KERMIT LYNCH WINE MERCHANT

Meyer-Fonné

Strangely enough, Kermit came upon the Meyer-Fonné wines for the first time at his home down in Provence. He was tasting with Daniel Ravier, the winemaker at Domaine Tempier, and the two were blown away at the first, dazzling sip; now that we’ve all gotten to know the domaine, we understand why. Félix Meyer is a rising star in Alsace and has an evident instinct for his craft. He is the third generation in his family to be making wine since his grandfather founded the domaine in the late 19th century. Since taking over in 1992, Félix has already left his own mark, modernizing equipment in the winery, developing export sales, and now expanding the family’s holdings in many of Alsace’s great vineyard sites, including several grand crus.

It’s all about the details at Meyer-Fonné, with an emphasis on tradition and respect for terroir. The winery and family home is in the village of Katzenthal, known for its distinctive granite soils. Meyer is a master at the art of blending and astutely applies this skill in mixing the wine from various parcels into complex, balanced cuvées. He also believes in raising his wines on fine lees in large, older foudres, as was the tradition in Alsace. All of Meyer’s bottlings are characterized by stunning aromatics and a signature backbone of minerality and nerve. Racy and elegant, his wines are difficult to resist young but have all the right qualities for the cellar. For aromatic and textural seductiveness, no one in Alsace can top Meyer-Fonné.

Thierry Allemand

Like the Sleeping Beauty of the Northern Rhône, the appellation Cornas is at last awaking from a long slumber. Though these were wines once celebrated by Charlemagne, they have been regarded as the red-headed stepchild of the Northern Rhône for the last hundred years. Hard, tannic wines from the large négociants have given the appellation a bad reputation, and the rough, crumbling terraces lining the banks on this patch of the river have crippled even the most robust vignerons. In the early twentieth century, many vineyards here had already fallen into disrepair. By the 1980s, a slow insurgency of passionate winemakers started to resuscitate the vineyards, with Thierry Allemand deep in the fray. Thierry was working at Domaine Robert Michel at the time. Young and eager, he was learning the trade secrets of terrace farming, pruning, grafting techniques, and noninterventionist winemaking. Little by little, he began acquiring vineyard parcels that had long since been abandoned, rescuing some, buying others, and renting the rest. Insufferable work as it was, he dove into the project courageously: he cleared over-taken vineyards of weeds and scrub brush, reinforced terraces, rebuilt walls, and replanted. All by hand. Though it took him fifteen years before he could afford to fully dedicate himself to his own domaine (he earned his living as an electrician!), the quiet, monastic Thierry Allemand had already become a legend.
The not-even-five hectares of land that he farms almost seem abundant when one considers the diversity and challenge that each parcel presents. Despite the critiques earned when Cornas was considered to be in decline, some claim that it possesses the best microclimates and the greatest terroirs of the Northern Rhône. Stacked onto the hills of the western bank of the Rhône River, the vines of Cornas enjoy maximum sun exposure, facing south by southeast. The slopes are composed of both limestone and granite, though Thierry’s parcels lie predominately upon sturdy, granite subsoil with some clay. The sun exposure of his vineyards are of particular note, as they are inclined to early ripeness. Thierry vinifies each parcel individually, bringing prestige and recognition back to even the smallest lieux-dits of Cornas. His commitment to minimal doses of sulfur dioxide puts him in the same school of thought as such renowned traditionalists as Marcel Lapierre (Beaujolais), Domaine Gramenon (Southern Rhône), and Domaine Léon Barral (Languedoc). The cult status that Thierry’s wines have achieved is well-earned praise for this quiet hero of Cornas.

Château Haut-Lariveau

Bénédicte and Grégoire Hubau do not come from winemaking families, nor did they pursue studies in enology or viticulture. Both natives of northern France, Bénédicte was a computer specialist and Grégoire a chemist. Without much ado, they decided one day to leave it all behind and start a new life as vignerons. After visiting an endless line of available properties in various regions of France, they finally came across Château Moulin Pey-Labrie, an estate in Fronsac that met their requirement for a terroir de caractère. Unconcerned by their ignorance in the field of winegrowing but reassured by their experience as avid consumers, they purchased the property and dove head-first into their new adventure, counting on their employees to teach them as they worked. The young couple’s eagerness to learn earned them free advice from all their neighbors, and they drank in every word. It quickly became clear which approaches matched their own easygoing, natural philosophy, and before long they were deftly handling the vineyard and winery work on their own. The problem with many winegrowers, as they see it, is that they decide what a vine should have rather than giving it what it wants. Just as each of us has a unique style and prefers certain clothes or hairstyles, they learned that each vine needs individualized care in order to thrive. In 1990, having mastered their new craft, they purchased a second property, Château Haut-Lariveau. Château Moulin, though not a physical château, bottles wine from both Canon-Fronsac and Fronsac. The fruit for these “easy-drinking” wines is sourced from the lower-slope clay vineyards of either Château Moulin Pey-Labrie or Château Haut-Lariveau.

Though their growing experience has only shown that their instincts were right from the start, the Hubaus have tweaked their methods over the years in order to bring the reality of their work more perfectly in line with their vision. Refusing to slacken their strict quality standards, they frequently design their own equipment, including one machine that works the earth from below. In the cellar they consider themselves observers, letting the character of the land express itself freely and encouraging the greatest possible elegance and finesse in all of their wines.

Portelli

In the southeastern corner of Sicily, west of Modica and Ragusa, the town of Vittoria is the home of Sicily’s sole DOCG (Italy’s strictest form of wine certification), known as Cerasuolo di Vittoria. Cerasuolo is an enlightened blend of Frappato and Nero d’Avola, and the two grapes when blended create a harmonious symphony of flavor and texture. Well-made Cerasuolo has a medium-bodied, sensual, seductive personality, and the Portelli family has mastered this fine example of southern Sicilian charm.

Alessandro is the fifth generation of the Portelli family to tend their land, and currently works with his father Salvatore. The estate was founded in 1863 by Basilio Portelli who was succeeded by his son, grandson, great-grandson, and great-great grandson to arrive at present day. The family grew their own grapes, vinified their own wine, and sold it in bottle, long before most others in the area. Their original winery was in use from 1863 to 1959, and their initial export markets were England, Malta, and Germany. The Portellis were among the first growers in the Vittoria area and welcomed many others over the years.

The Portellis have mastered the maceration and extraction to get the most out of their grapes—their wines are loaded with charm and luscious fruit while possessing plenty of structure on the backend. They grow two varieties: Frappato and Nero d’Avola, the latter known locally as Calabrese. Calabrese shows much more elegance here in the soils of Vittoria than it does in other areas of Sicily, where it tends to earn its keep as a wine of brawn and power. The Portellis are crafting Calabrese with elegance and refinement, country charm wrapped in suede. Their Frappato, while the most fruit forward wine they make, is no simple quaffer!

The Portelli family's wines are fresh, vibrant, and joyful to drink, all while being faithful representatives of their native land.

Welcome to a new KLWM standard.

Château Feuillet

Maurizio Fiorano grew up outside Turin and moved to Milan for his studies, but his life took an unexpected turn when he married and moved with his wife to her hometown of Saint Pierre in the Valle d’Aosta. Fiorano continued his work as a surveyor, but his long commute became burdensome when the two of them started a family. By the time their second child came along, Maurizio had had enough and left his old job for good. He didn’t have any definite plans and he knew that his wife’s business of running a small inn was not for him. But she had inherited vineyards from her family, so why not make wine to serve in her restaurant? The idea suited him perfectly, and he went to work in the vines. In the beginning his production was tiny: he signed up to show his first vintage at VinItaly but arrived at the gargantuan expo with just four bottles! Today his production remains small, but he is careful to export to many different markets. He may not be born and bred, but Maurizio says he feels like a Valdostano, and this is his way of showing off the local products all over the world.

If Maurizio became a vineyard owner by chance, he was exceedingly lucky in the placement of his plots—he will humbly tell you that it’s not hard to make good wine here. The vines sit in a very shallow sandy soil, but their feet wriggle into crevices in the solid granite bedrock. Any rain is quickly dried out by cleansing winds. And the vineyards are planted on an ancient riverbed, where over the millennia the Dora Baltea River has cut through the mountain, creating the current river valley and leaving behind mineral deposits that the wines happily lap up. The trump card, however, may be the exposition of the vineyards, which in combination with the chilly climate, high altitude, and drastic diurnal temperature shifts provides the magic charm sought by vignerons everywhere: extremely long hours of gentle sunlight. In fact, the vineyards here capture the sun so perfectly that the almond trees scattered over the slope blossom at the same time as those in Sicily, over 550 miles farther south! This gives the grapes an exceptionally long, slow ripening season that in turn offers very unusual red wines with the heft of a sunny climate that are still refreshing and light on their feet, as you might expect of a northern wine.

Kuentz-Bas

Maison Kuentz-Bas was first established by the Kuentz family in 1795, and the domaine as we know it today was forged through a marriage that joined the Kuentz and Bas families in 1895. Nestled in the town of Husseren-les-Châteaux, it sits at one of the highest points in Alsace, and the vineyards stretch out from the village over an area of ten hectares. More than two hundred years of tradition and vineyard pedigree have made these wines perennial favorites, with the grand crus of Eichberg and Pfersigberg earning the highest esteem. However, when the family sold the property to famed vigneron Jean-Baptiste Adam in 2004, many wondered what direction the new team would take. Adam, like the estate’s former owners, has a reputation for being an advocate of Alsatian terroir, and he is the fourteenth generation to continue a family winemaking tradition that began as early as 1614. Eager to restore Kuentz-Bas to its former glory, Adam lowered yields significantly and reverted to natural methods, following organic and biodynamic approaches to vineyard work.

Meticulous attention to detail is the defining characteristic of both the viticulture and the vinification at Maison Kuentz-Bas. Winemaker Olivier Raffin, who took over direction of the cellar after Samuel Tottoli’s departure in 2017, puts a strong emphasis on both terroir and accessibility. The wines are divided into two tiers: Tradition, a fresher collection focusing on fruit character, fermented and aged on the lees in oak foudre for 6-8 months and Trois Châteaux, from the domaine’s finest vineyards. The Trois Châteaux wines are fermented and aged in stainless steel tank, then bottled and held for a year before release. Raffin embraces hard work in the vineyards and minimal work in the cellar. Reduced doses of sulfur allow for a greater expression of fruit, and a drier fermentation yields crisp, mineral-laden wines with less residual sugar. The wines are therefore more open than ever while still reflecting the unmistakable character of the vineyards that clients have come to expect from the Maison Kuentz-Bas. Alsace’s noble terroir shines through like never before in the domaine’s wines, making these among the greatest white wine values to be found.

Domaine Trotereau

Pierre Ragon of Domaine Trotereau is as much an icon of the small appellation of Quincy in the Loire Valley as the appellation itself is a historical icon for the whole of France. Quincy was the second recognized appellation in France in 1936, second only to Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Grapes had long been planted here, however, with Sauvignon Blanc having been introduced by Cistercian monks in the 12th century. Southwest of Sancerre, on the banks of a tributary of the Loire River, the Cher, the relatively small appellation of 200 hectares is located between the villages of Vierzon and Bourges. The sandy, silex-ridden topsoil with an undercurrent of pink limestone is truly unique, unlike any other Sauvignon Blanc appellation in the world, and gives a very particular wine. Sauvignon is able to ripen more fully here while retaining a very interesting aromatic profile, and the wines are capable of aging quite gracefully.

As recently as fifty years ago, the wines of Quincy were more recognized in France for their quality than Sancerre or Pouilly-Fumé, and commanded a higher price. Today the appellation has largely faded from recognition, and cave cooperatives have bought up a lot of the land at pennies on the dollar. Most at Quincy try to make bracing, nervy Sauvignons that recall the typical style that can be produced anywhere, and there are precious few willing or able to take the risks necessary to produce the type of wine that made Quincy famous and that only their terroir can produce. Ever since Denis Jaumier retired after bottling the 2005 vintage, we’ve been looking for a worthy successor. Pierre Ragon’s vines happen to sit right next to some of Jaumier’s old parcels, and Pierre hasn’t rushed to replant with higher yielding clones since he took over the reins in 1973 at this storied family domaine founded in 1804. He is now blessed with vines over 100 years old that are still producing exceptional fruit. With pride and excitement, we once again bring you the real deal from Quincy.

Terre del Vescovo

Deep in Campania’s mountainous interior, amid hazelnut groves and dense, lush woodland, small vineyard plots dot the rolling landscape. Here in rural southern Italy, an ancient history of viticulture lives on through the hands of small-scale farmers, proud custodians of this land upholding centuries of a tradition shared with the Greeks, Romans, and countless others. Home to what has been dubbed “the Barolo of the South,” the green haven known as Irpinia, an hour’s drive east of Napoli, features the noble Aglianico grape at its grandest. Indeed, the Taurasi appellation—one of just four DOCGs in Campania—is the south’s answer to the great reds of Piedmont or Tuscany, where grape and outstanding terroir come together to give immense potential through the labor of dedicated local artisans.

Terre del Vescovo is a 4-hectare property in Montemarano, a top cru of the Taurasi zone where the appellation’s highest-elevation sites yield chiseled, mineral, age-worthy reds. At up to 600 meters above sea level on soils of clay and limestone, the vines benefit from significant diurnal temperature shifts crucial to developing complex, well-defined flavors and preserving freshness at this southerly latitude. Thanks to this slow maturation, the late-ripening Aglianico is harvested in November, sometimes under a blanket of snow.

Giuseppa Molettieri cultivates these vineyards (many of them 60+ years old) with her husband Luigi, intent on preserving the tradition established by her father, Giovanni. He was the first of several generations of farmers in the family to bottle his wine and gain recognition for his Taurasi, and still watches over the vines and cellar to this day. “My enologist works with just one azienda,” declares Giuseppa, “because he is my father!” Her reliance on traditional methods passed down from previous generations lies in stark contrast with the trend of consulting enologists who arguably standardize a number of the region’s wines.

Giuseppa and Luigi bottle small amounts of perfumed, textural Coda di Volpe for everyday refreshment, but their main focus is Aglianico. All three reds in the lineup are aged in enormous old Garbellotto botti—the Taurasi for up to four years, then several more in bottle before release. A beautiful marriage of deep, nuanced aromatics, high-toned acidity, and dense, silky, fine-grained tannins, Terre del Vescovo’s wines embody the finest of Irpinia’s tradizione contadina.

Domaine Monier

Jean-Pierre Monier is as happy and as grateful a vigneron as one finds. His small production wines certainly have not made him wealthy (far from it), but his effortless calm, natural sensitivity, and quiet conviction give him an enviable air of simplicity. He is the third generation of his family to be farming in Brunieux, a lieu-dit in the hills above the village of St-Désirat in the Northern Rhône appellation of Saint Joseph. Like his forefathers, wine is only part of his farm’s overall production. Apricot orchards complement the vineyards, and everything is farmed biodynamically. Between 1977-2001, Jean-Pierre sold his fruit to the local cave cooperative in St-Désirat, but the noticeable quality his vines were producing was enough to encourage him to bottle wines under his own label. Heavily influenced by the teaching and research of the German biodynamic guru, Maria Thun, Jean-Pierre earned certification in 2006.
Northern Rhône expert, John Livingstone-Learmonth has developed a category for select vignerons of the region called STGT (Soil to Glass Transfer), of which Domaine Monier is a part. He explains, in his definitive classic, The Wines of the Northern Rhône,
This is a numerically small group, one that has survived the onslaught of marketing campaigns, press hype, fashions in winemaking, and wine school orthodoxies. There are a few other domaines that occasionally turn out unfettered wines in the STGT vein, but without the consistency. A sincere wish, of course, is that this group should grow in the coming years. (xiv)
With only five hectares of land to farm, all on gentle, higher altitude slopes, one might question the interest in working by such stringent standards. For a joyful artisan like Jean-Pierre, purity and authenticity are paramount, and his viticultural methodology is merely the most genuine manifestation of these ideals.

Champagne Paul Bara

The Montagne de Reims boasts some of the best Pinot Noir in the region, and Bouzy is its capital. The key to Bouzy’s inherent greatness lies in its deep, chalky subsoil which imparts intense expression of fruit and great mineral complexity in its grand cru wines. The village of Bouzy and Champagne Paul Bara are practically synonymous. As the published village historian, Paul is indelibly linked to the lore of his hometown. Many argue that he is their most renowned producer, being one of the rare récoltants-manipulants in a region inundated with the mass-produced wines of the large, corporate champagne houses. These récoltants-manipulants, or R.M.s as they are known, are of the few that still grow their own grapes and make their own wines. Champagne Paul Bara is the quintessential example, where everything is done with a personalized touch.
Over the years, gradual improvements have been made to the estate: the surface area of the vineyards was expanded to eleven hectares (only 26 acres!), the winery and press modernized, and the cellar extended – and what an impressive cellar! It is carved entirely out of pure chalk and reaches a depth of over thirty feet below ground. When Paul returned home at the end of World War II, he found these same cellars raided, pillaged of nearly all inventory, and irreverently trashed by the German occupying forces. Of the few bottles that were salvaged, one can still experience the longevity and timeless quality of the Bara’s classic style. When Paul retired, he passed the direction of the estate over to his eldest daughter, Chantale, who has kept their family traditions and their house style very much alive. The Baras make their wines by hand with low-yielding vines and good maturity ensured by prolonged bottle aging. Andrew Jefford, author of The New France, calls them, “…essential references for anyone who wants to enjoy and understand the ripe, dry richness of Bouzy…”