Brett’s notes.
Short, opinionated pieces from Brett — a producer he’s tasted with, a vintage that surprised him, a bottle that changed his mind.
The Saint-Aubin question — why the “lesser” Burgundy makes more sense than ever.
For decades the conversation in white Burgundy has stopped at Meursault, Puligny, and Chassagne. Those names earned their reputation, and the wines still deliver. But the prices long ago stopped making sense for most of the people who actually drink Burgundy at the table on a Tuesday night.
Saint-Aubin sits one ridge over from Chassagne and shares a remarkable amount of the same limestone bedrock. The 1er Cru sites — En Remilly, Les Murgers des Dents de Chien, La Chatière — produce wines with real cut, mineral lift, and the slow, almost stony finish you expect from the more famous communes next door. The wines are not imitations. They are the same conversation, on a different page.
What I’m drinking right now: Hubert Lamy En Remilly, Marc Colin Sur le Sentier du Clou, Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey Les Combes. None of these are inexpensive. All of them deliver more wine for the dollar than the appellation immediately to the south.
Come in if you want to taste the difference. We have at least one Saint-Aubin open most Wednesdays.
— Brett · April 2026
Austrian Riesling deserves a second look — Wachau’s quiet revolution.
If you bought your last bottle of Riesling thinking about Germany, you are missing one of the most exciting white wine stories in Europe. The Wachau, hugging a tight bend of the Danube about an hour west of Vienna, makes Riesling with a bone-dry profile, screaming minerality, and a structural backbone that almost no other region can match at the price.
Producers like F.X. Pichler, Alzinger, Knoll, and Nigl (technically Kremstal but in the same conversation) are working with steep, terraced gneiss and primary rock vineyards that go straight back to the medieval monasteries. The results are precise, age-worthy, and far from sweet.
Try a Federspiel level first — the dry, mid-weight tier — before stepping up to Smaragd. Alzinger Riesling Dürnstein Federspiel is the bottle I open when I want to remind a customer that Austria is not a Riesling footnote.
Pair it with anything that touches the river: lake trout, halibut, even a roasted chicken with herbs from the garden. The wine will sit politely beside the food and never get in the way.
— Brett · March 2026
Three Northern Rhône bottles that surprised me last quarter.
Northern Rhône Syrah is having a moment, and not because anyone needs convincing about Côte-Rôtie or Hermitage. The interesting story is at the edges — Saint-Joseph, Crozes, Cornas — where younger growers are reworking the granite-to-glass relationship with a lighter touch.
Domaine Faury Saint-Joseph is the bottle I keep going back to. Whole-cluster restraint, real fruit, a smoke-and-violet finish that says granite in three different ways. The price is still reasonable. It will not be reasonable for long.
Maxime Graillot Crozes-Hermitage is the next one. Maxime trained alongside his father Alain and the wines now have an extra layer of polish without losing the wild, open-knit character that defines Crozes.
Vincent Paris Granit 60 — from Cornas, made on 60-year-old vines on pure granite. There is no white-pepper description that does justice to what this bottle does in the glass. Come taste it.
All three are on the floor right now and a couple of them appear at Wine Wednesdays from time to time. If you want to taste them blind together at the shop, ask for me on a Saturday.
— Brett · February 2026
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