Producers

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    Bellevue is a small, five hectare estate started in 2006 by Nicolas Dabudyk. The vineyards are located in the Fronsac valley where you find a richer soil composed of sand and clay.  The vineyards are sustainably farmed and indigeonous yeasts are used for fermentation in stainless steel tanks. Merlot matures perfectly here and Bellevue produces a very fruity-style Bordeaux.

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    Thank you to importer Louis/Dressner for this estate profile:

    (Click here for Louis/Dressner's detailed Bellivière notes and here for Bellivière's own website)

    The AOC Jasnières and Coteaux-du-Loir were, until very recently, languishing; the vines had been all but wiped-out by the intense frost of 1956, and only a handful of tenacious owners held on to their vines, usually keeping the wine they made for their personal consumption, while making a living thanks to other agricultural revenues.

    Located about 30 miles north of the city of Tours, these small AOC's (37 and 48 hectares respectively) are isolated at the edges of three provinces: Maine, Anjou and Touraine. They are also the most northern viticultural areas in the west of France (in the east, only Chablis, Champagne and Alsace are further north). Fortunately, the river Loir replicates some of the micro-climactic conditions of its big sister, the Loire (watch your French: le Loir, along with la Sarthe and la Mayenne, form le Maine, a tributary of la Loire which it joins in Angers.)

    In the 1970s, the winemaker Joël Gigou pionneered a renewal of Jasnières and Coteaux-du-Loir as viticultural areas. Eric Nicolas, a city kid without any roots in either the region or in agriculture, developed a passion for vines and wines, and after studying oenology, he looked in the Loire to acquire vineyards, mainly because he had met several passionate winemakers there.

    Eric and his wife Christine found an estate with some vines, but mostly grazing fields, trees and grains. They nurtured the existing old vines and did a lot of planting, to get to their current 14 hectares, scattered over 65 parcels within 6 villages (sounds more like Burgundy or Champagne than a tiny, obscure appellation!) They use sélection massale rather than clones, and plant at a density of 9,300 vines per hectare. They also planted an experimental plot where the density is 40,000 vines per hectare, to observe the development of the root system and the influence of terroir on botrytized grapes (one grape per vine). Though organic from the start, the Nicolas came to be firm believers in biodynamic viticulture and have been certified since 2011.

    Chenin Blanc represents the vast majority of the Bellivière production. Grapes are diligently picked by hand, some years in passes if the vintage is suitable for botrytis. In the cellar, each parcel is vinified individually in barrels of various shapes and sizes, permitting Eric and his son Clément to make judicious blending choices each vintage. Fermentations are always done with native yeasts, and often they will not finish all of the grapes' sugars. Eric has chosen to embrace this reality, letting the vintage decide how dry each cuvée will be. Occasionally the wines can be demi-sec, but more often they are off-dry, with perceptible sugars that integrate seamlessly and add complexity.

    For years, the barrels lived in the four little cellars carved out of the tuffeau limestone mountain behind the house. In 2015, an impressive and modern winemaking facility was built out. Futuristic in aesthetic and forward thinking in design, its three floor layout permits immaculate precision for working by gravity. The grapes are pressed on the second floor and racked by gravity to two floors (one subterranean) to barrels for fermentation and long élevages.

    In Jasnières, only white wine from Chenin Blanc is produced. Prémices is a barrel selection of the most fruit forward wines and fermented in old barrels. Les Rosiers is the "middle" cuvée with vines anywhere under 50 years old, fermented in old barrels and about 1/4 new oak. Calligrame is the old vine selection (50+ years old) and vinified with a small proportion of new oak.

    In Coteaux-du-Loir, the white cuvées are L'Effraie ("The Owl") and Vieilles Vignes Éparses ("Scattered Old Vines") and made in the same spirit as Les Rosiers and Calligrame. The indigenous and almost instinct Pineau d'Aunis is the only red grape permitted in in the appellation, and from this the Nicolas produce the highly sought after Rouge-Gorge. In exceptional years, a single vineyard Pineau d'Aunis will be produced from 100 year old vines called Hommage à Louis Derré. In addition to the appellation wines, some offbeat Vin de France are produced, including a sparkling Chenin Blanc called Les P'tits Vélos and a Gamay called Pollux.

    In 2017, following the arrival of Eric and Christine's son Clement to the business and a series of very difficult bouts with frost, the Nicolas family started a négociant label called les Arches de Bellivière. Sourcing from biodynamic vineyards in the Loire and beyond, they have so far produced three wines from the sub-label: a Chenin from Anjou called Confluence, a Cabernet Franc from Anjou called Castor and a Carignan/Grenache blend from the Southern Rhône called Raisins Migrateurs ("Migrating Grapes").

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    New! Manoir de la Bellonnière is located in Cravant-les-Côteaux, the main village of the Chinon appellation. Patrice Moreau joined his great uncle in 1976 in their polyculture farm that had some vines. He was passionate about the vine growing side of the farm and in 1992 purchased ten hectares, which marks the official beginning of the Manoir de la Bellonnière. In 2008, his son Alexandre joined him at the winery and today they farm 30 hectares of vines mainly planted with Cabernet Franc and a small plot of Chenin. The vineyards have always been farmed in a conscientious manner, never treated with herbicides, and any treatments are chosen judiciously in response to climatic conditions. In 2022, they began the process for organic certification. In the cellar, Moreau states, "grapes naturally possess everything needed to make wine." There are no additions nor adjustments made to the wines, just sulfur is used at bottling. They make five wines total, a Chinon Blanc, a Chinon Rosé, and three red Chinon. We are very excited to introduce these wines to the US!

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    Benito Santos is a central figure in the modern history of Albariño and the Rías Baixas D.O. He began working in his grandfather’s vineyards in the 1930s and made wine for serving in his bar – wines that repeatedly won prizes in the annual Fiesta de Albariño in Cambados. He was instrumental in the creation of the Rías Baixas D.O. in the 1980s. The current owners now farm three vineyards in the Val do Salnés subzone of Rías Baixas, each of which is next to and named after an ancient church: Saiar, Bemil, and Xoan. All of the vineyards are now certified organic – a rarity in rainy, mildew-prone Rías Baixas – and winemaking uses only native yeasts and minimal sulfur. Benito Santos wines are salty, mineral, and structured, with ample fruit but none of the overly tropical flavors of many industrially-produced Albariños.

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    Thank you to importer Louis/Dressner for this profile of Bera:

    (Click here for more Bera insight on the LDM website or here for Bera's own website, new in June 2022)

    You find good wine even when you are not looking for it. This time, Alessandra Bera is the one that found us.

    Late in 2002, we received some exhuberant e-mails from a winemaker in Piemonte telling us we had to work with her wines. She had been given our address by her good friends in France, like Pierre Breton of Bourgueil, Marcel Richaud of Cairanne, Jean-Marie and Thierry Puzelat in Cheverny and Claude Marechal in Burgundy. All these French vignerons had told Alessandra that her style of natural farming and natural wine would be a perfect fit for Louis/Dressner Selections.

    Alessandra had our attention. We learned that she would be joining the festivities surrounding Catherine & Pierre Breton’s legendary Dive Bouteille tasting held every year the Saturday before the Salon des Vins de Loire in Angers. We told Signora Bera that we would see her there.

    When everybody met, it was clear her vignerons friends had steered us in the right direction. But Joe and Denyse, completely unfamiliar with Italian wine, were concerned working with a single Italian producer would prove challenging. So it was decided we'd visit the Bera family and that Alessandra would arrange a tasting with like-minded producers that would make sense in our portfolio. It included Cascina degli Ulivi, Cascina Tavijn and La Biancara, all of whom we still work with.

    In this sense, we really have Alessandra to thank for opening up the world of Italian wines to us. It was of course something that Kevin had had on his mind since moving back from Rome in the mid 1990's, but this opportunity really kicked things off. Today, Italian wines have become a focal point for us, slowly but surely growing to over 50 producers. Alessandra and Gianluigi have also become dear friends.

    The estate dates back to 1785, when the Bera's ancestors originally purchased some of the land from the Knights of Malta. By this time, the cultivation of grapes -- and in this area particularly Moscato grapes -- was already well-established since the 13th century (and once again we are indebted to those reviled Crusaders for their faithful spreading of the word “Grape” to every corner of the known world they traveled to!) By the end of the 18th century -and continuing the 19th and 20th centuries- the fame of Moscato (read: Asti Spumante) spread worldwide -- and so did slipshod production methods. With few exceptions, the bulk standardization of this wine has been the norm ever since.

    The Bera family is different. This was the first estate to bottle and market its own wine in the Canelli region. The estate lies in Sant’Antonio di Canelli, within the region of Serra Masio, the most prestigious and ancient of the area’s Moscato production. The grapes are entirely Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains and are cultivated on steep, southeast slopes of calcerous marl (of ancient oceanic origins). All of the estate is cultivated in organic viticulture with an emphasis on creating an active, healthy ecosystem. All grapes are harvested by hand and their juice is fermented without inoculations. All the winemaking is done by Alessandra's brother, Gianluigi.

    In addition to Moscato d'Asti, the Bera family also grows the precocious white grapes Cortese, Favorita and Arneis which they blend to make a fantastic white wine called "Arcese". For reds - all vinified with no filtering, fining or added S02- Dolcetto and Barbera are cultivated using the same care in the vines.

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    In a region deeply steeped in tradition, it is exciting to discover a new winemaker who can elevate wines to new heights in quality and pleasure. Amélie Berthaut, the daughter of Denis Berthaut and Marie-Andrée Gerbet, only recently took over from her father, having first studied agro-oenology engineering in Bordeaux and spending time making wine with Agnes Henry at Domaine de la Tour du Bon in Bandol, and Dunn in California, before coming home to her family’s estate in 2013.

    Domaine Berthaut is not a new domaine; it has been in the family for seven generations and has always been well-respected. The domaine covers 16 hectares, mostly in Fixin, but also in Gevrey-Chambertin and Vosne-Romanée. Fixin has the reputation of being a rustic wine, but Amélie explained that is perhaps because the winemaking is rustic and not the terroir. Like all great winemakers, Amélie insists that the most important work happens in the vineyards and working the soil. She follows lutte raisonnée farming, with a strong leaning towards organic viticulture: no herbicides or pesticides in the vineyards. The biggest threats are oidium and mildew, but she avoids spraying at all if possible.

    In the cellar, the juice goes through a cold maceration for up to five days (up to 10ºC). Indigenous yeasts start fermentations naturally – alcoholic fermentation in concrete and malolactic in barrels or foudres. She pumps over daily and punches down the fruit three to four times after the alcoholic fermentation. Sulfur is added when the wines are initially put into tanks and then once after malolactic is finished, and once before bottling, but always kept to a minimum: total sulfur is 30-50ppm. She uses a combination of or foudres (1500-3000 liters) and barrels for aging and will age the wines for up to 24 months. Most of the wines are bottled without filtration (the Hautes Côtes and Fixin Villages are lightly filtered.)

    Berthaut has a magic touch. The wines are alive and vibrant, and offer a truly unique expression of Fixin. 

    We were introduce to the Berthaut-Gerbet wines by Wasserman and Co and you can find their full write up on the winery here.

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    Founded in Sebastopol, CA in early 2016 by two recovering sommeliers Patrick Bickford and Susan LaRossa, Bilaro Spirits’ mission is to share their love of all things vinous and bitter.

    Amaro Bilaro is the result of over 2 years of recipe testing, and is made at Spiritsmith Distilling in Sebastopol.

    Patrick and Susan macerate herbs, spices and botanicals in a base of 160 proof premium grape spirit, distilled from Sonoma County grapes All ingredients are then macerated in stainless steel tank for three weeks. Following maceration, they then  rectify to 80 proof with a solution of earl grey tea and sugar. After an initial racking, they transfer to neutral oak barrels for three months before filtering and bottling.

    The bittering agents are gentian root, rhubarb root and myrrh. Other key components are rosemary, saffron, mint, grapefruit peel and bitter orange peel.

    The Release: Batch 1 was released in July, 2016.

    Bilaro Spirits’ mission is to share their love of all things vinous and bitter.

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    Alex Krause and John Locke founded Birichino in Santa Cruz in 2008. Drawing on a combined four decades making wine in California, France, Italy, and beyond, they are focused on attaining the perfect balance of perfume and poise. Sourcing from a number of carefully farmed, family-owned, own-rooted 19th and early 20th century vineyards (and a few from the late disco era) planted by and large in more moderate, marine-influenced climates, their preoccupation is to safeguard the quality and vibrance of their raw materials. Their preference is for minimal intervention, most often favoring native fermentations, employing stainless or neutral barrels, minimal racking and fining, and avoiding filtration altogether when possible. But most critically, their aim is to make delicious wines that give pleasure, revitalize, and revive.

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    Biscaris is an 11-hectare biodynamic estate in the town of Acate, in the classico zone of Sicily’s only DOCG, Cerasuolo di Vittoria.  The winery takes its name from Acate’s not-so-distant past:  originally called Biscaris, from 1633 to 1812 it was the Principality of Biscari, whose castle appears on the wine labels.  Acate was officially called Biscari up until 1938. 

    Owner Antonia Guardabasso and her daughter-in-law, Veronica Gentoli, manage what is truly a family affair, as most of their workers are also relatives!  Biscaris’ first commercial harvest was in 2004, after meeting Nicolas Joly, who encouraged them to both produce their own wine and do it through biodynamics.  In addition to the classic biodynamic preparations 500 and 501, for soil and plant vitality, the family will use stinging nettle extract, quassia wood powder, chamomile, and valerian as natural insecticides, if needed.   To combat downy mildew and oidium, only copper and sulfur are used.

    The vineyards, with 3ha of Inzolia, 4ha of Frappato, and 4ha of Nero d’Avola, are divided between two contrade: Casazza and Santissimo, 200m and 100m above sea level, respectively. Most of the vines were planted between 2003 and 2016, trained exclusively as bush vines, alberello, with the rows planted in what is called “mare monti,” taking advantage of the breezes coming from both the Mediterranean and the Monti Iblei, each entity only about 15km from the vineyards.

    The soils are mostly the so-called terre rosse, poor red sands derived from the southern Apennines, high in active calcium carbonate, combining with the nearby sea to imbue a salty freshness to the wines of an otherwise warm and arid zone.  Harvest decisions are plant-by-plant to focus on quality.  Yields are kept low for all four wines, around 35 hl/ha.  Perhaps surprisingly these days, there is no single-vineyard, old-vine cuvée, or special cellar selection. Depending on the year, they will decide to make more or less of any of the three reds. Total production is 70,000-80,000 bottles.  

    The winemaking here is also refreshingly straightforward.   Vinification happens steps away from the Casazza vineyard, in a building that was formerly Stefano’s father’s car dealership.  No maceration on the white, yes maceration on the reds until the wine is dry.  Everything in stainless steel, bottled unfined and unfiltered, and released between the Spring and Summer the year after harvest.   The wines are healthy, honest, and typical, transporting you right to southeast Sicily, reminding you why the wines of this area are so beloved.

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    Bledsoe Family Winery is a sister project to Doubleback and a continuation of former NFL Quarterback Drew Bledsoe’s mission to explore the potential and quality of wines in Walla Walla Valley, his hometown. Since starting Doubleback, the Bledsoe family has developed new estate vineyards (McQueen, Bob Healy and Flying B) as well as established partnerships with some of the best vineyard owners in the region to create new wines under the Bledsoe Family label. With winemaker Josh McDaniels at the helm, the wines are phenomenal, and will only get better with each vintage. 

     
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