July 2024 Newsletter Wines

Tenuta di Tavignano Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Villa Torre 2022 $18
The day Ondine de la Feld Aymerich took over her grandparents’ winery in 2014, the conversion to organic farming began. Today, Tenuta di Tavignano takes eco-friendly practices into account in nearly everything they do in the vineyard, winery, and guest house. With respect to farming, it certainly helps that the Marche has an elegantly balanced climate, with a daily rhythm of cooling wind blowing alternately uphill from the sea and downhill from the mountains. The ribs of the Apennine Mountains give vine growers their choice of elevation and aspect for vineyards. At Tavignano, red grapes are planted on the lower slopes closer to the sea, while the white grapes are on higher, steeper slopes, to better catch the freshness and spice at the core of great Verdicchio. This one features aromas of lemon balm, apple, lime, snap pea, white pepper, and just a hint of garlic scape. The palate is medium weight, with flavors of apple and lemon and persistent white pepper that shines in the glow of vibrant acidity and finishes with a distinct snap. Fresh seafood dishes come to mind first, but Verdicchio is famously versatile.

Malvira’ Roero Arneis 2022 $21
If you have enjoyed Arneis before, you have Malvira’ to thank. If you haven’t, we can think of no better introduction than with this, the most important and often the best Arneis house in the world. There was a time not too long ago when this grape came close to extinction. It’s so hard to farm the name literally translates as rascal. It is prone to mildew and when it ripens the grape sheds its acidity almost within hours, without which wine is dull and flavorless. Malvira’ was a relatively unknown Roero winery who happened to own the oldest surviving Arneis vineyard in the world, first planted in the fifteenth century. Wines from this vineyard quickly became their calling card, offering proof of the grape’s quality with concentrated, complex white wines in a part of the world where red wine is king. Their single vineyard Trinita Arneis is well worth hunting for, but start with this entry tier wine, which is still among the most complex and delicious of the genre. Aromas of green apple, lemon, tangerine, gardenia, lavender, white clay and saffron. The full bodied palate is zesty fresh, with lemon and orange and apple and rosewater flavors and a touch of sandy minerality on the finish. Pair this to roasted chicken, Genoese seafood stew, or halibut.

De Forville Langhe Nebbiolo 2022 $20
A hearty, simply vinted Langhe Nebbiolo is one of the real joys of the wine world. The Anfosso family, descended directly from the De Forvilles who first planted vineyards in the 1860s, understand that while their vineyards may be some of the finest cru sites in Barbaresco, it is worthwhile to offer this simple red. Transparent red in color, bursting with aromas of licorice and black pepper, roses, cherry jam and clay scented earth, filled with flavors of cherry cordial and smoked orange peel. This is Nebbiolo unencumbered with oak, delicately pressed so only the most elegant tannins make it into the wine to give the finish a firm Piedmontese handshake. It is refreshing to see that a winery as well known as De Forville still makes cheerfully inexpensive table wine from young Cru Barbaresco vines. There’s enough structure here to stand up to delicate cuts of steak or pork, and as always where Nebbiolo is involved, mushrooms should feature somewhere in the menu.

Montesco Valle de Uco Parral 2022 $20
One day in late spring, we at L&E stood at the tasting counter with a mixture of confusion and pleasant surprise. For decades, Argentina’s wine has been more or less a monochromatic array of Malbec, but this wildly successful brand has papered over a far more complex reality on the ground. Mendoza has always been home to a wider array of grape varieties, and with the help of people like Matthias Michelini (and his family), we are starting to see a wider range of styles coming from this cloud-scraping wine region. The Montesco wines are a new riff on a familiar name. Organic farming, low-intervention winemaking, and strictly neutral oak give this wine an even keel and elegant cut. Aromas show the tobacco savor of Cabernet, the ripe black and blue berries of Malbec, and the citrus and violet notes of Bonarda, together with hints of granite and baker’s chocolate. The palate is impressively balanced between acidity and tannin, juicy and full enough bodied for Argentine-style barbecue. Flavors like blackberry jam, black raspberry, coffee, black pepper, and blood orange jostle for attention through the finish.

Gilbert Chon Muscadet Sevre et Maine Les Salines 2023 $13
The Chon family has been making wine in Muscadet since 1670. While most people in America have to consult a DNA test to know what their family was doing thirteen generations ago, Marine Chon and Arnaud Madec-Chon have only to look out the window to their vineyards. Today, the family farms about 70 hectares of vines in and around the city of Nantes, and they make some of the purest, cleanest-cut Muscadet available, and offer the fairest prices we are aware of remaining in the Loire river region. Les Salines means the salt pans, in honor of the Pay Nantais’ other historically important industry, salt production. Throughout much of the middle ages and Renaissance, France’s near monopoly on Europe’s supply of salt was one of the unsung cornerstones of the country’s wealth, and much of that salt came from the area where the Loire meets the sea. There is a salty lilt to the wine too, alongside aromas of meyer lemon, tangerine zest, peach pit, yellow rose and flint. The palate features fleshy pears and apples, minerals, and plenty of sel that lingers through the crisp and crunchy finish. Shellfish are an easy choice for this one, but not the only choice.

Domaine Bordenave Jurancon Sec Encore et Encore 2021 $21
Domaine Bordenave has been in the family since 1676, passed down from father to son to daughter, and ranks now as one of the oldest properties in Jurançon. It wasn’t until 1993 that the family elected to make wine on their own. Today, they farm organically, and favor long periods of lees contact in the cellar to further enrich the already rich textures found in blends of Gros- and Petit Manseng. All their wines feature musical notes on the label, a reference to the balancing act between art and science that is both making music and making wine. Encore et Encore spends 9 months on the lees in steel tanks before bottling, and when opened, aromas dance on a conga line of pear, honeycomb, and pink flowers. The palate is luxurious, thanks to supercharged grapes warmed by Pyreneean winds that blow through Jurançon in the fall, with flavors of apples and pears and beeswax and yellow plum and pineapple crusted with salt. In keeping with all great Jurançon, there’s acid to spare to keep the palate from falling flat, but the overall impression is hearty, a sturdy white wine for study recipes of pork, chicken, duck or foie gras.

Domaine de l’Idylle Gamay 2023 $17
The mountains of the French Alpine district of Savoie each wear an apron of vineyards around their base, where the poor, generally granite soil and constant cool sunshine gives vines the ideal balance of elements to yield fresh flavored and vigorously textured wine. Domaine de l’Idylle has been in the Tiollier family since 1840, and for the entire life of the domaine, biodiversity has been a primary focus of this polycultural farm. It is also a wine frequently featured in this newsletter, because Philippe, Francois, and Sylvain Tollier are very good at their job. In this aromatic, crunchy Gamay, there are notes of red cherry, roses, and mountain sage on the nose strong enough we can almost see the snow capped mountains on the horizon. The palate offers hard cherry candy and blossoms riding waves of acidity. Floral scents linger delicately on the finish.

Domaine de la Chapelle des Bois Chiroubles 2021 $20
Chantal and Eric Coudert-Appert brought attention to Domaine de la Chapelle des Bois in the 1990s with dependably brilliant wines born of a simple formula: As little intervention in the vineyard as possible, concrete fermenters and large neutral oak barrels. Now under the steady hand of Frederic Montangeron, the principle remains the same, let the grapes do the talking. Chiroubles is the highest elevation of all the Beaujolais crus and it is also about the rarest, since vines don’t particularly enjoy growing in these granite heavy soils and tractors can’t work on the uneven ground. The domaine is based mostly in neighboring Fleurie, but they have a tiny corner of vines up here, where harvest tends to come a full week later than in the rest of Beaujolais. At its best, Chiroubles tastes like this one, with vivid aromas and vivacious texture. There’s notes of raspberry and cranberry and tangerine and peach, with brushes of white pepper and granite. There are flavors of red berries and underbrush, granite with aromatic herbs growing out of the cracks, there’s citrus that lingers on the finish with a gentle dusting of tannin. This is a wine for bloody steaks and burgers, well-composed cheese boards, sandwiches with dill pickles in them.

Landmass Wines Columbia Gorge Multitudes Pinot Gris 2022 $20
For those who don’t already know, Landmass is one of the more exciting wineries to appear in Oregon in the last decade. Melaney Schmidt and Malia Myers arrived at winemaking through the usual path: a series of coincidences, small moments, and then a ton of hard work that led them from, respectively, Southern California and Denver, Colorado, to a crush pad in the Willamette Valley to make sparkling wine in 2018. In 2021, they grew enough to move their winery to the Columbia Gorge, and along the way they began to make still wines too. This first release Multitudes Cuvee is a celebration of their newer vineyard sources in the Columbia Gorge, where the wind, hot days and cool nights combine to create powerfully textured and intensely flavored Pinot Gris. Like all great examples of the grape, it offers richness with acidic tension and flavors from all over the flavor wheel. Aromas of white strawberry, potpourri, peach pit, loquat, and a dash of white pepper lead into flavors of orange, rainier cherry and fresh strawberry, all dancing on a string made of palate-waking acidity. Serve this first with cedar plank salmon and summer squash.

Mokoroa Getariako Txakolina Rosado 2023 $17
It’s hard to pronounce Basque if you’re not born to it. Here’s a rough pronunciation guide: “Get Ari a coat Cha Colleen Ah”. Getaria is a tiny seaside village with Michelin star seafood at the head of a tiny seaside valley peppered with small wineries and even smaller vineyards. Most wine here is white, lightly spritzy from a dash of trapped CO2, but some of it is rosé, made from Hondarrabi Zuri’s close cousin, Hondarrabi Belza. These wines are similar in many ways to Basque cuisine: deceptively simple, based on fresh ingredients, and at its best in small bites. Jose Antonio Mokoroa is one of the very best in the business, and his rosé is cranberry sunshine, with aromas of pepper, pipe smoke, and white strawberry too. The palate is full of zest, both describing the star-bright texture and the lemon, tangerine, and orange flavors that linger alongside hints of smoky granite soil. This wine is happy to pair with a surprising range of strongly flavored food, since it doesn’t take itself too seriously, it would be best with playful dishes.

Bodegas de la Marquesa Rioja Crianza Valserrano 2018 $19
Juan Pablo de Simon is the great grandson of Valserrano’s founder Francisco Javier Solano y Eulate, who took advice from the French winemakers arriving in northern Spain in the 1880s, fleeing the onset of Phylloxera. He began aging wine in oak, and bottling in the Bordeaux style. In broad strokes, the wine remains largely unchanged from those early days, and Valserrano Rioja shows off that classic balance point between earth, oak, and fruit. In this impressively complex Crianza, the emphasis is on the fruit side of the spectrum: aromas of redcurrant, dried strawberry, tobacco, vanilla, leather, olive tapenade and barbecued meats all feature on the nose. The palate is neatly balanced, suave acidity meats silky tannins on a medium bodied palate of rich stewed red berries rosemary, sage, and dried clay. We recommend this one for the barbecue in July, but any sort of hearty stew or bean casserole will also serve in cooler weather.

Autòcton Celler Catalunya Sumoll 2016 $20
Autochthonous is a bit of a mouthful in English, but in Catalonia, specifically in the village of Mas Vilella outside Tarragona, it simply stands for delicious wine made by Albert Jané. The winery’s name mean native, and Albert Jané returned to his home in southern Catalonia after a career in Montsant and Priorat, making some of Catalonia’s most famous wines with international varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah blended with native varieties. For his second act, Albert wanted to stick strictly with the grapes that grew up in the region, Malvasia de Sitges, Xarel.lo Vermell, and the red grape Sumoll. This is a rare grape capable of intense tannic structure, excitable acidity, and punchy flavors, so Albert ages his signature red in large oak barrels for 10 months to sand off the rough edges, and then bottle ages the wine for several years before release. The result is purring lion of a wine, with aromas of stewed boysenberry, tobacco, sandalwood, tar and smoked ham. Rich yet even tempered on the palate, the clay earthy soil comes through drenched in red berries and iron notes. This is a wine for sturdy foods cooked in the sun, for pork loin and spreads that include tinned fish, for roasted beets or potatoes dauphinoise.

LeLarge Pugeot Tasting with Clemence Lelarge: July 23rd, 6PM $40
Clemence Lelarge is among the most important voices in Champagne today, a passionate advocate of biodynamic farming and natural winemaking, two practices that are nowhere harder than in the cool, wet vineyards and deep cellars of Champagne. Tuesday evening, July 23rd, Clemence will join us for a tasting of her latest releases, and to talk about the state of Champagne today.

This seminar is a limited event, reservations are required. 

Wines to be sampled
Clemence Lelarge Champagne NV "Tradition" Brut Nature 
Clemence Lelarge Champagne 2016 "Gueux"
Clemence Lelarge Champagne 2018 "Nature et Non-dosé"
Clemence Lelarge Coteaux Champenois Pinot Meunier Blanc 2015
Clemence Lelarge Coteaux Champenois Pinot Meunier Rouge 2015