Wines sorted by producer, then wine and vintage.
South African winery founded by Alexander Baron von Essen and his wife in 1997. The estate is run in the second generation by their daughter Mariella Baroness von Essen today. In partnership with Comte Stephan von Neipperg. The first vintage was 2003. Their flagship wine is the "Capaia" red blend, which was previously called "Capaia One" and is typically made up of Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. The estate is based in Philadelphia, 30km north-east of Cape Town. They cultivate 60 hectares of vineyards.
Small but high-class château just across the road from Château Angélus in the Saint-Émilion Grand Cru appellation. Just one single block of vines, all of them Merlot, covering the slope of the vineyard and its plateau. Three hectares, 6000 to 7500 vines per hectare. The average age of the vines is 40 years. Stéphane Derenoncourt is consultant.
Grapes are harvested by hand. In the winery, they use a combination of wooden, concrete and stainless steel vats, all equipped with temperature control. Between two and three weeks fermentation on the skins. After that, maturation in 100% new French oak barrels for 16 to 20 months.
The de Boüard family of Château Angélus bought a 50% stake in Bellevue from the Pradel de Lavaux family in 2007. Hubert de Boüard subsequently renovated the property. The Angélus team also went on to vinify the wines of Bellevue throughout the Pradel de Lavaux/de Boüard partnership. However, as a result of Château Angélus leaving the Saint-Émilion classification in 2022, the Château Bellevue property was divided up: The vineyards were split up with 3 hectares given to Angélus and 3 hectares remaining with Bellevue. Château Bellevue is now in sole ownership of the Pradel de Lavaux family (also: Ch. Martinet, Ch. Saint-Pierre and Ch. La Renaissance amongst others).
Château Cantenac Brown is a 1855 classified third growth, located in Cantenac within the most prestigious Médoc appellation, Margaux. Owned by the Le Lous family.
Owned by Vignobles Comtes von Neipperg, who also own Château Canon La Gaffelière amongst other Bordeaux properties.
Large estate of around 70 hectares (plus 30 hectares of forests) in Pessac-Léognan. Owned by the Quinn Family from Ireland since 2001. Several improvements were made since then, including a new cellar and changes to the vineyards. Perhaps a more modern approach to Bordeaux wines today, with both their reds and whites being medium-bodied, balanced and accessible early on, though having enough structure to make them age-worthy. Their first red wine is a fairly balanced assemblage of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot these days, with some Cabernet Franc and, in certain vintages, Petit Verdot.* Their whites are made of Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon, aged in French oak barrels (around 50% new oak).
*In previous vintages before 2017, the assemblage often included around 70% Cabernet Sauvignon.
Pomerol estate owned by the Pradel de Lavaux family.
On the left bank in Labarde in the Margaux region and close to the Gironde lies Château Siran. Wines from this château can be traced back to the 15th century. More importantly, Ch. Siran has been in the hands of the current owners, the Miailhe family, since 1859. Today, Édouard Miailhe runs the estate in the sixth generation. As of this writing in 2023, the estate comprises 25ha of vineyards. Ch. Siran is not classified. However, it produces wines of exceptional quality (at a comparatively low price). In most vintages, the cuvée has been balanced between Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot at 40 to 50% each and around 10% of Petit Verdot. Hubert de Boüard (Ch. Angélus) has been consulting since 2014.
Premier Cru Classé en 1855.
The estate comprises 16 hectares with 70% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Franc and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon. The domaine is owned by the Amoreau Family (Château Le Puy). They farm biodynamically. La Closerie Saint Roc is Ecocert and Demeter certified.
Collovray et Terrier, with its headquarters in the Mâconnais, today consists of two wine estates: Domaine Deux Roches in the Mâconnais in Burgundy, founded in 1928, and Domaine Altugnac in the Languedoc, founded in 1997.
Today, the winery is run by Susanna Crociani. She used to be a concert promoter for Italian artists. After the death of her father Arnaldo and her brother Giorgio, she returned to the estate to carry on the family tradition. About 10 hectares of vineyards in Caggiole near the town of Montepulciano.
8.5 hectares in the Mâconnais, including Pouilly-Fuissé. They're blessed with old vines -- even their entry-level wines come from vines more than 30 years old. Advocates of a low-intervention natural approach, handpicking and spontaneous fermentation. Typically no or little filtration. 18 to 24 months maturation, some of it in barriques, depending on the wine. Certified organic.
In 2008, Dominique Lafon started this producer beside the long-established and famous Domaine des Comtes Lafon. Basically, the new domaine carries his own name and it's technically a négociant business, but all fruit comes from vineyards the Lafon family owns or has a contract to farm. Dominique Lafon concentrates fully on his own label since having handed management of Domaine des Comtes Lafon over to his daughter Léa and his nephew Pierre in 2022.
Joachim Heger, who is now the third generation to run Weingut Dr. Heger, founded his own winery, Weinhaus Heger, after completing his viticultural studies in 1986, before joining his parents' winery in 1992. While Weingut Dr. Heger is a member of the VDP and concentrates primarily on wines from first and great growths, Weinhaus Heger offers estate wines and village wines as well as cuvées consistently and separately from the VDP estate. Another difference is that Weingut Dr. Heger only processes its own grapes, whereas Weinhaus Heger can also purchase grapes from other winegrowers.
Duemani is the project of wine consultant Luca D'Attoma, known for his successful work with Tua Rita (Redigaffi) amongst others, and his partner Elena Celli. All wines are certified organic by BioAgriCert and biodynamic by Demeter. At Duemani, they focus on growing the international varieties Cabernet Franc, Syrah and Merlot.
The Felix Weber winery is located in Wiltingen on the Saar. Felix Weber founded the winery while he was still an apprentice at the age of 21 in 2015. If I am correctly informed, he gained experience with Egon Müller, among others. Today, having taken over vineyards from his family, he cultivates two hectares.
The Georg Breuer winery from Rüdesheim today cultivates around 40 hectares in the Rheingau. Most of it is in the steep, top Riesling vineyards around Rüdesheim. Since 2004, the winery has been managed by Theresa Breuer and the long-serving operations manager Hermann Schmoranz, supported by cellar master Markus Lundén. They have made Georg Breuer one of the most sought-after producers of highest-quality Rieslings in the world.
The Henri Giraud champagne house can look back on a long history. The family has been producing wine in the region around Aÿ since 1625, and is now in its 12th and 13th generation. As a great speciality and quasi "house style", Giraud refrains from maturation in stainless steel tanks. Instead, small oak barrels are used for all wines. The wood for these comes from the nearby Argonne forest. The selected wood is processed into 228-litre barrels (Burgundy pièces) by cellar master Sébastian Le Golvet and a local cooper using a toasting process developed in-house. The only exception to ageing in oak is the Dame Jane rosé champagne, which is aged in sandstone amphorae to emphasise the fruit of the rosé.
Jean-Baptist Becker founded the winery in 1893. Today, it is run by his grandson Johann Josef Becker, whom most people call Hans-Josef, or simply "Hajo". Hans-Josef Becker, born in 1945, completed his apprenticeship at Weingut Graf Eltz in Eltville in 1963, followed by his studies in Geisenheim from 1966 through 1969, after which he joined the family business. He was one of the first winemakers to produce dry Riesling, something that was unheard of in the Rheingau at the time.
Hans-Josef Becker is a believer in organic viticulture. He hasn't used fertilizer for almost fifty years, but he only decided to become certified Bio (engl.: organic) in 2011. Weingut J.B. Becker is relatively small, producing just over 60,000 bottles per year, and dedicates itself strongly to traditionally produced highest-quality Rheingau wines. In some years, Becker harvests less than 40 hectolitres per hectare due to rigorous pruning, far below the regional average of 70 to 80 hectolitres and the maximum allowed quantity of 100 hectolitres. Though best-known for dry and off-dry Riesling as well as Pinot Noir (Spätburgunder), the winery also produces a bit of Müller-Thurgau.
Weingut Karl Pfaffmann cultivates more than 70 hectares of vines, three quarters of which for white wines, one quarter for red wines. Markus Pfaffmann and his wife run the estate, which was founded shortly after the second world war, in the third generation today. Increasingly, you will find his name on the labels of the Pfaffmann wines.
Weingut Künstler is a long-standing winery from Hochheim in the Rheingau. While the family’s winemaking tradition dates back more than 370 years, the winery as it is today was established in Hochheim in 1965. Today, the estate is run by Gunter Künstler. Künstler cultivates a total of over 50 hectares, of which around 40 hectares are planted with Riesling.
Maison Louis Jadot was founded in Beaune in 1859. Today, they're one of the big players in Burgundy, producing wine from 250 hectares of vines. Jadot typically prefer extended maceration for their red wines. For maturation, they typically use 1/3 new oak.
Maison Champy is one of the oldest existing wineries in Burgundy. In fact, they claim to be the oldest. Champy started out as a tonnellerie in the 19th century, then moved on to purchase grapes or grape must for vinification and bottling in their role as négociants, and eventually started growing their own vines, too.
Today, Champy owns more than 20 hectares on the Côte de Beaune, including plots on the Hill of Corton. Since 2016, the company belongs to AdVini, who also own Domaine Laroche in Chablis among several other estates around the world.
Maison Champy still keeps all of its production facilities within the city of Beaune. Controlled fermentation takes place in steel tanks to keep much of the expression of each terroir. For maturation, they use Burgundian pièces with only a medium toast. More new oak for the bigger wines.
Martin Waßmer and his family have been making their own wines in the Markgräflerland in Baden since 1997. High-density planting, between 10,000 and 12,000 vines per hectare. Yields of around 40 hectolitres per hectare on average. Spontaneous fermentation. Their estate wines (Gutsweine) are typically produced in steel tanks whereas the higher-quality wines mature in barriques sourced from Burgundian coopers.
Philippe Pacalet is a négociant based in Beaune. He has been making wine since the early 2000s. Today, he processes grapes from around 20 hectares of vineyards.
His style of winemaking is natural in that he relies on spontaneous fermentation (whole-bunch for reds) and not too much new oak. For whites, he directly presses whole-bunch grapes and then lets the juice settle before filling it into barrels for alcoholic fermentation. Philippe Pacalet uses Tronçais wood for the barrels. Maturation typically takes 14 to 18 months.
His wines can be fairly strong in terms of extraction due to punching down (pigeage), making for expressive wines.
Family business in Osann-Monzel on the Moselle, which has been producing wine since 1773. Today, Bernhard Reef is the master winemaker responsible for winemaking, while his son Matthias Reef focusses on sales. The winery also offers vine sponsorships, for example.
As a non-VDP member, the Reef winery builds on its own quality pyramid: At the lowest level are the "Grundstein" (foundation stone) wines, then come the "Selektion" (selection) wines and finally, at the top, the wines labelled "Fass Nummer 13" (barrel number 13).
As the name suggests, the grapes for the "Selektion" were selected more strictly during the harvest and attention was paid to reducing the yield. The idea of hand-picking is pursued even more stringently for the estate's top wines. The wines are then matured in a barrel numbered 13, in keeping with the estate's tradition. These are mainly wines from Devon slate. According to the winery, there is only a wine from barrel 13 in successful years.
Founded by Robert Gerald Mondavi in 1966. Mondavi started out producing Cabernet Sauvignon as well as Sauvignon Blanc ("Fumé Blanc") with fruit from the To Kalon vineyard in Oakville. Later, Mondavi's sons expanded the range to include wines in the lower price segment - a controversial decision that caused much internal debate. In 2004, Constellation Brands bought the Robert Mondavi Winery for a reported sum of 1.36 billion US dollars.
Tenuta San Guido is a famous winery from Bolgheri in Tuscany. They started planting Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc in the 1940s already, making them one of the first producers to experiment with French varieties in the region. Today, Tenuta San Guido is best-known for their Bordeaux-style blends, i.e. Super Tuscans, including Sassicaia (Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc) and Guidalberto (Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot). They introduced Le Difese a little later, for which they blend Cabernet Sauvignon with Sangiovese to perhaps better reflect the original character of Tuscan wines.
Owned by Roman Niewodniczanski ("Niewo") of the Bitburger beer dynasty since 2000, Van Volxem actually dates back many generations. The winery was founded in Wiltingen on the Saar. Its original vineyards go back to Roman times. Along with other producers from the Saar and Moselle, Van Volxem's wines reached international popularity and eventually ranked amongst the highest-priced white wines in the world in the early twentieth centure before the world wars.
Today, Van Volxem cultivates between 80 and 100 hectares of vines, approximately, depending on which source you cite. The focus remains firmly on Riesling. They built a new modernist winery atop the Wiltinger Schlossberg in 2019. There, they have more than 100 tanks of 2,000 to 4,000 litres each, plus many large wooden barrels for ageing (Fuder barrels, ~960 litres) made out of wood from the family's own forests in the Eifel.
Steep vineyards. Grapes are hand-picked. Their wines are typically animating and low in alcohol, aiming for an elegant style.
This is an association of several female winegrowers with no local ties. Wine Girls United therefore offers wines from different regions of Germany, such as the Rheingau or Rheinhessen.