Our Champagne Team is on the trail in France! First stop is a visit to one of the OG biodynamic grower-producers, Champagne Fleury. Scott Beckerley faithfully reports the deliciousness for us.
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What’s new in Spain and Portugal? So much! Check out our latest newsletter, chock full of Iberian goodness.
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February marks the 20th anniversary of our Champagne Buyer’s tenure at K&L, and over the years he’s built a remarkable Champagne program for us. The secret sauce: relationships with wonderful producers across the Champagne region, from small, family-run estates to infamous Grande Marques. In today’s newsletter, he and his team profile some of their favorites.
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Our Buyer Alex Pross lays it all out for us in our latest Burgundy newsletter: 2017 is still whistling Dixie, 2018 is great if you go with producers you trust. All in all, some excellent wine is currently on our shelves from this beloved region.
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This spring, Champagne Buyer Gary Westby was lucky enough to be at Champagne Fallet-Dart in the little hamlet of Drachy, just as they were releasing their 2012 vintage. Our allocation of the 2012 Fallet-Dart Vintage Brut Champagne has now arrived, and he’s very excited about it.
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Terroir is a complex concept. It’s commonly translated as “a sense of place,” and most understandings of the term are largely dependant on how the vine’s physical environment affects the expression of the resulting wine. Soil type, aspect, climate and farming regime all contribute to the raw material—grapes. Then it’s over to the winemaker to preserve these distinctive markers of that particular place and encapsulate them in a bottle. Very few times in my life has this concept of a more holistic definition of terroir made more sense than on a recent trip to visit Ordaz Family Wines in Sonoma.
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Under his Alfaro Family Wines label, Alfaro primarily produces estate Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, in addition to small lots of Syrah, Merlot and even a little Grüner Veltliner. His wines are delicate, bright and terroir-expressive; a style Alfaro has developed over time. “We used to do major cold soaks and tried to extract all of these different flavors. Today we tend to go the opposite direction. I’m making better wine by being more gentle with the grapes and trying to let them work on their own,” he explained. The results are pretty astounding. It’s no wonder he has a line out the door of winemakers who want buy his grapes.
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