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The Château de Béru sits high on a limestone hillside in the village of Béru. The terroir is some of the most prized in Chablis. The Béru family has owned Château de Béru estate for 400 years. The phylloxera crisis at the beginning of the 20th century devastated the Chablis vineyards and nearly erased all the vines in Europe. Château de Béru was forced to uproot all of their vines in the 1890s. Until this point in history, wine was the sole revenue for the family. Chablis was replanted on a smaller scale, officially becoming an AOC in 1938. However, the vineyards of Château de Béru were not replanted until 1987, when the Comte Éric de Béru undertook to replant the Château’s vineyards.

Athénaïs de Béru left Paris and her career in finance to help her mother Laurence run the family estate after the death of her father Éric in 2004, and immediately  began producing wine under the Château de Béru name, converting to organic and biodynamic viticulture (the estate is now both certified organic and biodynamic by Ecocert and Demeter), and using minimal intervention in the cellar in order to improve the quality of the wines.  

While the Côte d’Or is starting to see the benefits of biodynamics, Chablis remains a stronghold for quantity-over-quality viticulture. Many rely on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides to achieve consistent yields in a challenging region. Athénais recognizes biodynamics as the way to put life back into the soil.  Horses are used for all plowing. There are sheep and hens on the property. The estate uses natural elements such as sulfur and plants to protect the vineyards and increase their native defenses. Athénaïs and Laurence also choose a minimal intervention approach in the cellar. As a result of biodynamics, the vines have reached a balance where the wine no longer needs much sulfur. In the early years, around 50 ppm sulfur was added, and now between 10-20 ppm of sulfur is added. The grapes are heavily sorted by hand to prevent corrections or fining in the cellar. The goal is to always vinify naturally, even in a bad vintage. If this means throwing away half the fruit, then they do. Long élevage and cold cellars allow the wine to be bottle unfiltered. The shortest élevage is one year; otherwise it's 1.5 years or more. The Clos Béru is 2 years to 2.5 years.

Laurence and Athénaïs are members of Femmes et Vins de Bourgogne (Women and Wines of Burgundy), which gives them a unique opportunity to exchange and to share their passion with other local outstanding women winemakers, which are unfortunately still scarce in Burgundy. Today, Athénaïs is one of the region’s rising stars, Château de Béru has become a reference for Chablis wines, and the quality and reputation of the estate continues to improve as the wines gain energy and balance. 

Considered one of the best producers in Fleurie, Clos de la Roilette, located in the village of Fleurie, covers 9 hectares of one of the best slopes in all of the Beaujolais Crus. The clos has an eastern exposure, borders the Moulin-à-Vent appellation, and produces wines that are beautiful when young and have the capacity to age for more than 10 years.

In the 1920’s, when the Fleurie appellation was first created, the former landowner was infuriated by losing the Moulin-à-Vent appellation under which the clos had previously been classified. He created a label using a photograph of his racehorse Roilette and used the name Clos de la Roilette, without mentioning Fleurie. By the mid-1960s, the owner’s heirs had lost interest in the clos, and a large portion of the land had gone wild and untended. In 1967, Fernand Coudert bought this poorly maintained estate and replanted the vineyards. His son Alain joined him in 1984, and has been the winemaker since.

The Couderts say their particular terroir (mainly clay and manganese) and the age of their vines (30-80 years old) account for the richness of their wine. It has a deep color with a hint of purple, a restrained nose of crème de cassis, a rich, full mouth with flavors of cassis and black cherries tinged with a nutty character, and finishes with refreshing acidity. These are wines that age gracefully and often take on the aromatic character of a Pinot Noir.

The wines of the Clos du Rouge Gorge are delicious examples of the indigenous grapes of the Roussillon and some of the finest from the new generation of young winemakers in the region. 

Cyril Fhal came to the Roussillon from the Loire Valley in 2002 and found small parcels of north-facing hillside vineyards on gneiss, about 20 miles northwest of Perpignan, where the soil, exposure and altitude of the vines result in a freshness and minerality in the wines. The vines have been farmed biodynamically from the beginning, with light plowing by hand or horse. Natural composts and biodynamic treatments have revitalized the soil, and plants and flowers among the vines bring beneficial insects and a diverse fauna - the mountainside vineyards have a magical quality and seem to blend in with the surrounding sparse vegetation.

Cyril rejected the AOC regulations of the Roussillon, which require 30% Syrah or Mourvedre, not indigenous to the region, believing that due to their excess of maturity and lack of acidity in this climate, result in fat and heavy wines, thus his reds from the local Carignan and Grenache are Vins de Pays Cote Catalanes. according to Cyril, the local Macabeo for the white is the most apt at expressing the mineral character of the soil. Yields at Clos Rouge Gorge are small, harvesting is done by hand, light crushing by foot is followed by slow, traditional fermentations (not carbonic), with no extraction, alcoholic and malolactic fermentation in barrel. Very little sulfur is used in the winemaking.

These are almost Burgundian-style wines of great purity and subtlety that combine delicacy and power. Balanced, finessed, and full of character, they are products of living soils, with pure silky fruit, moderate levels of alcohol and firm acidity.

The Clos du Tue-Boeuf in Les Montils (AOC Cheverny) is one of the most important natural wine estates in the Loire Valley. Winemaking at the Clos dates back to the middle ages - the wines were enjoyed by King Francois 1er in the 16th century. The Puzelat family has been present in Les Montils since the 15th century - it was Jean and Solange Puzelat who took over the estate in 1947, and transformed the polyculture farm principally into vineyards. Their sons Jean-Marie and Thierry grew up in the vines, and after working individually at estates in France and abroad, they each returned to take over the family domaine, first Jean-Marie in 1989, joined by Thierry in 1994. 

Quickly becoming part of the growing natural wine scene in France, the Puzelat brothers stopped using all additives in their vinifications in 1994 and the vineyards became certified organic in 1996. Fermentations are spontaneous, and most of the wines are unfiltered.

Michael Cruse was born and raised in Northern California and came to the wine business through his love of science.  His moment of clarity came after attending a lecture at Cal Berkeley by Terry Leighton of Kalin Cellars. For the first time then, Michael was able to envision a path where his deep knowledge and appreciation for science could take him into the world of wine.

Michael took several positions in order to learn the basics, including stints in the cellars of Sutter Home, and Merryvale in Carneros where he would work his way up to becoming the assistant winemaker.  After several years of working for others, Michael felt the desire to strike out on his own and make wines that reflected his vision and admiration for California.  Along with a few partners, Michael set up shop in an industrial warehouse in Petaluma, where he built a custom crush facility and launched his first sparkling wine project, Ultramarine, in 2008.  

In 2013, Michael launched Cruse Wine Co. with the goal of creating wines that were fruit-driven, fresh and delicious, but still serious. The roots of the North Coast run deep with Michael, so he chose to focus on sites within Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino and Contra Costa Counties to create these wines. Uninterested in creating another Pinot Noir or Cabernet, instead he found inspiration in lesser-known varieties such as Valdiguie, Tannant, Carignan and St. Laurent.

The flagship wine of Cruse Wine Co. is the red blend Monkey Jacket (the name inspired by an old, British sailor song). A blend of Validiguie, Carignan, Tannat, St. Laurent and other field blend reds, it offers incredible drinkability with brightness and ample structure, epitomizing the style of Cruse Wine Co. Michael also makes small lots of single vineyard varietal wines from Valdiguie, Tannant, Syrah, Carignan and Chardonnay.

Believing that sparkling wines are the true lens into a vineyard and its place, Michael also wanted to bring a sparkling component to Cruse Wine Co. that didn’t compete with his Ultramarine project. The Cruse Tradition Sparkling wine is made using the same traditional methods as Ultramarine, but sourced from interesting sites that don’t necessarily match the coastal vineyards of Ultramarine. The petillant natural wines are crafted from single vineyard plantings of Valdiguie and St, Laurent, with nothing else added. The wines are disgorged, so they are bright, clean and show great purity.

Daniel Bouland is a great producer of old-fashioned Morgon.  From less than 7 hectares of old vines in the Douby, Côte de Py, and Delys, lieux of Morgon, plus small parcels in Chiroubles and Cote de Brouilly, he makes wines that can age 20 years, and are comparable to fine Côte de Nuits Burgundies.

The majority of Daniel Bouland’s old vines lie within Corcelette, in the hilly Haut Morgon to the northwest of the appellation. Bouland farms a number of old-vine parcels in this terroir, where the sandy granite soils over weathered schists tend to result in wines of great perfume and finer, rounder tannins than those of the nearby Côte de Py. His Corcellette Morgon vineyard is 60-80 year old vines. De Lys (between Corcellette and Ville Morgon) was planted in 1926. In 2014 he acquired another old vines parcel - Bellevue, on schiste and granite.  All his grapes are hand-harvested and vinified with full clusters in order to extract all the organoleptic qualities, and bottled unfiltered.