Tasting this ultra-focused, luscious expression of Brouilly from Jean-Claude Lapalu is a true pleasure.  From a bio-dynamically farmed, granite and clay rich parcel of vines averaging around 60 years of age, this wine is packed with ripe, high-toned fruit and firm minerality that bless this wine with real  sense of elegance.  Right out of the bottle, this Brouilly gives up the goods and just keeps getting better and better with some air.  For me, it is a classic expression of what I love about the great wines of Beaujolais, juicy red fruit, crisp acidity, layers of mineral complexity all wrapped up in a wine that is utterly refreshing and a pure pleasure to drink. With the prices for some of the more famous names of Beaujolais getting increasingly higher, the wines of Lapalu represent a true value and I could not be more excited to offer them here.

Steve Edmunds has been making wine in Northern California since the 80′s and he has become known as one of the great vignerons of the domestic natural wines scene.  At Uva, we have been fans of the wines for a few years now and the 2010 Rocks and Gravel may be the most exciting release yet.  A blend of Syrah, Grenache and Mourvedre fermented in concrete, it is an incredibly elegant, freshly styled red with real depth of fruit and serious drinkability.  The wine is bursting with spicy, earthy aromatics leading to a palate that is long, focused and silky with a great core of minerality.  This is no blown-out Cali fruit bomb but rather a gorgeous, expressive, thirst quenching wine that emphasizes, once again, that the future for naturally produced, terroir focused wine in the USA is extremely bright.

Located in “Les Loges” a crucial sub-zone for great wines in Pouilly, Marc Deschamps owns a great  vineyard site known as “Les Champs de Cri.”  Blessed with great exposure and some wonderful, mature Sauvignon Blanc vines with an average age of over 40 years, this site yields beautifully layered, concentrated wines with excellent focus, acidity, and lively aromatics.  Although still quite young, right out of the bottle the 2008 delivers delicate, complex citrus fruit balanced with a super drinkable, crisp texture. Crucially, however, the true value in this and other top-notch Loire Valley Sauvignon Blanc is their ability to age gracefully and really reward some medium term cellarage.  A recent brilliant older bottle from Pascal Cotat in Sancerre reignited my interest in Loire Valley Sauvignon and now I am stashing away wines for future reward.  At $27, this is a super value for those of us that are obsessed with the specificity of terroir and wish to fill their cellars with noble, singular, delicious wines but would like to maintain our ability to pay the rent.

This might be the most elegant, gulpable bottle of Pineau d’Aunis that I have ever tasted.  For the uninitiated, Pineau d’Aunis is a slightly obscure, indigenous varietal in the Loire valley that produces wines with a silky texture, a core of dusty minerality and a very distinctive aromatic profile that always seems to me to smell of red grapefruit.  The 2010 vintage of Le Verre des Poetes from Emile Heredia, has a beautiful, resonant, light red color and a super silky mouth feel.  It is the perfect way to find out what Pineau d’Aunis is all about because it shows lots of typicity for the varietal but without being overwhelmed by some of the earth and funk that sometimes is associated with wines made of this grape.  All in all, I can’t recommend this wine highly enough for those who are looking to explore something new, already enjoy the style, or just want to taste the wines of a really talented young, natural winemaker.

Made of Gamay and Poulsard grapes, farmed biodynamically in the Bugey, in the foothills of the Jura mountains in the Savoie, Renardat-Fache Cerdon is a rose sparkling wine that is a veritable tonic for dulled senses. First you notice the color, an incredible, resonant magenta tone with streaks of super fine bubbles running up the sides of the glass. Aromatically this wine is all about strawberries and wet stone. On the palate it simply explodes with luscious, light-hearted, un-cloying sweetness, leading to a finish that is super crisp and makes you want to gulp down the glass and pour another.  This wine is fermented in what is known as “methode ancestrale”  whereas the still wine is left unfinished with a certain percentage of residual sugar, after bottling the naturally present sugar and yeast initiate the secondary fermentation and the bubbles are created. Afterwards the wine is filtered and capped with a Champagne cork. Yes the wine is a bit sweet, but it is so crisp and delicious that even the most dry-obsessed drinker can’t help but be charmed. Crafted with care and tasting of untamed deliciousness, Renardat-Fache Cerdon is the perfect way to begin a dinner party, a night on the town, or just a great way to perk up your afternoon. Fear not the sugar and embrace the goodness of this most singular vinous delight.

Though no longer entirely unknown in the U.S. the Sherry bottlings from Equipo Navazos are still largely under the radar of most wine lovers. Headed by Jesus Barquin, Equipo Navazos is a “team” of experts in Southern Spain that travel tirelessly throughout Jerez searching for the most profound casks or “butts” that they than purchase and bottle as La Bota de . . . (fino, manzanilla etc.) number . . .

Sherry, as many wine writers and critics love to point out, has never really caught on in the U.S.; but here in NYC wines made in a oxidatative manner (from the Jura etc.) as well as “orange wines” are increasingly popular and not just among the upper eschelons of wine geekdom. So perhaps the palate en masse is finally ready to explore this profound and ancient wine-producing region? Of course this idea of Sherry on the cusp seems to come up every few years. What I do know is that we recently opened a bottle of the La Bota de Fino No. 27 here at UVA and some of the staff who are otherwise ambivalent about Sherry slowly came around after several sips to the greatness of this wine. Those of us who are already convinced (myself included) were head over heels in love. It is quite simply an astounding bottle of wine with excellent texture and richness, intense and ever-changing aromatics and incredible length.

Burgundy, like any cool climate, is very sensitive to vintage, and the warmth of the 2009 vintage is immediately apparent when you try the wine. That’s OK. Even hard-core Burgundy enthusiasts like to have some wine with easy, approachable ripe fruit in their cellar, if only to keep yourself amused while waiting for the more serious 2008s and 2010s to come around. And if you only dabble in Burgundy, 2009 is certainly a great place to get your lips wet.

But far more important than vintage is good wine-making. Great wine-makers like Fourrier, Lafarge, Simon Bize and Barthod succeed in making serious age-worthy wines in almost every vintage. In 2009, they have the great fruit of the vintage, but somehow managed to keep the freshness and terroir definition that Burg-lovers crave.

Barthod & Fourrier will arrive in the next few months. But we do have some Bize and Lafarge in stock. These are precocious wines that are seriously impressive. Not quite opulent, but a great combination of great fruit and an integrated structure that make the wines complex and highly drinkable. It is not surprising that the Bize wines are already drinking well (Bize is always good both young and old); more surprising is how delicious the Lafarge wines are already.

I met both Bize and Lafarge last year in Burgundy. They are both humble farmers with soil under their finger nails. They are both obsessed with caring for each individual vine so that it produces the very best fruit possible given the weather. They both do almost nothing in the cellar, confident that their beautiful grapes will transform themselves into delicious Burgundy with minimal assistance from humans. As the 2009s show, what they do — and what they don’t do — is working.