Over the past decade, Cogno has joined the ranks of Piedmont's elite producers. No producer does that without making incredibly delicious wines – and Cogno’s wines are delicious. But no producer gets there just by making tasty wines. It's more than that. And two big things that stand out are clear in the case of Cogno. 

Some bottles feel like time capsules. Barrat-Masson Brut Nature Millésime 2012 — in magnum — is one of them. It’s grower Champagne from the deep south of the region, the Côte des Bar, where Kimmeridgian limestone runs under the hills and the climate leans a touch more continental. The style here is all about clarity and farming first; the label says “Brut Nature,” and the wine delivers on that promise without austerity, just a clean, ringing expression of place.

What makes Krug GC so special? There's really no other NV like it. Krug has the deepest library of reserve wines -- made up of some of the greatest wines in Champagne. They were masters of Meunier (the "third grape" of Champagne, which has become the darling of cutting edge growers) long before it was cool. And their chef de cave consistently blended a vast number of wines (like, insanely vast -- 131 in this disgorgement) to make the most perfect, most complete, most delicious Champagne imaginable. On release, delicious; with time in bottle, truly transcendent.

One of the most exciting things about working in wine is being introduced to a new producer and then, in turn, introducing them to you — particularly when said new producer lives up to the hype. A few years ago, we were shown the wines from a tiny, new, organic Abruzzo estate, Amorotti, and we knew we had something special on our hands.

We hate to throw around phrases like “vintage of the century”, but ask 100 wine professionals to pick one for Tuscany, and 99 of them will say 2016. Today, we can offer an intersection of this incredible vintage with the top wine of a true old-school classicist: the Capanna Brunello di Montalcino Riserva 2016. 

Among lovers of cutting-edge Grower Champagne, the Aube is on the map largely thanks to Cedric Bouchard, whose single-vineyard, single-varietal wines helped redefine what grower Champagne could be. 

But in the same village of Celles-sur-Ource, on the same fossil-rich Kimmeridgian soils – soils that look more like Chablis than the Montagne de Reims – another voice is emerging: Julien Prélat.

If, like us, you are obsessed with limestone soils and their impact on wine, then your eyebrow surely gives a lift when it hears that there is a village in Catalonian France called “Calce”. That sounds a lot like “calcaire”, French for limestone, and is even closer to calç, which is the Catalonian word. And, of course, all of these names derive from the same Latin word, calx. 

Ribeiro is in the middle of a wine renaissance, and Luis Rodríguez is one of the reasons why. Old-vine terraces on granitic sands and streaks of schist, Atlantic breezes by day and cool nights after sunset — the wines come off clear and poised, more about nerve and texture than weight.

The ocean is beautiful to look at and it’s fun to swim in. In Rías Baixas, it also happens to be a key ingredient. At Bodegas Albamar, the vineyards sit on granitic sand a few steps from the water, and you can taste the salt air in the wines. Two bottles, same coastline, two expressions of that Atlantic Ocean snap.

Ribera del Duero is known for big names and big wines — plush, oak-driven Tempranillos built for cellars and collectors. La Loba is something entirely different.

This is the personal project of Isabel Palomar, who farms a handful of ancient Tempranillo vines in the remote Soria subzone. It’s a rugged corner of Ribera, high in altitude and far to the east, where sandy soils and cooler nights produce wines with finer tannins and lifted aromatics. These vines are over a hundred years old, their roots deep in untouched soils that have never known chemicals.