Chanson’s 2 hectare plot is located next door to the famous terroir “Le Montrachet.” The soil most consists of clay and limestone with the famous stone of Chassagne and is clearly mineral. The vineyards have a peculiar aspect; they are made up of small blocks entangled into each other. With its east exposure, on the road to Saint Aubin, this plot benefits from the fresh air which gives the wine very pure and refreshing aromas.

Gevrey Chambertin is the most famous appellation of the “Côte de Nuits” and the climat “La Perrière” is located in the heart of the Premier Cru area. The grapes are sourced from a partner winegrower but are picked by members of the Chanson team.

This vineyard is ideally located nearby the famous Montrachet and Chevalier Montrachet. It has a southeast exposure. The high proportion of clay gives to the wine a specific minerality which underlines the typicality of the Chardonnay. The vines are planted at regular distance of each other which enables deep ploughing of the soil.

Lucente is the second wine of Luce, a wine with contemporary style, immediate and great pleasure, and like its elder sibling, an authentic interpretation of Montalcino and the Luce estate.

After the first strict selection of the very best grapes for Luce, the next selection is used for Lucente and is often coming from the younger vineyards planted in the Luce estate. Lucente represents a more approachable expression of the estate’s unique terroir.

Mounir Saouma likes to describe Chateauneuf-du-Pape as a mosaic, with all the wild traditions and differences together making for very different interpretations. Omnia, Latin for “all,” is his attempt to encompass the entire region’s terroir and winemaking history (and perhaps future) in one glass. The fruit comes from 9 vineyard parcles across all 5 of the Chateauneuf communes, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Courthezon, Sorgues, Bedarrides and Orange (in early vintages, when the Saoumas did not have all the vineyards they have today, they would purchase fruit; today, Rotem & Mounir Saouma is 100% Estate). The wine is then vinified and aged in foudres, cement and 500 liter barrels – a little bit of everything.

The aging is as Mounir ages his Burgundies: extremely long, never racked, no fining, no filtration. It would be easy to say that we expected the experience running one of Burgundy’s leading producers, Lucien Le Moine, would show in Mounir’s wines. But the actual results need to be tasted to be believed and understood: a wine with beguiling fruit and savory richness, yet extraordinary finesse and detail.

This wine is made by refermenting the juice from the Valpolicella on the warm Amarone grape skins, in the typical “Ripasso” method, which imparts a rich character and personality to the wine. The grapes are sourced from three of most prestigious Tommasi vineyards: Conca d’Oro, La Groletta and De Buris.

A blend of 70% Corvina Veronese, 25% Rondinella and 5% Corvinone, the wine is vinified in stainless steel for about 9 days, then passed through the warm Amarone grape skins for about 12 days. It is then aged for 18 months in Slavonian oak barrels of 65 hl.

Intense ruby red, the Ripasso has a nose that recalls spicy black pepper and raisin, while the palate is intense and spicy, with lots of sweet red cherry flavors.

Bòggina B is a little bit of Burgundy with a Tuscan twist. The wine is made with 100% Trebbiano Toscano. The clone of the Valdarno has been known for its quality since the 1300s, when it was regularly sent to the popes in Rome and the courts of Florence. Petrolo has been using Trebbiano grapes for its sweet vinsanto for decades, but owner Luca Sanjust decided that the time had come for a tribute to the great whites of Valdarno’s past. 

Galatrona is Petrolo’s most acclaimed wine, a Merlot cru made exclusively with grapes from the Galatrona-Feriale vineyard planted in various phases during the 1990s with low vigor Bordeaux clones. The unique microclimate allows the concentration of the noble components of the grapes that are fundamental for the great structure, elegance, balance, and persistence that has made Galatrona one of Italy’s most coveted wines.

Bòggina “A” is made in amphora as a historical testament to Tuscany; terracotta has always played a key role in the region, and since the early Etruscan period, the art of creating and using vases of terracotta has evolved over the centuries in the small village of Impruneta near the Petrolo estate. The Etruscan connection to the Petrolo estate runs deep, as the Petrolo hill was an Etruscan settlement and fortification.

The grapes for Domaine Chanson’s Bourgogne Rouge are sourced exclusively from select estate-owned vineyards in the Côte de Nuits, as well as several terroirs located in the southern part of the Côte de Beaune.

Chateau Montelena’s Napa Chardonnay showed that the new world could create classically balanced and complex wines in its own voice, and that from the right sites and with perseverance, the results could equal anything made the world over. Through fads and trends, Montelena has never changed in its philosophy of bringing the sunshine of California in a style that is structured, balanced and age worthy.

In 1976, in what is now memorialized as “The Judgment of Paris”, Chateau Montelena Napa Valley Chardonnay was the top-ranking wine against four white Burgundies and five other California Chardonnays in a blind tasting with a who’s-who of the french food and wine industry judging. And as they say, the rest is history.

Chateau Montelena’s Napa Chardonnay showed that the new world could create classically balanced and complex wines in its own voice, and that from the right sites and with perseverance, the results could equal anything made the world over. Through fads and trends, Montelena has never changed in its philosophy of bringing the sunshine of California in a style that is structured, balanced and age worthy.

In 1976, in what is now memorialized as “The Judgment of Paris”, Chateau Montelena Napa Valley Chardonnay was the top-ranking wine against four white Burgundies and five other California Chardonnays in a blind tasting with a who’s-who of the french food and wine industry judging. And as they say, the rest is history.

James Healy and Ivan Sutherland will tell you that it’s hard for them to grow much Chardonnay at the extremely high quality level they want for this wine. As with their Section 94 and Pinot Noir, the wine is distinctive due to extraordinary vineyard holdings, intense vineyard management geared towards low yields and hand-picked fruit, and long, low touch winemaking. The effect this work has on the Chardonnay, by nature the least expressive of these three grape varieties, is wild – the wine is intensely expressive, with loads of fruit, leesy character, and chalky minerality that is almost textural. As with all the wines they produce, it is considered a national standard bearer of a different shade.

Dog Point’s Pinot Noir is a head-turner because of the immense reputation they have as a Sauvignon Blanc producer. Their Pinot is not just good – it’s one of the very best in New Zealand, and truly world class. The intensive vineyard work they carry out to produce distinctive Sauvignon Blanc results in fantastically complex Pinot fruit when carried out in clay hillsides of Marlborough. And, in turn, their use of wild yeasts and long aging gives the wine a generosity and integration that provide both easy and intellectual pleasure.

The last decade has brought vastly increased interest to Gigondas, as the quality potential has been increasingly recognized. The Guigals have been deeply involved in Gigondas for well over 50 years, and it brings them great pleasure to see the increasing interest and appreciation of the appellation. We consider Guigal’s Gigondas the “quiet storm” among their village wines. While they have been widely known for their Châteauneuf-du Pape also produced in the Southern Rhône, and they are increasingly important in Crozes-Hermitage in the North, the Gigondas is the wine that when poured jumps up and down and demands attention. It’s a wine of sheer pleasure, full of ripe fruit, and with a depth and even slightly brooding sense that comes from the important Mourvèdre component. Yet is has refinement, complexity, length, and has a terrific ability to age.

Ferrer Bobet Priorat is the second vintage of a Priorat produced primarily from Ferrer Bobet’s own vineyards. It fulfills the vision of elegance, freshness and detail that were the reasons for starting the estate. It is a Carignan based blend, based on low vigor and high quality rootstocks and clones, aiming for perfectly balanced vines.

Ferrer Bobet’s Vinyes Velles is an old vine blend of Carignane (70%) and Grenache (30%). It’s produced from some of the best steep slate hillside and terraced vineyards in Priorat. Though the “second wine” of Ferrer Bobet, the initial 2005 release put Ferrer Bobet on the wine world map. Two of the most important publications in Spain named it their wine of the year, and accolades came pouring in from Russia, the UK and the US. It launched the Ferrer Bobet mission of creating wines of elegance and purity, and the message has resonated.

Condrieu is one of the most exotic and distinctive wines in the world, with its intense aromatics and flavors of apricots, white peach and citrus, and its luscious, almost umami body. It happens to come from a dramatically steep area, and one so small that were it not for several influential people, Marcel Guigal among them, the appellation and its Viognier grape would have been swallowed by history.

Guigal believes, as do a number of top producers working in the area, that Saint-Joseph will be one of the great stories in the next few decades, reaching the renown it received several hundred years ago. Saint-Joseph Blanc is a serious wine, with weight and complexity, and is deeply reflective of its vineyard sites. A seamless balance of freshness and fruitiness, pleasure and interest, and flavors and structure. Guigal’s specialty in whites is especially evident in this wine, as it is almost a deceptively serious wine.

Pellegrini’s Olivet Lane Vineyard was planted in 1975 to Wente selection on AXR rootstock. The vineyard sits on 65 acres of sloping bench land in the Santa Rosa Plain, in between the warmer Westside Road region and the cooler Green Valley,where warm summer days are moderated by cool breezes and chilly evening temperatures. The combination of low temperatures, regular fog intrusion and well drained loam, clay soils create an excellent environment for growing Chardonnay that develop cool-climate characteristics and impeccable acid at fairly low sugars.The wines from this vineyard simultaneously express power and finesse, and they do so with tremendous balance.