Food & Wine’s annual holiday issue hit newsstands and recommends SIX wines from VINTUS’ portfolio, including Champagne Ayala, Champagne Bollinger, Dog Point Vineyards, Marietta Cellars, Chateau Minuty and Chateau Montelena.
The issue opens, as it does each month, by sharing Executive Wine Editor Ray Isle’s favorite things he’s drinking this month. One of the three wines selected is Champagne Ayala Le Blanc de Blancs 2015, which is described as elegant, precise and “a thrill to drink.” He strongly recommends opening this bottle on New Years and pairing it was potato chips for fun!
Dog Point Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc 2020 is a top pick to pair with soft cheeses, like Bries, Camemberts, burrata and the like during holiday gatherings. Isle says that Dog Point’s Sauvignon Blanc “impeccably balances its buoyant grapefruit juiciness with hints of flint and lime zest. This wine with some rip Humboldt Fog? terrific!” As for blue cheese, he recommends Chateau Montelena Potter Valley Riesling 2019. As context, he explains “After 2018, when Montelena couldn’t make any Riesling due to smoke, the 2019 is an electric comeback, its lemon-peach fruit lifted by bright acidity.”
Looking to build the perfect case of wine for holiday entertaining and gifting? Ray offers tips for balancing different styles and price points, including Marietta Old Vine Red for a great everyday, robust red that is a perennial steal, Champagne Bollinger Special Cuvée for a bottle of pricey sparkling that he describes as sublime, and M de Minuty 2020 for a bottle of good rosé from Provence that never disappoints.
