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Sale
Rapid Ship
White
750ml
Bottle: $13.94 $15.00
An inviting nose of peaches, sliced pears and dried orange peel. Medium-bodied with delightful texture. Bright and...
JS
90
Sale
White
750ml
Bottle: $59.90 $63.19
The 2021 Fire By Night, formerly known as Broom Ridge, has a lovely, seductive bouquet with mirabelle, jasmine and...
12 FREE
VM
94
WS
93
White
750ml
Bottle: $59.90
6 bottles: $58.70
12 FREE
Sale
White
750ml
Bottle: $16.20 $18.00
12 bottles: $14.25
Crisp passion fruit and lemon leaf with a whiff of white pepper on the nose. The same flavours make an immediate...
Sale
White
750ml
Bottle: $13.58 $14.30
12 bottles: $11.40
Dry, easy drinking wine with notes of quince, pear and granny smith apples.
Red
750ml
Bottle: $19.20
12 bottles: $15.44
Ruby color. Elegant, with fresh fig and ripe red berry aromas (black cherry, wild strawberry), as well as delicate...
Sale
White
750ml
Bottle: $17.10 $18.00
12 bottles: $14.25
Brilliant clear yellow. Seductive nose with lovely fruit aromas (pear, pineapple) and delicate floral notes. Smooth...
Red
750ml
Bottle: $14.95
12 bottles: $14.65
The Beau! Beaujolais comes from a forty year-old high-density vineyard. Fermentation is traditional, 100%...
Sale
Rapid Ship
White
750ml
Bottle: $17.44 $18.79
A fresh and pure unwooded Chenin Blanc, made to express the delicious purity of the grape. A lovely wine to enjoy on...
Rapid Ship
White
750ml
Bottle: $34.84
Rated 95 -Year in, year out, this exceptional Chenin Blanc vineyard delivers the goods.... it produces a wine with...
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WNR
95
VM
91
Sale
White
1.5Ltr
Bottle: $25.81 $27.17
6 bottles: $16.68
The Basics This wine is meant to be enjoyed with a variety of foods, ranging from Asian to Mexican dishes. The Taste...
Sale
White
750ml
Bottle: $12.43 $13.08
The Basics This wine is meant to be enjoyed with a variety of foods, ranging from Asian to Mexican dishes. The Taste...
Sale
White
750ml
Bottle: $25.84 $28.80
100% Chenin Blanc. From 10-15-year-old, certified-organic vines on clay-limestone soils. Fermented to dryness (2...
Red
750ml
Bottle: $28.94
12 bottles: $28.36
If there is a red grape more expressive in its youth than Valdiguié, we've yet to meet it. It's so many vibrant,...
Red
750ml
Bottle: $15.94
12 bottles: $15.62
Brouilly is one of the Cru Beaujolais, which are known for producing excellent, food friendly, underrated wines at a...
White
750ml
Bottle: $32.94
12 bottles: $32.28
Rated 96 - Intense, stony and layered, it's a wine that builds on the palate, with effortless concentration, Loire...
12 FREE
White
750ml
Bottle: $16.66
12 bottles: $16.33
This wine displays classical chenin blanc aromatics of straw, lanolin and bruised peach, accompanied by a beautifully...
White
750ml
Bottle: $17.94
12 bottles: $17.58
12 FREE
White
750ml
Bottle: $15.63
12 bottles: $15.32
White
750ml
Bottle: $24.79
12 bottles: $22.80
This classic Savennières wine has a complex bouquet of wild flowers, sherry flora and chalk dust and a generous...

Chenin Blanc Gamay Mavrodaphne

Originating in France yet now grown in many parts of the New World, Chenin Blanc is one of the most versatile and highly regarded white wine grape varietals on earth. These green skinned grapes hold a relatively high acid content, and as such can be used for making still white wines of exceptional quality, as well as superb sparkling wines (such as the Crémant wines of the Loire Valley) and extremely aromatic dessert wines. Their natural transparency means that they are a fine grape for expressing their terroir in the bottle, and winemakers often experiment with this varietal to coax unusual and intense flavors from the grapes, such as allowing the development of noble rot on the fruit in order to make sweet and viscous wines of a unique character.

The French wines of Beaujolais are widely regarded as some of the finest table wines in the world. This is due in part to the qualities of the Gamay grape, from which they are made. Gamay produces beautifully, juicy, rounded and gulpable red wines, usually drank young and full of their natural fruit character. However, it would be a mistake to say that Gamay is limited to easy-drinking, soft wines - it’s a highly flexible and versatile grape, capable of producing aged wines of serious complexity and structure, full of expression and fascinating characteristics.


The majority of Gamay wines from France are labeled under Beaujolais Villages or Beaujolais, and these are the standard table wines we’re used to seeing in French restaurants, at bistros, and at our local wine store. Usually great value for money, these are the light, slightly acidic examples of what the grape can do. Far more interesting are those Gamay wines from the 10 cru villages, just north of Beaujolais, where generations of expertise and a unique soil type made up of granitic schist result in far more unique, complicated wines. The best examples of Gamay feature intense aromatics, all black fruit and forest fare, and are worth cellaring for a few years.

In the Archaea region, high in the Northern Peloponnese mountains, the predominant grape varietal grown is the prized Mavrodaphne. Meaning 'Black Laurel', the Mavrodaphne grapes have extremely dark skins, and ripen slowly under the Greek sunshine, helped by the mineral rich soils the vines thrive in. This grape varietal is mostly used to produce the opaque, inky fortified wine of the same name, which is popular all over Greece and elsewhere in the world. This fortified wine allows the grapes to really show off their complex and fascinating flavors, which range from a rich marzipan to flavors of bitter chocolate, sweet coffee, dried figs and prunes, as well as plenty of jammy fruit notes.

Mavrodaphne is produced in a traditional method which involves leaving the grape juice exposed to the sun in large vats, before having its fermentation halted by the addition of various distillates taken from previous successful vintages. This mixture contains plenty of residual sugar, which gives the end result its characteristic sticky sweetness, and also helps with the next fermentation process, which typically takes place in large underground cellars. The final product is a heady drink, absolutely bursting with unusual, rich and sweet flavors and carried in a dark and slightly viscous Port-like liquid.

Mavrodaphne grapes are also used for the production of still red wines, but are generally blended with varietals such as Agiorgitiko or imported grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon. Mavrodaphne grapes are excellent for mellowing more acidic varieties, and producing deliciously rounded wines, which have taken the international market by storm in recent decades.

Additional Information on Greek Wines


Greek Wines
Ancient Greek Wines – A Brief History of Wine in Greece
The Myth of Dionysus, Greek God of Wine
What is Retsina?