The blessing of a good wine shop

There are good wine shops and bad wine shops. Among their various attributes, the good ones have a broad selection of interesting wines from interesting places and — important add-on — a knowledgeable staff whose members can talk intelligently about their wares and can steer you in the right direction. The bad ones — well, you know. Their shelves are full of the stuff the distributors tell them to buy and their staff is not really sure whether Morgon is the name of the boss’s pet or a place in Beaujolais that produces good wine.

My office in New York is close to an excellent wine shop called Flatiron Wine & Spirits. It is a big shop on Broadway at 18th Street and it boasts a large, expert and helpful staff. It has all the usual things you encounter when you walk into an ordinary wine shop and many rare, interesting and out of the way bottles. I was, for example, able to get a passel of delectable Georgian wines for a friend who likes them, something you would be hard pressed to do in shops featuring this-month’s-special price on Kendall-Jackson Chardonnay or Josh Cabernet. I am lucky to have it close by.

I am also lucky to have a shop called Fountainhead Wines and Distillations just a short drive from my home in Connecticut. Started in 1995 by Mike Pelletier and two brothers Ancona, Mark and Tony, the shop now lies off the beaten path on Knight Street in Norwalk. Mark and Tony are still tangentially involved but the genius loci these days is Mike, an exceptionally learned custodian of an exceptionally interesting and unusual stock.

You won’t find many if any commercial stars here. Nor will you find many (if any) big names from the Médoc or Burgundy. Don’t look for Lafite, Léoville las Cases, or Domaine Romanée Conti. What you will find are scores of intensely interesting wines in the $18 to $40 price range.

There are more expensive wines at Fountainhead, but all the wines I will mention here are under $35. Regular readers know about my newfound fondness for Chablis. I did not see any premier cru or grand cru Chablis at Fountainhead, but the 2020 and 2022 Ternynck Chablis (I apologize for polishing off their stock of the 2020 vintage) rivals or surpasses many premier crus. It is a full, complex, mineral-rich wine, redolent of that Kimmeridgian marl that undergirds the area. At $32, it is an exceptional value.

Another exceptional value are the wines from Domaine de Piaugier, Côtes du Rhône wines from the village of Sablet. These are in some ways typical Côtes du Rhône wines — with a cépage dominated by Grenache offset by Syrah or Mourvèdre — but they are notably consistent, rich, delectable and under $30.

Wines from the Savoie in southeastern Alpine France have enjoyed a new popularity in recent years. Fountainhead features a light, refreshing white from Chignin that is 100 percent Jacquère. What it lacks in depth it makes up for in pleasing openness and blossoming fruit.

I had not known about the Jacquère grape before being introduced to this Domaine Ravier Chignin. But neither had I known about Bianchetta Genovese, a grape grown almost exclusively along the Ligurian coast of the Italian Riviera. You don’t see it in the US much, but Fountainhead has a fetching white called “Ü Pastine.” It is a very light, floral wine, with just a tad of sparkle. One critic discerned hints of lemon and honeysuckle. As often happens, once I read that I could sense them, too. Tasting it, I thought of the end of Wallace Stevens’s “The Idea of Order at Key West,” in particular its invocation of “ghostlier demarcations.” I don’t think I had ever had a wine quite like this Bianchetta Genovese.

Nor had I ever had wine made from Pelaverga Piccolo, a Piedmontese grape from Verduno. Fratelli Alessandria calls the wine “unique,” an overused designation but one that might well be appropriate for this clear, lean red, reminiscent of Pinot Noir in color but in taste unlike anything I have had. The winery denominates the wine “Speziale,” which in this case means not special (though it is that) but “spicy,” which this taut but peppery wine most assuredly is.

Finally, let’s travel to the foot of Italy, between the ball and the heel, to the town of Cirò in Calabria. The area is reputed to be the oldest wine producing spot in Europe, with wine being made there by the Greeks 3,000 years ago. Fountainhead carries a wine made by Sergio Arcuri called “Aris,” which is 100 percent Gaglioppo, yet another grape I had never heard of. The wine was mouth-puckeringly tannic yet light and round in the mouth. Another find! When you are ready to trespass beyond the Cabernets and Malbecs, the Chardonnays, Gamays, Rieslings and Sauvignon Blancs, check out individually owned shops like Fountainhead. There is a world of wine out there. The folks at Fountainhead can help you make discoveries. You can find them at 12 Knight Street, Norwalk, Connecticut.

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s May 2024 World edition.