Vinopolis Monday Newsletter (2/6/2023)

We have the best rosé selection around! Why wait for spring? 

We’re having a huge sale on Rosé throughout the entire month of February.

Sale Began at 4pm on Friday, January 20th 
Sale Ends at 6pm on Tuesday, February 28th 
     
5% off 6-11 bottles and/or large format rosés. 

10% off 12 or more bottles and/or large formats of rosés. 

Discount will not display online, we will adjust your invoice before charging your card.
Discount does not apply to pre-arrival wines or to case discounts. 
This is first come / first served and limited to stock on hand.

Buying a case-6 unlocks an additional 5% discount on 1-5 additional bottles of rosé purchased. Buying a case-12 unlocks an additional 10% discount on all additional bottles of rosé purchased. 

This sale applies to ALL rosé wines. That’s over 85 wines and thousands of bottles discounted! Here are a few recommendations to get you started.

Ameztoi Rubentis Rosado, Getariako Txakolina 2021 750ml $21.90 special, 36+ bottles in stock 
Vinous 91 points “Pale orange. Finely etched red berry, citrus zest and floral aromas, along with building herb and mineral flourishes. Taut and nervy in the mouth, offering sappy strawberry, cherry and tangerine flavors that show fine delineation and spicy lift. Closes firm and right, with persistent red fruit notes and a refreshingly bitter edge.”
De Maison importer note “The iconic Ameztoi Rubentis rosé is a field blend of the local, indigenous hondarrabi zuri and hondarrabi beltza varieties, grown on traditional trellises high on the slopes rising above Getaria, an ancient Basque fishing village on Spain’s rugged northern coast. In the 2000s, when almost all of the other local wineries gave up on the indigenous red hondarrabi beltza vines, the Ameztoi family retained their old vines, in turn, lending their rosé such exceptional vibrancy and complexity. Rubentis, the region’s first pink wine, was inspired by the historic claret style wines which were once produced in the area long before the current global craze made rosé famous. The backbone of the blend comes from an old hondarrabi beltza vineyard planted in 1840, preserved by the Ameztoi family for generations. Ameztoi Rubentis is an authentic original, a wine that is often imitated but never replicated.”

This is the lowest listed price on the West Coast!

Bastide du Claux Luberon Poudriere Rose, Rhône 2021 750ml $21.90 special, 22 bottles in stock 
Rosenthal Wine Merchant importer note “Côtes du Luberon Rosé: is a real standout, offering the ethereal pale salmon color and bright salty snap we’ve come to love about Provençal rosé, but without the confected, “commercial,” overly aromatically exuberant character that sometimes mars those wines. Sylvain picks all of the grapes at “rosé ripeness,” aiming for balancing acidity and brightness rather than sun-drenched ripeness. It’s composed of 50% Grenache, 30% Cinsault, and 10% each Carignan and Syrah, from vines between 25 and 60 years of age. All of the grapes are pressed directly, and the majority undergo no maceration, with a portion of Grenache and Cinsault spending six or so hours on their skins after the pressing. Everything is done in cement, and the wine ferments naturally. This is a non-flashy rosé of great mineral character, showing its soil influence clearly, and offering subtle red fruits and vigorous acidity on the palate.”

This is the lowest listed price in the USA today!

Chateau de Manissy ‘La Belle Etoile’ Rose, Rhône 2020 750ml $9.90 special, 6 bottles in stock 
Vinous 89 points “Pale orange-pink. Lively and focused on the nose, displaying fresh strawberry, white peach and orange zest scents, with floral and mineral nuances. Red berry and pit fruit flavors show sharp detail and a bracing hint of juicy acidity. The floral note repeats on the tight finish, which lingers with good tenacity.”

This is the only listing in the USA today!

Chateau Routas Coteaux Varois en Provence Rose 2021 750ml $14.50 special, 36+ bottles in stock 
James Suckling 91 points “Pale rose-tinted rosé with aromas of buttercups, white strawberries, pink grapefruit and wet stones. Light-bodied with fresh acidity and a creamy, delicate palate. Elegant. Drink now.”

Domaine Charvin Cotes du Rhone Rose, Rhône 2021 750ml $19 special, 13 bottles in stock 
Vinous 91 points “Pale orange. Expressive, spice-tinged red berry, blood orange and pit fruit aromas are accompanied by building mineral and floral nuances. Taut and energetic on the palate, offering intense strawberry, orange zest and lavender flavors that are braced by a spine of chalky minerality. Finishes very long and precise, with repeating red fruit and floral notes and firm, minerally tension.”

Collector’s Corner
 

Dominio de Pingus ‘Pingus’, Ribera del Duero 2019 750ml $1199 special, 3 bottles in stock 
Wine Advocate 99 points “I tasted the bottled 2019 Pingus two weeks after bottling. Even at this early stage and after the operation, the wine is super harmonious and elegant. They really outdid themselves here and produced an amazingly fresh, aromatic and harmonious wine in a warm vintage. It’s incredibly textured, with refined, very fine-grained and chalky tannins. It’s very balanced, and there’s no excess of anything; it has 14% alcohol, perfect ripeness and a velvety mouthfeel. It gets more floral with time in the glass, getting nuanced and really interesting. It delivers what the barrel sample promised one year ago, when the wine already surprised me. I think the word that best describes this wine is precision—it’s clean, focused, balanced and delineated. Bravo! 7,900 bottles produced. It was bottled in September 2021.”

This is the lowest listed price in the USA today!

BOND Vecina Napa Valley 2003 750ml $379 special, 5 bottles in stock 
Robert parker 2003 96+ points “The vineyard closest to the great Harlan Estate is Vecina, situated in the western foothills on the Oakville Crossroad overlooking the valley. From this 11-acre site, the 2003 Vecina comes closest in style to Harlan Estate, appearing like a hypothetical blend of a St. Estephe and Pauillac. A formidable wine, it reveals plenty of new saddle leather, creme de cassis, scorched earth and volcanic-like characteristics in addition to notes of blackberries, Chinese black tea and graphite. Powerful, intense and backward, it needs 2-5 years of bottle age and should last for two decades thereafter. It is a tour de force in winemaking!”

Chateau Montrose, Saint-Estèphe 2016 750ml $249 special, 11 bottles in stock 
Jeb Dunuck 100 points “Unquestionably one of the top 2-3 wines of the vintage, the 2016 Château Montrose is a monument in the making. Checking in as a blend of 68% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Merlot, and 7% Cabernet Franc raised in 60% new French oak (the balance was in once-used barrels) and representing a tiny 36% of the production, this deep purple-colored 2016 possesses powerful, incredibly classic Saint-Estephe notes of creme de cassis, graphite, damp earth, lead pencil shavings, and burning embers. With a powerful, full-bodied style on the palate, a huge mid-palate, lots of underlying structure and tannic grip, and perfect balance, this magical wine will need upwards of a decade or cellaring and keep for 40-50 years.”
Wine Advocate 99 points “Deep garnet-purple in color, the 2016 Montrose is a little youthfully shy to begin, but with coaxing, it unfurls to reveal the most beguiling scents of wilted roses, oolong tea, crushed rocks, wild sage, star anise and candied violets over a wonderfully pristine, well-defined core of crushed blackcurrants, black raspberries and kirsch plus wafts of pencil lead and wood smoke. The taut, muscular, medium to full-bodied palate straddles jaw-dropping intensity and finesse superbly, featuring a solid backbone of ripe tannins and giving a firm frame right through the incredibly long, exquisitely nuanced finish.”
Vinous 99 points “The 2016 Montrose has a tightly wound bouquet that is extremely well focused. This is one of the most pixelated aromatics I can remember on a Montrose at this stage, featuring blackberry, boysenberry and cedar and real mineralité underneath. The palate is medium-bodied with fine density and wonderful salinity. There is tremendous precision with razor-sharp tannin, and a brightness on the finish that is exceptional. This is a Montrose that will comfortably sit alongside the canon of great vintages from this Saint-Estèphe estate. As my score implies, it’s up there with the first growths.” Stunning.”
Pian dell’Orino Bassolino di Sopra, Brunello di Montalcino DOCG 2010 750ml $599 special, 1 bottle in stock 
Wine Advocate 100 points “The 2010 Brunello di Montalcino Bassolino di Sopra is the equivalent of the estate’s Riserva. Only 3,000 bottles were made and the wine was not produced in 2009 or 2008. Nor will it be made in 2011 or 2013. Future editions are 2012 and 2015. Bassolino di Sopra is silky and smooth, but it also has a fine textural fabric that gives the wine an enormous sense of tactile intensity in terms of mouthfeel. This is a magnificent achievement with an extreme sense of purity and freshness that is elegant and streamlined. The bouquet reveals slight and miniature shifts in its evolution that keep your curiosity as you contemplate the wine in the glass. Wild berry is followed by a steady stream of balsam herb, cola, crushed oyster shell and delicate floral tones. The vineyards are located between 330 and 370 meters above sea level with limestone deposits and red soils. Farming is biodynamic.”
Atonio Galloni 97 points “Pian dell’Orino 2010 Brunello di Montalcino Bassolino di Sopra is shaping up to be another of the wines of the vintage. Lavender, spices, menthol, tobacco and dark stone fruits meld together in a vivid Brunello of extraordinary beauty. Tasted alongside the Versante Amiata, the Bassolino di Sopra presents darker tonalities of fruit, a more vertical sense of structure support by spine of firm tannin, and a powerful personality. The 2010 is a fascinating wine to follow, as it becomes weightless and refined with the passage of time. Sadly, I could not spend all afternoon with the Bassolino di Sopra, but this is a deep, contemplative Brunello that will thrill readers for many, many years.”

Markus Molitor Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Riesling Beerenauslese, Mosel 2017 750ml $399 special, 12 bottles in stock 
Markus Molitor Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Riesling Beerenauslese, Mosel 2017 375ml $199 special, 19 bottles in stock 
Wine Advocate 100 points “The 2017 Riesling Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Beerenauslese * (Golden Capsule) is intense, fine and flinty on the highly precise nose with crunchy slate and grapefruit notes. Dense and concentrated on the palate, it has sweet but elegant and highly refined fruit intertwined with salty-finessed slate salinity and delicate acidity. This is a beautifully balanced BA from Molitor’s most important grand cru vineyard. Many readers might prefer its sweet and charming richness to the delicate finesse and crystallinity of the Würzgarten BA, which will be ready to drink sooner. But this Zeltinger Sonnenuhr in turn will gain even more finesse and drinkability over the years. Tasted at the domain in April 2019.”

This is the lowest listed price in the USA today!