June 2025 Newsletter Wines
Our June newsletter is full of wines for the first (mostly) reliably warm month of the year. We also have some special seated tastings on the calendar, see below for details and to reserve your seat!
This month, the newsletter is organized (sort of), by region. Our first four are from here and there, Oregon and central Europe. These will be open to taste Saturday the 7th of June.
Goodfellow Whistling Ridge Blanc 2023 $21
There is a growing body of thought among thoughtful winemakers in Alsace that the region’s devotion to mono-varietal wines does a poor job of capturing the region’s terroir. The crux of the argument: any given vineyard in Alsace says something different to Riesling, Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc or Gewurztraminer, so the most complete wine must include a little bit of each. This reflects the older tradition in Alsace before Crus existed, when almost all wines were blended like the modern Edelzwicker. When Alsatian grapes found their way to Oregon, that same tradition followed, and today Oregon winemaker Marcus Goodfellow keeps it alive in this Whistling Ridge Blanc, a blend that perfectly captures the vineyard: 64% Riesling 20% Pinot Noir, 12% Pinot Blanc, and 4% Gewurztraminer. Picked early and aged in steel for maximum freshness, this low-alcohol charmer smells of lemon blossom and lilac, orange peel and slate. The palate is dry and clear and fresh and crisp, with flavors of pears and lemons before a sharp mineral-scented finish. This is a wine for a wide range of seafood, especially the grilled sort.
Hanson Willamette Valley Pinot Gris 2023 $20
Jason Hanson wanted an intense Pinot Gris in 2023, so he gave his vines a haircut. Once the grapes began to develop, they were exposed to all the available sunshine of a warm Willamette Valley summer, with very few leaves to protect the grapes from sunshine and wind. The grapes took on a little extra coppery hue, and their skins grew a little thicker than normal. This is a white wine, but if you’re wondering why it has a pale note of faded pink, it’s because this particular batch of grapes had so much color that even a few minutes of skin contact in the press cycle gave this wine a tint. The skins also contributed outrageously rich aromas of ripe peach, apricot and orange, with a hint of wintergreen and a scoop of clay. The texture too was improved, full and tense and creamy, packed solid with flavors of white cherries, peaches, lilacs and bay leaves. This is a white wine, but it’s one with a little extra pop to it. Serve with curry, poultry, potato salad, and polenta dishes.
Heimann & Fiai Szekszard Siller Piros 2022 $22
It is fair to ask why there is a vineyard alongside the Danube in southern Hungary planted to a mixture of Kemfrankos, Merlot, and Sagrantino. The first of those grapes belongs there, the second on that list is a well traveled grape that might be planted on the moon in a few years, but what on the green pastured earth is Sagrantino doing in Hungary? The simple answer is that Zoltan Heimann likes it there. Having played a central roll in saving the Kadarka grape from extinction, he has followed up by reviving the pre-phylloxera style of Siller, a type of wine that came close to extinction during the Soviet era. It is essentially an early harvest of red grapes pressed after just a short period of a day or two on the skins. A little darker and more structured than rose, but crisp and refreshing and transparent. The Sagrantino in particular – a grape capable of inky black red wine – gives this Siller a savory accent of garden herbs and soil between all the fresh raspberries, red roses, and citrus that fill out the rest of the wine. Serve in the sun with picnic fare.
Weninger Weinland Blaufrankisch 2021 $21
Blaufrankisch is central Europe’s signature red grape, one capable of many different faces. Some are impressively structured and capable of significant cellar age. Some are crunchy and fresh and come in liter bottles. This one lives somewhere in the middle, with a blooming nose of berries black and blue, dried flowers, orange peel, and earth made of clay. The palate is fleshy yet taut thanks to a backbone of acidity and a substratum of tannin. Flavors of black and blue berries orbit around a core of pepper and potting soil. The Weninger family are masters of this grape, thoughtful grape growers and imaginative winemakers, and one of the best wineries in eastern Austria’s Burgenland for three generations. They make every sort of Blaufrankisch, but this one is their everyday offering, welcome at any meal featuring root vegetables, grilled meats, or ham. Curiously, it carries the general Weinland title because the Austrian DAC tasting panel judged their wines “atypical” for the region. If the individuality that comes with native yeast ferments and small-scale winemaking are not welcome in Burgenland, then Liner & Elsen’s Burgenland section is about to shrink.
The second third of the newsletter comes from Mediterranean Peninsulas. These four wines are from Italy and Spain, their vineyards never more than a single mountain range away from the sea. These will be open to taste on Saturday the 21st.
Collestefano Verdicchio di Matelica 2024 $21
The Valle Camertina is a pocket of field, pasture, and vineyard tucked into the Apennine mountains. It is a pocket of agricultural paradise surrounded on four sides by rugged mountains. The Marchionni family settled here in the late 1970s to make wine and in 1998, Fabio Marchionni made his first vintage. 27 years later, he has mastered the art of making Matelica’s particular sort of Verdicchio. Higher in elevation and more influenced by mountains than the sea, Matelica strikes a different pose than the Verdicchios dei Castelli di Jesi. Wine here is generally zestier, with a strong sense of minerality. Collestefano’s 2024 edition shows crisp pear, lemon and tangerine fruit sprinkled with rosemary, sage, and white pepper. True to form, this wine is outrageously full bodied, singing with acidity, and leaves the palate painted with lemon and lime fruit and crusted with both pepper and salt. Verdicchio is one of the most versatile food wines in the world, this one will match with sashimi, Moroccan lamb tagine, or pesto pastas with equal flair.
Antonelli Trebbiano Spoletino Trebium 2023 $19
There are several varieties called Trebbiano, and it turns out it makes a world of difference which one you’re drinking. It doesn’t help that Italy can’t resist a little contradiction. Trebbiano Abruzzese is the best variant and the pride of Abruzzo, but the grape makes up a wide minority of Trebbiano d’Abruzzo, most of which is actually the inferior Trebbiano Toscano. In Umbria, Trebbiano is also a common grape, but the sort grown around Spoleto is understood to be the best. It turns out that – probably – an enterprising medieval farmer – perhaps on his way to pilgrimage in Asisi – brought some proper Abruzzese Trebbiano as a gift, and the vine is now at home in Umbria, where Antonelli makes one of the most popular and truest examples of this excellent wine. Aromas of peach, orange, white strawberry, and flinty earth lead into a full bodied palate crackling with acidity and creamy orange sorbetto, oregano and thyme flavors. The finish is refreshing and simply begs for a roasted chicken with two lemons.
Tenuta La Meridiana Barbera d’Asti Le Quattro Terre 2022 $21
In 1890, the Primo family began bottling their own wine for the first time. Already respected for the quality of their grapes, their business was a success, and their neighbors passed the word that they were getting wine “from the house with the sundial” That word in Italian is Meridiana, and the name remains a sign of quality five generations later. The family makes a wide array of wines, but Barbera is the core of their production. Le Quattro Terre is made from all four of their vineyards, intended to be the everyday wine for all sorts of meals. The wine is vinified and aged for just 8 months in concrete vats, and it comes through the nose and across the palate without pretense or stuffiness, but with plenty of raspberry and strawberry fruit, rosehips, cocoa, and brambly underbrush. The texture is just as Barbera should be, medium weight with fresh acid and pleasantly firm tannins. The finish lingers with raspberries and figs, and makes us all hungry for more risotto, polenta, or burgers with mushrooms in them.
Vera de Estenas Utiel-Requena El Bobal de Estenas 2023 $16
The villages of Utiel and Requena are in Valencia at the hot, dry edge of the highland massif of central Spain. This is also the spiritual homeland of Bobal, Spain’s third most common grape variety and one of its most obscure, one of many varieties doomed to toiling in the shadows for the simple sin of producing large yields. Most wineries who grow it make cheap bulk wine, but Vera de Estenas is one of a handful of growers who have recently started making quality Bobal from some of the oldest vines in Spain – some over 100 years old. Felix Martinez tends these vines organically, and uses only concrete tanks in the cellar to preserve the pure expression of terroir. Aromas of black plum and cranberry sauce mix with cinnamon and potting-soil earth notes. The palate is rich with elegant but ever-present tannins, stewed plum and raspberry fruit with enough acidity to keep things moving into a savory, earthy finish. Serve this with hearty, mushroomy dishes.
The final Third of the newsletter comes from Mediterranean France, from the Languedoc and Rhone regions. We will taste these on the 28th of June, just in time to stock up for Bastille Day.
La Croix Gratiot Picpoul de Pinet 2024 $21
An hour southwest of Montpelier, there is a small hill called Mont-Saint-Clair on the edge of the Étange de Thau. Draped over the seaside face of the hill is the town of Sète, a small 18th century port town full of canals, wine bars, and restaurants featuring some of the freshest seafood in France. Sète is a hidden gem in Languedoc. Just across the water, Anaïs Ricome can see Mont-Saint-Clair from her vineyards at La Croix Gratiot, another hidden gem. She has been at the helm of her family’s winery since 2006, making Picpoul de Pinet to a high enough standard that the local moniker “Chablis of Languedoc” begins to make sense. The grapes are harvested at night and vinified in stainless steel to preserve freshness. In the nose we get apples with a dash of salt, jasmine and daffodils and fresh lemon zest. On the palate the bouncy acidity and crisp flavors of lemon and sea salt are accentuated with a touch of lees aging, similar to the treatment Muscadet gets in the Loire. Short of going to Sète for a plate of oysters, this will also do wonders with Sushi or Sashimi.
Domaine Fontsainte Corbieres Gris de Gris 2024 $19
Domaine Fontsainte is one of the first wineries in the Kermit Lynch portfolio, and more than forty years after their discovery, the winery still holds up to their reputation as one of the classic houses of Languedoc’s Corbieres district. Remarkably for an appellation almost entirely devoted to red wine, Fontsainte is particularly famous for their Gris de Gris, a rosé made from 90% Grenache Gris with splashes of Carignan and Mourvedre. Lightly pressed and aged in stainless steel, this is the sort of refreshing, crisp wine that’s just perfect on a hot day under the Mediterranean sun. Aromas of pink roses, orange zest, wild strawberry, white pepper and white chocolate-cherry cordials lead to a sunkissed palate of grapefruit, melon, orange and cherry that bursts on the finish with acidity. This wine is always a classic, but the 2024 offers a return of the snappy, zesty character that Fontsainte achieves in the best vintages. Serve cold with a sandwich under the sun.
Mary Taylor Wines Anne Sarda Coteaux de Cabrerisse 2023 $15
Mary Taylor’s portfolio of hidden gems has come around again with this sublime Carignan from a remote corner of Languedoc. Ann Sarda farms without pesticides in vineyards too rocky for tractors or even horses. All her work in the vineyard is done by hand, and in the hot and dry climate of southern Languedoc – not far north of Corbieres – organic farming is relatively easy, when mold and rot are rare. This is the spiritual heartland of Carignan, a vine too lightly regarded for quality because it traditionally offers enormous yields. In Ann sarda’s hands, when she tends 60 year old vines that can no longer produce large crops, the results are a cut above the usual Languedoc table wine. Black cherry pastille, blackcurrant and blueberry, violets and wet clay fill out a gorgeous and black fruit tinted nose. The palate is supported by tannins like steel girders, with all the pastille you can find in a vintage candy store, black and blue fruit, and rich clay soil that lingers on the finish. This is a wine that begs for rustic cuts of simply seasoned meat, but really any full bodied dish will do.
Domaine la Montagnette Cotes du Rhone Signargues 2023 $16
Jean-Marie Granier is the mayor of Estezargues, and his Domaine la Montagnette is one of the most prominent wineries of the village on the wilder, western side of the Cotes du Rhone appellation. The four Communes of Domazan, Estézargues, Rochefort-du-Gard and Saze all fall into the Signargues “villages” title of Cotes du Rhone that stands only for red wine. Jean-Marie’s version is farmed mostly organically, a mix of half Grenache, one third Syrah and one sixth Mourvedre. It is among the richest wines of the area, with a heady nose of black pie cherries, figs and blackberries. The palate is overflowing with cooked and dried fruits like blackberry and fig, with a bit of burnt orange peel and a strong note of garrigue-scented earth. There’s old growth tannins in this everyday wine, but acidity runs through it like a cool brook on a hot day, keeping the wine fresh enough to match with food. Whether you make Steak frites or a burger with fries, this is one for hearty meals.
The Winemaker's Barrel will feature the charming and rambunctious wines of Little Bastions in the Columbia Gorge. Join us on June 14th to meet Chase Silcocks and taste some brilliant "rediscovered" wines.
Chase Silcocks and Casey Howland grew up on the east side of the Oregon Cascades. Childhood friends ended up working at Hiyu Wine Farm in the Columbia Gorge, working with Nate Ready and his flowing beard. Hiyu practices nearly wild viticulture and winemaking, and Chase and Casey brought that philosophy with them when they found three abandoned vineyards in the Gorge, sites with old vines, haphazardly planted and overgrown. Over the course of several years they painstakingly cleared the overgrowth and prepared the vines for farming. Join us the afternoon of the 14th, Chase will be here with their latest releases and stories straight from the vineyard.
Wines to taste
Little Bastions Gruner Veltliner 2022
Little Bastions White Blend Concertina IV
Little Bastions Icy Road Pinot Noir 2022
Little Bastions Flowering Wall 2022
Special Tasting Reservations
A Tasting of Domaine Lignier Michelot Wines with Tim Davey
Tuesday, June 10th, 6PM
Laure and Virgile Lignier have been running their domaine since 2000, the third generation of the family at the helm. With meticulous organic farming practices and gentle handling in the cellar, they make some of the most impressive red Burgundy to be found in the Cote de Nuits region. This house still qualifies as a relative "new kid on the block", but if you're a fan of intense aromas and flavors, restrained textures and balanced Pinot Noir, this is a domaine you need to know.
Join us in welcoming Tim Davey, Portland's resident Burgundy expert and representative of Becky Wasserman Wines, as we taste through a set of these exceptional Pinot Noirs.
Reservations required: $75 per seat
Reserve your seat here
Wines to be tasted
Lignier-Michelot Bourgogne Rouge 2022 - $53
Lignier-Michelot Gevrey-Chambertin Cuvee Bertin 2022 - $88
Lignier-Michelot Morey-Saint-Denis en la Rue de Vergy 2022 - $97
Lignier-Michelot Fixin 1er Cru les Arvelets 2022 - $116
Lignier-Michelot Morey-Saint-Denis 1er Cru les Genavrières 2022 - $176
Lignier-Michelot Nuits-Saint-Georges 1er Cru Aux Murgers 2022 - $184
Markus Molitor Tasting with Sommelier Daniel Kiowski
Friday, June 27th, 6PM
Markus Molitor is the eighth and latest generation of his family to make wine in the Mosel Valley. Over the years, his family built up a collection of vineyard plots in most of the most storied vineyards in the valley. His grapes come from the steepest slopes and the oldest vines, and under his care, they have become some of the most sought-after collector's wines in the world. Unusually for the Mosel, the majority of his Riesling is made entirely dry - no mean feat in a climate as cold as the Mosel.
We're pleased to welcome world-renowned Sommelier and Molitor-expert Daniel Kiowski to the shop on June 27th to taste through a set of these wines. We will have the whole range on hand, from everyday sippers to the Grand Cru sites.
Reservations required: $50 per seat
Reserve your seat here
Wines to be Tasted
Markus Molitor Riesling Sekt NV - $20
Markus Molitor Haus Klosterberg Riesling 2022 - $25
Markus Molitor Alte Reben Riesling 2021 - $39
Markus Molitor Okfener Bockstein Riesling Spatlese Trocken 2020 - $46
Markus Molitor Wehlener Klosterberg Riesling Spatlese 2022 - $43
Markus Molitor Kinheimer Hubertuslay Auslese Trocken Riesling 2018 - $76
Markus Molitor Wehlener Sohnnenuhr Auslese Trocken Riesling 2019 - $154