The Vanity Article: My Top Ten Producers in the World (The First Five)
The title is vain I know but my twist might be a bit different I hope, as being around wine since I have been 20 it’s almost all I know. Many people not in the business get into wine later in life and go at it from a pure qualitative perspective. Which is fine. At that point in their lives, they have careers, families and numerous responsibilities and want the best that they can afford and for it to deliver at meals, tastings and casual evenings in front of the television. It is a way to have a wonderful and fulfilling wine life.
I am a bit of a different nut. I have always had some sort of obsession in life, which fits in perfectly well with my detail-oriented personality. Minutiae rules my life and is a factor in what I enjoy and why. Not the only factor but a pretty big one. From Baseball Cards to wine and the many iterations in between, I have had obsessions. And when I get the obsession, no detail gets left unturned. Currently it is cactus and succulent raising in my apartment in midtown Manhattan and it has been a blast.
That attention to detail has always shaped my outlook on wine. I am known as one of the biggest wine geeks out there because I love the minutiae. The big concepts say like the 1855 Classification, the complexity of Burgundy interest me too but I am much happier booking a plane to the Mittlerhein and exploring that region for a week and being all the more richer for it. In minutiae, I find there is wonderful beauty.
That is how I look at my top ten producers in the world. Some are there for just being absolute top-notch quality, others because of quality mixed with memorable visits to the estates, some for absolutely amazing consistency year in year out, some for the cerebral qualities they can assume and as a result make me really think, some for amazing quality at an easy price and some for other reasons yet unknown. Yet I continually gravitate to all of these producers, well except one, due to price restrictions, but that would never stop me from adding a wine to the list. Many people say the devil is in the details but I say the beauty is in the details.
Here is the list with some brief thoughts. It is no particular order.
Joh Jos Prum, Mosel – The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of the J.J, Prum estate has to be Katarina Prum. I had always loved the Prum wines, in fact, a 1993 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Kabinett, was my German epiphany wine. Until 2006, which was before I visited the estate, it was always a pleasure to drink these startlingly pure, crystalline, and elegant like no other, concentrated and age-worthy wines. But like all great art it does take a while to get and fully understand these wines. I never got Jazz, for example, until around two years ago. I wanted to get it, I knew it was good but my interest was periphery. But something, something that you cannot control, just goes off inside you one day and you get it.
That happened with my first visit to the Prum estate with importer Rudi Wiest in 2006. Manfred and Katarina were there and we tasted through many wines over a tasting and a long dinner. Katarina was lovely. Very articulate, intelligent, astonishingly knowledgeable about the vineyards and just a pleasure to talk to. One of those people you just click with instantly. Talking to her, asking her questions and seeing her passion about her estate, the estate’s history had forever changed and enhanced my pleasure and understanding about the estate’s wines. The consistency from year to year is amazing. The winemaking, which is shrouded in mystery, has rarely changed and you can taste it, as the wines are true monuments to the vintages and vineyards they are sourced from. I visited two more times and as anybody who has every visited JJ Prum knows the wines are served blind and rarely do they let you spit. I think I have learned more about blind tasting at that estate than any other bind tasting experience ever. Is it Wehlen? Is it Graach? That is the usual first question although they throw in some Zelting and Bernkastel stuff every now and then. Even a Bernakasteler Lay once! If you’re wrong, which usually you are, Katarina explains the vintage and why it’s from that vintage, and then explaining this is classic Wehlen because of this and this. Plus you are sitting either in their lovely dining room or on the gorgeous patio, with wonderful flowers everywhere, as Katarina is a gardener, looking over the Wehlener Sonnenuhr, and you just think, can life get any better? Every time I open a bottle of Prum now, it completely transports me to a different place.
Bernard Baudry, Chinon – I have not visited the estate of Chez Baudry but had a lovely dinner with him and his wife Henriette in Soho. He barely speaks any English and I speak no French but that dinner is not one of the reasons I put Bernard Baudry on this list. The quality for the price is just top-notch and there are very few, if any estates, that can compete with Baudry for pure quality, terroir-focused, well-fruited and wonderfully ageable wines. I cherish my Baudry in my cellar like no other red wines. Once they are gone from the market they are gone. Try finding some ’96 “La Croix Boisse”. I challenge you! Because I’ll buy it from you if you can, but honestly you’d be better off keeping it yourself.
Baudry makes wines at all price-points from his easy-drinking, yet finely detailed Chinon Les Granges all the way up to, in my opinion, the top Chinon being made today, the “La Croix Boissee.” But in even in between these cuvees there are so many special wines. The earthy, gritty, tobacco infused “Les Grezeaux” which is a wine I always call his Graves. Many people consider this even better than his “La Croix Boissee” , but hey can you really have a favorite child? The purity in these wines is just so top-notch and the balance is impeccable. Of course the acidity is wonderful as this is my list. I have been known to been called an acid-freak in my day.
Then there is my satisfaction factor when I open a Baudry. It satisfies me in a way that few wines do. I know it will be good and interesting and my expectations are never high, as they are not for any wine, but the wines always deliver and at Bernard Baudry they are making better wines all the time. Each vintage is better and better and they don’t try to make the wine to outperform the vintage. They roll with the punches, I am not an ’03 Loire red guy but Baudry made great wines with wonderful acidity and freshness, which were the two things I thought the vintage, had the least of. Just a great, great producer
Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, Vosne-Romanee – I tend to gravitate towards smaller producers, not that DRC is not small, but smaller in name and prestige. But I have tasted a good amount of DRC, albeit mostly young, but the high quality is something that really makes you step back. I tasted the 2000’s, 2001’s, 2002’s all when they were first released and had a bottle here and there of older stuff but in no way do I consider myself a seasoned DRC drinker. Not many people do. I still never had that older DRC epiphany moment, until one night, on my birthday, I got handed a glass of ’53 La Tache and had that moment. What makes these wines special to me? Again it is consistency and an attention to detail. These are by far amongst the most detailed Burgundies I have ever tasted. From top to bottom the wines have amazing complexity and no hard edges. They are like spider silk in the mouth and are constantly evolving to places you cannot even imagine once the first glass is poured for you. The perfumes are overwhelming. The fruit is so pure and deep and the hierarchy of flavor from the Echezeaux to the Romanee-Conti to the Montrachet is awe-inspiring, Wines that live up to the hype. I have had a couple bottles of not-so-great DRC, (as with Prum, Baudry and Rudolf Furst), but I am not looking for perfection but experience. Bad experiences, as we all know, are good experiences in context, and vice versa.
The first time I had the opportunity to taste the wines it was a large tasting in New York where all the journalists, retailers and restaurateurs are invited to taste the new vintage with Aubert de Villaine speaking. The 2000’s were tasted at Robert Weil Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. A lovely, classical room and as soon I entered, the perfume of the DRC was almost too much. All the glasses of the 100 or so people in attendance had been pre-poured, so in the air was the most heavenly scent of anything I had ever smelled up to that point in my life.
I have never bought a bottle of DRC in my life and have none in my cellar and odds are never will. But I know I will taste more and look forward to those bottles and even I never taste another drop for the rest of my life, the tastes that I have had will resonate in my memory forever.
Georges Descombes, Morgon – Probably the one producer on my list that has only come into my life within the past three years. I remember exactly how. When I was working at Chambers Street Wines, we had a Descombes Morgon, 2005 vintage, on the shelf. It was a lovely wine, very textured; elegant and well fruited with a lovely minerality. I liked it but preferred Lapierre, Thevenet and the ilk. My salesman called me and said I needed some of the 2005 Descombes Morgon Vieilles Vignes. I trusted him, even though the price was a bit high, but he convinced me and I bit the bullet. The wine did not show up for around three months. But once it arrived I quickly took a bottle home and my love affair with the wines of Georges Descombes began. The wine was just so deep and haunting. So many layers and so much going on. Opened, closed, opened again. All the signs of a great and complex wine. Next came the Brouilly VV, the Regnie VV and the Chiroubles VV. All sensational wines with outrageous purity, terroir-accuracy, and ageability. Immediately, out of seemingly nowhere came the brilliant Beaujolais’ of Georges Descombes.
Georges Descombes makes Beaujolais according to the Chauvet methods, which are also the methods that the Gang of Four (Lapierre, Breton, Thevenet, Foillard) use. Unfined, Unfiltered, natural yeasts, old-vines, picking a bit later than usual, wood (not new), low or minimal addition of sulfur are the mantra at Descombes. A great way to make wine and for my palate if you don’t go too extreme they are some of the most enjoyable and contemplative wines the world has to offer. The reason I love Georges Descombes is because I think he pulls off “natural” wine better than anybody.
Rudolf Furst, Franken – Burgstadt, where the wonderful somewhat hidden gem of a winery Rudolf Furst inhabits, might be one of the most beautiful, idyllic and classic small German wine country towns. While the Mosel can be breathtaking, Franconia has a different charm of mostly dry wines, very quaint villages, deep forests, and the feeling of being somewhere old, historic, a bit eccentric and utterly honest.
I had only tasted Paul Furst’s wines passingly at large industry tastings and it was not until a visit to his winery in Burgstadt that I got the magic that goes on here. After a morning at Wirsching, a stop in Wurtzberg to see the Residenz, and an extremely stormy ride up, we arrived 5 hours late for our appt at the Furst Estate. It was around 10:00 PM I’d say.
It was ok though, we were with Rudi Wiest and he calls the shots in Germany. Sebastian, Paul’s son was there to greet us, and he had a table that was slowly gathering dust with glasses and spittoons ready for us to taste. The group was tired, I was tired but that did not matter as these wines brought me back to life. I had never tasted such lively, tension-filled, dry Rieslings as these. I was woken up in an almost jolt. The first wine, which was not even a Riesling, but a Muller-Thurgau, blew me away. Right after that, I knew I had arrived some place special. The scintillating acid structures of these elegant and lithe wines were a wonderful juxtaposition, the achingly beautiful minerality and the just plain clarity of these wines was a taste to behold. The reds were wonderful too. Spatburgunder at its finest with alluring textures and aromas, with bottles as old as 1997 stealing the show. The best was saved for last with the rare Fruhburgunder. WThere are maybe 20 hectares planted in Germany, and it was a dazzling wine.
There was a follow up visit the next year and it was day so I could see the gorgeous Burgstadter Centgrafenberg vineyard that surrounded the Furst Estate and finally meet Paul. He drove us around the vineyards in a jeep and nearly killed us, at least in the opinion of this car-cringey New Yorker. I have rarely been disappointed by a bottle from this winery and do hope they get more recognition for what they are doing on a more global scale.
Please check back soon for the second installment of My Top 10 Producers.
In the meantime, what are your top 10 producers? Why? What is your best wine story that is connected to a particular producer? Did you propose over an old bottle of Dom Perignon? Close a deal with a bottle of Haut Brion or just have a great meal with friends in a bistro with a bottle of Cru Beaujolais from Chermette?