The New Wine Review Weekly: May 19, 2024

đŸ· The ones you don’t know (but should)

May 19, 2024

FIVE NEXT-GENERATION NATURAL WINEMAKERS YOU NEED TO KNOW IN CALIFORNIA

California natural wine “has been around much longer than most realize,” writes Andrea Jaramillo. Tony Coturri started up his namesake winery with his dad in 1979, and was making natural wine long before then. But the current wave really took off with Chris Brockway’s Broc Cellars, which he started in 2002:

  • “He definitively steered away from the bigger-and-bolder style that then reigned over the region to lean into lighter and more expressive styles—always harvesting a bit early, to preserve freshness and acidity. This, of course, resulted in food-friendly wines with lower ABV that showcased California terroir, and proved tailormade to the farm-and-table ethos that many Bay Area restaurants embrace.”

  • “Many of the shops and restaurants I frequent in Los Angeles focus their lists on local wineries, highlighting a new crowd of younger and diverse winemakers whose approaches share resonances with Brockway: low ABV, food-friendly, and lifted. California’s natural wine scene continues to evolve, and what follows barely scratches the surface, but a bottle from any of these producers would be a great place to get to know its new generation.”

Who are her Fantastic Five? One of them is Rootdown Wine Cellars—the evocative photo above is theirs. Tap or click here to find out the other four.

SELLING FAKE WHISKEY? THIS GUY IS COMING FOR YOU

NWR’s Whiskey Editor Susannah Skiver Barton just caught up with Adam Herz, the noted screenwriter whose side gig is calling out fake bottles of ultra-coveted whiskey and the scammers behind them on his Facebook page, for a rollicking, intense, and definitely no-holds-barred conversation.

One of our many takeaways: Do not—do not—mess with Adam Herz. And, jeez, be really careful about buying the really hard-to-find stuff—your Pappys et al.—especially when it pops up on the secondary market.

  • “Knowing someone’s counterfeiting isn’t hard. Proving it is where the difficulty comes in—it’s compiling evidence that does two things. Demonstrates it to the public, but also demonstrates it to the faker—and especially whatever idiot attorney he might try to hire—you are dead in the water. Tuck your tail between your legs and walk away. Whenever I publish stuff, there are little Easter eggs for the counterfeiter, just to let him know that, whatever I might publish, this is the tip of the iceberg.”

  • “On Facebook, I started finding these fakers, and then I called them out. I was very careful, especially at first. I would publish these dry, boring, bullet-pointed articles—this person did this, then they did this, then they did this—just to document that this person is a counterfeiter. Then they’d be banished from online whiskey circles. Okay, good. We’re done with that guy. But the law doesn’t care. Nobody’s going to go after him. Using public funds to keep people’s whiskey hobby safer is not a top priority. Nothing really happens, unfortunately, in the U.S., but at least the hobby’s a little cleaner.”

  • “The other problem is this belief that your palate is awesome. No, my pal, it isn’t. I mean, I think my palate is pretty awesome, but I know all of its flaws, because even awesome palates suck. We’re human. We’re fallible. We taste what we expect to taste. Something has to be really, really terrible for you not to find a way to like it.”

Check it all out here for much, much more, including the first time—and likely the only time—that NWR publishes a particularly florid obscenity.

Want the full New Wine Review experience?

THE HIDDEN GEMS ON THIS JAMES BEARD-NOMINATED WINE LIST

The best part about an excellent wine list, writes NWR Editor in Chief Jon Fine, is strapping on the miner’s helmet and seriously excavating:

  • “By which we mean: flipping past the verticals of Grand Cru and Premier Cru Burg, steering away from the well-thumbed sections for Napa and Sonoma and Bordeaux and Tuscany and Piedmont, and digging deep. Looking for the Easter eggs; hoping to hear the dog whistles there for the real nerds. The great estates in overlooked regions. The hot new producer who will be galactically famous in a couple of years, but whose wines are somehow still on the list for just a little more than retail pricing. The wines that can only be there because the somm is excited about them.”

We love these wines so much that we’re starting a new, recurring feature—Hidden Gems—dedicated to somms’ favorite overlooked bottles on their lists. For our first installment, Fine caught up with Alec Cummings, the wine director at The Morris in San Francisco, whose wine list is so studded with all manner of excellence and nerd-bait that it just got nominated for a James Beard Award.

Which four bottles did Cummings single out? Check out Fine’s article and see.

WHAT YOU’RE MISSING IN OUR SUBSCRIBERS-ONLY SLACK COMMUNITY

  • A tasting of whites produced north of the Pyrenees—which to serve?

  • What to do when someone asks you for a Bretty Burgundy. (đŸ€·)

  • The most terrifying bottles in everyone’s collections. Warning: not for the faint of heart. (Click here to get full access!)

WINE DEAL OF THE WEEK*

The wines of longtime star Oregon winemaker Kelley Fox are rightly in high demand, and their prices—particularly for her precise Pinots—are rising as a result. But we have long loved her Durant Vineyard Lark Block Chardonnay, and you can grab the excellent 2019 vintage of it here for just $42.

AROUND THE WINE (AND WHISKEY) WORLD

😡Study shows men spend less on wines made by women.

🙂 Deep-dive analysis finds that the wine world’s glum outlook is overstated . . .

đŸŸ . . . but Champagne sales notch double-digit declines.

đŸ‡ș🇩 The wines of Ukraine.

đŸ„Š One of the few family-owned Napa wineries descends into a Succession-style family slugfest.

As always, thanks for reading! See you next week for much more.

Santé!

The NWR Editors

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