The official release date of this year’s Nouveau is Thursday, November 20, and we plan to have the wine available for purchase on that date.

Here’s Chris Santini’s on-the-ground update from France on our two Nouveaux!

I had the pleasure of attending a housewarming recently, which was a merry and casual little potluck of sorts—we were loosely encouraged to bring “whatever, drinks or snacks, if you feel like it!” I bought some cheeses, charcuterie, a baguette, and a magnum of bubbles, which is my go-to for large get-togethers (everybody loves a big bottle). In the kitchen, I arranged my platter and popped the cork, nosing around in the cupboards for glasses to set out. As I poured, a friend poked her head into the kitchen, asking coyly, “Did I hear Champagne?” “Oh,” I laughed, “No, it’s—” But just then, two more smiling faces appeared at the pass-through counter, reaching for glasses and calling over their shoulder, “Madison brought Champagne!” I started again, “It’s actually from—,” but nobody heard me over the small stampede, and then we were gathered close, toasting our hostess and her lovely new home. We sipped, and there was an appreciative smacking of lips: “This Champagne is delicious.” “You spoil us with your fancy wines!”
     It was not Champagne. It was Champalou’s Vouvray Brut.
     Could I have told them? I certainly tried! I realized in that moment, though, that perhaps it didn’t really matter. Don’t get me wrong, my gal pals aren’t exactly wine aficionadas—this fizzy little fiction would be blasphemous in most oenophilic circles. And I’m not advising anyone to go around parading Vouvray pétillant as Champagne, especially the exquisitely refined, inimitable bottlings from our four stellar growers. But my point is that Champalou’s Brut is indeed delicious, and sparkling wines need not necessarily be “fancy” to feel like Champagne—to spark joy and festivity.
     Whether your bubbly of choice is a luxurious and elegant Champagne, a rich yet mineral Vouvray Brut, a versatile Italian Prosecco, or an aromatic Alsatian Crémant, our annual Champagne & Sparkling Sale offers all of these and many more toast-worthy bottles for every occasion.

TAKE 20% OFF
all Champagne & Sparkling Wine >
now through end of year

Once upon a time, Beaujolais was synonymous for light, easy-drinking red. And while this charming wine region just north of Lyon certainly excels at the kind of juicy, fruit-driven quaffer that ice bucket dreams are made of, it’s about time we embrace it for its full diversity. That’s because the Beaujolais runs more than thirty miles long by eight miles wide—about the same size as Napa Valley—and is home to over 33,000 acres of vines split among two thousand producers. The annual production could fill twenty Olympic swimming pools, although sadly such a pool has yet to be created. I will be the first to dive in when it is!
     Where the Beaujolais lacks diversity is in its grape varieties: Gamay accounts for 96% of plantings, with Chardonnay making up the balance for the rare, but often delightful Beaujolais blancs. Geologists have mapped more than 300 distinct soil types, which equates to quite the bounty of unique terroirs. To pigeonhole the region as a producer of light reds would be ignoring the vast range of wine styles bottled throughout its twelve appellations.
     In this joy-filled sampler, we run the gamut of Gamay styles (and one Chardonnay) to show off the full spectrum of the wines of the Beaujolais. From playful everyday sippers to seriously nuanced bottlings from old vines in top sites, covering traditionalist domaines to natural wine darlings and everything in between, this is a case that makes a case for the Beaujolais as one of France’s greatest wine regions. Serve them cool!

We’ve been hard at work imagining the next season of gatherings around wine. Luckily, with the holidays approaching, reasons are aplenty. See you soon!


CAFÉ NOUVEAU A POP-UP WINE BAR
Saturday, November 22, 2025
12 PM to 5 PM
Have you been missing our annual celebration of the release of Beaujolais Nouveau? We have, too. Join us in the café space, where our friends at Chez Panisse will keep the Nouveau flowing while Picnic grills up sausages and small plates to enjoy. Vive le Beaujolais Nouveau!


POP-UP WINE AND COFFEE CART
Wednesday, November 26, 2025
10 AM to 4 PM
Inevitably, the day before Thanksgiving involves last-minute shopping, and what’s more important than wine and bread? Whether you’re readying yourself to peruse the stacks at the shop, or waiting in line at Acme, grab a glass for inspiration or a boost of caffeine to fuel your day. Chez Panisse will be pouring wine and Higher Land Coffee will be serving a range of espresso drinks, starting at 10 AM.


THE HOLIDAY MARKET
Saturday, December 13, 2025
11 AM to 4 PM
Join us for the second year of our Holiday Market, where wine, shopping, food, music, and fun collide just in time for gift-giving season. Chez Panisse will helm the wine bar, and lots of local vendors will pop up to showcase their amazing fare and wares. Expect to see Bebe’s BBQ, SoDo Donuts, Jered’s Pottery . . . just to name a few! Check back next month for a full list.

For more information, and to stay up to date, visit:
kermitlynch.com/events

I like to keep a case of house wines on hand at all times—unpretentious, delicious bottles that are easy to grab for weekday dinners or impromptu gatherings with friends. Call it my millennial attention span, but I like to change the lineup often, and the bottles below have been perfect for the fall rotation.

For years, I’ve been dying to take my husband on an Italian adventure. I wanted us to fully immerse ourselves in the culture, eat the food, see vineyards, and experience all of the things that I love about Italy. This spring, I finally settled on Piemonte and Liguria, and from the beginning, I knew I wanted to visit our only producer along the Ligurian coast: Punta Crena.
     In early May, we arrived in the tiny seaside village of Varigotti and were greeted at the winery by Paolo Ruffino, whose family has tended the vineyards here for more than five hundred years. Paolo was excited to show us around and give us tastes from the tanks. They were scheduled to bottle my favorite wine of theirs, an aromatic dry white from the Pigato grape, the following day.
     We were also greeted with pouring rain and thunderstorms. I crossed my fingers and hoped we would still get to see the vineyards in between torrential downpours. I could hear Paolo and one of his sons talking about the logistics, and I saw them glance at my new white shoes. One hundred days of Duolingo had prepared me for this moment. I said, “Non ho paura! Posso lavare le mie scarpe.” (I’m not afraid! I can wash my shoes.) He agreed and directed us up the winding roads on the mountainside, where his Vermentino vines have the most beautiful view of the Ligurian Sea. When we reached the top, he showed us the nutrient-rich red clay where his Pigato and Rossese grow. Paolo was excited to show me how happy the Rossese vines are on top of that mountain. He pointed to where the vine was pruned and held up four fingers. Where they had pruned, four new shoots had grown. When I asked why the vines were trained to be so tall, he smiled and made a pig noise. It turns out wild boars love Rossese as much as we do!
     Paolo took us back to his home for coffee and his favorite grappa. We talked for hours, getting by on my poor Italian and his limited English. He has seven children, and they all live in that little village. He beamed from ear to ear as he showed me pictures of a family wedding from the weekend before and pictures of his first granddaughter. Like his smile, these wines express so much of the joy Paolo and his expansive family embody in their small corner of Liguria.
     Back at home, my clay-stained shoes and I will never be the same. With our visit to Italy tugging at my heartstrings and the delicate perfume of Pigato lingering on my palate, I can’t help but yearn for another taste of the Italian dream.

Viewed from above, the Alsatian landscape is a striking panorama of pastoral villages nestled into little valleys and surrounded by vine-covered hillsides—rural, yet no less shaped by human hands than a big city. Instead of vast grids of buildings with small pockets of green, it is the other way around, like a metropolis for grapevines instead of people. Wine has been made here for more than a millennium.
     In Alsace, where the Vosges Mountains slope down toward the Rhine River plain, there’s a patchwork of terroirs, including granite, sandstone, schist, and limestone, and even volcanic soils. With a sweep of his arm, Félix Meyer of Meyer-Fonné points out this varied geology. In some vineyards, the soil is visibly different from one row to the next, the result of ancient faults that bisect the landscape. The grand cru Wineck-Schlossberg vineyard, which overlooks Felix’s home village of Katzenthal, is on a granite ridge that extends out from the massif. Félix says that Riesling from this terroir is characterized by its delicacy and a pronounced minerality, qualities that the 2023 vintage has in abundance. It has the crystalline quality of pure spring water filtered by stone.
     Just over the hill from Katzenthal, in the ancient village of Niedermorschwihr, Jean Boxler’s domaine is tucked away in a narrow valley surrounded by steep vineyards—the grand cru Sommerberg is right out the back door, and the grand cru Brand vineyard is over the hill. Winemaking records in this part of Alsace date back to the eighth century, with mentions of Brand in particular occurring as early as the 1200s. Blessed with multiple grand cru sites, Jean aims to keep his farming and vinification as consistent as possible from year to year, allowing the nuances of each vineyard and vintage to express themselves freely. Brand’s southern exposition and sandy, granitic soils make it one of the warmer sites in Alsace, producing Rieslings with concentration and power, especially in an excellent vintage like 2023. Open and generous now, Boxler’s Brand will develop a honeyed complexity with aging.
     Farther north, in Ammerschwihr, the Adam family is the steward of the venerable Kuentz-Bas estate. For fourteen generations, they have made wine in Alsace, and their roots run deep. Their Riesling Geisberg—from one of Alsace’s smallest grands crus—is broad and structured. Riesling grown in Geisberg’s clay and limestone soil can be denser than Riesling from granite, and it takes more time to show its stuff. Of course, the vintage matters, too. Jean-Baptiste Adam describes 2021 as one to age. With a firm backbone, the wine is focused and intense. The Adams have employed biodynamic practices in their vineyards for more than twenty years, and Jean-Baptiste says that it takes up to ten years to really see the difference in the wines. That may seem like a long time, but what’s a decade when you’re still using foudres that are 150 years old and decorated with pictures of your ancestors? It’s just one of the many ways this family, much like Alsace itself, operates on a whole different timescale.

An excerpt from Chapter 2

Kendrick, however, turned left onto a narrow, paved road through even more vineyards. After about five hundred yards, he reached a sign engraved in stone: domaine du vieux laurier, henri poupon.
     Everyone called him Poupon. He was waiting for Kendrick under the cool shade of a leafy mulberry tree, feeding his fish in a swimming pool–sized rectangular stone basin in front of his house and winery. Four brown-and-white hunting dogs were sprawled out waiting with him. Kendrick remained in the car for a moment, looked Poupon over, and a question crossed his mind. Could anyone look more Provençal than Poupon? If filmmaker Marcel Pagnol had produced a boxing film, he could have cast Poupon as a Provençal Rocky Marciano. He looked bigger than he was—a husky chest, thick upper arms and shoulders, big hands with fingers like bananas. And what a mug—clay-colored, porous, meaty, with heavy eyebrows, a thick, flattened nose, and crinkled ears. Kendrick wondered, maybe Poupon really had been a boxer. The nose and ears said so. Poupon’s gray eyes shone brightly, but they turned somber in a flash if something happened to displease him.
     Kendrick climbed out of his car as Poupon greeted him. “Bonjour, mon ami. How’s it going?”
     “It’s going well enough, but I’m thirsty.” He glanced at his Swatch. “It’s almost noon, and my stomach’s already growling for attention.”
     Poupon took Kendrick in a half embrace and slapped him on the back a couple of times. “When things aren’t going well, you don’t feel hungry, right? But you can feel thirsty all the same. Well, how shall we get started? White or rosé?”
     Such an innocent question, isn’t it, to almost anyone else, but Kendrick was Poupon’s importer and close friend, and the truth was, while he liked Poupon’s rustic reds, the white and rosé bugged him. Enologically correct, lifeless, soulless rosé robots. You’ve tasted one, you’ve tasted them all. Sometimes he wondered if he should shut up, evolve with the times, but he questioned whether evolving was always progress. Modern enological wines left him cold and never touched what he called, for lack of a better word, one’s soul. Therefore, trying to be polite, he answered Poupon’s white or rosé offer by saying, “I know your white and rosé by heart, but don’t you have a bunch of bottles—gifts from friends and clients? Maybe you even buy wine once in a while. Isn’t there something there that might capture our interest?”
     “We won’t know until I pull the cork, right? You can’t judge a wine by looking at its label, and anyone who doesn’t know that hasn’t been paying attention.”
     “Poupon, what an acute observation. You should write a song about it.” Kendrick was thinking of the old Muddy Waters song “You Can’t Judge a Book by Looking at Its Cover,” but Poupon looked puzzled.
     “Are you kidding? I don’t even listen to music. Me, write a song? That’s about as likely as me jumping into the sack with that cranky old witch up at the tabac.”
     “You’re the one kidding me. And now you’re trying to tell me you’re picky about women? I’d have thought for a macho guy like you, any port in a storm.” In his far-from-perfect French Kendrick had said, “N’import quel port dans un horage.”
     This is a popular game in Provence—men and only men get a kick out of trying to out-insult each other. Women do not seem to be bitten by the same bug. Kendrick and Poupon were developing the game to a high art, or maybe it is more appropriate to call it a very low one. A successful sally forth has the victim laughing, too. Kendrick was not born to it, but he enjoyed the constant give-and-take with Poupon. A jab symbolically below the belt was considered great fun, and to denigrate the size of your close pal’s weenie, well, it was all in the game.
     “What are you talking about now?” Poupon asked. “What storm? Which port? Bandol?”
     “Oh, you know what I mean, Poupon, you’re out in a boat, a storm kicks up, and you’ve got to find a safe place—any safe place will do—to anchor and wait it out.”
     “Ah, n’importe quel abri dans une tempète. Is that it?”
     “That’s it exactly.”
     “But what does a boat have to do with that loony woman at the tabac?” Poupon asked. He looked Kendrick up and down and chuckled. “Hey, what gives here? Are you going to Saint-Tropez after lunch?”
     “No. Why?”
     “It looks like you’re dressed for the Côte d’Azur.” Poupon laughed at what he considered his joke—as if Kendrick were the type to head off to Saint-Tropez to mix with the in-crowd—then asked, “What’s that say? There on your T-shirt?”
     “Poupon, even in French, you’d never understand.”
     “Try me.”
     “It means un gouteûr de vin fait l’amour avec du goût.”
     Poupon thought about it. “If she screams with joy at the end, does that count as tasteful or distasteful? Oops, I see that you still look thirsty.”