On the following pages, please find some exci ng new summer whites from two of our favorite importers... Eric Solomon Selec ons
Growing up in Greensboro North Carolina, the son of clinical psycholo- gists, Eric Solomon’s early passion was not terroir, indigenous varie- es, nor unheralded wine growing regions but music – both classical and rock. This first love led him to London, where at 18, he was an understudy to the head percussionist of the London Symphony Orchestra. To make ends meet he took a job at his neighborhood wine bar and soon discovered that there was more to the world than Mahler and the Who. The owner of the wine bar, recognizing the enthusiasm and ap tude of his newest employee encouraged his interest in wine eventually sponsoring him for the Ins tute of Masters of Wine. The Ins tute wasn’t sure what to make of this lanky, hard-rock yank, yet despite their ini al skep cism, he proved an adept blind -taster and eloquent writer. While studying at the Ins tute Eric made his first visits to France, a country that would play an important part of his future. There he spent me working in the vineyards and cellars learning first hand all the e ort that goes into making great wine.
Eventually the desire to return to the States (and encouraged by the homeland department in the UK a er exhaus ng his student visas,) Eric returned to New York where he was hired as the Director of Fine Wines at a Fortune 100 wine and spirits company. While there, he quickly learned the intricacies of impor ng and distribu ng wine in the United States yet his ever restless desire to find new and exci ng wines, many o the beaten track, was in conflict with the company’s more conserva ve reliance on Bordeaux and Burgundy. Being more comfortable in a cold damp cellar than in a boardroom and far happier in jeans than a suit, he le to found European Cellars in 1990.
Eschewing conven onal wisdom, Eric built his por olio around unheralded regions and small producers rather than market categories. Through his e orts, once obscure regions have representa on on wine lists and retail shelves. Before there was a market for it, Eric was talking about the Cotes du Luberon, Ventoux, Pic St Loup, Cote Roannaise, Gaillac and the Roussillon. Eric frequently remarks that the first mo o of the company was, "Unknown and Unsold!"
Despite having founded the company on selec ons from France he soon started receiveing samples from Spain. While many were not so good, a few were outstanding. It was "love before sight," as he is fond of saying. No be er example was a wine called Clos Erasmus which arrived as an unsolicited sample sent by winemaker Daphne Glorian to his Manha an o ce. It was literally, life-changing both professionally and ul mately personally! The discovery of the then unhearalded Priorat helped forge the path to discovery of many other hidden treasures in Spain. It also led to the marriage of Eric and Daphne.
Loca on, loca on, loca on may be the tagline about real estate but it has always been the guiding principle for Eric. From a bo le of inexpensive, vivacious Garnacha to a compellingly dense bo le of old-vine Chateauneuf, if the wine does not speak of place, it’s not an Eric Solomon selec on. Jon-David Headrick Selec ons
The path from fried chicken and cornbread while growing up in Tennessee to impor ng French wines was not an obvious one. While working in restaurants during college, Jon-David developed an interest in French wine and growing regions. Upon gradua on, he moved to Paris to work on an MBA and took every opportunity he had to travel to wine country. It wasn’t long un l it became clear that working with farmers made so much more sense than poring over spreadsheets, at least for him.
Finding a job in the wine business was not easy work but in 2001, Eric Solomon took a chance on a young man with li le experience and made him his Director of Opera ons. Before long, Jon-David was the General Manager of European Cellars. A er a few years of close work with Eric, Jon-David struck o on his own and created a por olio of wines from the Loire Valley and Champagne, two regions with which he had long been intensely passionate. Perhaps it was des ned from the start but in 2013, the two por olios came back together under the umbrella of European Cellars.
His manifesto, which he wrote when he started the company in 2005, remains as true today as it did then.
“Standing in a rocky, chalk covered vineyard a few years ago, I listened as a winegrower friend talked about the current state of wine. “Fruit in a wine is easy”, he said. “Purity is elusive.” He was right, of course, but I’d never really thought about it in such stark terms. He con nued, “Purity comes from hardship. It comes from the struggle of the vine’s roots through the rocks it is planted on, it comes from the fight against every other plant vying for the same water and nutrients, and it comes from the plant learning to fight for itself and not having man fight its ba les.”
In crea ng this por olio, I was looking for these kinds of wines, and I found them planted on a massive swath of chalk and slate that runs from the Atlan c Ocean through the Loire river valley and into Champagne. This “chalk line” produces wines of extraordinary purity, minerality, and soul and represents the heart of my por olio. The proper es with which I work are con sumed with making true wines – wines that are true to where they come from, true to the earth, and true to the winemaker’s obsession with quality. The vast majority of the proper es with which we work prac ce organic or biodynamic vi culture and we wholly support winemakers who harvest by hand, use indigenous yeasts, and who vinify with li le interven on. All are leaders in their appella ons and harvest at drama cally lower yields than their neighbors. Above all else, they are farmers.
In selec ng proper es for this por olio, I seek purity first, eschewing heavy handed usage of oak and op ng instead for wines with excellent ripeness, minerality, and above all, balance. The presence of balancing acidity is absolutely crucial in my view to world class wine and I’m not afraid to represent wines that have startling acidity if there is fruit to support it.”
Founded in 2005, Jon-David Headrick Selec ons was named “Best New Specialist Importer” by Wine & Spirits magazine as well as a “Wine Importer You Can Trust” by Slate magazine. Headrick’s work has been featured in French media outlets such as Radio France, La Nouvelle Republique, and TV Tours as well as American publica ons such as the Washington Post, Food & Wine magazine, and many others. In 2010, the government of France announced that Jon-David Headrick would be appointed a Chevalier dans l’Ordre du Merite Agricole, one of the highest civilian awards given by the government of France. The rank of chevalier (knight) is a life me appointment and is given to acknowledge outstanding service to French agriculture. DOMAINE DE LA FRUITIÈRE Folle Blanche
Granite rock was used for centuries to build the massive fortresses that dot the landscape of Muscadet. Its density and structure were rarely breached by arrow, cannonball, or the good ‘ole medieval siege. Because of its density and the fact that it is everywhere in Muscadet, its unclear why anyone would think that this was the place to plant hectares and hectares of vines. That’s what riverbeds are for, right?
Well, the Romans might have gotten a few things wrong in France (see the 1st century BC through the 5th century AD for reference) but they did get something right: they planted a ton of grapevines on this lunar rock of a landscape. Today, this area is called Muscadet and is home to over 8,000 ORIGIN hectares of vines of Melon de Bourgogne. France Domaine de la Fruitière farms over 40 hectares of this and produces APPELLATION both Muscadet Sèvre et Maine as well as Vin de Pays from grapes such as Gros Plant du Pays Nantais Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc. Regardless of the varietal, the vines SOIL Granite, sand the roots have to bury for meters for any hydric source. The vines, and the wines, are fed by water that is awash in wet rock. It’s not a big shock that AGE OF VINES 50 Combine this with the cold Atlantic breezes and you’ve got an amazing cool climate, high cut, precise bottle of white wine.
ELEVATION 40 meters The Lieubeau family owns the domaine and takes great care to vinify the wines according to exposition, density of granite, and harvest date. VARIETIES Folle Blanche keeps yields as low as possible to produce wines that express the varietal and not just acid. These are delicious, vibrant wines that are easily among FARMING the best values in the portfolio. Sustainable
FERMENTATION Fermented in tank
AGING 4 months in tank on lees DOMAINE DE LA NOBLAIE Chinon Blanc
Domaine de Noblaie is home base for four generations (grand-mère usually holds court in the living room while holding her new iPad.) It is Jerome Billard, the son of Francois and Madeleine Billard, who leads the property now. Jerome was fortunate to earn an internship at Chateau Petrus in Bordeaux while still in school and then to earn a spot at Dominus in California. I met Jerome in Chinon just days after his return to Chinon from California in 2003 and saw enormous potential. He has certainly lived up to that and more.
Noblaie sits at one of the highest points of the Chinon appellation and is essentially two long, sloping hillsides covering 24 hectares. The soil is mostly ORIGIN limestone (some of it quite deep) covered with clay and limestone shards. France since about 2005. All harvests are carried out by hand (rare in Chinon) and APPELLATION Chinon hand harvest, Noblaie has the same team year after year and the vineyard and winery triage is quite severe. The point is not to produce green or SOIL fruit and elegance at the same time. AGE OF VINES 50
ELEVATION Some of the wines are fermented in stainless steel, some in barrel, and 50–80 meters Happiness. VARIETIES Chenin Blanc
FARMING Conversion to organic (ECOCERT)
FERMENTATION Hand harvested in three passes, gentle pressing and natural yeast fermentation in tank
AGING 4 months in tank SUERTES DEL MARQUES Vidonia
The Valle de la Orotava is one of the oldest wine growing regions in the Canary Islands centered around the port of Orotava. Originally a center wines. Precariously rooted on the slopes of Pico de Teide – the world’s third largest volcano these soils are, needless to say, profoundly volcanic. In fact there is little other soil on the Island that wasn’t spewed out by Teide. The north of the island is drier than the south but is refreshed by condensation from the trade winds known locally as alicios.
There is an amusing quote in John Radford’s The New Spain regarding the Valle de la Orotava DO, “All the wine the DO makes is swallowed up by the ORIGIN local market; thus, while there is pressure to maintain quality control and Spain development, it seems unlikely that this will lead to export potential.” The quote is from the revised edition published in 2004 just two year before the APPELLATION founding of Suertes del Marqués by owner Jonatan Garcia Lima. In the few Valle de la Orotava short years since founding the estate, Suertes has become one of the most talked about producers in the Canary Islands. SOIL Sandy volcanic The cellar is surrounded by 25 ha of vines divided into several plots. The elevation ranges from 250 to 700 meters with a variety of exposures, mostly AGE OF VINES northern and eastern. The grade of the site is very steep at anywhere between 100+ 17-38% so most of the work in the vineyard is manual. The oldest blocks are planted with 100 year-old vine Listan Negro, Listan Blanco and Pedro ELEVATION Ximénez. Two additional plots are over 80 years old with Listán Negro 350-550 and Blanco. All these older blocks are trained el cordon trenzado. The recent plantings (2000–2007) are either trellised or head-punned. VARIETIES Listán Blanco, Gual, Vijariego Blanco, Mar- majuelo, etc. ACCOLADES
FARMING 93 – 2013 Vidonia – Wine Advocate Sustainable with organic practices 92 – 2012 Vidonia – Wine Advocate
FERMENTATION 91 – 2012 Vidonia – International Wine Cellar Hand harvested, whole cluster pressed, natural yeast fermentation in neutral 500L French oak barrels
AGING 11 months in neutral 500L French oak barrels
PLACE OVER PROCESS • EUROPEANCELLARS.COM