This holiday season, skip the guesswork and give a gift that truly feels personal. Sonsations gift guide is filled with rare small production wines that you won't find on most door shelves and selected by our sommelier from independent wineries. Use our guide to shop gifts by price, discover award-winning bottles, and explore our sommelier picks. Gift more than bottle. Gift and experience, they'll never forget. Explore the unexpected and make your gifting unforgettable. Shot the Sonsation gift guide now at Sonsation.com. Hello and welcome to the Wine Enthusiast podcast. You're serving new drinks culture and the people who drive it. I'm Ryan Grimm, magazine director here at Wine Enthusiast, and if I sound a little excited it is because it's the best time of the year, I'm not just talking about the holidays. See we just published the Enthusiast 100 list on WineEnthusiast.com and in our best of year print issue. This is a big list of our favorite wines of the entire year. It's 100 bottles that really impressed us in 2025 that we feel are worth celebrating. It has wonderful recommendations for holiday parties and gifts that I highly recommend giving you a look. It's full of lesser-known producers, under-the-radar regions, as well as iconic names that we all know and love. So in this episode of Podcast, I'll be discussing the top three bottles from this list, but the Wine Enthusiast writers are large who reviewed those bottles. We'll talk about the wine makers, the regions, and why these three wines in particular are really worth seeking out. First up to discuss bottle number three, which is from Saxon, Phoenix and Pasa Robles, is Matt Ketman. Matt reviews wines for us from the Central Coast, Southern California, and Longodock, Roussion. Matt, thanks so much for being here. I would be here, Ryan. So you reviewed our number three bottle of the year, which is from Pasa Robles. Tell me a little bit about the region, changes in the region, and would we be having this conversation 20 or so years ago? What's changed? You know, when I was a kid, I grew up in San Jose, but we had relatives in Los Angeles, and we would even stop and pass roles because it was like a dusty cowboy town that was not worth your time, but in the last 20 years, 10 years specifically, it's begun this burgeoning movement of wine and food and culture, really. There's a jazz bar there. There's a whole situation happening in Pasa Robles that I don't think if you don't drive through there, you wouldn't even handle. Yeah. And this producer in particular, Saxon, what's there special about them? I think many listeners might not be familiar. Why would they be ranking so highly for you this year? Well, so Saxon was one of the first brands there in Pasa Robles that showed that ron varieties can truly excel in the kind of warm yet well irrigated environment of the West Side of Pasa Robles. So, forever, it was Bordeaux, varieties on Zimpindel, and then they started planning ron varieties on an excelling and pushing these massive wines that just really turn people's heads. So they realize you can take Sriracha, Gronache, and Mouraved, very ripe and still have a balance. And in fact, in Pasa Robles, you actually have to do that because the Calcareus soil is so limit the grapes that the acidity is ridiculously high and you have to take it into the deepness, ripeness of the season to actually get that acidity to drop. So it's funny because people think that people just make ripe wines in Pasa because they like that. And they do, but they make them that way because in fact you have to because the acidity is so serenely high even when the grapes were at a fairly high sugar level, you have to wait for that to drop. And so Saxon was one of the first to actually understand that and capture that rightness of acidity balance that works out. I mean, I will say that there was a lot of wine or using Pasa that just kind of believed that that ripeness is kind of the whole point. And so I kind of missed the part of acidity or the balance and just have these kind of big unfriest wines that were just kind of like face-smacking without without the balance. But Saxon really does it and still retains that balance. Do you feel like the region is almost better suited for G.S.M. Blends than other sorts of grape varieties and they're kind of tapping into that more than others? I mean, I would say the whole, I mean, the whole west side of Pasa particularly is all deep into realms. And the point even the Bordeaux houses are making a lot of ron, round blend wines. And you know, Talbos Creek is from Pasa Robles. They're the ones that brought in almost all of the modern clones of ron from Chabte about Bucustel. And that's a French family that looked all around the world for the best place to grow ron lines and they settled on this. This is an early late 80s, early 90s. It's perfect for them in a new world setting. But the Bordeaux do quite well too. I mean, some of the best styles of Bordeaux wines that I get in California are from Pasa Robles. And you know, like every other reason they're also exploring everything else you can do with wine. So there's been getting more like vermentino and uniblong and you know, there's even a whole new Greek winery there that's making muskiflero and aceridicro and really interesting stuff that can just work in an environment because it really has this calcareous soil that's like, it's white, you know, you out there and you kick the dirt around and there's chalk everywhere. And one of the first times I went out there for our magazine was with Epic with Jordan Purentini that why make it there. And she made me lick a rock and I lick the rock, you know, and it was white and it made my mouth kind of pucker up. You know, it's a fascinating geology which leads to some great wines. And you feel like the reputation's kind of catching up. I, you know, to imagine there's some listeners who were very familiar with Sonoma and Napa that maybe aren't buying as many central coast wines, but I guess like what would be the pitch to them to kind of dig more into the region? They're better. That would be the best butch. I mean, the whole central coast is, I mean, it's a large area, right? So there's some, you know, particularly fascinating pockets. West Pass is definitely one of those where the right mix of climate and soil and history really, I'm going to be making wines there since the 1800s, you know, 18, 18, 18, 18, York Mountain was up there. So it's not, it's not like they just found out about, I mean, they've been making wine there forever. So they know what they're doing is tasty wine. It's a little bit cheaper than particularly Sonoma and Napa. I mean, the secrets out, you know, people know about it. It's a thriving area. It's a past so being, you know, the kind of the poster child about it, of a town that went from, you know, some place I wouldn't stop as a kid to place that I go all the time. You know, it's really just kind of a fascinating testament of like how wine can change an area and I'm sure you can say that you liked it better before you liked it when it was dusty or whatever, that's fine. And I appreciate that. You know, the reality is that for most people, it's a much more thriving area. Yeah. So Saxums, you know, this is a really special, really special bottling. Why for you? Why does it kind of rise above some of the other top producers there? Well, so, you know, Saxums was started by, by Pebble Smith back in the 80s. He was a veterinarian that was an incinitas down like, you know, San Diego area and he just kind of was sick of that grind and bought some land up in Paso and I'm planning to vineyard. I don't think it really ever intended to make that much wine. He made something just, you know, in this garage right away. But then, you know, it started, it started taking off and so his son Justin Smith, who's kind of the name, he's the name behind him. Justin and Matt Trevison started a mini coloto of brand in like 1997. And I'm pretty well, but then Justin, I think kind of realized like he had his own fruit so that they, they're friends, but they break up from that winery. And then Justin started Saxing, making wines just from there are state grapes from those part. And their state grapes are, you know, all of the rounds and then also a little bit of grassy on there because there was this hole. You can look it up. I wrote about, I was the one that broke the story, but you can look it up. Grassyana was planted all over the central coast because everyone thought it was the monastral clone of Morved. But in fact, it's grassy on which is actually a Spanish script, etc. Anyway, Justin has embraced grassy on it. And so his, this blend includes little grassy on it has Srirat, has Morved, has Brinosh. I mean, it's kind of like the epitome of Paso doing its own thing and then going for it, not really carrying whatever people do. I'll have to say, there is this almost caricature of Paso of those wines that exist even within the Y-Macon community down South like in Santa Barbara where I live. You know, they tend to make kind of fresher style wines and so, and then up in Monterey and Santa Cruz. There's a bit of a caricature of Paso of those wines being just like overly ripe and overly dense. It kind of like, you know, too ripe really for a lot of palettes. And when I try this wine, these are massive, but also they have structure, they have balance. And these are wines that, you know, that I think deserve the scores that they got. Look, I get it. You have one of these wines, you're like, okay, I get it. They're not necessarily to be perturbed in honest. The wines that I'm going to go for to have a glass of, you know, on a weekday night or even more than a glass or two on a. On a weekend night, they're big, they're kind of heavy, they're meant to be shared. They're probably meant to age enough to some extent for a while. You know, we can loan sit down for five to eight years, but they are, you know, this particular wine, like kind of blew my socks off and I was like, okay, I get it. You know, like these are big wines, but this one actually works. You know, so it's a good representation of the region at its peak in that style. Yeah, and you mentioned the Spanish variety that they put in there. So it's almost like a GSM Roan blend with a little bit of like a Spanish twist, you could say. Yeah, it's like a GSM G, which is actually becoming quite common here because of that mix up with the monastrol clone of Moorved, which I learned about because I actually made wine that year and I thought I was getting more bad and it was not more bad. And actually, I heard about it because of Justin Smith. So Justin was speaking out of the event and he was like, I heard some rumors of it and he was like, and I have this most acres, this much acres and we'll grow up to the after the talk. I was like, Justin, is that because of the monastrol clone of Moorved and so I did a whole story. I did we've done podcasts about it even. It's just an interesting glitch of viticulture, you know, it was kind of like multiple of people sort of screwed up. No one really knows exactly why it came in wrong, but it adds, you know, that's a, I think the smart one makers like Justin and many others are embracing it because it's, it's actually a very good great. It's dense, it gets riper and quicker than Moorved. Moorved is a very difficult grip and it holds a simile and it makes it can make a really nice wine, particularly in the style that this part of the world is doing, which is, you know, kind of a denser riper wine. So it really fits the profile and I think Justin, Justin was not only the first to figure it out, he was one of the senate Davis and was like, is this is not Moorved and the May one through their whole figuring that out, but he's also the one that embraces and you know, I'm not going to rip all the stuff out. I don't actually see all this works because he was, we're not in France. You can do whatever you want really, you know, so and he's led the way in that regard and there's, you know, dozens, if not, well, many dozens of wineries that are embracing Gratziano now. Yeah, I think there's a spirit experimentation in the region that you might not get from other parts of the world that are yielding some really exciting results and this seems like one of them. So also Saxum is, it's basically, you know, it's a cult grant at this point. You can't actually really buy it much unless you're in the club. You can still find it restaurant sometimes, you can occasionally find it in a retailer, but mostly it's like, you got to be part of the club, you're in the club and then you can get the ones. Do you know how many cases they produced of this one? Nope. We can find out, we'll put a little note in the, but yeah, I'm interested in, you know, the allocation for this and how that works. So it's, you know, you would need to, yeah, you need to have a join their club or find it in a local restaurant. Yeah, that's interesting. I did recommend if you do get about your hand on a bottle, the best way to drink the best pairing for it is, you know, grilling it over an open wood fire, grilling red oak, which is basically aged oak over fire. Like tritzup was invented through in San Maria tritzips from here. And the most famous barbecue, particularly West Coast is from the Central Coast. And it goes pretty well with the one like this, you know, that smoky kind of crunchy crust of a meat and this like very stunctious, fairly thick wine. It works quite well. Maybe some salsa too. You can nail the salsa, I think. Yeah. And if we were, if we were tasting it right now, kind of like a walk me through kind of, it'll be an experience of tasting this wine. But out of the nose, it is, you know, just smashed you right. So you know, you're getting into something serious. I mean, it has, you know, not only like kind of the sort of blackberry mocha thing you would expect, but it has almost like confectionery like maple butter. I mean, and like a bit of a chise spice too. So there's like, you know, waves of, you kind of just, it's overwhelming. And definitely, you know, we blind taste, but I could kind of tell when I was hitting the saxum and my blind flies, so it's like, whoa, this is like boom, here we go. And again, that's not like necessarily what I always want myself and just a everyday wine, but it's like, you know, it's impressive. It kind of grabs you by the, by the neck and shakes you. So, and then, you know, you take the sip and just like, like your whole mouth is suddenly full of, of this kind of, you know, thick tasting wine that's kind of envelops the entire palate. And it has some, you know, similar flavors. And when the rich lines of this, I think a lot of like roasted fig or, you know, roasted fruit like that. It's like, you know, it's not necessarily sweet, but it's like, it's, it's very bluptuous and kind of, some choice really is what it is. And then that spice also just kind of kicks in where you get like the licorice and not sort of thing. And really, I think what's impressive about wines at this scale is the kind of management of the tarons is really the big thing, I think, where, you know, for me, texture is more important to some extent than flavor and smell, you know, when it hits your mouth and you can tell they're not, it's like a good one and not as is all based on texture. And wine's like this that are particularly this kind of rich and bluptuous, that they still have a texture that kind of defines it as fascinating anywhere. It's like a sandy tanin, but it's, but it just kind of holds, holds its grip in your mouth. And so your left, like, you know, you just take a sip of it, your left tasting it for kind of as long as you want because, you know, it just goes on, on, on, on, on, and that's thanks to the tarons. And that's really, I think, why any great wine region realizes that they're doing something well is because that you can make texture that translates the soil and the climate, the palette in a way that, you know, transcends the flavor, transcends the aromas. And this, and this had this for me. And I say polished tanin, which the review says is, that's what I mean. It's like they're there, they're firm, maybe forgive it firm and forgiving is a good phrase if you see that, did I write? You know, it's like it holds something, but it's like, would it actually go to it? So, and in this case, these are, you know, these tanins were there. So that also indicates a little bit of life to it, to at least, you know, three, four, or five years. I mean, these are big ones. Like, so long on a one like this because it's not going to fall apart, but if it can get kind of too much of itself after too much time in the bottle, but, you know, five, six years, I think this thing would be pretty great too. Yeah. I'm going to send you my address next time you get a sample. Send me down. I'd love to try it. All right. Well, I think, I think that's about it. Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it. Yeah, my pleasure, man. It was fun. Next up, we have Christina Picard, our writer at large who covers wines from Australia, New Zealand, New York, and England. She's here to discuss the number two bottle on the list, which is an English sparkling wine from the acclaimed producer Gus Born. Christina, thank you much for being here. A pleasure. So tell me this number two bottle on our list of 100 is an English sparkling wine. Speaking back the last 20, 25 years, how did we get here where an English sparkling wine is a number two bottle of the year? Well, firstly, I was so excited to hear that news because anytime we can champion English, I'm like, yeah, I lived in England for over a decade, 11 years, I left in 2012. And when I left, the scene there was kind of just starting to get going, but reputation hadn't really caught up with where the quality was going. I mean, so we're talking what, like even 15 years ago or so, there was still, it was really hit in this, right? So, like throughout the 80s and 90s, we started to get sparkling coming on the scene. And now, I think anybody who knows a little bit about English wine would know sparkling is really the style that they champion. It's, I think, like 80% if not more production is for traditional methods, sparkling wine. So that has really become their signature. You know, this is cool climate, but really up until a decade or so ago, it was hard to ripen grapes in England. It's pretty far north, but they are along the same fault line as champagne. You know, they have those chalky soils. They also have some really interesting, like this green sandstone and some heavy clays. It's kind of a real mix, but it's definitely not boring soil. But for a long time, it was just kind of hit and miss. So you had people like Nye Timber and Ridgeview, they came in through the late 80s and early 90s and they started to make a name for sparkling. But it was a long time before the English took their own wines seriously. You know, when I left, they weren't, they weren't really drinking their wines very much. There was sort of this running joke that they would, English, English bubbles would strip the enamel off your teeth. That was so high in acidity because there was, you know, there was only maybe one in a decade, maybe two in a decade, ventages that were really warm enough to get those really fleshy right fruits, right?
And there's still to this day is a really distinctive acidity with England. So I think a climatologist that I've quoted in pieces that I've written for wine enthusiasts has said that the 10 warmest ventages in England have been all in the last decade, like in history. So it's slightly terrifying, if not a lot terrifying, from a climate change perspective. But one industry that is doing well through climate change is the mind industry because now they are able to get through right. But I think that they're in this sweet spot with still having these beautiful, harsh, hedgerow aromas and flavors that don't get fried off with being too hot. But it's still cool enough that you retain this beautiful acidity. So right now, I think England's in a sweet spot, although it is still an island, they do still struggle with wind and frost and an unpredictable climate. So there's definitely vintage variation. So this is I think our vintage charts coming out soon. England is definitely one to pay attention to when it comes to vintage because not all years are created equal. But now we have this pretty incredible mix of talent and resources where even in tough ventages we're getting some really beautiful wines. Do you feel like with the changes in reputation and the changes in climate that there's a kind of a culture of experimentation and like risk taking going on going on in the Great Britain? That's a great question. For a while, I worried that there wasn't enough. But even just in the last like five to seven years, we have now this whole undercurrent of smaller producers that are making petnats and really focusing on table wines. And you know, I wouldn't I would say there's like a little fringe natural wine scene. And then there's other guys who have worked for the big producers who are maybe a little more traditional and style, but they're going off and doing their own thing and making these really interesting wines. And even though they're at the edge and they don't represent the majority volume wise of wine, I think they're incredibly important for from the broader industry perspective in that they really push are pushing the whole English English wine industry forward. And just making it more interesting and colorful and diverse and inclusive. And all of those things that you want for a wine industry. So this bottle is from Gus Bourne. Where does Gus Bourne fit in? And how long have they been kind of a major player in the region? So Gus Bourne are I would consider in what I call the second wave of the kind of gain changing producers in English wine. They started. They were established in 2004. So this was, you know, you already had Nye Timber going for a little over a decade. Ridgeview was already there. You had Denby's Camel Valley. These other producers who were pretty well established and breaking bottom who I mentioned. But Gus Bourne came in in the second wave that really took things to a new level. So they came in straight off the bat with really high quality sparkling. And then also started to make a name, especially more recent years, make a name for still shardonnays and Pinot Noiras as well. For a long time, they were really making, I think, some of the best Pino in particular in England. And now there are others that have caught up and are also making, I think there's, you know, it makes sense with the climate warming that we're starting to see more and more great still Pino and shardonnay. But they for a long time were really in that wave of championing those. And their sparklings just straight off the gate, one tons of awards they have. They have a lot of trophies and various awards under their belt. And they had a wine maker named Charlie Holland who is one of the best wine makers in England. And he was there for a long time. And he's now left actually to go to Jackson Family, California's Jackson Family project, which I can talk about later. But there are another big investment in England that I think is a real sign of the future, particularly for still wine in England. But anyway, Charlie's not there anymore. He left in, I think, 2023. And they now have a Scott's woman who is their wine maker named Mary Bridges is the head and why maker, which she's been in working for the winery for quite a few years now. But it's still a winery that is really one of the leading lights in England. And they have a decent amount of volume by English standard so that we can actually see some of the wines over here. That's always a challenge with promoting or being passionate about English wine is that a lot of Americans are like, well, great, but where can I buy it? Well, there's a handful of producers that get over here. And Gussborne is definitely one of those. And now we have Chapel Down, who's the biggest producer in England. They have a good presence ironically with Jackson family who are just helping with their importing and distributing. But we, yeah, Gussborne are definitely one of the sort of those super high quality, I would say, at a premium level brand that is still pushing English wine forward and especially internationally. So for this particular bottle, which is 51 degrees north, for someone who is not that familiar with English sparkling, how would it compare to something that they might be more familiar with, like a champagne or a calvo per seco? Oh, that's a good question. The first thing that I always say with English bubbles, because they do, there's a lot of blind tastings. In fact, one just happened recently in the States in New York with Chapel Down where they blind tasted Chapel Down's bubbles against a champagne. And conveniently for them, everyone preferred the Chapel Down. And they've done that a lot. There's a lot of instances over the years where English wine comes out ahead of the champagne. England is going more for that bone dry style. There's a really unique acidity that I talk about a lot with English wines that very English acidity. And it's hard to describe until you start tasting them and you, but you start to see it. Oh, yeah, I see it. It's a unique sort of laser sharp acidity. It's very bright. It's often pretty citrusy and it's like straight down the middle of your tongue. And I'm like, oh, yeah, that's England. And you know, champagne is like not having an easy time of it climatically. They've had some very erratic weather. And so I think for them, it's getting harder and harder to find that consistency that we know from champagne. And England, it's going opposite, right? They're getting more and more consistent. Yes, there's vintage variation, as I mentioned, but they're getting more consistency. But you know, sparkling wine is such a wine maker's product in a way. Like more than any other wine I would argue obli, any other wine style, making sparkling really is all about the producer and what they do with it. And so in this case, just to go back to the number two wine, this has been, you know, on Lease for a long time. It's had a minimum of 67 months of of Lease aging. It's mostly shard. It was 67% shard and a 33% peanut or so. It's the when you when you kind of see that lease, usually the longer the Lease aging, the richer, the more kind of biscuitie, those analytic easty notes are going to be in there. So they're definitely with this going for a high end traditional method sparkling. I mean, I would hope so. This was when this came out. It was a big deal at the time because it was really the first sparkling to be priced well into the triple digits in England. So it sent a real message that look, we can play with the big boys, right? The first vintage was in 2014. So this 16, so on the second vintage they released. Also, I should mention that it was a relatively warm year for England. It was low yielding. They had some frost in the spring, but it was pretty warm year. So it's just naturally going to be a riper style because of that. But they they kind of came straight out the bat with this like pretty rich toasty style compared to very comparable to top champagne and said it's English and we're going to charge what we want to charge for it. It is still to this day the most expensive English sparkling wine out there. And I mean, it's it's definitely a special occasion wine, but does it compare to the champagne at that price or often much, much more expensive? Absolutely. I would rather pay the like $370 or whatever it is for the English than pay double or triple that for champagne because I think quality wise you're absolutely getting at the same level if not higher. In terms of its perception, you asked, do you feel like the future is looking pretty bright for English sparkling? I mean, I feel like we wouldn't be having this conversation 15 or so years ago. And I could you know, see us next year or the year after having similar conversations about English sparkling and how amazing, you know, so many of these wines are like, what's what's the future look like? I think it's pretty bright. And honestly, I don't know that we can say that about a whole lot of places in the wine world at the moment. I hate to say that, but you know, we all know the challenges that are happening in the wine world from many, many fronts. And I think England actually is in one of those rare little sweet spots where I think it's pretty bright. I mean, I think that the challenges, of course, it faces challenges like everywhere else. I think one of the challenges it's going to face is just getting that supply and demand ratio right with because it has such vintage variation, it'll have some, you know, it's had some recent ventages that have been massed, like 23 was a massive vintage. And suddenly all this wine was made. And so there was, there's definitely a question of who's going to drink all that wine. And then you have another vintage like 24 that's much smaller. And you think, okay, like maybe it's all going to balance out. So that's going to be the challenge for them in the future is just managing supply and demand, which is honestly a change. I can't think of a wine region where that's not a challenge right now. But they, I think it's bright, particularly for Americans because I think when you have a vintage like 23 where you have all this wine, what are they going to do with it? They're pretty small population, but they're not going to be able to drink all that wine themselves. They're going to need to look to export more. But I think that the future is bright because I think that there will be more and more English wines that come here. It will always be small. Let's be honest, it's a small place. It's never going to make tons of wine, but I think that we'll see more and more
it'll continue to be kind of a little bit of a novelty, but it'll be something I think that as people try it and learn more about it and realize how delicious it is. And, you know, arguably in some case, compared to champagne, what good value it can be. I think we'll see it being drunk more and people seeking it out a little more. Yeah, I feel like a, especially like a decade ago, there were a lot of conversations about its quality and it was kind of cool. It had like a kind of cool like cachet to it. And I feel like a lot of that's a lot of that's still there. Oh, yeah. I wanted to ask about pairing and how we're drinking this and what the holidays coming up in New Year's. I would imagine this would be an amazing pick if you wanted to splurge a little bit for New Year's or Christmas or whatever. Yeah, 100% sparkling is one of my favorite food pairing lines because it goes with everything. It's so easy to pair because there's just something about that Fizz and that acidity. And I'm just like, I could drink this by itself. I could drink it with an a pair of teeth. I could drink it with the main, you know, with turkey dinner or whatever, whatever, like meat dish, especially like white meat or poultry or pork. That's being served at dinner. You know, I probably wouldn't have it with your classic red, you know, red wine foods. I don't know if I'd like have it with spaghetti bolinies. But I'd have it with a steak actually like a like a really like delicately cooked salt and crested steak. You could have a richer style like like this guzzborne would actually probably hold up really well because it's rich and it's it's a bigger wine with those sort of more pitisserie biscuitie notes in there. But but yeah, anything. I mean seafood like all seafoods like anything like buttery like a buttery pasta. And then I think if you are getting into more what you would classically pair with red wines, I probably would go more with an English rosé sparkling where you do get a little more on the red fruit spectrum and a little riper. But it's really versatile. It's just you can just have it with everything and it's just celebratory right. There's something about cracking open a bottle of bubbles that you're like, I'm in the mood to celebrate. So I think it's really the perfect holiday holiday wine. And I know there's, you know, there's a lot of folks with ties to the UK who live in the States, whether your family is English or you go over there to travel or you have English friends or whatever. I just feel like we have we have a lot of ties back to that country. So there's a really nice. There's just a really nice something really nice about, you know, drinking from our from our neighbors across the pond. Yeah, it's a conversation started to because there's so much to say about the region and about the quality and you know, like with everything we've been discussing. So yeah, it's really exciting. I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled to see it up there and getting some attention for sure. And even though we are, you know, here talking about the most expensive English bubbles. There are also they really do run the gamut because I do recognize for a lot of folks that that's a lot of money to spend. But there really are now English wines that do run the gamut. You can look up bubbles of Britain their website. She's selling I think direct from the website and she has definitely a more of a range price wise. Teple down is here now so you can go to wine searcher you can go to our reviews on wine enthusiast and click and they'll give you some links as to where to buy them. So, you know, unless you're based like right in Manhattan or right right in New York City. And even then it's going to be a little bit you're going to have to spend a little bit of time looking. But there's definitely ways you can get them online as well. So it's something to seek out, but I promise you won't be disappointed. Well, great. Thanks so much for being here. I really appreciate it. Always happy to talk about English bubbles. Now we're going to chat with Danielle Caligari, one of our reviewers who covers Italian wine. She reviewed the number one bottle and the enthusiast 100 list, which is from the master bear dinner winery in Componio. Danielle, thank you so much for being here. So you reviewed our number one bottle this year. Tell me about this bottle. Thank you. And it's great to be here. I'm always excited to be on the wine enthusiast podcast. And I'm super excited today. The bottle that we have has our number one this year is from producer master Bernadino, a historic producer of wine in this area of Componio that has incredible terroir, very, very special characteristics in terms of its micro climate, indigenous grapes that are not perhaps familiar to even some of the great wine lovers of this world. And and in this case, produced and expressed in a way that is very unusual and again, particularly exciting. So for me, there's so much to talk about here. The problem will be as usual raining me in, but I can say that Componio is exciting. I Yanico is exciting, master Bernadino is exciting and I'm so delighted to be able to give it this special this placement that brings it to our readers and listeners attention. Yeah, I saw that that that terrassi can be referred to as the burrollo of the south. Why do people make that comparison? The comparison between terrozi, alianico, the reds that come from this area of Campania with burrollo, the great red of Italy's northwest Piedmont is helpful for us in as much as it gives you the idea right away correctly that this is a structured important meditative red wine that can be expected to age for a very long time. In fact, in the case of a Yanico, I would even say longer and stronger than nebbiolo, the grape that makes burrollo. On the other hand, it also again, in a short hand way gives us the understanding that a Yanico has a lot of nuance is very layered. It has a kind of smoky savouriness to it and it has and that kind of I also maybe leathery, deep earth characteristics that make it something really worth returning to in addition to enjoying in, you know, the most immediate way that we like to pour it in the glass and just find out what this particular bottle is doing. It again, it kind of connects you to this territory that has so much history and so much more to it than where I think any of us are aware of even the people who drink it a lot. It really kind of just keeps giving in that way that but that burrollo is known for so to alianico. And maybe just one more thing to add there in terms of points of comparison that are worth underlining is it's incredible incredible age ability. And as I said, the structured reds that last even maybe better than nebbiolo. And Yanico has this uncanny ability to stay alive, vibrant and dynamic for truly, truly decades, even wines that are not aiming for the highest end of the market are still going to be performing really well for a long time. What's this reputation in the US, would you feel it's a little underappreciated? Yeah, I think that's very fair. I think you could tell I was getting there and it I would say, you know, my healing on as I think within the context of our conversation if people read what I read about Italian wine and listen to us on this podcast once in a while talking about it, they know that I am very convinced of the fact that Italian wine as a large category still remains to great extent under appreciated in terms of how much value it provides at the price points that are available. And this goes, you know, I would say underline that twice and put stars around it for companion wines and then what even more so for this particular Greek bridal again because it's aging potential and these layers of depth. But also because I actually aligns very beautifully with the some of the most common American taste, right? We love we love bold reds. We love we're, you know, we love steakhouse wines and something curl up next to the fire with we're heading into the holidays now. I don't really just checks all these boxes that make it it just it feels like a wine that America would really love in in ways that I again in so in so many different ways that that makes it surprising to me that it hasn't fully caught this I guys great yet even though it did it certainly has had its moments and there are some producers including master bedroom Dino home we're highlighting today. That you know have have garnered deservedly so great attention but it's it's still definitely flies under the radar. Yes, how does the volcanic soil affect these wines? I know that's a big big part of the region. Well, so Campania has met has a lot of different soil types I want to be clear and one of the things that so master bedroom Dino is a very special producer because they have done so much and this is I mean great to their great credit really Antonio. And in particular recently with the with the stilema project but also with all of their wines they've been very attentive to the understanding of what they have.
for the last couple of generations, what they have as a region, and what they can potentially do, and then also finding out more of it, also finding out, experimenting with things, figuring out what is possible, making that information also available to other people producing there, and then also creating a kind of, not museum, 'cause that feels like you can't touch stuff and play with it, I think, say more of a playground for all sides of wine making, in terms of what the varietals do, and again, back to the soils. So when we talk about what the volcano does, volcanic soils have been, people have mixed relationships with them because they have not always been as appreciated. But I hesitate to get too deep in there because what I do wanna emphasize with anything is again, that there's really a great diversity. So it's not just, much so I said, people might know Campania because of the city of Naples, and especially because of the Amalfi coast, and you think of it as going to these beautiful cliffside restaurants or beach towns being on a boat having fun, and that is a fantastic and, and we're the part of the, your visit to the region. But we get up into, you know, driving east from Naples into the peninsula, you're going into the mountains, you're going into places where it hails a lot. There's a fog, it gets very cold, and so too, so climate-wise and soil-wise, there's really a little bit of everything there. And so the producers like Master of Eddino have managed to give the attention to that diversity that makes it possible to have many different kinds of wines, the many different kinds of expressions of their indigenous ritals, and then also added to that the possibility to create bottlings that respect certain traditions in terms of the long, wine-making history that's there. So, you know, I, to kind of give the zoom out since we're having a big seam's discussion, which, you know, the takeaway here is that this is a place that you might think of for any one of these things, but you can think of for all of these things, for having, yeah, so, so many different kinds of grapes. I mean, we're talking about Ayaneco today, but the white wines from this region Fiano, Palangina, Greco are incredible. I've been really, we just wanna talk about undervalued, talk about having a long aging potential talking about, to getting a lot of bang for your buck. So it's, you know, it's really just one of these places where I'm overwhelmed by how much there is still to discover even having spent a lot of time there, and tried my best to understand it very well over the last, like, 20-ish years. - Yeah, so let's get into the bottle itself. Let's almost pretend like we were tasting it right now. What, talk me through it, talk me through it as if we just cracked the bottle. - I, yeah, so when I'm in a place like Campania, in tiny towns that are talked away in these mountainous interior regions of sort of like the arch of the foot, if Italy is a boot around these places, the wines that come out of here and the Yanico, especially I think, provides the sense of that depth in a way that is unmatched. And what you'll get out of a wine like that, and particularly when it comes to the Silema, is a wine that has many of the characteristics that we are expecting to find in quality wine today and find wines today. But also some sides to it, some elements that you really don't expect to find. What I think that they've done so successfully, Pierro, Master of the Arduino, who is a guiding this project, I think would agree is, or I should say, I think has tried to focus on is not just capturing moment in time and wine making that we don't often have access to anymore, but taking it with us today. So having the best of what we do well with wine now and collecting the experiences and the beauty and the delicacy of the past. And so the notes I was mentioning before, the savory quality, this kind of smokiness, a very, there's a very sanguine nature to a yanico that I think comes out particularly well in the Silema. But it also more than any particular note. Again, it just, it gives you the sense of a wine that has, it's, I think I described it even this way as labyrinthine. And it's very, it's a great, it's this like, you're as you're tasting it more, if a new door is suddenly, like you didn't notice was in the room, right? It's like in a dream where you're in your house and then you find out that there's another room that you didn't know about. That's the sense that I have when drinking this wine. - And what are you pairing it with? - So a yanico as a group in general, as I mentioned, is such an American continental cuisine friendly wine that it's, it goes certainly particularly well with meat in general, grilled meat especially. It has a linearity and a kind of crunchiness when expressed well that can make it really perfect with a leaner cut, just like a steak without anything fancy, a little salt and olive oil and the Tuscan fashion, if you like. But I'm, this really, I think it just worked out as coincidence in terms of the time we're talking about. I'm in Italy right now in a moment of the year where it's like every kind of weather happening. It was like, oh yes, but as they said, as in Naples, it was warm enough to be outside in the T-shirt and the sun. I was in the mountains with my heavy coat on, but in Rome, in the past couple of days, without going anywhere, without changing topography or location particularly, same, same, D-all, it was pouring rain this morning and freezing, it's the sun's gonna be warm enough to sit outside with a coffee and a little bit. And I think that a Yanigo deserves to be imagined as more versatile than people often give it credit for. So as much as it's a fantastic wine to have next to a great steak, it's also something that I would put up against any of the more challenging foods to pair with like tomatoes and eggplant are their night shades that sometimes give us a hard time on the palate. I would love it against and do against especially stinky cheeses. I think it has this fantastic bitter cocoa dark chocolatey undertone that can even carry you into a dessert. The, you know, flourless chocolate cakes of this world can pair really well with a Yanigo. If you don't feel like swapping over to a dessert wine or a spirit after your main meal, I think it stands up to spices in general really well. So again, coming into the holiday season, I feel like there's, there can be some notes of cinnamon and clove that can be teased out of some of the sweet savory combinations. Italians right now are experimenting with panatone as a savory option. I just saw a commercial for this. Maybe think of it. I think Yanigo actually sits in a place where if you, if you give it, it's due and especially if you let it breathe 'cause again, this is a red that has that tonic structure that's meant to make it live for a long time. So it's gonna need you to be a little bit patient with it. But given that patience, I think you would be surprised just how many things it can do. - Sounds great. Well, I think we did it. Thank you so much for your time. This has been great. - Absolutely great talking to you Ryan. Thanks for having me. - And there we have it. Three incredible bottles from three very different languages. All of them are excellent pits for holiday dinners, and you receive parties, especially that gustsborne and gifts for wine lovers. Check out the entire Incusius 100 list on our website and in the best-of-eater print issue of Wine Inthusius Magazine. Email us comments and questions at
[email protected]. Subscribe to this podcast on Apple Spotify and anywhere else you listen to your fifth shows. You can also go to wineinthusius.com/podcast from more episodes and transcripts. I'm Ryan Grimm, thanks for listening. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
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