Dominus Christian Moueix 2012 In the late 1960s, while attending the University of California at Davis, Christian Moueix fell in love with the Napa Valley and its wines. Son of Jean-Pierre Moueix, the famed wine merchant and producer from Libourne, France, Moueix returned home in 1970 to manage the family vineyards, including Chateaux Petrus, La Fleur-Petrus, Trotanoy in Pomerol and Magdelaine in Saint Emilion. His love of Napa Valley lingered and in 1981, he discovered the historic Napanook vineyard, a 124-acre site west of Yountville that had been the source of fruit for some of the finest Napa Valley wines of the 1940s and 1950s. In 1982, Moueix entered into…
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Amici Napa Cabernet Sauvignon 2013 In the 1990’s, a group of friends with a passion for good wine and fun times together crushed a few tons of grapes in the Napa Valley for their personal cellars. The resulting wine was so well-received that they started producing wine the very next year to share with the public. They chose to name the wine, appropriately, Amici (“friends” in Italian). Amici’s owners: John Harris, Bob and Celia Shepard, and Bart Woytowicz; are all great friends with a passion for making and enjoying great wine. I recently met Robert Emery, Amici’s General Manager and tasted a few of his wines, a wonderful Chardonnay from…
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Clos Mogador Priorat 2013 In an arid and magical place, French monks discovered “Eden’s Ladder”, Escala Dei (12th century). It was here that they made the Lord’s wine. In this very same arid place, 800 years later, a young French woman and a Catalan man, Isabelle and René Barbier, found the place of their dreams, Clos Mogador. René Barbier led the original Priorat movement, proving that exciting and unique fine wines could be made in this forgotten corner of Spanish Catalonia. At Clos Mogador, he nursed back to life abandoned old vineyards planted on steep hillsides, where the ancient Grenache and Carignan vines had learned to struggle against the aridity…
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Taittinger Brut Champagne NV When Pierre Taittinger first discovered the Champagne region, he was a young liaison officer during the first World War. It was thanks to his passion for wine and gastronomy that he returned several years later and, with his brother-in-law, invested all his energy into the development of a burgeoning champagne business. Since 1932 Champagne Taittinger has grown and taken its place among the great Champagne houses, commanding a bold innovative style particularly influenced by Chardonnay. Having bought back the family business in 2006, Pierre-Emmanuel Taittinger has surrounded himself with a team that is both young and bound together by a spirit of attainment and permanence. His…
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Champagne Taittinger Prestige Rosé NV When Pierre Taittinger first discovered the Champagne region, he was a young liaison officer during the first World War. It was thanks to his passion for wine and gastronomy that he returned several years later and, with his brother-in-law, invested all his energy into the development of a burgeoning champagne business. Since 1932 Champagne Taittinger has grown and taken its place among the great Champagne houses, commanding a bold innovative style particularly influenced by Chardonnay. Having bought back the family business in 2006, Pierre-Emmanuel Taittinger has surrounded himself with a team that is both young and bound together by a spirit of attainment and permanence.…
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Chacra Treinta y dos Pinot Noir 2013 Bodega Chacra is located in the Rio Negro Valley of northern Patagonia, 620 miles south of Buenos Aires, 1,240 miles north of Tierra del Fuego, and roughly equidistant west to east from the Andes Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean. The property’s situation in the arid central Argentine desert is tempered by the convergence of the Neuquen and Limay Rivers, both of which flow from the Andes and join the Rio Negro, which in turn flows into the Atlantic. Acquired in 1932, Piero Incisa della Rocchetta, grandson of Sassicaia’s creator was born in Tuscany, making wines in Argentina, also purchased two other old vine…
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Kosta Browne Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir 2014 Located on the eastern slopes of the coastal range that shelters the fertile Salinas Valley from Big Sur, this appellation is relatively new with the first vineyards being developed only in the 1970’s. Surprisingly, these central coast slopes are generally cooler than the Russian River Valley, largely as a result of the ocean breezes and fog coming in from Monterey Bay. The vineyards are sheltered by the coastal peaks that limit rainfall. Pinot Noir excels on these hillsides. The five vineyards that help Kosta Browne make fine wines are farmed by two incredible grape growing families – Pisoni and Franscioni, where their…
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Pieropan La Rocca Soave Classico 2013 The Pieropan business was founded in 1880 in the heart of the medieval village of Soave, in the historic Palazzo Pullici. Four generations marked the history of the company, each with their own contributions which varied according to the times, knowledge and entrepreneurial attitude. The wine business started with Leonildo, physician of Soave, who was driven by knowledge in biology and chemistry and began working in the family vineyards and whose work in the cellars was carried on by his sons, Fausto and Gustavo who worked with infinite passion. Pieropan has shown the world just how great Garganega can be. Third generation Leonildo (Nino)…
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Fulcrum Brosseau Vineyard Chalone AVA Pinot Noir 2014 A Fulcrum is the point on which an object balances. This was the name winemaker David Rossi chose for his winery when he founded it in 2005 – years before the word balance became an essential element in any discussion about great New World Pinot Noir. For David, a Fulcrum represented the style of winemaking he spent years refining. It was also an ideal metaphor for his belief in leveraging the finest grapes to create balanced, complex and age-worthy Pinot Noirs. I recently went to a private tasting at one of my favorite wine shops, Stew Leonard’s Wines, in CT, where I…
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Chevalier Marlène & Nicolas Crozes-Hermitage 2014 Crozes-Hermitage wraps around the base of the great hill of Hermitage, capturing a snippet of its famed neighbor, more approachable earlier in age. Hermitage named in the 13th century, when an injured knight returned from the Crusades and the Queen gave him permission to build a small home, or “hermitage,” for his recovery at the top of this hill. Today, the most revered and costly wines of the Northern Rhône hail from this hallowed ground. This small production 2014 Crozes-Hermitage is crafted by an under-the-radar producer destined to become a household name. While examples from Hermitage can easily soar past $100 a bottle, Nicolas…