“Many years back, I was running a wine shop in downtown Chicago.  A pretty young woman walks straight up to me and asks, “Do you have any Paolo Bea?”  So I responded, “Can I answer that question with a question?  Will you marry me?” 

It didn’t work out with the girl but me and Paolo are still going strong J  He makes, to my mind, one of the most powerfully excellent red wines in Italy.  He works from Umbria, the town of Montefalco to be specific, so he’s a long way from the spotlight, but what that man does with Sagrantino is a treasure.  Sagrantino is a naturally tannic varietal which begs for time in barrel then bottle age on top, the reason Bea waits 5-7 years to release his top wines.  I tend to think of Bea in the same way as the late Giusseppe Quintarelli or the thankfully still with us Henri Bonneau.  Artisan farmers who possess a singular and irreplacable genius. 

The Paolo Bea Montefalco de Sagrantino Pagliaro 2007 ($70.00) is the latest release.  Pagliaro is his prime vineyard, limited to less than 1,200 cases a year.   

The nose is a layer cake of sweet red fruit, cardamom, oiled leather, and dark chocolate but Sagrantino is not a particularly aromatic varietal so the palate is where it gets truly interesting.  Rich, lush, and dense, seemingly hitting all the sweet and sour notes at the same time yet in absolute harmony.  In the mouth, Bea’s Pagliaro is a swirl of opposites;  fruity yet rustic, dense but lithe, tannic yet not bitter.  Beyond all descriptors, there is a thrill of excellence married with depth I’ve only encountered in the best Bordeaux and Super-Tuscans, to which this should be compared. 

I think this will go down as one of Bea’s great wines.  If you haven’t been exposed to this amazing producer, please treat yourself.  If I was building a dream cellar, one of the first wines inside it would be a dozen old vintages of Paolo Bea.  

Chateau Grand Mayne St. Emilion 2001

$49.99

There is a shadow effect when a great vintage comes along.  The vintage right after, no matter how high in quality, never registers in the mind of the wine buying public.  Such was the case in Bordeaux with 2001.  2000 was such a hyped vintage, the very good, classically styled wines of the preceding vintage were forgotten in its wake.  It was a few years ago when I first discovered the joys of 2001.  A client of Le Du’s, who I know to have a stellar Bordeaux collection, came in and bought up  nearly every 2001 we had on the shelf.  He told me, “JT, 2001 is a vintage for drinking!”   I took a bottle home that night and the first sip proved his point.  2001 is a vintage which makes you smile.  They are lovely, perfectly evolved wines which don’t tax the taste buds.  If you like acidity, if you don’t want your Bordeaux too heavy or extracted, if you enjoy bright-tart red fruit, then pay attention to 2001.  It’s for drinking! 

“Grand Mayne is one of my favorite Bordeaux estates for both high quality and good value. The 2001 is impeccably well-made. Husky, but sexy, this nicely textured, dark ruby/purple-colored effort reveals hints of espresso roast intermixed with creamy vanillin, blackberries, and currants. While foursquare/monolithic, it exhibits good sweetness and purity, medium body, and ripe tannin. Give it another 1-2 years of cellaring, and consume it over the following 12-15 years. “ 

Robert Parker, Wine Adovcate

Clos Fantine Tradition Faugères 2011

$21.99

“Kirsch liqueur, violets, mustard seed, horseradish, and fried chicken skin on the nose with palate entry vacillating between sweet and tart.  The flavors fizz on the tip of the tongue while the velvetine texture fills the mid-palate.  Soft, gripping grape tannins hold the rear to keep the lingering raspberry sweetness in total harmony.  The Fantine Tradition ideally walks the line between savage and sweet, rustic and fun.  Made from a base of Carignan with the remainder being Grenache, Cinsault, and teensy bit of old-vine Syrah.”

Perhaps no other topic in the last decade has sparked debate quite like the natural wine movement.  Centered in France, the basic stance is “Nothing added, Nothing Taken Away”.  In practice, that means only wild yeasts, no chemicals at any point of the process (including no preservatives), and minimal intervention.  In a way, this can be viewed as the…well…natural endpoint of the concept of terroir.  Natural wines are pure, unadulterated reflections of the grapes and the land from whence they come.  At their best, there is something thrillingly raw about natural wines, the closest thing to having someone hand you a glass straight from the barrel.

The Andrieu family, sisters Carole and Corine with brother Olivier, make wine in the town their grandmother was born.  Faugères is 20 miles, as the crow flies, from the Mediterranean in the Eastern Languedoc.  The land is hard, filled with schist, and the wines reflect the hot, rough soil, with an equal mix of ripeness and backbone.  A common story in this part of the world, the Andrieu patriarch, Jacques, sold fruit to the local co-operative but never made wine on his own.  It was his children who built the cellar.  It was his children who took their family’s vineyard first organic then biodynamic.  It was his children who sought to move as close to nature as they possibly could.

They say their vines should, “grow like any other local plant, in a state that verges on the wild.”

If you’re interested in natural wine, this is a wonderful place to start but ultimately, the debate about natural wine should take a back seat to one simple question:  “Is the wine good”?  With Clos Fantine’s Tradition, the answer is a definitive, “Mmmmm”.

            This week, we received our first major insight into the 2012 Burgundy vintage.  The Wildman Burgundy tasting is always a pleasure, filled with some of the Cote D’Or’s iconic producers (Rousseau, Lamarche, Faiveley, Cathiard, Lignier-Michelot, Humbert, and on and on).  It’s always tricky making sweeping generalizations about a vintage based upon early sample bottles but the extremely limited nature of Burgundy requires such judgments.  Especially in a vintage like 2012, where the quality is very high but the quantity is very short, Burgundy lovers are confronted by an urgency of decision.  2012 will not be a vintage which will linger on the shelves.  It’s just too good, there’s too little wine, and there’s too much world-wide demand.  That being said, here are the bullet points:

• 2012 is a cross between 1996 and 1999.
• The reds are especially noteworthy.
• The Cote de Nuits reds are excellent.  The Cote de Beaune reds are very good.
• The whites are good to very good. 
• 2012 offers early accessibility.
• A very good cellar vintage collectors shouldn’t ignore.
• A Classic vintage with refinement and good acidity.

            To go a little more in-depth, I can say 2012 is a very good vintage, especially for reds, and especially in the Cotes de Nuits.  There is a consistent focus and purity to the fruit expression.  The extract levels and palate density is refined with soft, pliable tannins and acidity kept in positive balance.  While I certainly wouldn’t categorize 2012 as a ripe or dense vintage, it doesn’t lack for concentration.  It is the best vintage of the 21^st century, excepting 2005 and 2010.  If we’re making comparisons, then consider 2012 as a cross between 1999 and 1996.  It has the extract to age gracefully and offer immediate pleasure but also the finesse and acidity of lighter, higher toned vintages.  It isn’t ripe or overly concentrated.  It is precise and feminine, with an extremely compelling early drinking potential.  Many of the Bourgogne or Village level wines offer enormous pleasure, even at this young stage. 

             Of course, the trouble with Burgundy these days is how little wine there is to go around.  In the last 4 vintages, the Cote D’Or has last the equivalent of 1 whole vintage due to inclement weather.  Obviously, some areas have been hit harder than others but production is down just as demand is going up.  2012 will not be cheap.  To their credit, many Burgundians have held their pricing over the last few vintages hoping they’d be blessed with a bountiful harvest to off-set the shortages of the previous years.  I wish them the best in 2014 because 2012 was down and 2013 is even smaller. 

            One of the important facts to remember is how little wine is produced in the Cote D’Or.  It is, perhaps, a cruel twist of fate that the best Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in the world come from such a tiny plot of land.  Or maybe because of its limitations, the Cote D’Or shines.

            The care, passion, and, dare I say, magic which the producers of the Cote D’Or put into their often tiny plots of land, their small quantities of wine is a pleasure to behold.  And that pleasure becomes ours and their passion transmitted through the wines they produce. 

            2012 is a vintage of note.  It will offer early enjoyment for the casual Burgundy drinker while the collectors will be richly rewarded by how the wines evolve in time.  If you’re interested, buy early because this won’t be a vintage which lingers on the shelf.  The quality is too good and there just isn’t a lot of wine. ​

My rule of thumb, when it comes to highly sought after wine regions, is don’t go looking for value where none can be found.  If someone’s offering a Maserati on the cheap then it probably doesn’t have an engine.  Burgundy’s one of those regions.  Finding quality Burgundy for less than ludicrous pricing is getting very, very difficult.  But not impossible.           

A few months back, I had Paul Chappelle’s Bourgogne Blanc 2002 ($27.99) over at a buddy’s house.  I couldn’t believe it!  It exploded with butterscotch on the first glass, with a candied cinnamon apple sidenote but the acidity was proper and potent (as I would expect from 2002 whites).  But, as it opened up over the rest of the evening, the flamboyance mellowed out and it started drinking less like a baby Meursault and more like Puligny’s little brother.  Turns out Paul Chappelle keeps bottles back so they can release them in their proper drinking window but, for reasons which pass understanding, they’ve received a total of zero attention from press or collectors, leaving beautiful 12 year old Bourgogne Blanc for those of us who care about the juice, rather than the label.             

I was only able to get 7 cases sent over from France and I’ll be taking a half case for myself J      

A little more recently, I tasted a Mercurey from a man named Michel Juillot.  Mercurey is in the Cote Chalonnaise, south of the Cote D’Or, a region whose reality has yet to live up to its potential.  By and large, the Chalonnaise produces decent but uninspired Pinot Noir but there are those who go above and beyond.  Michel Juillot is such a producer.  His Mercurey 1er Cru Clos du Roi 2009 ($80.00) is only bottled in magnums with just 3 barrels produced (that’s about 210 bottles if you don’t feel like doing the math). 

“A wonderfully complex and densely fruited nose speaks of menthol, violets, warm earth, animale (no, it isn’t brett) and spiced plum and cassis aromas. There is wonderful richness and a velvety texture to the suave but not flat broad-shouldered flavors that brim with an abundance of dry extract, all wrapped in a powerfully long finish. This is terrific.”  Allen Meadows, Burghound           

We’re getting these directly from the winery so they’ll be coming from France set to arrive in early April.  

We have been stocking the wines from Palari since the 2001 vintage and it was my first introduction to how great the wines from Sicily can be. 

The Faro D.O.C. wraps Cape Peloro, the Eastern end of Sicily near the town of Messina. At the end of the Cape stands a large lighthouse, Torre Faro from which the appellation takes its name. From the base of Messina, the land quickly rises into the Peloritani Mountains were the best vineyards are located. Up at around 1300ft the soil changes to decomposed schist that stores water between its foils, a perfect soil for the arid climate of this part of Sicily.

The Phylloxera infestation devastated the vineyards of Faro in the 1890’s and production fell gradually until there were less than 20 acres planted in 1985.

Enter Salvatore Geraci, architect by trade, food and wine lover by choice, and the son of a local family. Salvatore literally saved Faro from extinction in 1990 when he restored to health an old family vineyard planted to the indigenous grapes that had made the fame of Faro centuries ago: Nerello Macalese of course, but also Nerello Capuccio, Nocera and Nero d’Avola

The site itself is spectacular. A windy road leads to a precipitous vineyard (average slope is 75%) that looks Eastward over the straight of Messina. The vineyard is farmed organically and production is tiny at 17hl/ha. Fermentation is started using wild yeast and Palari Faro is aged in 100% new French oak barrels for 18 months before bottling unfined and unfiltered. The wine is released 18 months after bottling.

The 2007, which I would rate as the best I’ve tasted alongside the ’98 and ’05, is a superb wine with a dark garnet color. On the palate it has the weight and feel of good 1er Cru Cotes de Nuits Burgundy but with lower acidity. It offers a complex nose of ripe cherries, cardamom, spices and some floral notes. The alcohol is perfectly balanced at 13.5o and on the palate it is a medium bodied, super elegant wine with soft, but present tannins. It is now entering its window of drinkability. Drink now and until 2020

Palari Faro DOC 2007-$78 net

Cheers,

Jean-Luc

Julien Sunier came to wine in the most unlikely fashion. The son of a Dijon hairdresser, he met Christophe Roumier, one of his Mom’s client and a legendary winemaker who took him under his wing as an intern at his Chambolle Musigny estate.

He then travelled the Western Hemisphere, working harvests in New Zealand and California and upon his return worked alongside winemaker Nicolas Potel and Jean-Claude Rateau where he solidified his passion for biodynamic farming.

With land in Burgundy out of his reach financially, Julien set his sights on neighboring Beaujolais, first working for a negociant for 5 years. There, he gained an invaluable understanding of the different terroirs this great wine region offers.

In 2008 he finally realized his dream of buying 8 acres of densely planted hilltop old-vines vineyards in the villages of Morgon, Fleurie and Regnié. He has slowly been converting them to biodynamic farming.

Harvesting is entirely by hand, Julien uses whole cluster during maceration and starts fermentation in concrete vats with natural yeasts. The wines are then aged for 11 months in 3 to 5 year old barrels he buys from Domaine Roumier.

The resulting wine are pure, elegant with bright red fruit notes and a nice floral element. They are wines that one can drink out of the gate, but have the depth and structure to reward medium-term cellaring. 

I encourage you to discover the wines of Julien Sunier!

Morgon 2012-$27.50 net

MAGNUM Morgon 2012-$63 net