Highly Recommended is a premier wine club based out of NYC with a strong passion and over a decade in the wine industry. At HR we make it our mission to bring you some of the coolest and delicious wines while always remembering farming is just as important as the taste of the wine. Nearly all of our featured wines are organic, biodynamic, or sustainable, we believe farmer’s are rockstars and we want nothing but the best for our clients. Each wine we select has a story worth telling and will help grown your palate and passion for wine as we continue to do ourselves. We feel wine should be fun enjoyed with friends and family and not this pretentious thing, so cheers to better wine we all deserve it !!!

Tonight’s Wines…Grab Bag Goodness For Your Saturday! Which Ones Will You Get To Try??

Domaine Des Sanzay Mousseau Pet Nat

Grapes: Chenin

Region: Saumur, France

Domaine des Sanzay has an amazing range of wines from the town of Saumur using primarily Cabernet Franc and Chenin Blanc.  The clay on limestone soil provides wines that are light on their feet with good intensity and acidity.  Louis and Julienne founded the estate in 1880 and it is now run by the fifth generation. This Pet Nat is 100% Chenin Blanc that is produced with no intervention and in the most natural way. The wine offers aromas of fresh baked bread, apples, and citrus with sour apple and tropical fruit flavors on the palate. 

L. Aubry Fils, Champagne 1er Cru Brut (NV)

Grapes: Pinot Meunier, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Petit Meslier, Fromenteau, and Arbane

Region: Champagne, France

Meunier expresses here as barley, rusks, crackers, and so the wine is rusky, coppery-saline, iodé, mineral and appetizing. It’s beautifully expressive of a corner of Champagne, and tastes as though it were fined with sel gris. This year it’s 50% 2013 and 50% a perpetual reserve started in 1998. Deg 1/2016, it’s 55% Meunier (higher than usual), 25% CH, 20% PN and 5% “other” (which means basically everything that wouldn’t fit in the vats); it’s in form, brassy and oyster; after a dip a couple years ago (for which we have our old friend 2011 to thank) this is better than ever.  Meunier expresses here as barley, rusks, crackers, and so the wine is rusky, saline, iodé, mineral and appetizing. That’s the paradigm, at any rate. The fragrance of this years edition is back in form, or mostly—the little bit of ’11 in the reserve wine is, let’s say, not invisible. But the ripeness of ’12 nearly blankets it; otherwise it’s the briny coppery wine we know and love.

Fletcher Wines Arcato

Grapes: 75% Arneis, 25% Moscato 

Region: Arcato, Italy

Originally from Australia, Dave Fletcher is charting his own course through wine with no legacy to follow. Wines are made with 100% spontaneous fermentation but with a 'pied de cuve' method using old wood in the form of Barriques and Botte Grande-never, ever, filtering the wines or using fining agents. 50% of the vineyards he works with are certified organic and the other half is under conversion. Not wanting to contribute to an ever increasing mono-culture in the Langhe, Fletcher offsets the land used for grape production with ownership of the equivalent area in Forest, swamp and grasslands rich in biodiversity.  

The Moscato grapes used for the blend are left as whole bunches and put in the open fermenters first. Then the Arneis is destemmed and crushed on top of the Moscato already in the fermenter. Left to ferment and macerate on skins for about 3-4 weeks before being pressed and allowed to finish fermentation in old barrels. Bottling is done about 8 months later and happens directly from the barrel; No fining or filtration.

A.J. Adam, Riesling Hofberg Reserve Trocken (2018)

Grape: Riesling

Region: Mosel, Germany

Just south of Piesport in a small side valley lies the steep, south-facing vineyards of Dhron, named for a tributary of the Mosel and virtually unknown. The long-time growers in Dhron have aged and the younger generation seems unwilling to farm the extremely steep, weathered slate slopes here. Not so with Andreas Adam, who in 2000, after completing school in Geisenheim and after a stint at Heymann-Löwenstein, resurrected his family’s estate and now farms 3.8 hectares in Dhron as well as Piesport. In the Hofberg vineyard, Dhron’s lone Erste Lage of gray-blue slate and iron oxide, land is a fraction of the cost of lesser sights nearby, where müller-thurgau is planted extensively on fertile ground and growers much prefer to use the highly profitable grosslage name ‘Michelsberg.’ Adam’s plots in the Hofberg are spread along the hillside, with 2 parcels planted in the early 1950’s. These wines might more resemble Saar wines rather than nearby Piesport, as they are extremely steep, high in altitude, and kept perpetually cool from the air descending from the Hunsrück Mts along the Dhron river. Andreas also has several parcels in the Goldtröpfchen, including a plot on ancient terraces called the Layschen, meaning ‘small slate’ for its crumbling, decomposing stones.

Unico Zelo Jade & Jasper (2018)

Grape: Fiano

Region: Waikerie, Riverland (AUS)

From Brendan and Laura:

Being winemakers, we're two people incredibly passionate about the soil and produce we have in Australia. It's our intent to showcase products to the rest of the world that embrace Australian native ingredients and pay homage to the indigenous custodianship who maintained the land for thousands of years. 
It's this passion that has driven us to start two wine labels, one that protects our farmers and another that protects our future. We've since taken these concepts and with our distillery, applewood - catapulted it into the horticultural realm - studying indigenous produce, it's beneficial effects on our land and the stories it can tell through incredible colours, flavours, and textures. 
We seek Australian identity in the products we craft and the services we offer. We seek ways to communicate this with an entirely new demographic. 
Our hope is that these Australian stories can one-day be heard on a global scale.

This Fiano provides “white peach blossoms, honeydew and lemon, all covered in a generous splash of Granny Smith Apple. This continues onto an electric palate, lifted by a rich fruit-sweetness, and sparked to life with a crispy acidity.”

Domaine Roche-Audran, Chateauneuf Du Pape (2017)

Grapes: Grenache

Region: Rhône Valley, France

Domaine Roche-Audran was created in 1998 by Vincent Rochette, with vineyards in Buisson (for Côtes du Rhone), Châteauneuf-du-Pape (0.33 hectares) and Visan. All vines are grown biodynamically, with the estate creating all of their own preparations. The ultimate goal for the domaine is the generation, the preservation, and especially the perpetual growth of the life force of plants and the land on which they grow.      Domaine Roche Audran Chateauneuf du Pape is made from 100% Grenache. The wine is aged in a combination of French oak barrels and demi muids for 12 months before bottling. The estate follows the biodynamic calendar when it comes to aging process as well as the racking and bottling are set to lunar cycles. The wine is soft, fresh, spicy and filled with ripe, juicy fruit flavors.

Fatalone Teres Primitivo (2019)

Grapes: Primitivo

Region: Puglia, Italy

Azienda Agricola Petrera Pasquale (Fatalone) has been making wine in the Gioia del Colle region since the late 1800’s.  Like many producers in the area, bottling wine came late; most wines were sold in sfuzo, where locals would bring jugs and fill up from the tank. It was only in 1987 that the first bottles of ‘Fatalone’ were produced.  A winery with intense dedication to the earth, their certified organic farming practices prove to make exceptional Primitivo Gioia del Colle in three different styles, and one bianco made from the local Greco. Their belief in organic principles and renewables extends to the winery where only solar power is used to power the entire production. Fatalone is a zero emission winery.  Stainless steel is used for primary fermentation in all of the wines, and when oak is used, it is always large, old Slavonian oak.  Sulphur is not used during vinification, and only a minimum but stabilizing amount is used at bottling, leading to a remarkably purity of fruit.

The wine comes from only the free-run must of the Racemi, which is the juice of the second budding fruit of the Gioia del Colle Primitivo plant (yielding only 1.8kgs/hectare), which has less of a full-body character, a more delicate palate, and a lovely sweet and floral smell. The whole berries only spent 36 hours on the skins, continued natural fermentation, and then had 6 months of aging. Teres is a fresh, mineral driven light red wine full of strawberry, cranberry, raspberry and red currant notes.

Looking for some CaviAIR…