Pair Your Bird with the Best Brandy from France

The world might still be griping about inflation, but here at K&L we’re actively lowering prices like never before. You need to pay attention to our new product feed for most of the craziest deals, although certain special products have been held back from marketing due to my desire to have interesting, affordable products for the holiday season. No telling how long they’ll last, but right now we’ve got an incredible array of fall flavors from some of France’s finest brandy producers. Take a look at this incredible array of special products that we were perfectly happy to sell at full price, but MUCH happier to sell at ridiculous discounts.

Thanksgiving, Italian Style

Italian may not be the traditional route for a Thanksgiving feast, but the food friendliness of these wines will make them an absolute knockout at your table. Whether you're looking for a crisp white, a luxurious red, or something bolder, look no further than K&L’s Italian aisle.

A Thanksgiving Feast So Nice He Does It Twice

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year. I like it so much that it is worth doing twice—the first time to “test out my recommendations for the year”… or at least that is my excuse to get a preview of the main event. Everything about Thanksgiving is perfect for me: I love the sentiment of gratefulness; the opportunity to gather friends and family; the traditional spread of roast turkey, gravy, stuffing, and mashed potatoes; and double fisting with rosé Champagne and Burgundy at the table. This weekend we did just that, and I am happy to report that I have two great Champagnes and one great bottle of Burgundy that have been thoroughly tested and vetted chez Westby by me and my wife Cinnamon!

A Tale of Three Thanksgivings... And Their Wines

I love to cook so I was also an early adopter of Friendsgiving. For many years, I have been hosting them at my home (or at friends’ homes) where I prepare a meal. I usually plan a themed meal around my Friendsgiving since I already get to do all the traditional stuff on regular Thanksgiving. I always deconstruct turkeys for my Friendsgivings and make a variety of dishes using various turkey parts. I always make a turkey Bolognese and have made other things like tom kha gai turkey soup or a turkey paitan ramen (that’s like Tonkotsu ramen but with a creamy turkey broth). I even served turkey stuffing gyoza as an appetizer for the ramen dinner! Last year, I did a brunch themed Friendsgiving which I now call Brunch-giving—maybe it will stick.

It's Time to Talk Turkey... Wines!

This week, we’re officially kicking off our Thanksgiving planning. Halloween is in the rearview mirror; Hannukah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa are just far enough away that we don’t have to wrap our brains around gifting quite yet… No elves on the shelves, but our rally bird is out in Redwood City—it’s the perfect time to talk turkey! Planning Thanksgiving is no small task: there are so many dishes in a traditional spread that it takes some coordination to get the ingredients, the shopping trips, and the oven timing organized. Likewise, the multitude of flavors and textures at play on the table means it does take a bit of strategy to get the perfect wines to make everything harmonize just right. Luckily, that’s the part of Thanksgiving prep that K&L staffers love most, and we’re here to help you knock Thanksgiving 2024 outta the park!

Burgundy Buying Guide: Direct Import Values and Remarkable Finds

The Burgundies are landing fast and furiously at K&L, offering a bevy of amazing values from the fantastic 2022 vintage! With pricing finally stabilized and a good-sized crop contributing to robust supply, now is the perfect time to stock up on these bargains. We’ve just received several containers from many of our most popular direct import producers, including Domaine Jean Michel Giboulot, Domaine de la Charrière, Domaine Renaud, Château de la Maltroye, Domaine Bart, and Domaine Pernot-Belicard.

Finding the Values in the Mâconnais with Domaine Renaud

I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: the Mâconnais is where the preponderance of white wine values in Burgundy resides. Luckily we are flush with many great producers in Mâconnais, and one of our greatest is Domaine Renaud. The family team of Mirielle (mother) and Pascal (father) along with their children Guillaume (son) and Amandine (daughter) makes incredible value-oriented whites that fit any budget—especially when we’re talking about the under $20 space. The Renaud family draws from their impressive vineyard holdings that run from humble Mâcon-Village all the way up to 1er Cru Pouilly-Fuissé.

Savigny Is Where It Is At with the 2022 Vintage Domaine Jean-Michel Giboulot

We have been working with Domaine Jean-Michel Giboulot for a long time, and the most exciting and rewarding part of this relationship is seeing the wines get better-and-better each vintage. This set of wines from Giboulot’s 2022 vintage is excellent. The wines definitely shine a light on the emerging quality and diversity of vineyards in Savigny-lès-Beaune. His wines come from an impressive list of vineyard holdings, and we currently carry four fantastic 2022 1er Cru Savigny-lès-Beaunes that and Burgundy lover will not want to miss.

Santenay's Château de la Charrière Overperforms Year After Year

There may not be a better producer we import from Burgundy when it comes to quality-to-price-ratio than Château de la Charrière. Great vintage, good vintage, bad vintage—it doesn’t matter. These guys just continue to churn out great value after great value from the humble Santenay appellation. Benoît Girardin took over the winemaking reins at his family property over 10 years ago and hasn’t looked back. He’s skillfully crafting excellent values that deftly combine a classic Burgundian rusticity with modern winemaking techniques. The wines always have beautifully defined fruit characteristics while simultaneously being unmistakably Burgundian.

Burgundy’s 2022 Vintage: Hitting on All Cylinders

The Burgundies are landing fast and furiously at K&L with a bevy of amazing values from the fantastic 2022 vintage! With pricing finally stabilized and a good-sized crop contributing to robust supply, now is the time to load up on the bargains in stock. We just had several containers land with many of our most popular direct import producers like Domaine Jean Michel Giboulot, Domaine de la Charrière, Domaine Renaud, Château de la Maltroye, Domaine Bart, and Domaine Pernot-Belicard. What separates 2022 from the last few vintages is the consistency in the quality of both the whites and reds—these wines are EXCELLENT! They are beautiful and fruit-forward with excellent balance, great acidity, and fine tannins. These wines will be enjoyable in their youth as well as worthy of your cellar.

Bordeaux Buying Guide: A Fond Farewell and Best-in-Class Selections

Generations of wine lovers, K&L employees, and folks all around Bordeaux are better for having Clyde in their lives. Having this kind of impact on the world around us is rare—something we all aspire to, but few can accomplish. As we bid farewell to Clyde, we celebrate not just his achievements but the lasting legacy of friendship and passion he leaves behind. Read more from Clyde here, and join us in raising a glass to one of the legends of Bordeaux.

A Tribute to Clyde Beffa

I can safely assume that I speak for everyone at K&L when I say that there’s no proper tribute to encapsulate the magnitude of Clyde’s impact on K&L. Notwithstanding the fact that there would be no K&L without Clyde, there’d also be a much different company. The warmth and friendship that Clyde has brought echoes throughout. He practices what he preaches: we get to sell really cool, rare, aged, allocated, and special wines—but, thanks to Clyde, we’ve gotten to taste those too. Never has there been an event where Clyde is present without some exciting bottle he’d dug up from the cellar. He’s showed us the joy of collecting wine: it’s saving a bottle for the perfect moment, and then sharing it with people who will enjoy it too. In doing so, he brought us together, off of the sales floor and around a table over good food, good drink, good company. That is Clyde’s presence in a nutshell.

K&L Wine Merchants

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