It’s the most wonderful time of the year! The foodie/wine-lover smorgasbord that is Thanksgiving, where the stuff we love is front and center: cooking, eating, drinking, and merriment with those dear to you. But let’s face it, it’s a lot of work. So, we’re here to help. French-Regional-&-Miscellany Buyer Extraordinaire, Keith Mabry, and I put together a Thanksgiving game plan, complete with accompanying wines, that is sure to knock your turkey day out of the park.
Read MoreAt our Champagne Tent event, I had the chance to catch up with Alexandre Le Brun. He is one of the smallest producers that we import at K&L, with a total production around 700 cases. He has a small winery in the basement of his ancestral home in Monthelon, which is surrounded by old vines that date back to 1950 and 1902. In total, he farms seven acres over 22 different plots. Although he sells a majority of his grapes to the big houses (Bollinger, Moet, Laurent Perrier, etc.), he keeps a small amount for himself, which he lovingly crafts into five stunning Champagnes.
Read MoreOur very last tasting of the year is coming up this Saturday and it’s a doozy: all Burgundy, all grand, all 2016 vintage. This was a tricky vintage that was high in quality but low in quantity. A mild winter had people initially optimistic, especially after the gangbusters 2015, but frost and mildew came in hard and heavy. The good news is that the smaller crop was one of excellent fruit, and the wines all show super singing acidity.
Read MoreToday is International Merlot Day, so it got me thinking about this varietal – in particular, how sorry I am that it has gotten such a bad rap. But in the hands of a talented winemaker, Merlot makes a beautiful wine. When grown in the right locations and given proper care, it can be a stunning, complex wine that combines both power and finesse, rivalling the finest Cabernets. Bordeaux, Napa Valley and Tuscany are probably the best-known regions in the world for producing exceptional Merlots.
Read MoreOver the past week, I previewed two of my favorite Champagne and food pairings for the holidays. The first is old vintage Champagne and foie gras. My other favorite pairing is crab cakes and extra brut blanc de blancs.
Read MoreOur 12th Champagne Tent Event is in the books, and it was truly one to remember. There were 26 producers at the event, many coming to California all the way from Champagne for our back-to-back events in LA and SF. Had we been revelers at Versailles, I don’t know if we could have enjoyed ourselves more.
Read MoreIn the last few decades, there has been an influx of new vintners to the Languedoc-Roussillon, bringing with them both quality and excitement. Nowhere is this energy more apparent than with Les Vinifilles (translated as “wine girls”), a trade organization of women formed to support one another and celebrate the “culture of wine.” They describe themselves as “beautiful, rebellious, active, food-loving, likeable, sociable and lively.” This infectious excitement and enthusiasm, for wine and for each other, is how our Buyer Keith Mabry progressively discovered the wines and brought them into K&L.
Read MoreWe’re all super excited for this weekend’s Champagne Tent Events in Hollywood and San Francisco, so we’ve been talking about bubbles all week. I had a chance to chat with Valerie McDaniel, who represents both Bollinger and Ayala, and I learned a ton about these fascinating, historic houses. Ayala and Bollinger are two of the most notable producers in the village of Aÿ, in the heart of the Valle de Marne, and since 2005 they’ve been inextricably linked under the same ownership. But their friendship goes back even further. Ayala’s tale is one of riots and war and golden times, and it’s a great foray into Champenoise history.
Read MoreLast Friday was International Champagne Day and we hosted Enguerrand Baijot, owner of Champagne Lanson, in our Redwood City store for a special tasting. Baijot poured six of his wines and shared interesting insights with our crowd of guests.
Read MoreThis past Thursday I flew out to Hollywood for a very special vertical dinner of Louis Roederer’s Cristal. K&L’s own Sharon Kelly organized the event, and 25 happy customers joined us. Dirk Smits from Champagne Louis Roederer lead us through the wines, which were paired expertly by Chef Walter Manzke and his staff at République.
Read MoreWe’re still tasting our way through the bounty of Southern Rhône from the heralded 2016 vintage, and boy are the wines good. In Jeb Dunnuck’s words: “The 2016 vintage was truly extraordinary for the Southern Rhône and is a vintage that readers should buy with abandon. This is the greatest young vintage from the Southern Rhône Valley I’ve ever tasted, both in terms of quality as well as consistency… In fact, it’s difficult to find a truly bad wine in 2016.” From what I can tell so far, I can’t argue with him. And thanks to our Direct Import program, there are some great values on our shelves to boot.
Read MoreGary Westby, our Champagne Buyer, invited me to join them for their annual Champagne Summit, a daylong tasting that happens every fall. Each year, in order to get ready for the busy holiday season, the buyers invite some of the biggest houses in France to pour their Champagnes.
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