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Dear Wine Friends,
It's a quiet time of the year for us now, at least for another couple of weeks. I like it! Time for reflection! Also time for us to reload the racks with more exciting discoveries to broaden your palate's experience and to acquire new tastes.
Here are a few of the highlights arriving this week!
A 1992 vintage of Russian River Valley sparkling wine (methode champenoise) that was just recently disgorged, and nearly tied for first place in a blind tasting against other aged Champagne like the 1990 & 1999 Dom Perignon, 1998 Tattinger Comtes de Champagne, and 1998 Veuve Clicquot Grand Dame! The perfect gift for Valentine's Day, or for someone who will be celebrating a 21st birthday very soon! 1992 En Tirage Extra Brut is only $59.95, or $53.95 on 3+ bottles. Read more
 Kerner Clink? No, that's Colonel Klink? Easy to confuse when one hears the German in Italy's Alto Adige region along the Austrian border after a few glasses of the delicious chilled white varietal KERNER. Kerner is a highly aromatic white wine with floral and stone fruit aromas, the palate profile yields incredible clarity in the fruit - mango and melon with a squeeze of citrus. Kerner is a cross between Riesling and Schiava, a local red wine grape from Alto Adige. The 2009 Kofererhof Kerner "is one of the great, great wines of Alto Adige, and the 2009 is nothing short of breathtaking". - Wine Advocate - 93 points. Only $31.95, or $28.75 on 3+ bottles. Read more  Michel Chapoutier is mostly known for his northern Rhone wines, but wait until you behold his passion and the terroir expressed in his new BILA-HAUT project from the Roussillon village of Latour de France. The 2009 Bila-Haut Occultum Lapidem is simply stunning! Full of spicy dark berries, wild herb tinged garrigue, and an umami-like meatiness all accented by brine and a wet campfire-like smoke, this blend of Grenache, Carignan and Syrah shows off extra complexity as it comes from plantings grown in a mixture of gneiss, schist, and chalk. Wine Advocate - 91-92 points. Only $25.95, or $23.36 on 3+ bottles. Read More 
We first learned about Dominio do Bibei while visiting the Priorat region in Catalunya Spain in the summer of 2007 when we had individual appointments with Rene Barbier Jr. (Clos Mogador), and his wife Sarah Perez (Clos Martinet). They each spoke with excitement regarding their consulting roles in this biodynamic viticulture project far away in the arid mountains of the Quiroga-Bibei sub zone of the Ribeira Sacra D.O. in Galicia near the northeast border of Portugal. Now we feel very fortunate to score a few cases of the 2007 Dominio do Bibei Lalama a rich blend of 91% Mencía, 6% Garnacha and 3% Mouraton (Alicante Bouchet), from ancient terraces where 100 year old vines continue to cling to the schist, granite and clay. Wine Advocate - 94 points. Only $34.95, or $31.45 on 3+ bottles. Read More
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