Inspired by his passion for Barolo, Tiziano Mazzoni in 1999 returned to his family’s roots in Ghemme to prove that the Langhe wasn’t the only source of world-class Nebbiolo in Piedmont. This historic micro-region in the shadow of the Alps, thanks to pioneers like Mazzoni, is now returning to its former iconic status.
The Cherrier family has been a trusted name in Sancerre since the late 1800s. Here in Chaudoux, north of the village of Sancerre, Sauvignon Blanc is equally in its element: soils are a refined mix of flint and chalk, a terroir marriage that makes the best Sancerre so vibrant.
Tenuta di Valgiano is the gateway to a different Tuscany. The manicured estates of Montalcino seem a world away; here in the hills above the city of Lucca, dense forests hide weather-worn villas and older-vine vineyards, with climbing herbs winding round “palistorti,” crooked stakes that mark each vine row.
Knocking on the family’s weather-beaten cellar door, steps from the village center, reveals a practice that has not changed with time. Nicolas treads his organically raised grapes by foot, and presses them in an old-fashioned basket press—Cornas tradition is alive and well at Dumien-Serette.
Located between Angers and Nantes, this family-run estate in the petite village of La Pommeraye enjoys a particularly warm microclimate, which helps to push grapes to perfect ripeness, even in cooler years. This family estate on the banks of the Loire River was founded in 1994, bringing together three generations of “savoir faire” and honoring Anjou’s native grapes.
Representing the third generation of her family to have answered the siren call of northern Rhône Syrah, Christelle Betton’s vision is one of pure and refined fruit, inspired by the cool northern mistral winds and stony personality of her family’s vineyards in La Roche de Glun.
To the northeast, the towering Alps; to the south, the placid Adriatic Sea. The Maccan family couldn’t have found a more charmed spot to cultivate Friuli’s native grapes. Here along the banks of the Livenza river in the foothills of the Alps, the classic stones of Grave mix with limestone, giving a Burgundian finesse to Friulano and Refosco.
Verduno, the northern corner of the Barolo appellation, is experiencing a renaissance, and it is the “brothers” Alessandria who are guiding the wines of this region back to the heights they once held. What Verduno gives is exactly what we crave in our Barolo wines: complexity without heaviness, structure with finesse.
From the heady perfume of pine trees in the heat of the summer to the cry of seabirds that remind that the Camargue delta is just minutes away, Domaine de Moulines embodies the soul and seduction of France’s winemaking south. This generations-old family estate was an abbey in the Middle Ages.
Raised biodynamically, with yields that often dip lower than the lowest at Yquem, Grande Maison offers an elegant expression of Monbazillac botrytized wines. All of the estate’s vineyards surround the “grande maison,” a fortified manor house originally built in the thirteenth century.