A surprising number of Loire Valley cabernet franc aficionados are somehow unfamiliar with the mencía grape. Thriving in the far northwest of Spain, mencía produces bright, herbaceous wines with fairly moderate tannins and acidity. The combination of succulent red fruit, savory, earthy notes, and a streak of minerality would absolutely delight any cab franc lover.

Thanks to a relatively cool, ocean-influenced climate and the artistry of modern winemakers, today’s mencía wines offer complexity and finesse (with alcohol levels often at 13 percent or lower) while remaining robust enough to accompany heartier fare. At Paul Marcus Wines, we are fortunate to be able to feature a number of impressive examples of this food-friendly variety.

2016 A Portela Mencía – Valdeorras

The grapes for A Portela, made by Alberto Orte, come from a single hilltop vineyard in Galicia’s Valdeorras appellation. The plot’s granite soils help create a lighter-style, perfumed mencía with ample acidity, and the extra time in the bottle seems to have highlighted the grape’s greener, more vegetal tones–perfect for croquetas de jamón and other early-meal nibbles.

The vineyard of Fazenda Agrícola Prádio in Ribeira Sacra

2021 Prádio Mencía – Ribeira Sacra

A classic, textbook style of mencía from Ribeira Sacra in Galicia, this offering from winemaker Xabi Soeanes boasts fruit that is a tad darker and riper, balanced by a subtle range of floral and smoky flavors.

2020 César Márquez Bierzo – Pico Ferreira

César Márquez of Bierzo

Moving farther inland, we find the Bierzo DO in Castilla y León, just over Galicia’s eastern border. With the ocean influence diminished, the wines from Bierzo tend to be a little bigger and bolder, and while the ‘Pico Ferreira’ does exhibit a bit more density than the others, the high-elevation, rocky slate soils and Márquez’s touch in the cellar still lead to a graceful, focused result. This cuvée is 85 percent mencía from 100-year-old vines, rounded out by 10 percent alicante bouschet and other indigenous white and red grapes. Márquez studied under his uncle Raúl Pérez, a mencía legend, and has learned his lessons quite well.

2021 Envínate Ribeira Sacra – Lousas

The Envínate gang makes wines from vineyards throughout Spain, including the Canary Islands, and they are at the forefront of modern Spanish winemaking. Their mencía-based bottlings come from Ribeira Sacra and are among the finest examples of mencía available. The 2021 Lousas, like the above wine, is a high-altitude field blend with about 85 percent mencía as its foundation. The grapes, fermented mostly whole cluster, come from several different plots within Ribeira Sacra, and the juice is aged for about a year in a combination of concrete and used French oak. This wine is a knockout, top to bottom, and its modest alcohol (12.5 percent) allows it to pair well with a range of spicy red and white meats.

For a real treat, check out Envínate’s site-specific Doad–a savory, spicy, stylish gem that will make cab franc heads feel like they’ve been transported straight to Chinon!

Any thoughtful conversation about why a particular wine tastes the way it does is going to get down and dirty–that is, delve into the soil types in the vineyard. The physical and chemical mechanisms by which different soil types (limestone, granite, schist, various volcanic rocks, etc.) influence wine flavor aren’t yet well established, but there are recognizable aromas and flavors that we can associate with these types. Here are four examples of different soil types and the nebbiolo wines they produce.

The granite-based vineyards of Caves de Donnas

Granite: 2018 Caves de Donnas Vallée d’Aoste Classico

The vines here in the far northwest of Italy grow on crazy-steep terraces of almost pure granite. Granite, along with the relatively high latitude and altitude of the vineyards around the town of Donnas, give acidity, minerality, and a brighter (even “crunchy”) quality to the fruit. Think less-ripe red fruit rather than dark cherries, with an alpine twang. Nebbiolo’s famous floral notes are a little more evident, and its darker, tarry qualities are less prominent. (For a simpler, more budget-friendly example from the region, try the 2020 Caves de Donnas Vallée d’Aoste – Barmet.)

Volcanic sand: 2016 Colombera & Garella Bramaterra – Cascina Cottignano

The volcanic sand of Bramaterra (left); marine sand of Lessona (center)

Volcanic soils are a feature of much of the Alto Piemonte (but not all– compare the next wine). The Cascina Cottignano vineyard’s soil is iron-rich and therefore rusty-red decomposed volcanic sand. The volcanic part gives a darker quality to the minerality compared to granite, and the iron content adds a ferrous and even sanguine note to the fruit. Volcanic soils tend to be high in acidity, resulting in wines whose structure comes more from acidity than from tannin, certainly when compared with Barbaresco and Barolo.

Marine sand: 2018 Colombera & Garella Lessona – Pizzaguerra

The Pizzaguerra vineyard is just a mile from Cascina Cottignano, and yet the soils in the former are not volcanic at all, but rather sand from an ancient seabed. Marine sand (which is what we usually mean when we say “sandy soils”) gives elegance, perfume, and delicacy–less power, more prettiness.

Calcareous marl (limestone/clay): 2018 Produttori del Barbaresco Barbaresco

A combination of limestone and clay, sometimes with some sand in the mix, is the classic soil type found in both Barbaresco and Barolo in the Langhe. Like granite, limestone gives minerality, acidity, and freshness, but it also provides tannin and age-worthiness. Clay gives richer fruit, weight, and fullness. This combination of tannin and body makes for nebbiolos that are more powerful and imposing, compared with the other three terroirs described here.

In some circles, the idea of California “vintage charts” elicits chuckles and smirks. Even within the various appellations and sub-regions, the multitude of microclimates makes any kind of generalization tricky. In any event, please allow me to generalize: The 2021 pinot noir vintage in California seems to have been a uniform success up and down the Golden State.

Yes, it was a very dry year, without question, and drought conditions mean low yields and small berries. But it was also a warm (but not insanely hot), steady, consistent season, and pinot noir seems to have thrived in this setting. The resulting wines show balance, nuance, and complexity, with fruit that is restrained, but not austere.

Below are three noteworthy examples of 2021 California pinot from three distinct growing regions.

2021 Occidental – Freestone-Occidental (Sonoma Coast)

A relatively new endeavor from pinot pioneer Steve Kistler, Occidental focuses on cool, coastal, late-ripening vineyards on the far western edge of Sonoma County. It delivers bright, silky red fruit along with a wide array of spice and mineral notes–laser-focused but still generous in its own way. It might seem like an odd juxtaposition to say that a wine is “loaded with finesse,” but in this case it just feels right–a graceful gymnast with a lithe frame but a powerful core. Delightful in its youth, the Occidental will certainly benefit from a few years of cellaring.

2021 Drew – The Fog-Eater (Anderson Valley)

Medium-bodied and boasting a deeper, darker profile with savory and herbaceous elements, Drew’s Fog-Eater has a bit more prominent, upfront fruit than the other two selections on this list. As the cuvee name implies, Jason and Molly Drew draw the fruit from the colder, cloud-shrouded, wind-swept areas of northwest Anderson Valley. These days, however, there is enough daytime heat to allow the grapes to fully express themselves, and the upshot is a lovely, approachable pinot with great versatility at the dinner table.

Cole Thomas, Madson’s founder and winemaker

2021 Madson – Santa Cruz Mountains

Certainly a house favorite, Madson’s entry-level pinot offers red-fruit flavors that are subdued and elegant, allowing its floral and earthy components to shine through. At 12.6 percent alcohol, it’s a wine of subtlety and moderation, exemplifying the refinement one expects from the chilly, forested hillsides above Monterey Bay. Fermented whole-cluster and aged on the lees for nine months in old oak barrels, this is an unfined and unfiltered gem that consistently over-delivers on its relatively modest price.

These are just a few of the delights from the 2021 California harvest. To learn more about these wines and other beauties, come visit us at Paul Marcus Wines.

If you’ve ever found yourself answering the question, “Well, what d’ya want?” with “Anything but chardonnay,” we’d like a word with you. First of all, come on: The West Coast is having a chardonnay renaissance. From Southern California’s Santa Rita Hills to Oregon’s Willamette Valley, there are a multitude of styles, with as many fresh and chiseled examples as there are oaked and rich. In California, growers keep pushing the vineyards into cooler, windier places that limit quick ripening, while the Oregon versions have their own unique characteristics. They’re worth revisiting. Really.

Yet, if you’re set on trying something different, you should try fiano. The fiano grape (fee-ah-no) is native to southern Italy, with Campania being the epicenter. The story goes like this: Romans named it Apianum, “loved by bees,” and bees aren’t dumb. Fiano tends towards small berries and intense but not plentiful juice. The smaller quantity means that quality needs to be high to justify the labor.

In southern Italy, the summers are just as warm as they are here, and there’s no issue getting grapes to ripen (as there often is at higher latitudes or elevations). The challenge is maintaining the natural acidity of the grapes in the resulting wine. Some grapes fare better than others in this respect. Chardonnay, for example, thrives in cool pockets, but it doesn’t hold its acidity if the days and nights are too warm. You can add acid during winemaking, but that’s a poor substitute for perfect fruit. (Imagine an overripe strawberry sprinkled with citric acid–it’s still overripe.)

Fiano, native to a warmer climate, holds its acidity well. As California winemakers come to terms with a warming climate (2023 being an exception so far), they’re naturally drawn to grapes with a history of making quality wine from warm locales. Because of fiano’s low yields, it’s not the grape that will make growers rich, but climate change helps tip the scale.

At Paul Marcus Wines, we of course feature a world-class selection of Fiano di Avellino (fiano from its Italian home turf), but we also offer a handful of fiano expressions from California’s Dry Creek and Russian River valleys. Unti was ahead of the trend in planting Italian varietals in California (or replanting, but that’s another story), and their success must have encouraged the others. Unti’s fiano (as well as their vermentino, for that matter) shows the brightness and intensity of carefully farmed grapes. Unfortunately, the grape’s reputation for low productivity is true even in California, and they make tiny quantities. Gros Ventre is making fiano from a younger vineyard a couple hillsides closer to the coast, which dials it back a notch and shows a classy refinement. Cruess is working a 1.5-acre vineyard and somehow producing affordable wine.

These California plantings of fiano aren’t on the volcanic soils that dominate Campania, so the wines lack that suggestion of burnt rock. In addition, these California examples of fiano haven’t been given the heavy winemaking hand that many chardonnays have; no one is using new oak barrels to flavor the wine. In truth, these producers are still trying to tease out what California fiano tastes like.

Naturally, it’s worth trying both types of fiano (Italian and Californian)  to experience what’s gained and lost by the different soil types. For a survey of Campania’s finest, you can turn to sleeker examples by I Favati and Guido Marsella or richer styles like Ciro Picariello. We also have higher-end versions such as the Quintodecimo and the I Favati Riserva that are suitable for longer aging.

When pairing with food, fiano can handle dishes with a bit more acid than chardonnay is comfy with, so go ahead and squeeze that lemon or add a splash more vinegar. Any of the rotisserie chickens at Market Hall Foods or a variety of glazed fish dishes would also be excellent matches.

All together, we’ve got enough fiano in the house to keep you busy exploring for weeks. Come on by, and we’ll help get you started on your fiano journey.

Let’s face it: Words like “charm” and “finesse” are not often used to describe aglianico wines. The thick-skinned aglianico grape, which thrives in the warmer climes of Southern Italy, produces wines known for their concentrated dark fruit, robust tannins, and earthy richness. These bottles usually need several years (decades?) to open up, and even then, they can still be knotty, powerful beasts that favor intensity over balance.

However, if you dig a little deeper, you can find aglianico wines that temper that inherent muscle with complex, appealing elements of tobacco, spice, and underbrush. Factor in the grape’s naturally high acidity and the mineral notes imparted from the region’s volcanic soil, and it’s easy to see how–at its best–aglianico can reach heights that few other grapes can achieve.

The slopes of Monte Vulture, an extinct volcano in Basilicata

The two most significant appellations for aglianico are Taurasi, which is about an hour or so east of Naples in the hills of Campania, and Aglianico del Vulture, with its vineyards on the slopes of Monte Vulture in mountainous Basilicata. Generally speaking, Taurasi wines tend to be a bit more vigorous and Vulture wines a tad more restrained–sort of like the Barolo vs. Barbaresco distinction for Piemontese nebbiolo–although there are always exceptions.

At Paul Marcus Wines, we’re fortunate to have a few prime examples of aglianico that find an attractive balance between power and elegance. Let’s start with the 2015 San Martino Aglianico del Vulture Superiore ‘Kamai’–about as graceful and light on its feet as aglianico gets. Made from 60-to-70-year-old vines from a single plot at an altitude of nearly 2,000 feet, this wine undergoes a two-month maceration and ages in wood for about a year before resting in bottle for at least three years. Boasting gorgeous vibrant fruit and loads of acidity, the San Martino feels almost Burgundian in style. (Unfortunately, we only have a few bottles left of this dazzling gem.)

Also from the Basilicata side, we have the 2019 Fucci Aglianico del Vulture ‘Titolo.’ Elena Fucci produces just this one cuvee from her vineyard more than 2,000 feet up in the Titolo lava channel, with most of the vines planted in the 1950s. After a manual harvest, the juice undergoes malolactic fermentation in 100 percent new French oak barrels. Herbaceous and savory, with notes of black tea and exotic spice, this wine will certainly benefit from a few more years of cellaring, but it’s already highly enjoyable (after a bit of decanting) with, say, a hearty bowl of pasta with pancetta, shallots, and sage leaves.

Finally, we have a couple of superb bottlings from Taurasi’s Michele Perillo, coming from some of the highest-elevation vines in the area. The 2010 Perillo Taurasi offers tannic brawn and deep, dark fruit with a freshness and vivacity that you get from the high-altitude vines. Better still is the 2009 Perillo Taurasi Riserva, which is made from Perillo’s best lots of fruit. This wine is softer, rounder, smoother, and more voluptuous than its counterpart, yet still delivers incredible energy and liveliness. These two jewels sell for about half the price of a Barolo of similar quality, and they will sing beautifully with all manner of roasted or braised red meats.

Though nebbiolo and sangiovese rule the roost of Italian red wine, these fine offerings prove that, in the hands of talented winemakers, aglianico can certainly hang with the big boys.

“Where are your pinot grigios?” It’s a common question we get at the shop, and understandably so. After all, pinot grigio has become the world’s most popular white-wine varietal, and there are certainly many to admire–in the crisp, clean, straightforward style of Elena Walch and in the traditional, skin-fermented “ramato” style preferred by Elisabetta Foradori and others.

 

While we are quite happy to carry these two excellent examples of pinot grigio, we always feel a pang of hopefulness that the customer might discover the wonderful, wide world of Italian white wines beyond pinot grigio. From the Alps in the north to Sicily at the tip of the boot, Italy produces some of the world’s most exciting and distinctive white wines.

Here are a handful of affordable, versatile, and delicious Italian whites worth discovering:

2020 ColleStefano Verdicchio di Matelica

This is one of the best-selling wines in the shop, because just about everyone who tastes it comes back for more. From organic, high-elevation, cool-climate vineyards in Le Marche on the Adriatic coast, these are focused, vibrant wines, with nice minerality and refreshing, lively acidity.

2020 Aia dei Colombi Falanghina del Sannio

What a great value this wine is! Thanks to its clean, citrusy fruit, a saline mineral note, and a pretty, lifted finish, I will put this Campania falanghina up against any similarly priced ($16) pinot grigio on the market.

2020 Centopassi Giato Bianco

These organic grapes are grown on land reclaimed from the Mafia near the area of Corleone. (The estate name is derived from the 2000 film I Cento Passi, or One Hundred Steps.) The Giato Bianco is 60 percent grillo and 40 percent catarratto, and it offers generous fruit with enough zip in the finish to balance it. What I love about this wine (along with the under-$20 price tag) is that you can sense both the warm days and cool nights of these Sicilian vineyards (1,800 feet above sea level).

2018 Vigneti Massa Timorasso ‘Derthona’

Amazingly, timorasso, now being recognized as one of the potentially greatest white grapes in Italy, was nearly extinct before Walter Massa made a point of saving it and producing superlative examples. Timorasso, in the hands of a master like Massa, has an attractive, slightly oily texture, but with ample acidity–rich but firm. These wines make for surprisingly successful food pairings. Try it with Asian fare.

2018 Guido Marsella Fiano di Avellino

Many Italian wine aficionados believe Fiano di Avellino to be Italy’s supreme white wine, and I would have to agree. We always offer an extensive range of them, so they are pretty accessible for discovery. I love the Marsella for its gorgeous texture, its expressive notes of volcanic terroir, and a snappy finish that holds together all of the exotic, intense flavors.

At Paul Marcus Wines, we’ve always been staunch proponents of Italian whites. Stop by the shop to discover the world beyond pinot grigio.

There’s this phrase that always bugs me, and I find it all over wine bottles and web pages: “Winemaker XYZ believes that wine should be made in the vineyard…” Really? Then why’d you spend all that dough on the winery? So why pay attention to the “winemaker” when we could talk to the vineyard manager? Are they really denigrating their own profession?

No, they don’t mean that. They mean it’s preferable to have grape juice that’s already got all its elements in balance than it is to have grape juice that needs some “adjusting” in the winery–that having to “correct” your numbers in the laboratory isn’t the optimal approach to making great wine. When they write, “Great wine is made in the vineyard,” they’re saying the vineyard produces grapes so perfect that no fancy laboratory winemaking trickery is necessary.

Then you wonder: Surely, that is so uncontroversial it hardly needs mentioning, but it must warrant mentioning if so many do. And perhaps it is because the vast majority of wine made in the world is made the opposite way. With non-artisan wine, the grapes are just raw material that will be broken apart and adjusted as desired. If farming costs can be lowered, great; any shortcomings in the grapes can be corrected later. (The horror…) Industrial production may be necessary, but we should be very thankful that we have, and have access to, handmade wines from all over the world, including right nearby.

At PMW, we get to taste a lot of extremely fine syrah. We have many examples from the great sites of the Northern Rhone valley, the ancient terraced granitic slopes that produce Côte-Rôtie, Cornas, Saint-Joseph, and more. Against this standard, it’s a challenge for a Californian wine to stand out and make a claim for itself–in terms of excellence and value.

Right now, we have two local expressions of syrah that I’d like to highlight, wines that hold their own against any made elsewhere. They are beautifully ripe, “pop” with black fruit and earth aromatics, and coat the palate and linger. And both come in at less than 13 percent alcohol, which means they were farmed with intention and a sure hand. Neither relies on hidden sugar, or oak, or any “additions.” There’s no winemaking trick here, just really good fruit.

Jolie-Laide has established itself as one of California’s premier (tiny) wineries. Their wines are made in small quantities, and the demand for them is strong, so we don’t get much to sell. Their 2018 Halcón Vineyard syrah, from 2600 feet up in the Yorkville Highlands AVA in Mendocino, is a beauty. At 12.5 percent alcohol, it offers texture, flavor, and weight that would delight even a crusty Frenchman.

Jolie-Laide being excellent isn’t shocking; they’ve now got a 10-year track record. Newcomer Darling Wines, however, is a surprise. The 2019 Flocchini syrah, made in the southern portion of the Petaluma Gap AVA, not far from San Pablo Bay and in the path of constant winds, is a baffling wine. It’s one thing to get perfumed voluptuous fruit (that’s easy in this state); it’s another to have your wine come in at 11.9 percent alcohol, with all the virtues that brings. (That lightness encourages another glass.) It’s really a treat to get both in the same wine.

These two wines prove California can grow great grapes (syrah included) and put them in the hands of thoughtful winemakers.

In terms of stylistic variety, aging potential, and the ability to reflect terroir, nothing can touch riesling. The riesling grape does best in marginal climates, needing a cool, long growing season in order to achieve phenolic ripeness. Put another way, the best wines made from riesling, like the most interesting people, are usually a product of struggle.

Hillside vineyards in a small German town

Making riesling in its country of origin (Germany) can be a bit of a quixotic endeavor–you are at the northern limit of where grapes can even achieve ripeness. You are farming slate slopes that are so steep that everything has to be done painstakingly by hand. Add factors like climate change, and it’s a wonder that any wine can be made at all. In fact, 2019 marked the first German vintage that was too warm to produce eiswein, a style of dessert wine that relies on the grapes freezing on the vine.

One of the most remarkable things about riesling is the diverse array of styles that it can produce. German rieslings, especially those from the Mosel, tend to have a delicate, filigreed character to them. Typically off-dry and low in alcohol, these wines achieve an ethereal balance between sweetness and acid.

If a Mosel riesling is a ballet dancer, Austrian rieslings are rock climbers–muscular, but lean and chiseled. They are dry and mineral, and while typically fuller-bodied than their German counterparts, still offer a degree of precision that many wines lack. Alsatian rieslings are typically dry, but full-bodied and rich with extract. For Australian rieslings, think bitter pith and zest instead of fleshy fruit, along with, typically, a preponderance of petrol.

Below are a few rieslings worth exploring:

2014 Joh. Jos. Prüm Graacher Himmelreich Spätlese

Featuring steep, southwest-facing Devonian slate soils, the Graacher Himmelreich site in the Mosel is known for the distinctive smoky aroma it imparts.

2013 Dönnhoff Nahe Spätlese Oberhäuser Brücke

Nahe’s smallest single vineyard (1.1 ha) is a monopole located near the Nahe River, which mitigates the temperature and leads to the longest ripening of any of the Dönnhoff wines. Grey slate bedrock with loam and volcanic elements lend a persistent minerality to the wine.

2017 Tessier Winery – Zabala Vineyard

Stylistically in line with Australian riesling, this wine, from the Arroyo Seco AVA in Monterey County, shows lime zest and pith as well as a stony minerality on the palate.

Please stop by Paul Marcus Wines to learn more about this wonderfully expressive grape.

– Layla Khabiri

Jacky Granges of Domaine de Beudon
Jacky Granges of Domaine de Beudon

Jacky Granges of Domaine de Beudon

Just last week we brought in two deliciously obscure wines from a tiny Swiss producer in Valais, which the importer alleges is accessible only by a dangerous-looking alpine gondola. Unfortunately, as I reached out for more information about these wines, I was alarmed to hear that Jacky Granges, the grower and winemaker who took over in 1971 and developed the vineyards to be fully biodynamic by 1992, had passed away in the short time between tasting his wines and their arrival at the shop.
Tragedy, however, makes them no less interesting or delicious. Instead, perhaps we can look on the brighter side and consider the liveliness of his wines as an opportunity to experience a small sliver of existence upon the mountaintop parcels of Domaine de Beudon, rife with medicinal herbs, livestock, and onsite hydroelectric power to create an oasis of grape-friendly agriculture.

Domaine de Beudon

Domaine de Beudon

The Wines

The notable absence of wooden barrels at Domaine de Beudon belied a depth of flavor and fine tannin that I usually associate with cold-climate, thin-skinned grapes like Pinot Noir and Gamay which comprise the majority of 2007 Vielles Vignes “Constellation” Valias Rouge. In addition, a small amount of Diolinor (an indigenous variety) is blended with the wine to give the bright bing-cherry flavors a bit more density. With the bottle age, indigenous yeast vinification, and cool, slow fermentation of grapes grown on granitic soil, a tough, rusty-ness holds the wine to the earth while the complex aromas slowly rise from the glass.

Similarly, the 2009 “Schiller” Valais Rose, which substitutes indigenous Fendant for the Diolinoir of the rouge, opens with a rich iron-like aroma, and continues through the palate with excellent acidity and fresh Rainier-cherry fruit intensity. Where the rouge is centered and earth-bound, the rose feels like a creaking swing set with enough lift and gravity to consider a full loop around.

Up and down with a tension born of high-altitude natural farming, the wines of Domaine de Beudon are excellent, but limited. We are fortunate to have these examples of artisan winemaking in our shop, and oh how far to slake this sacred thirst.

Edmunds St. John - Bone Jolly Rose
Edmunds St. John - Bone Jolly Rose

Edmunds St. John – Bone Jolly Rose

Edmunds St. John Bone-Jolly Rosé

Featured in The New York Times

Congrats to local winemaker, Steve Edmunds for his recent accolades in the NYT article “20 Wines for Under $20: Spring Edition”.  We are big fans of this excellent Gamay Rosé currently on our shelf for $23.00

“The wine stores tell us it’s rosé season (though in my opinion, it’s never not rosé season). Here is an old favorite, which year after year offers the vivacity characteristic of a good young rosé. It’s made entirely of Gamay Noir, the grape of Beaujolais (hence the somewhat awkward name Bone-Jolly), and it’s exactly what you want on those first few days out on the deck, the balcony or wherever you can grab space in the open air.” – NYT