At Paul Marcus Wines, it’s not uncommon to find customers looking longingly at our shelf of magnums. “If only I had a special occasion or a large party,” they say, to no one in particular. Well, the holiday season is the perfect opportunity to indulge your fantasies and crack open that big bottle.
We can go on about how magnums mature more gracefully than regular-sized bottles, how they can offer more harmony and complexity–especially when it comes to Champagne. But in the end, nothing shouts “party” like a large-format bottle of wine.
PMW stocks a wide range of magnums from which to choose. As an additional incentive, all of our large-format bottles are 15 percent off from now until the end of the year. Here are some of our favorite large-format selections to get you started.
Bright Stripes
Great Champagne should give you weight and richness on the palate but do so with a spine of acid. The NV André Clouet – Brut Rosé No. 3 is always 100 percent pinot noir, typically with 6g/l dosage, which gives you the richness, but the fruit is grown on mostly chalky soils that give the wine a bright stripe of taught acid that propels the fruit down the palate. While the soils lend the wine some structure, the fermentation and aging in stainless steel keep it bright.
I have served this wine many, many times over the years and almost always serve it with the entrée, often pork. However, in a pinch, it sings with an omelet. This is the holiday magnum that goes with everything, and everyone needs a few magnums of great Champagne around for the holidays. Enjoy!
— Chad Arnold
A Rare and Special Treat
A special meal justifies a special bottle. The 2020 Chambeyron-Manin Côte Rôtie is an irresistibly perfumed and textured syrah that delivers immense “wow” while staying mystifyingly lifted on the palate and reasonable in its alcohol level. The seeming contradiction of ripe purple and black fruit with such freshness and lack of weight makes each sip a happy cognitive dissonance.
The Manin family farm one little acre of a very steep slope in a prized location; the farming and harvesting of grapes are all done by hand (as no tractors can navigate such a slope), and the wine is made in their home just steps from the vineyard. It’s a rare and special treat that would honor any table.
— David Gibson
Racy and Stony
Odinstal is the leading biodynamic producer in Germany’s Pfalz region. The MMXVIII Odinstal Sekt Brut Nature Riesling is disgorged by hand and bottled unfiltered and without any additions, including no dosage. The result: bone-dry, natural, Champagne-quality artisanal bubbles with riesling raciness and stoniness, at less than $100 for a magnum!
— Mark Middlebrook
Palate Dance
As you probably already know, we sell a lot of nebbiolo from the Langhe region in Italy’s Piedmont. My favorite right now is the 2022 Trediberri Langhe Nebbiolo. This slightly lighter wine is absolutely delightful, with clean, upbeat flavors that dance on your palate. It’s both refreshing and compelling.
— Paul Marcus
Lively and Lovely
Not to be confused with muscat (it is not sweet and not aromatic), Muscadet is made from the Melon de Bourgogne grape and comes from the Loire Valley near the Atlantic coast city of Nantes. The Pepiere Clisson is one of the greatest wines of the appellation. It exhibits the classic saline, tart-apple flavors and lively acidity that make Muscadet the perfect oyster wine. But the Clisson has a more viscous, richer texture that will make it work with a wide variety of foods. You can use as you would a Chablis or other unoaked white Burgundy.
Muscadet is one of the great wine values in the world. Even a top cuvée like this Clisson–we have both the 2019 and 2020 vintages–comes in at the very reasonable price of $67 for a magnum (1.5L) and $192 for a jeroboam (3L).
— Joel Mullennix
Earth and Spice and Everything Nice
Mencía makes me happy, especially when it’s Envinate’s village (Aldea) wine. Hailing from a variety of plots with different exposures, elevations, and soils, the 2021 Envinate Ribeira Sacra – Lousas Vinas de Aldea is made from about 90 percent mencía, with the remaining 10 percent composed of other indigenous varieties. Whole cluster, light maceration, and a mixed bag of vessels for élevage create a wine with lovely nuance of earth, spice, and fruit. Yum.
— Jason Seely
Apart from the Rest
We are tasting more and more ethereal and light nebbiolo in the shop these days as producers are prioritizing early accessibility for what is typically a highly tannic, needs-serious-meal-planning wine. No producer nails easy-drinking Barolo like Fernandino Principiano. His incorporation of whole-cluster fermentation and choice not to green harvest (remove leaves and unripe grape bunches) is pretty unheard of in the region, which sets him and his wine apart from the rest. His lower-alcohol, lighter-tannin approach means that this 2018 Ferdinando Principiano Barolo di Serralunga d’Alba can sit on the table with a wider range of foods–from anchovy and butter crostini to turkey to steak.
— Emilia Aiello
Luis Anxo Rodríguez Vázquez
Going Deep
Luis Anxo Rodríguez Vázquez has been producing wines in Spain’s Ribeiro region for more than 30 years, but over the last decade or so, he’s started to find the international acclaim he so richly deserves. His 2020 A Torna Dos Pasás Tinto is a seductive blend of brancellao, caiño and ferrol. It’s stylish and refined, bright and expressive, its red-berry lift buttressed by beguiling spice and mineral notes. And yet there is a smoky, brooding side that imbues the wine with great depth–serious and playful all at once, and quite versatile at the holiday table.
— Marc Greilsamer
Bottle Rocket: 2019 Piemaggio Chianti Classico – Le Fioraie
ChiantiThe Piemaggio estate is located in the hamlet of Le Fioraie (the flower sellers) on the northwest slopes of Castellina in Chianti. According to legend, three young flower sellers revived a traveling friar in the 10th century with a glass of wine. He never forgot their efforts and later returned to build a church and plant vines.
Surrounded by forest on all sides, the 12 hectares of sangiovese (and small amounts of colorino, canaiolo and ciliegiolo) grow at altitudes between 380 and 480 meters. The wine undergoes spontaneous fermentation in stainless-steel tanks and is then aged in a combination of concrete, Slavonian oak, and French oak.
For the superb 2019 vintage, the result is this beautifully balanced, traditional, structured wine of intensity and finesse. It is bright and elegant enough to match with simple tomato-based pizzas and pastas, yet offers the power and complexity to stand up to more serious, robust fare. And, at $29, it sports a great quality-to-price relationship.
“Wow! The Piemaggio is so good,” say both co-workers and customers. Come visit us at Paul Marcus Wines and see for yourself. Don’t miss this one!
Producer Profile: Kumusha
Kumusha, South AfricaA few weeks ago, we were fortunate enough to receive a visit from Tinashe Nyamudoka, proprietor of Kumusha Wines. A native of Zimbabwe, Nyamudoka rose to fame as a highly acclaimed sommelier in South Africa. With a deep knowledge of consumer tastes and keen interest in winemaking styles, he decided to start his own winery in 2017, and the results so far have been quite impressive.
2023 Sauvignon Blanc – Western Cape ($17)
Very mellow for a New World sauvignon blanc, this gently tropical and aromatic wine eschews intensity in favor of elegance and refinement. The grapes come from sandstone soils at 300 meters of elevation, and the juice ages for four months on the lees in stainless-steel tanks. It’s a fresh, mineral expression of the grape–think Loire Valley rather than Southern Hemisphere.
2022 Cabernet Sauvignon / Cinsault – Slanghoek ($23)
This blend of 75 percent cabernet and 25 percent cinsault is in some ways an ode to the “traditional” style of South African cabernet–when it was common for winemakers to fill out their cabs with unlabeled amounts of cinsault. As it happens, the cinsault gives this wine a welcome spicy lift, balancing out the luscious purple fruit–the perfect barbecue wine.
2023 Wild Mutupo Chillable Carignan – Slanghoek ($25)
A classic summertime “glou-glou” red, this carignan oozes with vibrant cherries and berries complemented by a mild savory, piquant touch. It’s fermented with 15 percent whole cluster, then aged for six months in stainless steel with an additional four months in large foudre. This one goes down a bit too easily…
Regional Roundup: Temperance Hill Vineyard
Goodfellow, Pinot noir, Walter Scott, Willamette ValleyOriginally planted more than 40 years ago, Oregon’s 100-acre Temperance Hill Vineyard is one of the most esteemed grape-growing sites in the U.S. Located in the Eola-Amity Hills AVA in the northern Willamette Valley, Temperance Hill is a cool-climate, high-elevation, late-ripening vineyard planted atop the remains of an ancient volcano, making it a perfect home for pinot noir.
Vineyard honcho Dai Crisp
More than two dozen producers make wines from Temperance Hill fruit, and at Paul Marcus Wines, we are currently featuring a pair of single-vineyard expressions from this magical plot.
2021 Walter Scott Pinot Noir Temperance Hill
Walter Scott’s rendition of Temperance Hill pinot comes from a single block on the vineyard’s north side, with an elevation of 750 feet and a location directly in the teeth of the Van Duzer winds. Despite the cooler growing conditions, the Walter Scott delivers a deep core of mouth-coating blue and purple fruit–not aggressive or intense, but not particularly shy either. This explosion of fruit is gently supported by savory, herbal accents that help complete the picture. There’s real vigor and vibrancy to this bottle, and it fans out across the palate with purpose, leading to a delightfully persistent finish.
2021 Goodfellow Pinot Noir Temperance Hill
The Goodfellow Temperance Hill emphasizes and embraces the earthy spice, woody tobacco aromas, and citrusy zip that help distinguish this vineyard. Made with 100 percent whole clusters, this is a crisper, subtler take on Temperance Hill fruit that truly allows the mineral edge to shine through. Perhaps not as viscerally alluring as the Walter Scott, the Goodfellow is a graceful, charming, and wholly appealing take nonetheless.
To learn more about these exquisite offerings, stop by the shop and say hello.
Why We Love: Treixadura
RibeiroTreixadura is not one of those grapes that most wine drinkers seek out. Yet, when you do have one, you’re more often than not pleasantly surprised. For me, it’s a little like Cesanese from Italy–you don’t have to think too hard when reaching for it. It’s a versatile table wine of sorts, one that easily pairs with most anything or nothing at all.
The venerable Luis Anxo Rodríguez Vázquez
The treixadura grape, found most commonly in the Ribeiro DO of Galicia, Spain, has a subtle richness that is buoyed by its rustic character. It’s happy alongside most seafood, especially sauced fish with plenty of herbs, but also plays well with roasted pork or something earthy like sunchokes, celery root, or sweet potatoes.
The Ribeiro DO is a small, concentrated area known for its decomposed granite and sandy soils. Ribeiro was once a thriving grape-growing region with plenty of its wines being shipped to England for consumption during the 16th and 17th centuries. Things changed after phylloxera (insect pest) hit, and many people were forced to rip out their vines and consider other means to an end. Recently though, the tide seems to be swinging in favor of bringing back the quality production of treixadura and other varieties that are at home in this verdant landscape.
I was first exposed to treixadura by Luis Rodriguez’s Viña de Martin Os Pasas Blanco. It is composed of mostly treixadura, with lado, albariño, and torrontes rounding out the blend. The beauty of this wine lies in its lemon-lime-hued complexities dancing on a spine of granite-derived minerality. I have had this bottling many times over the years, and it always makes me smile–not only for its balance of flavors but also because of its place of origin. This wine comes from Luis’s hometown of Arnoia, home to some of Ribeiro’s steepest south-facing slopes.
The 2022 Gomariz Ribeiro Treixadura ‘La Flor y La Abeja’ is 100 percent treixadura, and it really shows the grape’s quince-like qualities that keep you coming back for sip after sip. This wine shines for its overall quality-to-price ratio, and I find myself turning to this bottle often.
Also of note is the 2022 Formigo Ribeiro Blanco ‘Finca Teira’–65 percent treixadura, 20 percent godello, and 15 percent torrontes, fermented and raised entirely in stainless steel. This shows a supple, yet chiseled wine highlighting the yellow- and green-tinged fruits of this appealing grape.
When I think of Ribeiro, I think bucolic, wooded hillsides with wisps of wood smoke rising above lush, green river valleys. It’s exactly the kind of place I would love to visit and explore a bit more.
The Answer: What Is Lees Aging?
Fiano, Italy, Pairings, Ribeiro, Stories From The Shop, Wine How To'sAccording to some, there are two kinds of people in the world: those who wonder “how it works” and those who ponder “what it does.” The “it” could be a tool or a machine or a process. Put another way, some folks focus on how a final product is achieved while others focus on the various characteristics of the final product itself.
Since I’ve always been more of a “what does it do” guy than a “how does it work” guy, I will mostly sidestep the chemistry aspect of lees aging (proteins and enzymes and the like) and turn our attention to the final product. How does lees aging affect the wine in your bottle?
For starters, lees contact will give the wine richness, depth, and warmth. It helps to smooth a wine’s rougher edges while adding complexity and breadth to the flavors and aromas. Lees aging might also help stabilize a wine by helping to fend off oxidation. Producers of “serious” wines from Champagne and Burgundy have traditionally relied on lees aging, but so have makers of sleeker, mineral-driven wines such as Muscadet and Galician albariño.
To me, there is a certain sweet spot when it comes to lees aging–when the technique takes place in stainless-steel tanks. The combination of stainless steel and lees contact gives a wine creaminess and texture without sacrificing acidity. It creates wines that are fleshy but still fresh, and it lends the wine a bit of weight and gravity while maintaining expressive, bright fruit. It offers some characteristics associated with wood aging, but with a more restrained touch.
I find that wines made in this style are often perfect for rich, shellfish-based dishes. At Paul Marcus Wines, we offer a wide range of white wines made in this steel-plus-lees style that are worth discovering, including three of particular note:
2019 I Favati Fiano di Avellino – Pietramara Etichetta Bianca
Fiano from the hills of Campania is perhaps the most esteemed white grape in all of Italy, and this multifaceted bottling offers ample proof why–especially when accompanying casarecce with rock shrimp in a spicy tomato-cream sauce.
2022 Benanti Etna Bianco
Made with 100 percent carricante from the eastern and southern slopes of Sicily’s Mt. Etna, this bright, gently smoky, beautifully balanced wine will shine alongside brinier dishes such as steamed clams and mussels in a lemon and white wine broth.
2020 Luis Rodriguez Ribeiro – Os Pasás
Predominantly treixadura, and filled out with small amounts of albariño, torrontés, and lado, this Galician stunner would pair well with gambas al ajillo (garlic shrimp) atop buttery white beans.
These three wines seem to have much in common: distinct minerality, lovely texture, and a subtle tropical vibe–melon and mango and such–along with a cleansing salinity. We are talking about dynamic, age-worthy whites that are much more complex and stimulating than your run-of-the-mill Sancerre and half the price of a comparable white Burgundy. As summer approaches and shellfish season begins, it’s the perfect time to get to know these charming white wines.
Reflections: Farm to Glass
News, Stories From The ShopAt Paul Marcus Wines, our staff shares a deep love for classic wines–the “B, B, B, & C’s” (Burgundy, Barolo, Barbaresco, and Champagne) among other prized wines of the world. But in reality, these are usually wines for occasions and celebrations, and only sometimes for a Wednesday night. As true wine lovers, we also appreciate “table wine” in its truest form: wine for everyday drinking, and options that overdeliver for the price.
Before PMW, I worked with small importer-distributors, so if you permit me to don my “importer” hat for a moment, I’d like to explain some challenges in sourcing affordable wines. While browsing our less expensive selections, you will notice that all but a few of these wines are imported. You might be thinking that local wines, with shorter transport times and fewer hands to grease along the way, should cost less. You’re not wrong–except for the fact that it is that much more expensive to grow wine in the States.
To start, the cost of land is exorbitant here, and many young winemakers in California and Oregon are purchasing fruit for their wine (ex. Folk Machine Parts & Labor). By contrast, many European wineries have long lineages extending more than four generations, and they have inherited the land and equipment (ex. Château La Coustarelle Cahors). Some come from places with a rich history of peasant farming such as Southern France and Italy, or Spain and Hungary.
La Coustarelle Cahors, a staple of our value section, is still only $15.
Another element is the cost of labor. I cannot speak to the labor laws outside of the U.S. (and, to be frank, I am no expert on domestic regulations either). But ultimately, years of reporting conclude that labor is a smaller percentage of overall cost in other countries than it is here. Seeing that there are relatively few domestic wines that are offered at value, we turn to imports to find the bang-for-the-buck options.
Perhaps a few years ago, we had no trouble finding great imported wines that hit the shelf under $15. These days, it is more difficult, as we are now dealing with rising fuel costs. Wait–didn’t I just say that it’s less expensive to transport wine all the way from Europe than it is to get straight from California? Yes, that’s true, but we must still consider all of the energy that brings wine (or any product) to the store: diesel for farm equipment, trucks to pick up wine from the cellar and bring it to the containers (refrigerated, of course) on ships, then back on trucks again to deliver wine to our front door. Glass is heavy, and this all adds up.
To provide context, a 40-foot refrigerated container that once cost $5,000 to go from France to Oakland is now upwards of $10,000. Adding insult to injury, the wine industry got hit with significant tariffs that affected a broad sector of imported wines. While the tariffs have passed, the effects are still filtering down to distributors who might still be sitting on some inventory that entered the country with the added tariffs.
Due to these and many other factors, wines that used to be $15 on the shelf are now creeping up to $20 or more. (A tangential note of optimism: There have been major technological improvements in alternative packaging such as cans, bag-in-box, and tetra-pak cardboard.) My point here shouldn’t come as a huge surprise–retail prices are rising across all products–and it’s worth having the conversation about what it takes to get a bottle of wine from the farm to your glass.
If you want to learn more, please don’t hesitate to talk to me or any of the staff on your next visit to the store!
— Ailis Peplau
Bottle Rocket: 2021 Bodega Chacra Patagonia, Argentina – Sin Azufre Pinot Noir
Argentina, Bodega ChacraEvery so often, we encounter a wine that we all love, but are a bit hesitant to buy for the shop. Perhaps it doesn’t fit neatly into any of the store’s most well-traveled sections. Maybe the price tag doesn’t scream “value.” It could be that the grape or the region of origin is unfamiliar. Still, we deem it worthy of shelf space at Paul Marcus Wines because we want to share these discoveries with our customers.
Piero Incisa della Rocchetta
One recent arrival that falls into this category is the 2021 Bodega Chacra Sin Azufre Pinot Noir from Patagonia, Argentina. The winery, which lies in the Rio Negro Valley, was founded about 20 years ago by Piero Incisa della Rocchetta, grandson of an esteemed Tuscan winemaker. The Rio Negro is basically desert terrain, with fewer than 10 inches of rain per year. However, the valley is also a riverbed for the confluence of two Andes tributaries, and so its soils offer a unique mix of clay, limestone, and sand–as it turns out, a perfect home for old-vine pinot noir.
Piero’s ‘Sin Azufre’ cuvee checks all of the boxes of a natural wine–biodynamic grapes, no sulfur added–but has little of the funkiness you’d expect. The grapes, from a vineyard planted in 1955, undergo whole-cluster fermentation, a Burgundian touch for a wine that is certainly Burgundian in style, and the juice sees no new oak. Bright, floral, and succulent, this wine will especially delight cru Beaujolais fans with its clarity and liveliness, balanced by subtle mineral and earthy tones. It’s a buoyant wine, with loads of character.
To learn more about this wine or to discover other hidden gems at Paul Marcus Wines, please come visit us at the shop.
Producer Profile: Oszkár Maurer
Maurer, SerbiaWe’re all familiar with the thriving natural wine scenes in France, Italy, Spain, and the rest of Western Europe–as well as here on the West Coast. But not everyone knows that Central and Eastern Europe is a hotbed of natural winegrowing and winemaking as well. Oszkár Maurer is a celebrated natural grower and maker in Subotica, Serbia, just south of Serbia’s border with Hungary. Farming is organic, and all wines are ØØ: nothing added during the winemaking–including sulfites–and nothing taken away (no fining or filtration). We currently have four Maurer wines in stock, three of which just arrived at Paul Marcus Wines.
2022 ‘Crazy Lud’ Red
“Lud” means “goose” in Hungarian and “crazy” in Serbian. So: Crazy Goose, as shown on the label! The 2022 ‘Crazy Lud’ red is mostly kékfrankos (a.k.a. blaufränkisch), cabernet sauvignon, and kadarka, with a little muscat Hamburg and prokupac for heightened aromatics and grip. The wine is macerated briefly (two-to-six days) on the skins in open vats and then aged in used 500-liter Hungarian oak barrels for one year. It’s a light-bodied red or even a dark rosé that responds well to 20-30 minutes in the refrigerator. This is an excellent introduction to Maurer’s wines: It’s playful, distinctive, and easy to drink, yet with underlying complexity and even seriousness.
2022 Bakator 1909
Fehér (white) bakator is an extremely rare grape variety; according to Maurer, there’s only one other winery producing it, in the Transcarpathian part of western Ukraine. Maurer’s Bakator 1909 comes from ungrafted, bush-trained vines planted 115 years ago. The 2022 vintage had 15 percent healthy botrytis (noble rot) at harvest, was macerated with the skins overnight, and was then fermented in stainless steel for six months. The wine is light amber in the glass, with remarkable concentration, savoriness, and depth. It’s bone dry, despite being just 10.6 percent alcohol. This is a more serious, elegant Maurer wine that nonetheless retains brightness and easy drinkability.
2022 Bakator Pét-Nat
Maurer’s Bakator Pét-Nat comes from the same ancient vineyard and grapes as the Bakator 1909 still wine, but picked earlier and with fermentation finished in the bottle to create the fizz. It’s undisgorged but barely cloudy, 10.7 percent alcohol, and bone dry. Take this bottle to a party, and you’ll definitely win the excellent-fizzy-wine-from-an-obscure-country-and-even-more obscure-grape prize.
‘Babba’
This is the most baroque wine in our Maurer lineup. It’s a blend of five white varieties (medenac beli, rajni rizling, tamjanika, kövidinka, and sremska zelenika, if you must know) from several vintages built with three sequential fermentations and then aged in 500-liter Hungarian oak barrels. It’s darker amber in color, exotically spicy, with some tannin, oxidative notes, and wild complexity. There’s nothing else like it in the shop.
Celebrating Holidays: Busting Out the Big Boys
Holidays, Sale, Stories From The ShopAt Paul Marcus Wines, it’s not uncommon to find customers looking longingly at our shelf of magnums. “If only I had a special occasion or a large party,” they say, to no one in particular. Well, the holiday season is the perfect opportunity to indulge your fantasies and crack open that big bottle.
We can go on about how magnums mature more gracefully than regular-sized bottles, how they can offer more harmony and complexity–especially when it comes to Champagne. But in the end, nothing shouts “party” like a large-format bottle of wine.
PMW stocks a wide range of magnums from which to choose. As an additional incentive, all of our large-format bottles are 15 percent off from now until the end of the year. Here are some of our favorite large-format selections to get you started.
Great Champagne should give you weight and richness on the palate but do so with a spine of acid. The NV André Clouet – Brut Rosé No. 3 is always 100 percent pinot noir, typically with 6g/l dosage, which gives you the richness, but the fruit is grown on mostly chalky soils that give the wine a bright stripe of taught acid that propels the fruit down the palate. While the soils lend the wine some structure, the fermentation and aging in stainless steel keep it bright.
I have served this wine many, many times over the years and almost always serve it with the entrée, often pork. However, in a pinch, it sings with an omelet. This is the holiday magnum that goes with everything, and everyone needs a few magnums of great Champagne around for the holidays. Enjoy!
— Chad Arnold
A Rare and Special Treat
A special meal justifies a special bottle. The 2020 Chambeyron-Manin Côte Rôtie is an irresistibly perfumed and textured syrah that delivers immense “wow” while staying mystifyingly lifted on the palate and reasonable in its alcohol level. The seeming contradiction of ripe purple and black fruit with such freshness and lack of weight makes each sip a happy cognitive dissonance.
The Manin family farm one little acre of a very steep slope in a prized location; the farming and harvesting of grapes are all done by hand (as no tractors can navigate such a slope), and the wine is made in their home just steps from the vineyard. It’s a rare and special treat that would honor any table.
— David Gibson
Racy and Stony
Odinstal is the leading biodynamic producer in Germany’s Pfalz region. The MMXVIII Odinstal Sekt Brut Nature Riesling is disgorged by hand and bottled unfiltered and without any additions, including no dosage. The result: bone-dry, natural, Champagne-quality artisanal bubbles with riesling raciness and stoniness, at less than $100 for a magnum!
— Mark Middlebrook
Palate Dance
As you probably already know, we sell a lot of nebbiolo from the Langhe region in Italy’s Piedmont. My favorite right now is the 2022 Trediberri Langhe Nebbiolo. This slightly lighter wine is absolutely delightful, with clean, upbeat flavors that dance on your palate. It’s both refreshing and compelling.
— Paul Marcus
Lively and Lovely
Not to be confused with muscat (it is not sweet and not aromatic), Muscadet is made from the Melon de Bourgogne grape and comes from the Loire Valley near the Atlantic coast city of Nantes. The Pepiere Clisson is one of the greatest wines of the appellation. It exhibits the classic saline, tart-apple flavors and lively acidity that make Muscadet the perfect oyster wine. But the Clisson has a more viscous, richer texture that will make it work with a wide variety of foods. You can use as you would a Chablis or other unoaked white Burgundy.
Muscadet is one of the great wine values in the world. Even a top cuvée like this Clisson–we have both the 2019 and 2020 vintages–comes in at the very reasonable price of $67 for a magnum (1.5L) and $192 for a jeroboam (3L).
— Joel Mullennix
Earth and Spice and Everything Nice
Mencía makes me happy, especially when it’s Envinate’s village (Aldea) wine. Hailing from a variety of plots with different exposures, elevations, and soils, the 2021 Envinate Ribeira Sacra – Lousas Vinas de Aldea is made from about 90 percent mencía, with the remaining 10 percent composed of other indigenous varieties. Whole cluster, light maceration, and a mixed bag of vessels for élevage create a wine with lovely nuance of earth, spice, and fruit. Yum.
— Jason Seely
Apart from the Rest
We are tasting more and more ethereal and light nebbiolo in the shop these days as producers are prioritizing early accessibility for what is typically a highly tannic, needs-serious-meal-planning wine. No producer nails easy-drinking Barolo like Fernandino Principiano. His incorporation of whole-cluster fermentation and choice not to green harvest (remove leaves and unripe grape bunches) is pretty unheard of in the region, which sets him and his wine apart from the rest. His lower-alcohol, lighter-tannin approach means that this 2018 Ferdinando Principiano Barolo di Serralunga d’Alba can sit on the table with a wider range of foods–from anchovy and butter crostini to turkey to steak.
— Emilia Aiello
Luis Anxo Rodríguez Vázquez
Going Deep
Luis Anxo Rodríguez Vázquez has been producing wines in Spain’s Ribeiro region for more than 30 years, but over the last decade or so, he’s started to find the international acclaim he so richly deserves. His 2020 A Torna Dos Pasás Tinto is a seductive blend of brancellao, caiño and ferrol. It’s stylish and refined, bright and expressive, its red-berry lift buttressed by beguiling spice and mineral notes. And yet there is a smoky, brooding side that imbues the wine with great depth–serious and playful all at once, and quite versatile at the holiday table.
— Marc Greilsamer
Why We Love: Mencía
Mencía, SpainA 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!