Meadows is right: Fèvre's 07 MDT is explosive and gorgeous, and it punches way above its weight class.

The price today, though, sits much lower than you'd expect: down to $39.50 a bottle on the four-pack - well below the lowest price in the nation.

Indeed, from our vantage point, real Cru Beaujolais is at the tipping point. While the top wines have been sought out by wine geeks for years, this spring has marked the first time we've received so many inquiries from top Burgundy collectors who seem to have 2009 Beaujolais on their radar right alongside the impending 2009 red Burgs.

Across the board, Jean-Paul Brun has crafted a simply superb line-up in 2009: The wines are concentrated, structured, pure and precise.

The gem of the collection, however, is without a doubt the majestic Moulin-à-Vent. This is the wine that marries perfectly the greatest attributes of the vintage, the site and Brun's unique winemaking style. Even after a week of tasting the greatest wines from this seriously undervalued region, this bottle stayed with me.

I was at Pierre Chermette just prior. I typed “Charnay, Crière” into the GPS, and fifteen minutes later, Voilà! I was in Crière. There are maybe a dozen and a half homes in the hamlet. I then spent twenty-five minutes trying to find Brun.

After a couple of phone calls, Brun finally pitied me and agreed to meet me in front of Eric Texier’s up the road. Once at Brun’s, I realize that I had missed the sign, which is handwritten and - at best - 2' x 1.5’.

Once there, though, the quality of Brun’s 2009 line-up was simply incredible. Brun says that the 09 Beaujolais vintage is the best quality he’s ever seen. The wines showed a level of concentration and breed that I’ve yet to encounter in Brun’s wines. And trust me, with Brun the bar is set pretty high.

No big surprise, really, that Jean-Louis stated it flat-out to Wine Spectator last fall... most will agree that the appellation, sadly, has sprawled too far, hasn't maintained enough specificity.

Not in the case of Chave. Here is the region's benchmark, the beau ideal, the "O.G." if you like.

This is head-turning, terroir-screaming, reference point St-Joseph Syrah from one of the exemplars of the Northern Rhone. Today we offer this super-allocated St-Joseph at $53.40 a bottle.

It did to us, at least. This is the benchmark Muscadet, a seriously cult geek wine with a clarity, a mineral-and-lime-zest luminosity that is simply unrivaled in Muscadet. There are certainly bigger Muscadets, there are certainly more elegant Muscadets - there are none as transparent, as brutally, as beautifully, honest.

The misunderstood 2008 German vintage (almost without fail an obsession of wine geeks and terroir fanatics) has very likely given us some of the last of a dying breed: TRUE Kabinett.*

The TRUE Kabinett is NOT about power, or depth, or accolades and hype. These are wines that charm you, wines whose human, intimate proportions are meant for enjoyment, for drinking, for refreshment.

...we love these wines.

Today we have a 2005 Burgundy opportunity to backfill two Bouchard gems at a serious discount.

Suchots is a site surrounded by some of the grandest of Grand Crus: Romanée-St-Vivant, Richebourg and Echezeaux. Bouchard's 05 fairly starts elsewhere at $120 and only goes up from there - we have a few cases that we can move today at $89.95. 

Today we offer the 2006 Billaud-Simon Premier Cru Vaillons.

To quickly bring this into sharp focus: The only other pricing in the nation for any 06 1er crus from Billaud-Simon is nearly $50... for Mont de Milieu. Today we have the first-class premier cru Vaillons at over 35% off that price.

For those not up to speed with their fuder conversions, this is roughly one thousand liters of wine, about 1,300 bottles - just over 100 cases.

Last week, we offered out Vilmart's non-vintage rosé, and the high demand reinforced the fact that this is a house with a very avid following. It's evident that, as Richard Juhlin says, "Vilmart has quickly established cult status, only topped among growers by J. Selosse."  

Today we offer a step up in the Vilmart collection: 2004 Grand Cellier d'Or at 15% below the lowest price in the nation: $58.55.

The tasting note above just doesn't read anything like a $50 sparkler.

The reason for this is logical enough: This isn't really a $50 sparkler. The absolute lowest pricing you're going to see on this rosé Champagne is close to $10 more expensive than our 6-pack pricing. The bottle fairly sells at most places between $60 and $70.

That's Chevillon: A dead-honest proclamation of terroir.

This is Nuits-St-Georges in all its meaty, rustic, textured glory. These are unmistakable, clear-speaking, reference point Nuits-St-Georges - rich with fruit, animal, mineral and soil in equal parts.

Yes, something extraordinary happened in Beaujolais in 2009.

The reports focused on perfect weather at harvest, high levels of ripeness and thick-skinned, unusually small grapes dense with extract. The lack of rain in July and
August reduced yields to as low as 30hl/ha, increasing the natural concentrations even more.