The 2006 Veranda Pinot Noir is without a doubt the best Pinot Noir under $20 I've tasted since we opened our doors almost four years ago. Frankly, this bottle may have the present-day world title.

This is Pinot with a mouthful of juicy cherry and raspberry fruit darkened and structured extremely well. It has NONE of that sappy, sweetness that afflicts all too many inexpensive California and Oregon Pinots. Veranda's balance and hedonism will satisfy those who like "dry" and those looking for something "fruity" - those of you on the endless search for something "smooth" will be just as delighted as those who looking for "complex." Think of this wine as the bass and soul of Barry White combined with the sultry gloss of Alison Krauss and the power yet intricacy and widespread listen-ability of Led Zeppelin IV. (That's right!)

If you are passionate about Champagne, I urge you to read this article in its entirety.

As with 2005 in Burgundy, 1996 in Champagne was one of those rare years that brought even the most elite to new, unprecedented heights. In my 20 years of collecting Champagne, I do not think I've come across a young vintage that shows as much muscle, as much promise as the towering monuments of 1996.

With no vintages of comparable stature on the horizon until 2002 (the top cuvees will not be released until 2012 or later!) collectors have been frantically stock-piling the obvious trophies of this century-closing vintage: Dom Perignon, Krug and Salon to name but a few.

There is however "another Dom" that has been sitting quietly at this great table, shoulder to shoulder with the giants of Champagne. In fact, while Dom Perignon and Dom Ruinart have a shared history, in 1996 they have even more in common as Richard Geoffroy, Dom Perignon's genius Chef de Cave, was one of the winemakers for this wine! With one of the smallest productions of luxury cuvees and only recently reintroduced to the U.S. market, Dom Ruinart has been a well kept secret among collectors and has graced Europe's finest wine lists for decades.

Joe and I were pretty excited to host a dinner last Sunday at Hearth in NYC starring none other than Van Volxem's owner: Roman Niewodniczanski. Pretty much everything you've heard about him is true. He is very tall and he is very opinionated. He's not shy. And he's also making some of the most serious dry Rieslings in the Saar Valley. As an heir to the Bitburger beer fortune he's applied a "spare no expense" philosophy to his estate: Manic vineyard work, crazy-low yields sourced from some of the top sites of the Saar: Scharzhofberger, Altenberg and Gottesfuss to name a few. This was the first tasting of his 2007 single-vineyard wines, so it was sort of a treat to be the first in the U.S. to taste these dry Rieslings.

Didier Dagueneau was one of the most formidable and talented winemakers in France. He died on Wednesday, September 17th in the morning, after the ultralight plane he was piloting apparently stalled soon after takeoff. He was 52 years old.

With really only Edmond Vatan as his inspiration, he demanded a severity and a purity of his wines that was matched only by the severity of his personality. He raced motorcycles, was an avid dogsled racer and later took up flying as a part of his in-your-face, daredevil personality. As a winemaker, he was no less outspoken and he criticized, loudly, those winemakers he saw cutting corners, or not living up to the potential of their vineyards. While he was controversial, he was also greatly respected and his wines undeniably given a sort of "Grand Cru" status in the Loire region.

Click here to read Eric Asimov's official obituary, published on Thursday in the New York Times.

Egon Muller is the Domaine de la Romanee-Conti of Germany as John Gilman suggests in his great article on the estate (reproduced in full below). These wines are extremely difficult to find and we are offering a limited selection at the lowest prices in the nation! The Scharzhofberg vineyard, recognized since 1000AD as a superior site for growing grapes, produces wines of incredible concentration and intensity with a structure built for aging.

Click button below to see our real-time online inventory of Egon Muller:

A quick thanks to John for allowing us to reproduce his great article on this great estate. A View from the Cellar is one of the best written, most scholarly sources of information on the top wine estates of the world and we really can't recommend it enough. What can we say - we have a subscription at the store! Click here to visit John's site and learn more.

VIEW FROM THE CELLAR
Weingut Egon Muller- Germany's Domaine de la Romanee-Conti
By John Gilman

Weingut Egon Muller in Wiltingen is one of the very greatest estates in all of Germany. For many lovers of German wine, there is simply no other producer that reaches the same exalted peaks, and for them the wines of Egon Muller occupy a rarefied strata at the very pinnacle of their genre. In much the same way as Domaine de la Romanee-Conti occupies both a contemporary and historical point of reference in its region, Weingut Egon Muller and its extensive holdings in the famed Scharzhofberg vineyard are both a beacon of modern, uncompromising quality and a cornerstone of tradition that reaches back a millennium and more. The estate is planted to more than ninety-five percent riesling, with a very impressive lineup of very old vines that produce low yields and wines of haunting beauty. The heart and soul of the estate is the more than eight hectares of riesling vines that the family owns in the Scharzhofberg vineyard, located in the Saar valley, which towers over the small town of Wiltingen. The entire hill of vines that is the Scharzhofberg now comprises some twenty-eight hectares, with its perfect south-facing exposition rising from an elevation of 190 meters above sea level to 310 meters at its peak. It is a relatively cool and windswept vineyard that allows for brilliantly even and graceful ripening of the riesling grape. The vines of the Egon Muller estate lie right in the heart of this great vineyard, and produce some of the longest-lived and most ethereal examples of riesling to be found anywhere.

For Etienne de Montille, 2005 is without a doubt his finest effort. The 2005 collection easily puts him in the Pantheon with the masters of Burgundy. In this majestic vintage, I believe that Etienne's stable represents the best quality-to-price ratio of any producer's lineup, a bold statement, but one of which I am thoroughly convinced.

This is a no nonsense lineup of quivering, traditional Burgundies that wear, proudly and seamlessly, the ripe, detailed fruit of this immense vintage. I do not think it's too much to say that this collection of 2005s will cement Etienne's status as one of the stars of Burgundy and put the domaine in the top tier of producers. For Burgheads who love the great traditional producers - Bachelet, Fourrier, Gouges - these are wines not to miss.

Just about everything you need to know about the 2007 German vintage, incorporating notes from Rudi Wiest, Therry Theise, Lars Carlberg of the Mosel Wine Merchant, Gernot Kollmann of Weingut Knebel and John Gilman of the newsletter A View from the Cellar.

Could it get any better than that?

Yes, it can because the great 2007ers of Germany are classics with just epic wines at the Kabinett and Spatlesen level while the Auslesen are good to very, very good. And unlike 2006 (not to mention 2005 and 2003) which produced opulent Auslesen and above at the expense of the featherweight Kabinetts, 2007 has it all. Shimmering Kabinetts, absolutely profound Spatlesen, Auslesens that are clean and sleek... Wow.