Our Best List

Trying a bottle at home with your favorite takeout pizza is the pathway to enduring love, which is our ultimate goal. Why don’t you love us??? Just kidding. I’ll settle for mutual respect and admiration, or financial support. 

2016 Azelia Barolo - In 2021 I might just drink this. It’s all I want to drink. It’s the most enjoyable young Barolo that I’ve encountered in 20 years on the job. It exceeds expectations, in spite of all the hype. I have not tasted the 2016 single-vineyard Barolos from Azelia that landed last week, I’m sure they are stellar. But who cares? This wine is $50 cheaper, and is perfect. Drink it with pork buns, or those confoundingly good “burgers” that Sister Liu’s makes on US 15-501 between Chapel Hill and Durham. Not the spicy ones, which will blow your face off. 

2011 Vallana Gattinara - You don’t have to be the English-speaking world’s most prominent critic of Italian wine to see the traditional virtue and appeal of Vallana, though recent press indicates clearly he does. The absurd value is plain for anyone to see. High mountain Nebbiolo, 10 years old, with 20+ years of prime-of-life in front of this red. Drink Vallana Gattinara with risotto loaded with butternut squash, kale, and gamey meat, or your favorite aged alpine cheese. Key is, drink it. The universe corrects for wines that are radically underpriced: it’s out of our hands. 162 bottles avail. 

nv Tenuta degli Ultimi “Torbido” col fondo Prosecco - I’ve been getting a lot of “I don’t like pet nat but I really like this” comments when showing the Torbido. If you want to experience how a wine can be bottle fermented on lees and still clean and with prominent expressive fruit and accessibility, Sebastiano Ricci offers a chance for not a large amount of $. My kids don’t get to drink milk anymore, because this wine owns the fridge door. Permanent residence. 513 bottles available.

2018 Les Chemins de Bassac A Deriva It’s a wild ride, but not through the swamp. An aromatic tour-de-force, a must-have for lovers of Syrah, or wintry red wines with compelling aromatic appeal. Bruno and Thama dive deep into the terroir of Puimisson, western Languedoc, and bring back a seamless, evocative, pure red for white beans and sausage. Low sulfur, no dirt. A realisation of the promise of biodynamic agriculture. And because it’s Languedoc and they are earnest, honest Brazillians, they aren’t cashing in on the craze. Hipster-friendly. 202 bottles available, so get some soon. 

2019 Antonelli Trebbiano Spoletino I think every wine bag I take out will contain this wine. Until it is gone, I don’t see the point in talking with customers unless I pour Antonelli’s Trebbiano Spoletino. Why so fond? The quality of white wine coming from central Italy today is miles beyond the recognition or reputation afforded Trebbiano Spoletino (or Verdicchio, or Grechetto, others.) My wine obsession resides here, and has for several years. Drink this masterful example of nuance, balance, and subtlety with strozzapreti, salt-cured ham (Col. Newsome’s from Kentucky is a good substitute for the excellent hams made in Norcia and Valnerina) or mild seafood. 449 bottles avail. 

2019 Morella “Mezzogiorno” bianco This wine tastes like a labor of love. It will probably always be in the shadow of Lisa Gilbee’s critically acclaimed single-vineyard Primitivos, wines coaxed from century- old vines via dedicated biodynamic farming. The Mezzogiorno fits its physical place, a sunbaked sandy landscape close to the sea. A place where you must eat seafood, preferably just-caught and minimally adorned. Mezzogiorno is sunshine in a glass. 494 bottles avail. 

2017 Hofgut Falkenstein red wine - They are making the best Riesling of Erich and Johannes’ meteoric careers, and I could have easily highlighted their study in perfect high-wire balance, the 2019 Niedermenniger Herrenberg Riesling Spätlese feinherb. But the Pinot Noir is delightful. Ripe, accessible cherry aromas and no tannin or fat. I think it hews closer to true Pinot character than anything I’ve tried from outside the gilded confines of Burgundy, and it’s better than anything I’ve tried for the same price made within them. 159 bottles avail. So get some post-haste. 

2017 Les Maisons Brulees Poussiere de Lune Blanc Beautiful vines, a clearly ideal location tended with Steiner-approved love by Paul and Corinne Gillet. Our first delivery from France’s first certified-biodynamic co-op was a study in ways to be a singular natural wine in the heart of the Loire. Among this crowd, Poussiere de Lune rises above, pure, luminous, deeply satisfying. I’d pair it to Selles-sur-Cher, a torchon of duck foie gras, and maybe a little pile of tender spring lettuces, to add bite and balance to the opulence. 140 bottles available at the time we went to print. 

2012 Caparsa “Doccio a Matteo” Chianti Classico Riserva Never have I missed the best of red sauce Italian American cuisine as acutely as I did when Doccio a Matteo landed and I pulled the first cork. Where are the big, perfectly tender meatballs, the garlic bread, the mountain of spaghetti as tall as the fiasco holding down the checkered, well-worn tablecloth, stained beyond salvation by successive waves of grandma’s ragu? If you fear Sangiovese’s legendary astringency, spend an hour with this muscular, peak-of-maturity rendition. Weight without excess. Doccio a Matteo shows balance isn’t solely an asset of slight, 12 percent alcohol wines. Big exuberant fun, well-worth the price of admission (a scant 46 bottles available, minus what I’ll consume.)

*Pavoncelli Cerignola olives These olives will change your life. Snacks will be irrevocably altered. Meals will be omitted in favor of big, meaty, bright green olives. Why cook? Pull the key on a tin of sardines, crack open a bottle of manzanilla sherry (or Gravina DOC bianco from Puglia) and live life to the fullest. Easy.  

2017 Torre dei Beati Cocciapazza Montepulciano d’Abruzzo - I think if Fausto Albanesi was a less modest man he would be internationally recognized as the chief protagonist in Abruzzo’s quest for viticultural respect. His small winery (which he resurrected bit-by-bit from a ruined shell) is tucked into the hills of Loreto Aprutino, an ancient town in the shadow of Gran Sasso that can produce perfect Montepulciano (and Pecorino and Trebbiano) grapes. Everything at Torre dei Beati is thoughtful, measured, deliberate, which makes Cocciapazza “hare-brained, nuts” feel like irony to me. The wine is a flag on the moon, a marker of Montepulciano’s rightful place (like Carignan in France) as not just a maligned grape capable of more, but as an already great wine waiting for you to start paying it the attention it deserves. Serve with lamb shoulder, or doner kebab, or yakitori-style mutton on a stick. SOLD OUT.