Garnacha, red cherry, dried orange, sweet spice. The Viña Arana Gran Reserva 2017 ($60): savory and fine, tobacco leaf and balsamic. The Gran Reserva 904 2016 ($95): the flagship, named for 1904, silk texture, dried cherry, cedar, a long quiet finish.

Château de Tracy

Pouilly-Fumé has two faces, and Château de Tracy farms both. Flint and clay around the château give the struck-flint smoke the appellation is named for. The Vilmoy parcel to the north sits on Kimmeridgian limestone, the fossil-shell seam that runs to Chablis, and brings citrus and lift. Thirty-three hectares, one family, generations of farming.

This Saturday, four of their wines are on the table.

The 2025 estate Pouilly-Fumé ($36): white peach, grapefruit, a saline finish. The Haute Densité 2023 ($62), a single hectare at more than double the usual planting density, concentrated and built to age. From Tracy & Cie, a Menetou-Salon blanc ($27), citrus and white flowers, and a Loire Pinot Noir ($20), light and bright.

Roagna

We visited Luca Roagna’s cellar at Pira in 2023 and secured an allocation from this benchmark Piedmont estate. The vineyard is wild, healthy, and vibrant, old vines with grass growing tall between the rows, tucked into a quiet hamlet above Castiglione Falletto. The winery is dug into the hill, understated and built for exactly one thing: giving Luca complete freedom to make wine and age it until it is ready.

The wines are ethereal, balanced, and carry a subtle power. Time in the cellar is always warranted, never required.

Four wines on the table this Saturday: Langhe Rosso 2020 ($45), from the younger vines of the family’s crus. Langhe Bianco Solea 2021 ($77), Chardonnay with a share of Riesling. Barolo Pira 2018 ($120), from the vines we walked. Barbaresco Gallina 2019 ($140), from the Gallina cru in Neive.

Hubert and Laurent Lignier

Hubert Lignier is one of the benchmarks of Morey-Saint-Denis, with grand cru holdings in Clos de la Roche, Charmes-Chambertin and Griotte-Chambertin. The domaine sat on our watchlist for years before a tiny allocation of the 2021 vintage landed, and after our visit to the cellar last September, that allocation has grown. This Saturday we pour four wines side by side: the Saint-Romain Blanc La Combe Bazin 2024 ($60) and the Monthelie 1er Cru 2023 ($75), from new vineyards Laurent Lignier farms alongside friends among Burgundy’s top growers, plus Symbiose 2023 ($45), the Bourgogne Pinot Noir made with the same care as the crus, and the Morey-Saint-Denis 2023 ($85), the house signature from parcels beside the family home. A small parcel of Charmes-Chambertin arrived as well. 

Domaine Matrot

This Saturday we’re pouring three 2023s from Domaine Matrot, a family estate in Meursault since 1835. Sisters Adèle and Elsa Matrot took over from their father Thierry with the 2016 vintage. The vineyards have been certified organic since 2000, and the wines ferment on native yeasts.

The lineup runs from the Bourgogne Chardonnay ($35), through the rare Meursault Rouge ($52), to the Meursault ‘Les Chevalières’ ($88), tense and mineral, from a stony parcel at the northern end of the village. If you want to understand why Meursault matters, that’s the bottle.

Three wines, one family, a clear view of how the village shifts from parcel to parcel. Join us at the shop this Saturday.

Gai’a

Santorini is the spiritual home of Assyrtiko, volcanic soil, and ungrafted bush vines. The wines are aromatic, textured, and complex. Gai’a is arguably one of the best producers on the island and in Nemea, where Assyrtiko also flourishes.

Leon Karatsalos and Yiannis Paraskevopoulos founded the estate in 1994 with two cellars: one on a Santorini beach, one in the Nemea village of Koutsi. This Saturday we’re pouring 4 wines across both. The Monograph Agiorgitiko 2024 ($25) is bright Peloponnese red fruit, easy and generous. The Monograph Assyrtiko 2024 ($30) brings citrus and drive from mainland vineyards. The Assyrtiko Wild Ferment 2023 ($48) comes from the Pyrgos vineyard on Santorini, fermented on native yeasts and aged in oak, acacia, and amphora. The Thalassitis 2024 ($55) is the flagship: ungrafted vines nearing 80 years old, unoaked, saline, precise.

Cristom

The most exciting thing happening in Oregon right now might be Chardonnay. With the Cristom new arrivals in our warehouse, Saturday is a chance to look closer at the estate: its fresh direction under new leadership, and a glimpse of the past through a perfectly aged single vineyard.

Eola-Amity Hills Chardonnay 2024: white peach and citrus, a flinty, saline edge, eleven months on the lees then a stretch in steel to keep it taut. Cool climate Chardonnay with real tension.

Mt. Jefferson Cuvée Pinot Noir 2024, the estate’s calling card red. Cranberry, wild raspberry, forest floor. Bright and lifted.

Jessie Vineyard Pinot Noir 2019. Single vineyard, steep, facing east, six years in the bottle. The one that shows what these wines do with time: concentration and complexity, dried cherry and violets, forest floor, a savoury depth the young bottles only hint at.

Three glasses, one estate. Saturday, in store.

Domaine du Bouchot

This Saturday’s tasting is a single producer shown three ways. Antoine Gouffier farms Domaine du Bouchot on the hill above Saint-Andelain, where his family, the Minets, hold neighbouring vines. He makes three Pouilly-Fumés, all Sauvignon Blanc, each grown on a different soil.

Caillottes 2022 comes off pure white limestone: bright, flinty, saline and linear. Terres Blanches 2024 sits on Kimmeridgian marl packed with fossilised oyster shells, all lemon blossom, white peach and a long saline finish. MCMLV 2023 is the flagship, from vines planted in 1955, with a touch of skin contact for grip. Grapefruit, smoky flint, crushed stone, a tense bone-dry close.

Same grape, same hands, three stories in the glass. Come taste them side by side.

Fefiñanes

This Saturday’s tasting puts one grape side by side with itself. Two Albariños from Fefiñanes, the same family and the same square in Cambados, at two ends of their lives.

The 2024 Albariño de Fefiñanes spends six months in stainless steel, no oak. It’s all sea air and citrus blossoms, lime zest and white peach, with a saline snap off the Galician coast. Young, crisp, bright.

The III Año 2022 takes its name from its third year. Roughly two and a half years in tank, long on the lees with regular stirring before bottling. The result is round and textured, almonds and ripe orchard fruit, a savoury, briny depth held upright by bright acidity. The grape built to age.

Same vines, same hands, two different wines. 

Muga

Something light for the weekend. This Saturday we lean into the fresher end of Muga, the wines built for a warm afternoon, with a special look at their 2021 Selección Especial for anyone who wants to go deeper.

The Blanco 2024 leads the way: Viura and Malvasía fermented in French oak, white peach and lemon, a saline edge, fresh. The Rosado 2025 follows, a saignée of Garnacha, Viura and Tempranillo from named plots, pale, dry, all strawberry and citrus. Then the new Crianza, El Andén de la Estación 2023, juicy and open with red cherry and black pepper, our wine of the week and tremendous value.

And the special pour: the Selección Especial 2021, made only in the best vintages from Muga’s oldest hillside plots, 26 months in oak made on the property. Tim Atkin gave it 96 points. Blackberry, cedar, graphite, polished, and long.

Blanco $22. Rosado $20. El Andén $21. Selección Especial $45. See you on Saturday.

Pazo Señorans

Three Albariños from one family this Saturday.

The 2024 Albariño is the entry: taut, bright, Atlantic. Green apple, lime pith, wet granite.

The Colección 2022 is the step up. Same Val do Salnés fruit, longer on the lees, more weight in the glass. White peach, stone fruit, salinity running through.

The Selección de Añada 2015 closes it out. From the Los Bancales single vineyard, 45-year-old vines, thirty-plus months on the lees in tank before release. Ten years on, it shows lemon peel, graphite, sea shells, a waxy texture, the acidity still vibrating.

Marisol Bueno planted the estate in 1989. Her daughter Vicky makes the wines now. Saturday is the chance to taste the family’s hand across a decade.

G4 Tequila

This Saturday is a different kind of tasting.

The Camarena family has been making tequila in the Jalisco highlands for generations. At El Pandillo, Felipe’s distillery, the water for G4 comes from rain collected on the property. The agave is farmed by hand on family land. The result is one of the most respected bottles of tequila in the world, made the way the family has always made it.

Markus Molitor

Molitor took over his family’s Mosel estate at twenty, in 1984. Forty years later, he farms some of the river’s greatest vineyards on blue Devonian slate, with old vines and parcels his family has worked for generations.

His capsule code makes this easy. White for dry. Green for off-dry. Gold for the noble sweet wines that built the Mosel’s name. You read the bottle before you pour the glass.

The flight: Haus Klosterberg Riesling 2023 (white cap, dry, green apple and wet slate), Wehlener Sonnenuhr Spätlese 2022 (gold cap, from the 1842 Sundial vineyard), Zeltinger Deutschherrenberg Auslese 2005 (gold cap, twenty years in bottle), and Haus Klosterberg Pinot Noir 2022 (Mosel Pinot, the surprise of the flight).

Riesling at every level of ripeness, plus some of the best Pinot Noir we have tasted at this price point.