November Wine Club
NO ES PITUKO ROSE
100% Pais
The first 2021 rose!
This lovely, juicy rose is medium bodied, spicy and has fresh strawberry notes. It has more depth and fuller fruit than some of the drier styles -- a great food pairing option! “This wine is in its most natural state, so it is likely to be cloudy and/or have sediments. We recommend that you don't wait too long to drink it (like in the next 5 minutes). If you like, drink it chilled. You could even give the bottle a bit of a shake before you open it.”
The Echeverría family came to Chile in the 1750s, from a little town called Amezqueta in the Basque region of Spain. They established agricultural properties in the north of Santiago, where they planted vineyards, among other crops. Some 200 years later in 1930, Roger Piffre de Vauban, a French Engineer from Montpellier, and Roberto Echeverría´s maternal grandfather, travelled to Chile and hence to Chile’s Curicó Valley, some 200km south of the capital Santiago. Here he planted ungrafted vines from pre-phylloxera French origin on an expanse of land called La Estancia, in a little town called Molina. He established there what, at that time, was a frontier technology winery with French equipment and machinery brought directly from France. It’s aim was to supply high quality wines for the domestic market. Soon after, Adriana Piffre de Vauban, Roger´s daughter, married Roberto Echeverría Rubio, and they had one child, Roberto Echeverría. In the early 1950s, after developing diverse industries, Roberto Echeverría Rubio, established a vineyard and winery also in Molina, encouraged by the family relationship with the ongoing winery at the La Estancia estate.
He grew strongly influenced by these two family winemaking activities, and developed an intense love and passion for winemaking, that would lead him to pursue university studies. In 1979 Roberto decided to return to Chile to continue his family tradition in winemaking. He thought he was coming back to join an ongoing winery operation, but he arrived in a country in which the wine industry was in the midst of a great depression. Many wineries had gone bankrupt, and very little wine was being exported. The family business was in jeopardy and the old winery in which he spent his summers was on the brink of disappearing.
Passionate about wine, and determined to preserve his ancestors’ winemaking tradition, he embarked on the greatest challenge of his life: projecting his winery into the future, transforming it into a modern, export-oriented, and family-owned and managed operation. It would take Roberto nearly 15 years of intense conviction and sacrifice to develop these radical changes, which included replanting the entire estate and building a new winery from the ground up, and to finally bring his first wine to the international market in 1993. During the 20 years that followed he and Gloria travelled to every continent in the world, showing their wines and winning over many of the customers that are still working with them today. It was their extraordinary vision, determination and commitment to excellence, that was to make Viña Echeverría what it is today.
Today Viña Echeverría is still a family-owned and managed estate winery, and its vineyards and house occupy the same location as they did nearly 100 years ago. The 65 hectares of sustainably farmed vineyards in Chile’s Central Valley are planted, tended and harvested by the Echeverría family. Roberto Echeverria is still very active in the family business and continues to inspire the whole family to develop new projects and delight new customers. Together with his four children, Paulina, Viviana, Roberto and Diego they hand-sell their wines.
Pais, a varietal with great historical importance. It was the first Vitis vinifera grape variety to be exported from the Old World (Spain) to the New World (Mexico) in the 16th Century. Roberto is one of the vanguards of the "pipeño" movement in Chile aka making wine the way it was hundreds of years ago - more naturally (very little SO2 added, indigenous yeasts, unfiltered) and with the oldest vines planted by the Spanish, long before other Europeans came there escaping phylloxera. Each bottle of No Es Pituko Rose contains four and a half bunches of single vineyard grapes, a lot of love for the environment, and a lot of love for you. It showcases the terroir & is unfiltered so there is some cloudiness. Natural and Sustainable.
Start your Thanksgiving Day with this wine, it has fall appetizers, potatoes, and turkey written all over it!
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CHATEAU de ROQUES BORDEAUX
70% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Franc
Brilliant red in color, with aromas and flavors of rosehips, orange peel, tobacco, mocha mousse, caramelized onion, and hints of apricot. This supple and elegant wine features fine integrated tannins, moderate acidity, a vibrantly dry medium-to-full body, and a nuanced, long finish with notes of spiced latte and plum. While youthful and already drinking beautifully, this Puisseguin-Saint-Emilion promises a rich, satisfying and layered experience after some cellar time; if drinking now, be sure to decant.
Undeniably one of Bordeaux’s unsung values, this family-run estate has history dating back to the 12th century. It has remained under ownership of the Sublett family for four generations (since 1948). The estate’s 23ha of clay and limestone vineyards are positioned on south and west facing gentle slopes along the western edge of Puisseguin-Saint-Emilion plateau (approximately 100 meters above sea level). A new gravity-fed cellar with new vats further completes the picture.
Green harvest and leaf-thinning, manual (20%) and mechanized (80%) harvest, 100% destemmed. The wine was fermented for 3 weeks in temperature-controlled concrete tanks using native yeast, followed by 12 months ageing in concrete vats, preserving freshness and purity of fruit. Lightly filtered, minimal addition of sulfites. While made for early consumption, it can also be kept for many years.
Call in the dark meat turkey, green bean casserole, roast potatoes, and chestnuts!
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CHANTELEUSSERIE BOURGUEIL
100% Cabernet Franc
Wild berries jump out of the glass invitingly, while a peppery note adds an earthy twist. Expect a little extra brawn and woodsy fruits like cassis and plum. It’s pure, peppery, and perfect Cabernet Franc. The gentle finish makes it oh-so gulpable - be sure to put a slight chill on it!
Just outside of the village of Benais, in the heart of the Touraine, sits the lovely Domaine de la Chanteleuserie. This “place where the larks sing,” as the name means, is perched on a limestone plateau in an idyllic landscape. Moïse Boucard, a respected vigneron whom Kermit discovered in 1976, has not only given his good sense of humor and modesty to his son, Thierry, but his winemaking skills, too. The seventh generation of winegrowers at Chanteleuserie and the second generation to be working with KLWM, Thierry now shares the domaine with his wife, Christine.
This is the land of Cabernet Franc, better known locally as “Breton.” While some vignerons in the area add up to 10% Cabernet Sauvignon, the Boucards make pure varietal wines. Bourgueil is among the most age-worthy of the Loire Valley’s reds, and the wines from Domaine de la Chanteleuserie are no exception: their 1976 still drinks well today! Despite their structure, these wines have a suppleness and generosity of fruit that set them apart from most wines produced in the area today.
The Chanteleuserie vineyards enjoy full southern exposure on limestone and clay, with a subsoil of porous, chalky tuffeau that also provides cellars with naturally ideal aging conditions. Thierry keeps yields low and protects his harvest by bringing the grapes in quickly and keeping them cool during destemming. Temperature control continues during fermentation to preserve freshness and acidity, thereby avoiding the rude tannic bite found in some Bourgueils. The wines are later racked into foudres for additional roundness of texture and depth. All are delicious young and outstanding when aged.
Green harvest to decrease yield and insure perfect maturity. Grapes are both carefully sorted in the vineyard and in the cellar. Maceration lasts 2 weeks before fermented and aged in stainless steel tanks.
Think juicy bistro burger finished with a shmear of spicy moutarde. Or Thanksgiving dinner… again.
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LA BATTAGLIOLA LAMBRUSCO 30
Lambrusco Grasparossa and Ancellotta
The wine pours an intense violet red with fruity aromas of currant, blackberry and cherry; in the palate it presents a mellow structure, with an acid-crisp making it fresh and lively.
Even today Alberto Salvadori is still moved when telling the story of the beautiful country house in Piumazzo, La Battagliola, which he inherited from his mother Anna Maria. It was 1999 and the countryside of the Modenese plains was still being sowed, but this didn’t last long. A premonitory dream was enough to convince Alberto that the land had a more noble and ambitious fate, that of producing good wine. From that very moment he left the logistics business to become a farmer and transformed the harvesting land to an area of seventy thousand Lambrusco Grasparossa vine cuttings. The shipments of goods by air, rail and sea allowed him to travel around the world, however the thrill of seeing those vine cuttings grow, the rows of vines take shape and to see the deep red and almost blue bunches of grapes bloom, has transformed him over the years. He chose Grasparossa, the grape variety most suited for the land. It was an important challenge, that of proposing a Lambrusco of quality and character in a marketplace that has at least, in part, been dominated purely by commercial policies. Alberto Salvadori’ s passion is shared by his children, Beatrice and Tommaso. Beatrice, after having lived many years in Milan, has started to work side by side with him and to share his passion for the wine. In Bologna. Tommaso now leads Fratelli Salvadori, the family business that has been operating for three generations. The pace of life is constantly speeding up but everyone’s commitments vanish when they meet at La Battagliola for a wine harvest, a tasting, the first bottling or a simple gathering with friends. It’s the love for their land that bonds them and keeps them together, the sense of everlasting continuity that is found in the seasons and now in the wine harvest.
The soil at La Battagliola is gravelly, a feature distinctive of the growing area of Grasparossa. This unique aspect not only lowers the risk of pathogens, but it also guarantees the constancy of our wines in terms of aromas and flavour.
The production method fully respects natural processes, which means low levels of sulphur dioxide and spontaneous fermentation. And to produce this traditional wine, La Battagliola uses the latest technologies for pressing, storage, monitoring and care. This winemaking process focused on safeguarding rather than intervening yields a graceful and refined wine low in tannins, in which the note of elegance takes the place of Lambrusco’s typical opulence. The wine is refermented at fixed temperatures in stainless steel pressured tanks with indigenous yeasts. It is then left ageing on the fine lees for at least 4 months were it acquire its typical bouquet. Dosage is 30 g/L.
Interesting pairing with red meats, pasta, pizza, mildly matured cheeses, oysters, cod and other fat fish.
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DOMAINE DE SEMINAIRE COTES DU RHONE
80% Grenache, 10% Syrah, 10% carignan
Ruby color with purple reflections, the aromas of which are reminiscent of wild berries with hints of liquorice. Balanced wine on the palate showing roundness and fruit.
On 250 acres of land in the hills above the village of Valréas, a beautiful Provençal house, surrounded by olive and truffle oak trees, lavender fields and thick forest, is the center of the idyllic micro-estate of Domaine du Seminaire. The vineyards are near the northern limit of ripening Grenache, in the colder foothills of the Alps, where they are swept by the strong mistral winds. Hervé Pouizin is the fourth generation to farm this land; he and his wife, Mathilde have preserved the self-sufficient estate mostly as it was a century ago, with one key exception: they converted everything to organic farming. Fermenting their wines in the same huge concrete tanks since 1938, the couple takes an old-school approach to winemaking and uses no oak and biodynamic practices in the cellar where they use the lunar calendar. They produce high-toned, bright, floral wines, in keeping with their region and elevation, bottled early to preserve the fruit and with minimal sulfur.
“Wine is a family affair for me, in the Pouizin family we are all organic winegrowers! My grandfather taught me a lot and especially taught me to observe and take care of the plant ... I am the 4th generation on the Estate. Today my wines are the expression of the magnificent terroir and domain left to me by my ancestors. Fresh, straightforward, frank, fruity with melted tannins ... it is also thanks to them that I am here thanks to what they taught me and the care they gave to their land …” - Hervé Pouizin, winemaker
`` It is a wine that will accompany you from aperitif to meal, including picnics and evening with friends. Fresh, fruity with supple tannins, it will be an excellent companion .... '' - Domaine de Seminaire
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GIACOMO VICO LANGHE NEBBIOLO
100% Nebbiolo
Bright ruby red color, aromas of fresh red berried fruits with a prevalence of raspberry and wild strawberry; full, warm, harmonious flavor with beautifully balanced acidity and velvety tannins. Complex yet elegant.
Based in Canale in the heart of Piedmont, Giacomo Vico has been run by the same family since the late 19th century. Since the start, the focus has been on quality versus quantity, and today the estate is renowned for the quality of its wines. With an extensive 1990s renovation, the winery’s quality-focus is matched by its facilities. Alessandro, great grandson of the founder, currently leads the operation.
The Langhe Nebbiolo comes from 40-year old vines grown in the steep, southern-facing mineral-rich marl and sandstone soils of the Valmaggiore vineyard in Roero. Hand-harvested, destemmed grapes are fermented for two weeks in stainless steel using the rack-and-return technique to promote gentle extraction and preservation of fruit flavor. This was followed by 6 months in large Italian oak barrels.
SOME of Nebbiolo’s best friends (it has many): burrata or manchego, roast turkey or braised duck, butternut squash and wild mushrooms.
Interested in joining our Wine Club? Give us a call at the store: 206-322-1103.