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“Should we all buy more Merkelbach? Yes, of course!” – Mosel Fine Wines
 
We adore the wines of Weingut Alfred Merkelbach, irrationally and perhaps more than any other grower in the Mosel. They set the curve for the term “old-school,” having made their wines in similar style for almost 70 years. These wines capture the delicacy and etherealness of Riesling like few other wines we’ve tried. Terry Theise, when importing the wines for Skurnik, described their wines as “like VAPING Mosel Riesling.”
 
The estate is owned by two brothers, Alfred and Rolf. With no descendants to hand off the estate to, they quietly continued their work following decades of experience, practice and dedication to traditional methods of winemaking.

Top Burgundy & Champagne Winemakers Team Up in California
 
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When one of the preeminent names in Burgundy, Étienne de Montille of Domaine de Montille, sought out land on the West Coast of America to craft Pinot Noir and Chardonnay with a Burgundian sensibility, it was only natural that he focused on the Santa Rita Hills in Santa Barbara County. (It’s a region that seems to pull at French hearts, as it did with the late Philippe Cambie and his joint project with Adam Lee of Siduri, named Beau Marchais.)
 
And draw more Frenchmen, it did. Étienne shared the news with his friend Rodolphe Péters of Champagne’s top-class grower estate, Pierre Péters, who quickly signed on and became the sparkling wine consultant for the project.

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Fred Prinz originally started Weingut Prinz as a “garagiste” or hobbiest winemaker operation in 1991. The critics quickly became enamored, and an invitation to join the legendary VDP consortium followed in 2005. Their estate vineyards are farmed organically, with a house style that aims for “minerality, elegance, finesse and ageing ability” that expresses terroir.
 
With high-elevation holdings in the Rheingau, the winery produces a full range of Riesling’s including the ultra-rare Eiswein. Eiswein is among the hardest wines to make on the entire planet, and is becoming rarer as climate change advances. This is on account of the time the Riesling grapes must spend on the vine as decreed by German law. There’s an endless list of things that could go wrong for the selected clusters during this time.

Both Renée Saint-Amour and Grant Coulter were raised to appreciate Oregon wines, despite hailing from out of state. Their mutual interest and love of adventure brought them to the Valley. Grant worked with Hamacher before joining Beaux Freres and eventually becoming their winemaker under Mike Etzel’s tutelage. Today, Grant is the winemaker at Flâneur, an incredible estate that releases beautiful and utterly delicious wines similarly focused on sustainability.
 
Together, this wife-and-husband team launched Hundred Suns as a boutique winery and eventually scrapped together enough cash to purchase Breaker Vineyard, a fifty-year-old site in the Eola-Amity Hills and now home to them, their kids, and their winery. They do everything by hand, from crafting their wines, distributing in town, and even their stunning label-design.