Orders are available for pick-up at Restaurant Nicholas at 160 Route 35 South Red Bank, NJ 07701 during the following times:
Monday: 9:30-3:30; Tuesday – Friday: 9:15am – 9:00pm; Saturday: 11:00am – 9:00pm; Sunday: Closed
$20.00 $15.00
When looking for the best easy sippin’ wines, it’s hard to look past France’s Loire Valley. Home to Sancerre, Pouilly Fume, Touraine, Menetou-Salon and Quincy, the Loire is incredibly rich with great Sauvignon Blanc regions. Luckily for us, today’s wine features a little bit of everything.
Similar to the Wagner Family and Caymus in California, Villebois’ Dutch/French owner has vineyards in all of Loire’s desirable Sauvignon Blanc areas, with unprecedented access and resources available to make world class Sauvignon. Today’s wine is a rarity that includes grapes from right in the middle of Sancerre and Pouilly Fume, with the slight additions of Menetou-Salon and Touraine.
The resulting wine is like a Baby Sancerre for less than half the price– but a fruity, more vibrant version of Sauvignon– one that is incredibly, light, fresh and delicious and perfect for some appetizers, pool-side sipping or better yet a combination of the two.
The best part is the price. Villebois has a full portfolio of single vineyard wines from Sancerre, as well as bottling Pouilly Fume, Menetou-Salon and Touraine AVA wines. But this is the only wine in the portfolio that has a little slice of everything. As such it’s labeled as a Vin de France — an overarching region known for producing great bargains, though none as good as this one today.
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2022 was an absolutely perfect vintage in this respect and unfortunately, I think it will be one of the last, if not THE last. As winegrower Jean-Marc Brocard reported to Decanter: “When we taste the wines, we feel that the balance between acidity and ripeness is very good. It’s a classic style of Chablis. In the end, even after such a heat during summertime, we stay in a cool year reference.” He also alluded to the ageability of the vintage, saying “Let’s give them time, we must let nature do its work.”
Gold Medal (Best in Show), 2023 Mundus Vini International Tasting
The area has also been isolated from the rest of Spain for generations, which has kept the wine prices far lower than wines of this quality would be anywhere else in the world. That’s why, despite having the Torres family name on the bottle and the consistent huge press (including the Gold Medal & Best in Show at the 2023 Mundus Vini International Wine Awards in Germany), these wines can still be scooped up for under $20/bottle. It’s like the Sancerre pricing of yesteryear.
Every year, Pierre Sparr’s Alsacian Riesling is one of the top scoring wines in the under $20 category. There’s a consistency there and consumers know they can count on a Riesling that is aromatic, fruity, elegant, clean and vibrant. Pierre Sparr wines are extremely food-friendly especially in the widely praised 2021 vintage where quality rose to an all-time high. It’s a bone-dry beauty with layers of citrus fruits, framed by wet stone and mineral character that adds dimension.
The newly released 2022 Domaine Laroche Chablis Saint Martin has some big shoes to fill as the last four vintages have earned 92-points or higher, but the early indications are that this is line with previous vintages if not even a little bit ahead at this stage. The problem is – there’s almost none to go around with much smaller yields. Still this is beautiful and crisp, with good focus, energy and depth. I get the signature green fruits on the nose, with some Asian pear, and a hint of jasmine blossom. There’s a beautiful mineral streak that highlights this one. It’s a fantastic White Burg for the price.
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