Shine, Shine On
1996 Lanson Gold Label Brut
[Awesome] Vintage Champagne, Under $60

"I can't think of a better wine that will simultaneously thrill even the choosiest Champagne connoisseur, delight your drinking buddies and impress your wine geek friends..."

So Bobby said when he emailed about this wine a couple of years ago. Since then, the 1996 Lanson Gold Label Brut has gotten even better.

Today we offer it at $57.95 a bottle - a downright silly value for Champagne from the awesome 96 vintage and one of Champagne's oldest houses. This offer also represents just about the last of this wine on the market in any meaningful quantity.

The Crush 5th Annual
German "Futures" Campaign Continues...
2009 Zilliken - 2009 Fritz Haag
Special "Futures" Pricing Ends Wednesday, July 7th

"The 2009ers from Hanno and Dorothy Zilliken are absolutely monumental and strong candidates for the greatest set of wines to be found in Germany in this vintage."
John Gilman, View from the Cellar

Gilman doesn't have glorious words for Fritz Haag, but only because he didn't visit the estate. I didn't visit the estate either, but I did taste the wines at the Mainzer Weinbörse and then again in NYC and they are very, very good. (More below.)

Yes, 2009 is (another) glorious vintage in Germany... sorry!

The 2009 vintage in Germany is ripe, yet very clear, which for me makes a big difference. The fruit is super pure with really impressive concentrations, extract that coats the palate. The great estates found a ton of minerality as well as wicked-beautiful acidities, stern headmasters that whip everything into shape.

1995 Transformed: This is the Point of Oeno
The 1995 Dom Pérignon Oenothèque
A Monumental Metamorphosis

"This mind-bending, kaleidoscopic Champagne possesses all of the qualities of profoundness... and the potential to acquire even more depth in bottle over the coming years."
- Antonio Galloni, Wine Advocate

This is one of our most sought-after wines of the last year. Today I'm thrilled to bring the 95 "Oeno" to the Crush Crew at the lowest price in the nation: $229.95.

This is a wine that has been very much talked about, but rarely seen here in the U.S.

When it was first released, we simply blew through our first two allocations almost immediately due to pre-orders. Keep in mind, a good part of the second tranche went to repeat customers for reloads - always a very, very good sign. But we are Dom Pérignon loyalists, and our strong relationship with the maison allows us today to bring in a third and final tranche.

Finding the Elite Values in White Burgundy
2007 Drouhin Beaune "Clos des Mouches" Blanc
On the Short List of Top White Burgundy Collectors

Unlike "Vosne-Romanée" or "Puligny-Montrachet," "Beaune" has little of the obvious cachet, the easy name-recognition...

...which is sort of the point.

After all, left of center, this is where the values are - especially in today's ultra-competitive Burgundy.

Make no mistake, what we're offering today is not "a Chardonnay value" in the general sense. This is not a wine for simple pool-side refreshment.

Summer Mixed Case
A Fresh Mix of our Favorites for Summer
BIG SAVINGS: Every Bottle Discounted 20%!

The third "official" day of summer and already our first scorcher is here... It seemed like the perfect time to get a summer mixed case together.

We wanted you to have an arsenal of our favorite bottles to beat the heat or tackle some charred meat fresh off the grill. As always, we've tasted through the world of wine searching for the most interesting wines and the best values.

To make it even better, this summer mixed case represents the BEST DEAL on these wines: a stellar cast of bottles, discounted 20%!

Super-Rare Métras Magnums
2006 Yvon Métras Fleurie "VV"
The Fifth Member of Kermit Lynch's Gang of Four

Yvon Métras is famous for making absolutely breathtaking Beaujolais and hating paper work. As such, his wines have been absent from the U.S. market for over a decade.

Despite this absence, Métras' wines have achieved a cult-like status in the very geekiest of wine circles. Drop a seasoned wine geek in Paris and he or she is likely to seek out some of the oddities that only Paris accumulates: Foillard Cuvée "3.14," Dagueneau Asteroid and Métras, to name but a few.

Today we present an offer for the love of it. Suffice it to say that $63 Beaujolais magnums are not the easiest of sells. (Though with 24 of these mags available in the world, perhaps this is not the issue.)

2009 is a very, very, VERY, VERY, VERY good vintage – heed the provocative use of all caps, bolding and underline.

Indeed, though only time will tell, 2009 has all the potential to be great.

Already the critics are tripping over themselves, trying to put 2009 in the proper context, avoiding, as best they can, comparing 2009 with 2007. (It’s embarrassing, after all, to have a vintage of the decade every other year.) My best guess is that the 2009s will come into the market with a bit more calm, a bit more critical introspection. Because of the times, the embarrassment of riches that Germany has had in the last decade, I sense that the 2009s will enjoy fewer grand proclamations, less pomp and circumstance, perhaps little of the mania that welcomed in the 2007s. That said, qualitatively, there may not be that great of a difference; we’ll have to see how these two vintages distinguish themselves over time.

Left: In the Graacher Domprobst, looking down onto the sleepy town of Graach and the Mosel River beyond it.

Mosel

Click here to skip ahead to A.J. Adam
Click here to skip ahead to Reinhold Haart
Click here to skip ahead to Fritz Haag
Click here to skip ahead to Willi Schaefer
Click here to skip ahead to Zilliken

Nahe

Click here to skip ahead to Schäfer-Fröhlich
Click here to skip ahead to Emrich-Schönleber
Click here to skip ahead to Dönnhoff
Click here to skip ahead to Diel

Rheinhessen

Click here to skip ahead to Keller

The Crush 5th Annual
German "Futures" Campaign Begins Today...
2009 Dönnhoff

"The 2009ers at Weingut Dönnhoff are amongst the most beautiful wines to be found in all of Germany, and there are an embarrassment of riches to choose from in this coming vintage." - John Gilman, View from the Cellar

"An embarrassment of riches" - an apt phrase for Germany at the moment.

2009 is (another) glorious vintage in Germany... sorry. It's ripe, yet very clear, which for me makes a big difference. The fruit is super pure with really impressive concentrations, extract that coats the palate. The great estates found a ton of minerality as well as wicked-beautiful acidities, stern headmasters that whip everything into shape.

Alsatian Air Conditioning
2008 Trimbach Riesling "Reserve"
as low as $19.95 a bottle...
BACK UP THE TRUCK!

Jean Trimbach says that the 2008 vintage is the best since 1990, and possibly in the last 100 years.

This, even after the insane success of 2007. He’s not alone in his praise: Considered word on the wine street is that 2008 in Alsace gets an A++.

This is the first parcel of Trimbach’s 2008 Riesling Reserve in the United States – just in time for summer.

Dom. Robert Arnoux 1972 - 2001
Back-Vintage Snapshots of Vosne-Romanée
1er Crus Les Suchots, Aux Reignots, Les Chaumes
"One of the sexiest wines vintage in and vintage out."
- The Burghound

(Yet priced less than you'd think.)

To be clear: These are distinguished bottles of back-vintage Burgundy.

Would you expect anything less? We are, after all, in Vosne-Romanée, a place Clive Coates calls simply: "The greatest Pinot Noir village on earth."