For the first Twenty days of December we will be adding new Wines for the Holidays here, everyday. Of course great wine is not limited to the Holidays, don’t feel bad about stocking up a bit. Check back daily to see if one of your favorites makes the list.
December First
Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte 2010, Bordeaux France
Established in 1365, this Chateau has made wine for some time. Its name derived from a later owner George Smith, a Scotsman who purchased the property in the 18th century. The Chateau is now owned by the Cathiard family. Both time and money have been invested by the family in making the Chateau great. If you love powerful, elegant and balanced Cabernet this is your day. A blend of 64% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, 5% Cabernet Franc and 1% Petit Verdot this is great Bordeaux from the Pessac-Leognan.
Tasting the wine recently revealed aromas of black cherry, blackcurrant, cigar wrapper, cocoa, anise, forest floor, coffee and spice box. Nicely balanced on the palate with all the ingredients to make it very age worthy. A fresh and powerful attack leads to a flowering of flavors in the mid, with a long linear finish. Serve up your favorite pepper stake and enjoy! Find Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte Here
December Second
Vouette et Sorbee Fidele, Champagne France
For the Champagne drinker in your life, or in you.
The name of this bottle is Fidele from the latin word for faithful or loyal. A more proper name could not be given to this bottle. Everything about this wine and the person who makes it shows fidelity.
Bertrand Gautherot the owner of Vouette et Sorbee was encouraged by his friend Anselme Sellose (of Champagne Jacques Selosse) to bottle his own wines after taking over family vines in 1986. Bertand has also had the winery Demeter (Bio-Dynamically) certified. If you are not familiar with what this means the short version is this: It makes organic certification look like a joke in comparison and the standards are extremely difficult to meet. Vouette et Sorbee is the only Demeter Certified producer in all of Champagne.
Fidele is made from 100% Pinot Noir and is Extra Brut having had no dosage added. A pure pleasure to experience, it is like drinking the purest earth, mixed with fruit and clouds. Think of Burgundy when tasting this wine, the style is very similar despite the bubbles in the Champagne.
Aromas of wet rock, earth, chalk, white flowers, spices, toasted orange zest, kumquat, and red berry. This wine is pure and focused like a laser beam, it dances lightly across the palate like a cloud but delivers paradoxically delivers great depth and power. Drink now or wait for them to age. Prepare to be awed either way.
Find Vouette et Sorbee Fidele Here
December Third
Maison l’Envoye Two Messengers Pinot Noir 2013, Willamette Valley Oregon
A great introduction to Pinot Noir from the Willamette Valley. Well made Pinot that punches above its weight.
Raspberry, white pepper, baking spices, and roses. Inexpensive enough for Wednesday night, good enough to fool your friends into thinking you payed a lot more. Maison l’Envoye Two Messangers.
December Fourth
Royal Tokaji Tokaji Aszu Essencia 1995, Tokaj-Hegyalja Hungary
This wine is one of the great sweet wines of the world. This wine is so amazing that even people who refuse to drink sweet wines finish it in silent awe after their first polite taste.
I most recently tried this wine about three months ago.
A bouquet, complex and mind-boggling floated from the glass and filled the room. Wet earthy aromas with marmalade, coffee, earl grey tea, white peach, lilac, butterscotch, toffee, caramel and so on. Changing and expanding throughout the evening. The beauty of this wine can cause tears of joy. Find Royal Tokaji Here
The following is a brief explanation of the wine’s character and history from the importer:Aszú Essencia is only produced in exceptional years and, next to Essencia, is the richest and sweetest of wines. Royal Tokaji chooses the best Furmint, Hárslevelú and Muscat grapes from its various vineyards that are infected with “Botrytis cinera,” or “noble rot,” to go into the Aszú Essencia. These berries, commonly referred to by the Hungarian term aszú, were traditionally harvested individually from bunches and collected in 20-liter wooden tubs called “puttonyos,” or “hods.” The number of puttonyos added to each barrel of base wine made the previous year from grapes unaffected by botrytis equaled the puttonyos level of the wine. On a scale of one to six, the more puttonyos, the sweeter, richer and rarer the Tokaji.
The process remains the same today, minus those clumsy, heavy hods. A wine’s puttonyos level is now based on the amount of residual sugar in the finished wine (180g/L or higher for Aszú Essencia), thus the key factor in the production of Tokaji Aszú wines is the proportion of aszú berries to base wine.
The Royal Tokaji Aszú Essencia is presented in a handmade bottle—a replica of the earliest Tokaji bottle dating back to the 18th century—and is wrapped in tissue paper to protect the label. Individual tasting notes from Hugh Johnson and Peter Vinding-Diers are included with each bottle, highlighting that “this is a wine for your children’s children…,” a reminder of Essencia’s long history and its incredible ability to age.
December Fifth
K Vintners Creater 2012, Walla Walla Valley Washington
Charles Smith is one of the leaders of what one might call “second wave” Walla Walla wines. If you like bold well made wines and some of the best wines being made in Walla Walla, this is a good place to be. Walla Walla is turning out wines of great quality that cost about half of comparable quality wines from elsewhere. This will not always be the case but for now, pricing magic. Click Here for K Vintners The Creater
Robert Parker summed this wine up nicely:
93-95 Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate
“Moving to the Bordeaux styled releases and a blend of 70% Cabernet and 30% Syrah, the 2012 The Creator offers up a classic bouquet of cassis, lead pencil shavings and hints of herbs to go with a full-bodied, layered and balanced profile on the palate. Possessing fabulous Cabernet character, with rock star texture and building tannin, it will have another 12-15 years of prime drinking.”
December Sixth
Shafer One Point Five 2012, Napa California
Famous Red blend for the big Napa Red lovers.
94RP
The 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon One Pint Five is a big-time winner, a blend of almost all Cabernet Sauvignon with a touch of Malbec and Petit Verdot. The wine has an opaque bluish/purple color, almost indigo, and is full-bodied with dense chocolaty crème de cassis notes, licorice and a touch of minerality. The wine has well-integrated wood, is full and seems balanced and rich enough to age for two decades or more. Year in year out, this is one of the superstar wineries, not only in Napa Valley and all of California, but in the entire world.” Get your Shafer One Point Five here
December Seventh and Eighth
Vietti Barolo Lazzarito 2008/2009 Piedmont Italy
For the Barolo/Nebbiolo lover.
Nebbiolo the great grape of Piedmont. With strong tannins and high acid, especially in their youth they are great to pair with rich foods. Red meats, game, aged cheeses and other rich dishes like creamy pastas and risottos. With complex aromas and flavors of violets, roses, tar, earth, truffle, cherry, blackberry and orange tea wine drinkers often find themselves entranced by the complexity of beauty of these world famous wines.
These great wines from Vietti are stunningly beautiful. Nuanced and delicate on one hand. while showing great power and depth on the other. My favorite kind of wine mystery.
This wine comes from the famous Barolo “Cru” Lazzarito Vineyard a favorite for me year after year. Luca at Vietti is passionate about this vineyard and as with all Vietti wines has in place very strict rules to maintain quality.
Both of these wines are drinking beautifully now and will likely continue to improve for at least another 10 years if you are able to wait that long.We are down to the last few bottles of the 2008, If you get both the 08 and the 09 you get to have a great evening of vintage comparison.
Buy the 2008 Lazzarito here
December Ninth
Alvear Pedro Ximenez de Anada Sherry, 2011
A great wine for the people in your life that enjoy sweet wines or Sherry.
This is the most Dense and complex young Pedro Ximenez wine I have ever had.
Aromas of golden raisin, dried fig, dried date, honey, caramel, almond, orange zest, and cocoa. With flavors following on the palate. Alvear Pedro Ximenez
This is the sweetest style of Sherry known as Pedro Ximenez (pronounced PEHD-roh hee-MEH-nehth) from the grape of the same name and is the sweetest of the Sherry styles.Sherry from the Spanish wine region of Jerez is a class (with many sub categories) of wine that people need to enjoy more often. Sherry offers quality and complexity that pairs with a variety of foods and food styles.
There is a world of wine available and the wines of Jerez need more attention for their greatness.
From the winery website: …this sweet young wine is obtained through drying the Pedro Ximenez grapes on mats in the sun. It is the best way of bringing an intense Andalusian summer sun to your table from a single harvest. The wine is aged in the traditional earthenware jars, “tinajas”, where it is left for 12 months.
Classic pairing for this style of wine are: a glass, foie gras, blue cheese, vanilla ice cream, nuts, dark chocolate, and pecan pie.
Robert Parker 100 Points
“Alvear’s 2011 Pedro Ximenez de Anada is the most amazing Pedro Ximenez I have ever tasted. It may also be one of the first to be vintage-dated. The grapes were hand-harvested in September, then allowed to dry in the sunshine until they began fermentation, which is ultimately arrested by the addition of spirits. The wine spent six months in large American oak prior to being bottled. It is an amazing effort that looks like molasses. Notes of macerated figs, chocolate and caramelized tropical fruits emerge from this full-bodied, unctuously-textured wine. While sweet, it has enough acidity to balance out its richness. This astonishing 2011 Pedro Ximenez will last as long as any reader of this newsletter.”
December Tenth
Domaine Tempier Bandol Rouge Cuvee La Cabassaou 2013, Provence France
For people who like complex earthy reds.
Domaine Tempier imported by Kermit Lynch is arguably the best producer in the Region.
A Blend of 95% Mourvèdre, 4% Syrah, 1% Cinsault with aromas of blackberry, blackpepper, cured meat, spices, sage, leather and violet.
Pair with red meat, stew, duck, or pork. Buy Domaine Tempier La Cabassaou here
The AOC of Bandol lies in Provence about one and a half hours west of Saint Tropez by car, on the southern coast of France. The region is famous for its wine, food, and lifestyle. The AOC requires that area reds and rosés consist of at least 50% Mourvedre with Syrah, Cinsaut and Grenache usually present. Bandol has gained popularity steadily for the last 8-10 years but was well-respected long before then. The region has made wine for around 2,600 years according to historians. In more recent times Bandol received AOC status on 11 November 1941, an event in which Domaine Tempier and it’s owners played a key role. The owners campaigned for years to include the area in the protected great wine regions of France.
All grapes are harvested by hand, grapes are de-stemmed and allowed to ferment with natural yeast for 2 to 3 weeks in stainless steel then moved to oak foudres for malolactic fermentation. Aged in oak foudres (25 to 50 hl) for 18 to 20 months and bottled unfined/unfiltered.
December Eleventh
Cedric Bouchard Roses de Jeanne Blanc de Noirs Les Ursules NV(10), Champagne France
One of the top Champagnes wine/Champagne geeks are on the hunt for. Among the rarest of the rare, these Champagnes are on the cutting edge of the region.
Cedric Bouchard seeks the purist and most simple expression of his vineyards. He bottles his wines in a single vineyard, single varietal, single vintage and with no dosage (no sugar added at bottling) format believing that like other great wines of the world we should seek to understand the place and time the wine is coming from rather than blending it all away into a cuvee that attempts to be the same each year. His Champagne are a revelation.
Roses de Jeanne Les Ursules – 100% Pinot Noir from the .9 hectare lieu-dit (traditional place name) of Les Ursules. There are less than 300 total cases produced of this extremely limited production wine. Get it here
Technical information from the importers website:
Organic: Practicing Vineyard
From a 0.9 hectare parcel of Pinot Noir with vines averaging 35 years of age.Soil: Bands of Kimmeridgian soil common to Chablis. The Côtes des Bars is closer to Chablis than to Reims.
Viticulture: vines are farmed using organic methods
Vinification: 1st press juice only, hand harvested and crushed by foot and fermented using indigenous yeast. Bottled unfined and unfiltered.
Aging: Aged for 28 months on the lees in stainless steel.
Bottled with no dosage
Production: Extremely limited.
December Twelfth
Purple Hands Pinot Noir Holstein Vineyard 2014 Available here
This is a brand new release from Cody Wright, son of Ken Wright has been making his own wine for several years now. Having grown up in the Willamette Valley around some of the most important wine makers in the region he has been applied his learning with great skill. He tends to make somewhat more restrained traditional Pinot Noir that is elegant and balanced allowing the vineyards he bottles to shine in their own unique way.
Plum, cinnamon, earth leather and black cherry.
Still very young but showing a nice balance with plenty of room to age and expand, classic elegant Pinot Noir for true Pinot fan. Our personal pick from the 2014 Purple hands. Only 550 cases made, grab yours fast.
December Thirteenth
Purple Hands Pinot Noir Le Nouveau Monde Willamette Valley Oregon, 2014, 750 Available here
Purple hands part two.
Blueberry, black cherry, chocolate, honey, rose strawberry, wet earth, smoke, cured meats.
Very young and somewhat closed down right now. This wine has huge potential to age and improve, attack of the Pinot Monster, find a spot in the cellar, I can’t wait to try this in 5 years or more. Only 100 cases made.
December Fourteenth
L’Ecole no. 41 Perigee Walla Walla Washington, 2013 Buy here
Founded in 1983, L’Ecole No. 41 is the third oldest winery in Walla Walla. They are primarily focused on the varietals of Bordeaux making classic place driven wines of quality and distinction. This wine is one of their top Vineyard designated cuvees and has proven it’s value and quality since the first day we discovered it.
We tasted this wine last week and found the following:
Dry with fine dusty tannin, aromas of cassis, chocolate, black cherry, cigar box, forest floor. Classic Walla Walla Valley.
Blend of 50% Cab, 20% Merlot, 15% Cab Franc, 9% Malbec and Petite Verdot.
December Fifteenth
Krug Grade Cuvee NV
Arguably the most important Champagne house in existance, Krug has been making top prestige cuvees since 1843. Their wines are widely know and respected for their quality, character. A top producer Champagne Krug makes cuvees that tend toward more powerful and generous expressions of the art. All of their Champagnes including this NV bottle see years of maturation in the cellars at Krug to bring about richer more mature aspects that so many connoisseur enjoy. Great pricing and free shipping on qualifying orders make this a no brainer
Wine Spectator – “Rich, with smoky hints of roasted almond and toasted brioche, this crystalline Champagne offers a finely detailed mousse that carries the firm, citrusy acidity and flavors of patisserie apple, spun honey and tangy black cherry, accented by subtle, aromatic hints of ground cumin and clove, bergamot and chamomile…”
Decanter – “Because it’s been blended from 10 different vintages and 47 different wines from 25 crus, Krug is a super multi-vintage of its own kind. The extremely tough acidity, together with the heavy, rich Krug aromas, are unique. This bottle had a fabulously complex nose and palate, dominated by nuts and honey. The aftertaste was acidic, long and majestic, like a great symphony. Rating: 95+”
The Wine Advocate – “The Grande Cuvee is scented of croissant, buttered cinnamon toast and warm strawberries with a hint of smoky bacon. Muscular and still very taut in the mouth, the densely packed flavors are refreshed with a pure, crisp acid line. It finishes long with plenty of toast and nut layers.”
December Sixteenth
Alessandro e Gian Natale Fantino Rosso dei Dardi Nebbiolo, 2014
A great wine value for those that love the noble grape of Piedmont. This wine if priced by it’s quality would be much more expensive.Another great selection from Kermit Lynch, and like all Kermit Lynch selections it is the real.
Light ruby , aromas of cherry, violet, wet rock, truffle, tobacco, and licorice. On the younger cleaner and lighter side of Nebbiolo. Not as weighty or authoritative as a Barolo but a great bottle to enjoy with a lighter evening and ligher fare than one might enjoy with Barollo. Purchase here
December Seventeenth
Huguet Can Feixes Cava Gran Reserva Brut Nature Catalonia Spain, 2008
I do not find myself recommending Cava very often. Something to do with my love of Champagne no doubt.
This Cava brought to you by Huguet Can Feixes is the real deal. A small family owned operation with a passion for real wines that show what their vineyards are yielding from year to year.
60% Parellada, 20% Macabeo, 20% Pinot Noir
Green apple, lemon curd, smoke and wet rock with a crispl lean finish.
December Eighteenth
Cayuse Flying Pig Walla Walla Washington 2012
For the fans of collectible wines, wines from Washington or fans of great Bordeaux style blends.
One of the most sought after and hard to find wines in the country comes from Walla Walla Valley.
Cristophe Baron the owner winemaker of Cayuse, hailed for his great wines almost from day one. After growing up in Champagne in his family’s vineyards, he traveled the world learning about wines and regions much different from his home. He purchased his land in Walla Walla because of the similarities he saw to the great stone strewn vineyards of Châteuneuf-du-Pape. This harsh rocky land causes the vines to struggle and scrape to survive creating wines of great concentration and power. Get yours here
December Nineteenth
Staglin Family Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon Napa, 2009 Purchase here
This will be very brief. Staglin is making some of the finest Cabernet Sauvignon wines in California. More people need to experience this wine.
Since their founding of the winery the family has helped raise over 800 Million for charity causes including over 200 Million for brain health alone.
The best thing to pair with great wine is great people. It is all here.
December Twentieth
Cedric Bouchard Roses de Jeanne Blanc de Noirs Les Ursules NV(11), Champagne France
One of the top Champagnes wine/Champagne geeks are on the hunt for. Among the rarest of the rare, these Champagnes are on the cutting edge of the region.
Cedric Bouchard seeks the purist and most simple expression of his vineyards. He bottles his wines in a single vineyard, single varietal, single vintage and with no dosage (no sugar added at bottling) format believing that like other great wines of the world we should seek to understand the place and time the wine is coming from rather than blending it all away into a cuvee that attempts to be the same each year. His Champagne are a revelation.
Roses de Jeanne Les Ursules – 100% Pinot Noir from the .9 hectare lieu-dit (traditional place name) of Les Ursules. There are less than 300 total cases produced of this extremely limited production wine. Available here
Technical information from the importers website:
Organic: Practicing Vineyard
From a 0.9 hectare parcel of Pinot Noir with vines averaging 35 years of age.Soil: Bands of Kimmeridgian soil common to Chablis. The Côtes des Bars is closer to Chablis than to Reims.
Viticulture: vines are farmed using organic methods
Vinification: 1st press juice only, hand harvested and crushed by foot and fermented using indigenous yeast. Bottled unfined and unfiltered.
Aging: Aged for 28 months on the lees in stainless steel.
Bottled with no dosage
Production: Extremely limited.
Have questions about wine? Call, email, or stop by to visit us in beautiful Bend Oregon.