Wine Club

Domaine Thulon 2021 Beaujolais Village

Grape Varietal: 100% Gamay
Origin: Beaujolais, France

We constantly strive, throughout the year but most importantly in November and December, to find a great wine that will go with a myriad of wine-tasting scenarios. Something that is easy enough to drink solo or with simple fare, but also with sufficient body to stand up to the heartier, richer Thanksgiving meal and other holiday feasts. This is the one! This stunning wine hits all the right notes and is an amazing value!

Domaine de Thulon is a high-quality Beaujolais Villages from favored sites and should never be confused with simple Beaujolais Nouveau. It will fit in just about any occasion during the final months of the year. Made from the Gamay grape, this is a shining example of why this part of France is beloved. The Thulon family built their winery in 1987 on the former site of Château de Thulon dating back to the 15th century. The grapes are meticulously hand-harvested from the steep Beaujolais hillside. Such care in the vineyard shows clearly in the wine!

Turkey, ham, drunken cranberries, yams, mashed taters... bring it on. But it's a great everyday wine as well, comfortable with everything from pizza to charcuterie to pasta.

While the fruit is indeed the star, the chorus of other flavors, scents and body blend harmoniously to create quite the heavenly choir. Enjoy this fresh and fruity Beaujolais throughout the holidays and even for the next few years. It's a definite crowd-pleaser and will enrichen any gathering where wine is welcome.

The nose is a lovely mix of bright cherries and mixed red berries with a touch of bramble, earth and sandalwood. But the fruit is the star of the show! The palate showcases the fruit first and foremost, more cherries and raspberries with secondary notes of earth and a touch of currants. And the body! Once past the luxurious mouthfeel and panoply of fruits and more, the silky tannins and refreshing acidity keep this wine light on its feet and ready for the holiday table.

Olema 2021 Pinot Noir Sonoma County

Grape Varietal: 100% Pinot Noir
Origin: Sonoma County, California

November is here, and our minds turn from the fun times and trick-or-treats of Halloween to upcoming cooler weather and the Thanksgiving holiday. It's hard to think of Thanksgiving without turkey and all the trimmings, and when that pops into our heads it instantly makes us salivate for delicious Pinot Noir. And here we have a fantastic gem of a wine from one of the best regions for this noble grape, Sonoma County!

Olema's lead winemaker is Tony Biag, and we'd like to think it's his big personality that imbues the Olema wines with such heart, but his two decade-plus tenure in the wine industry might be part of it, too. His wealth of experience includes Duckhorn, Paraduxx, Plumpjack, Cade, Hourglass, and Patria. Small-production, single-vineyard wines comprise a large part of his wine portfolio, but it's his impressive knowledge of fermentation science (with a degree from the University of California at Davis) and keen knack for sensing a wine's building blocks that he utilizes most in the Olema cellar. Ultimately, the wine he ends up making is the wine the team most wants to drink, and one he thinks others will too. He is aided by the talented hand of his co-winemaker Dante West. Dante brings "book smarts" and "street smarts" to the Olema team, and he has honed his talents at notable wineries, such as Arista, Mending Wall, and Flowers.

The 2021 harvest will be remembered as a harvest of rebirth and of achievement. After the challenges that 2020 brought, 2021 presented itself as a glorious year, giving optimum weather to grape growers up and down the west coast. The warmer, drier winter pushed bud break earlier than usual and was followed by a dry but steady summer growing season. Drought conditions throughout California led to lighter crop yields; however, growers and winemakers have been very pleased with the exceptional quality of fruit and resulting wine, and the 2021 Olema Pinot Noir. Is no exception! This wine will pair well with the Thanksgiving turkey, pork tenderloin, salmon, and roast chicken!

Aged for 10 months in French oak barrels, the 2021 Olema Pinot Noir is a smooth and aromatic Pinot Noir showcasing the best of Sonoma County winemaking from an excellent vintage. A blend of Pinot Noir grapes from premier vineyards in the widely acclaimed Russian River Valley and Sonoma Coast appellations, this wine opens with aromas of ripe cherry, candied red apple and mulling spices. The palate is full of depth and balance, with black raspberry and strawberry notes leading into the silky-smooth finish.

Clos de la Barthassade “Pur C” 2022

Grape Varietal: 100% Cinsault
Origin: IGP Pays de l’Herault, France

ORGANICALLY FARMED

Clos de la Barthassade is a winery located in the south of France, in the backcountry of Montpellier. This cuvee is specifically located near the city of Montpeyroux that is known to maintain freshness in the wines. (I recently selected wine from D’Aupilhac that is located in Montpeyroux)

The grape variety is Cinsault, almost completely destemmed, almost completely vinified in stainless steel tank (10% oak barrels). The winemaker wanted to express the delicate fruity aromas of that amazing grape variety. The palate is very delicate and soft, the alcohol is kept at a moderate level for the region standards at 13.5. Fresh Strawberries and Cherries and a hint of elderflower shine through this incredibly easy drinking bottle.

Wine Tip

A wine that will delight most palates during Thanksgiving dinner, if you can wait that long.

Domaine de Baal 2019 Le Petit Baal

Grape Varietal: 80% Syrah, 20% Merlot
Origin: DOQ : Bekaa Valley, Lebanon

ORGANICALLY FARMED

Hi-Time's Top Other Import of 2023

Domaine de Baal was founded in 2006 by Sebastien Koury after he had returned to Lebanon from France where he had spent several years in Saint-Émilion as a winemaker. His goal is to produce high quality natural and organic wines.

We were impressed by his Le Petit Baal 2019 which is a blend of organically farmed Syrah (80%) and Merlot (20%) grown in the Bekaa Valley on calcareous soil. The grapes were fermented (mostly whole clusters) in stainless steel by their indigenous wild yeast and aged in lightly toasted three and four-year old French barrels. This delicious red has aromas and flavors of blackberries, blueberries, black cherries and a hint of fine herbs.

Le petit Baal is a love letter to Lebanon, Sebastien Khoury did everything he could to make the best organically wine possible. He built a winery with a minimalist eco-friendly buildings and architecture, the one-meter width walls along with the green roofs covered with soil and plants, provide the ideal environment for the winemaking and maturation processes. The vaulted oak barrels cellar was built halfway underground to guarantee an average temperature of 55 to 60ºF and humidity levels of 60 to 70% all year long.

Pepiere 2022 Muscadet La pepie

Grape Varietal: 100% Melon de Bourgogne
Origin: Muscadet, Sevre et Maine, Loire, France

PRACTICING ORGANIC & SUSTAINABLE FARMING

The cuvee Domaine de la Pepiere are produced on a 12-hectare land. This vineyard is located on the hillside of the Maine, on a highly stony soil. The vines are 25 years old on average.

The soils are very filtering, with lots of gravel. These characteristics allow an early ripening. Grapes are harvested manually, then are carried to the wine cellar with much care. The pneumatic press is filled by gravity, and grapes are not crushed. A very slight racking enables the yeasts which are naturally present, to induce fermentation. This cuvee is left on its lees until spring, without any racking.

The 2022 vintage maintains its classic lemony, stony and briny quality. This is a great bottle of Muscadet!

Wine Tip

Domaine de la Pepiere, la Pepie is one of my favorite choices when you are looking for that simple wine that everybody is going to like and that pairs with any type of food. On top of that, it is grown organically. What else to ask for at that price?

Domaine de la Solitude 2019

Grape Varietal: 60% Sauvignon Blanc, 40% Semillon
Origin: Pessac Leognan, Bordeaux

JAMES SUCKLING 94 POINTS

"So aromatic with banana-cream pie, smoke and lemon curd. Always subtle and complex. Full-bodied and very tight, offering a crushed-stone and cooked-apple finish with an intense dried-lemon undertone. 60% sauvignon blanc and 40% semillon."

The domaine de la solitude is owned by the Holy Family monastery and is taken care of and vinified by Domaine du Chevalier

Largely inspired from the model developed over a long period at Chevalier, the process of elaborating white wines at La Solitude reveals a lot of precision in its gestures and in its approach.

The harvest gets placed in small crates over the course of maturity, grape by grape, through successive selections (up to four or five times for difficult years). This delicate operation is entrusted to a tight knit team of grape-pickers, brought together as they are accustomed to at Chevalier, primarily every morning, "When the temperature is still fresh". The grape selection, comprised of batches formed through extremely selective criteria (variety, specific origin, age of the vineyard etc.) is then slowly pressed. The juice flows down by gravity into a buried vat. It is then decanted* before flowing into one year old barrels where the phases of vinification will all take place at once. This formula continues with the separation of the grapes selected into well identified batches which, in their diversity, compete intricately up until the final combination.

The fermentation in casks and the regular stirring of the fine sediment lasts 9 to 10 months. The bottling happens before the following summer. The fining of the wine, which is not systematic, is only made when necessary. These choices performed with a great level of meticulousness, give the wine its precise character, with its freshness and power, its extreme elegance, its beautiful lasting taste in the mouth and its capacity to age well.