The Wines

First: Bruno Dangin 2017 Prestige de Narces Cremant de Borgogne

Grapes: Pinot Noir

Region: Burgundy, France

Although this is technically a simple Crémant, it drinks much more like the Pinot Noir based bubblies from the Aube in southern Champagne in terms of its length and complexity. The soils in Dangin's vineyards, which he farms organically, are identical to what you find across the Champagne border. In the cellar these bottles are treated exactly as you'd expect from a top grower producer in Champagne. You won't find a better value in the world of sparkling wine.

Second: Henri Costal 2018 Les Truffieres Chablis

Grapes: Chardonnay

Region: Chablis, Burgundy, France

Domaine Costal is a unique collaboration between the well-known Chablis producer Domaine Jean Collet and Kermit Lynch. The project began with a simple barrel tasting with Kermit and led to the first of now two cuvées, a custom label, and custom vinification and bottling process exclusively for the American market. The vines are worked organically and Kermit and the Collet family together agree on a blend of stainless steel, foudre, and barrel vinifications. The skill of the Collets and their excellent terroirs combine to give us wines of extraordinary purity and finesse. There is no mistaking it—one taste and you are in Chablis territory: zesty minerality, wet stone, freshness and nervosity.

Unlike the lean, stern, and notoriously austere Chablis of yore, this release from Domaine Costal is generous, fleshy, and discreetly tropical, as if someone had planted pineapples in the Arctic. All its richness of flavor is then funneled down to a pinpoint focus on the snappy finish. The palate is left with a flinty note akin to gun smoke lingering after a shot

Third: Littorai 2018 Les Larmes

Grapes: Pinot Noir

Region: Anderson Valley, CA

Les Larmes is a blend of de-classified barrels and press wine from the Anderson Valley Pinot Noir Vineyards including Cerise, Savoy, Wendling and once again One Acre.

This Pinot Noir comes from varied soil types including clay loam soils and rocky volcanic soils and is sustainably farmed. This wine spends 11 months in French oak, with about 10% of that being new oak.

Les Larmes is French for "the tears" and was created after Littorai's famed One Acre vineyard had to be ripped up and re-planted in 2005 due to phylloxera. Indeed, a sad moment for Littorai. Les Larmes started with the young vine fruit from the replanted vineyard. 

Peter Paul 2016 Mille Frere Pinot Noir

Grapes: Pinot Noir

Region: Sonoma Coast

Peter Paul Wines seeks to showcase the sunny, easygoing temperament of fruit grown in California without losing the more refined elements of the grape’s DNA and European heritage. Each of their wines presents the hallmark characteristics of the terroir, while hitting that sweet spot of ripe but not overblown, elegant but not anemic, with everything in proper proportion.

When Peter was a just a teenager in the early 1960s, his father purchased a case of Château d’Yquem on sale at $10 a bottle and he became hooked on wine before being old enough to buy it. Meanwhile a job in the financial services industry brought him to Southern California in 1975. Two years later, Peter “escaped” to northern California where wine country beckoned as it always does. Today, Peter is the CEO of Headlands Asset Management LLC, an investment management company he founded in 2008. But for Peter, becoming a vintner was clearly something that was going to happen sooner or later. In 2002, the first vintage of Peter Paul Wines was bottled. Over a decade and numerous critical scores and awards later, Peter Paul Wines is a well-respected yet small virtual California winery. With barely 2,000 cases produced annually, Peter Paul sources grapes from select vineyards in both Napa and Sonoma counties.

Fourth: Bedrock Wine Co. 2018 Evangelho Vineyard Heritage

Grapes: Zinfandel bases field blend with Mataro, and Carignan

Region: Contra Costa County, Central Coast, CA

Own-rooted on forty-foot-deep banks of beach sand alongside the Sacramento River Delta, Evangelho is a totally unique site. Planted in the 1890s, the vineyard is a viticultural survivor—wedged between a PG&E plant, a Burger King, and a motel that rents rooms by the hour. A field-blend of Zinfandel, Carignane, Mourvedre, and others, the wines are fresh, bright, and typically have some of the lowest pHs of any of the Bedrock wines.

The word "heritage" on a Bedrock label signifies that the wine is produced as a field blend. All of the grapes get picked together at the same time and co-fermented together.

The Menu