The best winter wines

Winter is a natural moment for a little recherche du temps perdu. For my band of serious thinkers, the usual aides-mémoire are not petites madeleines dipped in tea but some of the various wines the holidays afforded us.

Wordsworth said that poetry “takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.” The jury is still out on the accuracy of that neatly phrased observation. But regardless of its pertinence to the art of poetry, its pertinence to the art of wine appreciation can hardly be gainsaid. With that in mind, I offer, as a minor public service, a brief recollection of some of the wines that a beneficent providence vouchsafed us as the winter solstice came and went and the house was redolent of evergreen and wood fires.

Regular readers of these dispatches will recall our recent trips to Tuscany and especially our encounters with the truly special Cabernet blends of the Tenuta San Guido, where Sassicaia reigns and “Super Tuscan” first got its superlative, and Tenuta dell’Ornellaia. Those wines are wonderful but dear, requiring a three-digit outlay per bottle. Everyone tends to feel a little out-of-pocket after the holidays, so I am pleased to bring you the news about Le Volte dell’Ornellaia. The 2020 vintage of this pleasing potation can be had for about $35 a bottle: a steal. A blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Sangiovese, this robust but lucid wine is a rich confection of redcurrants, blackberries, tobacco and fresh leath- er, full in the mouth, lingering in the finish. The first-wet-then-hot year of 2020 made for a demanding harvest but also admirably showcased the winemaker’s art.

A pleasure shared is a pleasure doubled. One of the most reliable pleasures in writ- ing about wine is being able to share one’s discoveries. Perhaps my favorite discovery this season was the 2022 Bachelet-Monnot Chardonnay from the Côte d’Or in the commune of Puligny. This wine is just a Bourgogne AOC — no fancy handles involving “cru” decorate its name — but it is flat-out delectable.

As one enthusiast put it, “this cuvée punches well above its appellation.” Well above its price tag, too: you can find it for about $50 or a bit less. Put a blindfold on a wine-savvy friend before giving him a glass of this wine. Chances are good he will think it’s Chassagne-Montrachet or St. Aubin. It has that distinctive white-burgundy complexity and finish, a testimony to the skill of the brothers Bachelet, Marc and Alexandre, who have been running their winery on family land since 2005. A certified star in the glittering realm of white burgundy is Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey, son of the legend Marc Colin. Together with his wife Caroline Morey, they make some of the best Chassagne-Montrachets going. Will the Bachelet brothers become the new Colin-Moreys? Some knowledgeable observers think so. At any rate, the 2022 vintage of their Bourgogne is an auspicious sign for the future.

Probably the fanciest wine I had over the holiday season was a 2021 Échezeaux Grand Cru from Marchand-Tawse. This was not an out-of-this-world DRC Échezeaux Grand Cru. But it was certainly low-earth-orbit spectacular. Accordingly, the price was just an expensive $300-something, not the eyewatering four-digit sums the DRC wines fetch. The two plots from which the March-and-Tawse Échezeaux comes yield only one barrel of juice, enough for about 300 cases. I have become fonder and fonder of burgundy in recent years (I used to be a Bordeaux loyalist) and I was pleased indeed to taste this rich, elegantly complex wine, young but able. I would like to return to it in a few years to see how it has come along.

Let me hasten to correct a possible misapprehension. When I say that “I used to be a Bordeaux loyalist,” I do not mean to suggest any apostasy. I still love Bordeaux wines. It’s just that my horizons have broadened. I feel like Walt Whitman without the liability of contradiction: “I am large, I contain multitudes,” but I fancy I am entirely consistent.

So do not be surprised when I mention my last holiday offering: a 2018 Château Meyney from Saint-Estèphe, the northern- most bit of the Haut Médoc. I have always felt that the appellation has received short shrift. The 1855 classification was not as generous to the region as it was to Pauillac and Saint-Julien. But it boasts some really excellent wines, of which Château Meyney is a notable example. Not as famous (and not really as complex) as some of its neighbors in Saint-Estèphe — Château Montrose, for example, Château Phélan-Ségur or Cos d’Estournel — Château Meyney has the distinction of being one of the oldest wineries in the Médoc. It occupies a former monastery and dates from 1662. Its cépage in 2018 was about half and half Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot with a large dollop (18 percent) of Petit Verdot thrown in to stiffen the edges. You can find it for about $45, and you will be glad you did.

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s February 2025 World edition.