Insights

While they have long produced Champagnes of great character and typicity—as evidenced by an impressive lineup of older bottles we drank at our first visit—Bonville’s improvements in farming, along with their increasing emphasis on single-cru, single-vintage bottlings and a more nuanced approach to dosage (determined by blind trials), have elevated quality here to new heights.

We discovered Nathalie Richez through a bottle of her Bouzeron during a quick lunch in Nuits-Saint-Georges. Struck by its frankness and its satisfying depth, we arranged a visit for our next pass-through, and indeed both Nathalie and her simple setup proved to be a breath of fresh air.

Terroir is hardly the exclusive province of fermented grape juice, and it is thrilling to encounter ciders such as these which bear such an indelible sense of place.

We may be historical partisans of the Jura's inimitable and classic sous-voile style of white wine, but recent exciting developments at our beloved Domaine Montbourgeau in L'Etoile have left us no choice but to engage with the World of the Topped-Up... 

It is with relish that we begin our partnership with the La Raia estate in Gavi, in the rolling hills of Piedmont’s southeast. A fully functioning biodynamic farm, La Raia encompasses 180 hectares, with 48 hectares planted to grapevines and the remainder devoted to pastures and to woodlands of chestnut, elder, and acacia which teem with wildlife.

In Vogue's most recent article "Why Fall Is the Perfect Time to Visit Zürich—And Discover the World of Swiss Wine" by Maggie Harrison of Antica Terra, she profiles some of her favorite Swiss growers, including two of Rosenthal Wine Merchant's very own, Sandrine Caloz of Cave Caloz and Fabienne Cottagnoud of Cave des Tilleuls.

Happy to report to all that we have been drinking well this week. Below are shots of two wines that meet every test for rendering classic versions of terroir with an intensely satisfying level of concentration married to grace.

A new wine from the legendary Giampiero Bea is always a cause for celebration. “Cotidie” ("quotidian" in Latin) was conceived as an "everyday" wine, at least for its relatively easygoing and drinkable spirit (with only 1,647 bottles produced, its likelihood to be an actual daily drinker is exceedingly small).

Even among our family of modestly sized growers, however, Nadir Cuneaz in the Valle d’Aosta stands apart. With less than a single hectare’s worth of family holdings, Nadir qualifies as our very smallest producer in Italy, and the handful of cases we buy from him each year are true homemade wines in every sense of the word.