Union Sacre Pinot Gris
Grapes 100% Pinot Gris
Place Monterey, California
Process 100% Destemmed. Skin contact for 20 hours and aged on the lees for 6 months in stainless steel. Bottled without fining or filtering.
Family These wines are made for the tables of friends, by two friends, from different continents, Xavier and Philip, who arrived at the Central Coast from opposite ends of the Earth. Xavier is a WSET certified, oenology degree holder from France, Philip is a self-taught designer from Michigan who kind of misses living in a van.
Between the two of them, Xavier and Philip have 35+ years experience working in Central Coast wineries. Xavier has made wine with some of the Central Coasts most luminous wineries. Philip cut his teeth at Proof Wine Collective.
Bottle: $29 | Glass: $13
Pino Roman Orange
Grapes 50% Muscat of Alexandria, 50% Torontel
Place Itata Valley, Chile
Process The grapes were harvested by hand and destemmed, then placed in very old Chilean amphora to ferment without temperature control. After fermentation, the wine rested for 10 months on its skins in in the same vessel before bottling without fining, filtering and with only a small amount of added SO2.
Family Ignacio Pino Román (Nacho, to those who know him) started making wine in 2018, after working harvests in Alentejo, Napa, and elsewhere. He returned to his home in Chile with the goal of highlighting the ancient viticultural
traditions of the Itata valley. His project focuses on the area of Coelemu, about 20 kilometers from the Pacific ocean, where he works with four small growers. Nacho believes that wine is born in the vineyard, and his approach to working with his winegrowers is collaborative in spirit. The vineyards and winegrowers that he buys grapes from are all old, carefully farmed, and never treated
with intensive chemical treatments. In the cellar, Nacho works with neutral wood, stainless steel, and clay vessels. No additives are used during fermentation, and the only sulfur additions are small and at bottling. His goal is to provide as clear a representation of the Itata valley and its ancient vines as possible.
Bottle: $29 | Glass: $13
Sfera ‘Macerato’
Grapes 100% Catarratto
Place Sicily, Italy
Process 12 - 14 days of skin contact maceration in stainless steel tanks. Malolactic fermentation in a combination of stainless steel and cement. Only NATIVE yeasts are used. The wine is bottle without clarification or filtering in order to retain the full flavor of the grape. Minimal sulfer added.
Family Sfera collaborates with growers who respect their land and aim to preserve their terroir's true identity through minimal but precise winemaking. Many are certified organic, and some follow biodynamic practices in the vineyard. What makes Sfera truly special is that every wine comes from a different producer. The winemakers change, the regions shift, and the expression of Italy evolves with each release. This bottle comes from the Cossentino winery.
In the 1960s, Gaspare Di Trapani, who inspired Cossentino’s Gadì - sparkling wine of Catarratto - grew grapes in the family estate in the Alcamo DOC area, precisely in Partinico, in the province of Palermo. Later, in the 1980s, the company project with Gaspare’s son - Antonino Cossentino - was born. With his eyes always looking forward, Antonino dedicated his life to improve the family estate, full of vineyards, peach and cherry orchards at that time. The choice to convert the land to the production of wine grapes was natural, spontaneous. Like the choice to plant French vine varieties, popular at that time, such as Merlot, Syrah and Chardonnay, alongside Catarratto, the native vine that has always had a special place in their estate.
Bottle: $29 | Glass: $13
Pierre-Henri Gadais ‘Zeste‘
Grapes 100% Melon de Bourgongne
Place Loire Valley, France
Process The whole grape clusters were placed in concrete tanks and macerated for 12 days. Fermentation begins spontaneously using only the naturally occurring indigenous yeasts. On the 13th day, the whole clusters were pressed, and the juice transferred to used 600L French oak barrels to complete alcoholic and malolactic fermentation. Aged for 8 months in French oak. Bottled without fining or filteration.
Family .Descended from the Bourgeois family (Domaine Henri Bourgeois) in Sancerre on his mother’s side and the fifth generation of the Gadais family (Gadais Père et Fils) to produce wine from the rolling hills surrounding Saint-Fiacre-sur-Maine, Pierre-Henri was perhaps destined to be a vigneron. In the Muscadet region the Gadais family has long been synonymous with high quality production, with legendary importers Frank Schoonmaker, Robert Chadderdon, and now Peter Weygandt bringing the wines of Gadais family to the United States.
Growing up in the vines and cellar of his father and grandfather, Pierre-Henri received quite the education from a very early age. It would have been easy to return to the family Domaine after earning his Viticulture & Enology degree in Burgundy, but Pierre-Henri chose a different path. To gain a better understanding of the international wine trade, he studied Wine Business in Bordeaux for 2 years, followed by a year in California working in wine distribution. After the completion of his studies, Pierre-Henri worked for several years as an apprentice winemaker in Australia, Switzerland, Burgundy, Pomerol, Sancerre, and back in Muscadet at Domaine de la Pépière.
Finally in 2016 he returned to Saint-Fiacre-sur-Maine to work with his father Christophe at Gadais Père et Fils. However, simply coming into the family business was not enough for the talented young vigneron and soon Pierre-Henri was looking to start a project of his own. The perfect opportunity came in the form of Les Grands Presbytères, a nine-hectare Domaine started in the 1920’s by the Marzelleau family. In 2009 Nelly Marzelleau, the current generation, was looking to step back from the day to day running of Les Grands Presbytères and contracted with her neighbor, Christophe Gadais, to farm the vineyards and make the wines. From the 2009 to 2015 vintage, Christophe Gadais made the wines for the Marzelleau family under the Les Grands Presbytères label. In 2016, with the blessing of his father, Pierre-Henri purchased the vines and the cellar, rechristening it Domaine de la Combe.
Immediately Pierre-Henri began the task of enhancing the unique terroir and reorganizing the Domaine towards the production of multiple quality-oriented cuvees. He later added some adjoining parcels, bringing the total to 15 hectares. Domaine de la Combe is unique in that all the Domaine’s vines are in a single block. The vines lie within the lieu dit of La Pétière, and rest on a gentle hillside known as the Butte de la Combe. There are 3 distinct terroirs in the Butte de la Combe: orthogneiss on the summit, gneiss on the southern slopes, and schist on the northern slopes. The Domaine has a good mix of young and old vines with the oldest being planted in the 1950’s and youngest as recent as 2016. The spraying of herbicides and pesticides was stopped in 2016 and the conversion to Organic viticulture began in 2017. Work in the vines is done according to the lunar cycle and, as of the 2021 vintage, all the Domaine’s holdings are certified Organic.
Bottle: $35 | Glass: $15