Boutique Chic
 
Designer Wines from All Over

By Warren Rojas

Boutique wineries, by design, are all about quality over quantity.

Smaller operations are more personally invested in each pressing, which translates into carefully crafted wines that are often as expressive—and sometimes even more impressive—than their mass- produced counterparts.

Paul Yohai touts Washington’s Whitman Cellars as one such stunner, praising the environmentally conscious wine producer for their commitment to low-impact farming techniques and biodynamic cultivation practices. That rapt attention comes through in their 2004 Walla Walla Valley Syrah ($30), which Yohai says delivers “big, ripe, intense layers of blackberry, cherry, pepper and meaty tones.” Further south, Yohai hails Napa Valley vintner Rudy von Strasser as someone who believes “great wine is made in the vineyard and not the winery.” Yohai has taken a shine to von Strasser’s 2004 Sori Bricco Vineyard Cabernet ($50), cheering the French oak-aged cabernet-merlot-cabernet franc blend for being “extremely dark and extracted with tremendous depth and concentration.”

Abroad, Yohai admires Danielle and Richard Dubois of Chateau Bertinat Lartique, family winemakers dedicated to returning their 100-year-old Grand Cru St Emilion vineyard to glory. According to Yohai, all of their terroir-driven wines are produced in a garage, including their 2002 Arthus ($17), a value wine from the up-and-coming Côtes de Castillon region.

Kathy Morgan appreciates the loving care provided by boutique vendors, particularly when it comes to champagne. “No one exemplifies the boutique spirit better than the growers who bottle wine made exclusively from their own small plots of land,” she estimates, trumpeting the NV Philippe Gonet & Fils Brut Rosé ($36) for its “mouthwatering flavors of wild raspberries and strawberries.”

Morgan is also fond of the 2003 Montirius Vacqueyras Clos Montirius ($27), congratulating winemakers Eric and Christine Saurel for creating a “lavender scented” grenache-syrah blend absolutely “brimming with flavors of boysenberry and spice.” For a knock-your-socks-off white, Morgan recommends a bottle of 2006 Heidi Schrock Weissburgunder ($24), a pinot blanc that is “plum and refreshing at the same time, with flavors of fresh apple, tangerine zest and chalk dust.”

Down under, Suzanne McGrath sees lots to love from the Barossa Valley’s Two Hands Wines. She points to the 2005 Two Hands “Bella’s Garden” Shiraz ($66) as a “perennial favorite, with inky, opaque purple color and deep, blackberry-like fruit.”

Bouncing over to Bourdeaux, McGrath encourages everyone to keep an eye out for jaw-dropping Merlot blends like the 2003/2004 Chateau La Vieille Cure ($33)—a bargain beauty she claims “shows the ripe, plummy fruit of Merlot with notes of tobacco and earth that only come from Bordeaux.”

Stateside, McGrath is a big fan of Sonoma’s Chasseur Wines, which she says “makes consistently full-flavored, well-balanced wines year after year.” One favorite is their 2005 Sonoma Coast Chardonnay Sonoma Coast ($37), which she says “balances ripe, lemon-drop fruit with a judicious note of oak.”

Meanwhile, McGrath notes that Chasseur has begun reaching out to bargain shoppers as well. “The same winery also makes chardonnay, pinot noir, and now syrah under the more affordable Lily label ($26),” she states. “Everyone’s a winner.”

(October 2007)