"Following Benoit down into his cellar, you can sense his thoughtfulness. Everything seems intentional - everything has a place and you sense the earthen tones travel through the barrel halls where the barrels are stacked in threes: "The triangle is the perfect shape," he explains, "And the wines only like to be a certain distance from the floor, and I need them to be happy!"

Marguet

His energy is infectious; there isn't a wasted movement, and the few workers you see throughout are equally energetic. There's a pulse to this place, and it quickly begins to course through you as well. But the best part is the wines.

Benoit was born into a winegrowing family who had some incredible holdings, principally in Ambonnay. In fact, their vineyards provided the backbone for Krug's Grande Cuvee for a great many years. It was in 2005 that Benoit started to seize the reins of the estate, and by 2008 had ended the leases of his family's land, and started to produce under the Marguet name.What made the land so special - including a family parcel that was the original Clos d'Ambonnay - was not only placement, but also the fact that no chemicals were ever used, and never were any mechanical devices used for plowing or harvesting. To this day, Benoit uses his two horses, Belle and Urban, to plow the vines. When Benoit took over, he made the choice to convert to biodynamics; honestly, you can tell he is not dogmatic, but is very spiritual, in that he is full of spirit and can sense that of others, extending to his vines. To this end, when as he shares vineyard boundaries with other producers, he will sell off even multiple rows of his own fruit so as not to blend anyone else's spirit (or methods) into his wines.

In the winery, juice flows solely by gravity - from the press, which is at an incredible 15' height, into tank, then into barrels. The barrels are from carefully selected staves, and as is his eye for detail, the staves will all align so that the root ends are on one side of the barrel, the leaf ends at another. Truly, nothing in this winery is without thought.

Benoit created a few different lines of cuvées with which to express his style: the Shaman and Yuman wines are expressions of the freshest of juice, without any sulfur added, and bottled at lower pressure; the white label "village" wines are expressions of the villages of Champagne, largely from purchased fruit but from vineyards where he controls the farming. Finally, the Crus are his family's historical vineyards, each a wildly different expression of their own terroir, and incredibly ageworthy.

Shaman is always of a single vintage, albeit not technically a "vintage" wine as it stays on the lees for a short period of time - about 18 months. "I couldn't stop pouring it by the glass while I hoarded the other cuvées," Courtney says. These are full of character and fresh fruit, free of sulfur and delicious values. Yuman follows the same protocol, but of entirely Chardonnay where Shaman uses predominantly black grapes. Bouzy and Ambonnay Rosé are white label wines, coming from incredible vineyards in Pinot Noir-dominant land, and are stunning examples of what feels like sparkling Burgundy.

As far as the Crus - stay with me here. Les Bermonts is wild, a Chardonnay but from Ambonnay that is in my mind always associated with lemon curd: soft, sensual, long and saline; divine. Les Crayeres was the first cru released by Benoit in 2008, and is perhaps the most sought-after of his crus. Chalky, saline, wildly floral and reductive like a great Meursault, it's got power, subtlety, everything you ever want in a great bottle of wine. Les Beurys comes from 39 ares (0.39 ha) in Ambonnay, about 75% Chardonnay and the rest Pinot Noir, expressive more in the floral tones and beautifully textural. Le Parc comes from the aforementioned original Clos d'Ambonnay, and often is only bottled in large format. Possibly the most ageworthy, as it shares terroir with Krug's Clos (like about 6 feet of clay above chalk), there are already ample orchard fruits and a solid mineral streak throughout. Oh - it's entirely Chardonnay. Wild.

A special word about Sapience - the project was conjured by likeminded individuals and completed in Marguet's winery with the help of Herve Jestin. Utilizing the three dominant grapes of Champagne from biodynamic producers - Chardonnay from David Leclepart, Pinot Noir from Benoit Lahaye (and later from Marguet), and Pinot Meunier from Vincent Laval, a super-cuvée was created first in the 2006 vintage. Marguet's spirit watches over the bottling, which occurs some 9 years from the harvest. It is a labor of love, and is not a wine for all - it is a wine to ponder, to embrace, and to spend time with, to watch evolve, as the producers involved largely crafted this wine by virtue of decades of dedication to farming.

Baden, the home of natural hot springs, luxurious spas, and… world-class Pinot Noir? Alex Götze and Christoph Wolber, two Germans bitten by the “Burgundy Bug,” followed their hearts to Beaune, where they met. The two youths garnered quite a resume in Burgundy, working for multiple famed houses across the Cote. Soon, Alex and Christoph returned to Baden and started producing wines of uncommon lightness and clarity, a finesse that embarrasses just about all other German Pinot Noirs (and some Burgundies).

Wasenhaus

Christoph Wolber and Alexander Götze met in Burgundy while getting their enology education at the local school in Beaune. At the same time, they both worked full-time jobs between some of Burgundy’s top biodynamic estates: Alex has spent nearly a decade between Pierre Morey and De Montille, where he is currently the vineyard manager, and Christoph had some years at Leflaive, Bernhard van Berg, Domaine de la Vougeraie and Comte Armand. Shortly after they became roommates, they hatched a plan to return to Germany and start a new project in Baden. This wine region sits on the east side of the Rhine Graben, across from and within sight of the Alsatian wine region, all in a valley that separates Germany’s Black Forest from France’s Vosges mountains.

It is difficult to imagine in a blind tasting that their Pinot Noir wines are German — no surprise considering their extensive apprenticeships in the world’s most extraordinary Pinot Noir-producing region. Their top Pinot Noir, Bellen, would be difficult to place anywhere besides Burgundy, at least for anyone less experienced with Burgundy wines.

Their first vintage was 2016, and it was an incredible start. The style is as lifted and charming as it is profound. There are no tricks here, just a reverence for their fruit and solid know-how in the cellar and vineyards. Their wines are crafted with clear intention; there’s no way anyone could achieve their level of quality in the first go-round by accident.

They are soft on extraction with very few punch-downs during the fermentation, with only the occasional movement of the cap, primarily by hand, to ensure a healthy beginning. Sulfur is used judiciously (no more than 30-50 parts per million) and not applied until after malolactic conversion. Their theory on the timing of the first sulfur addition is that the tannins would be more smoothly integrated than with additions beforehand, especially when whole cluster fermentations are involved. (When it’s added during the vinification period — including primary and malolactic — the wine has more time to define itself clearly, while those that have earlier additions before fermentation potentially maintain harder tannins that could take much longer to evolve in the bottle, it leaves some of the best potential moments of the wine’s life subordinate to a potentially overbearing tannic structure). The wines are all aged in oak barrels, but it’s too early to say what their practice will be from one vintage to the next concerning the amount of new oak — they are still discovering what works.

Burgundian monks were the first to bring the grapevines to the area. Still, the vines have adapted to their climate and soil types, which make them quite different than Burgundy, despite how surprisingly similar the Wasenhaus wines are to some from the Côte d’Or. However, one challenge to grape selection in this highly industrialized area is that many ancient clones were replaced in the 1960s and 70s by easy-to-manage clonal selections that produce good yields and are more easily worked by machines. One of the tasks (and adventures) of Wasenhaus is to (re)discover vineyards within Baden with good clonal material and recoup a resemblance to the historic voice of Pinot Noir in Baden.

In the second half of the 20th century, Sergio Manetti transformed his once family vacation property into one of the most important addresses in all of Chianti. Today, few wines in all of Italy command more reverence than Montevertine’s prestige bottling Le Pergole Torte. Though the winery left the Chianti Classico designation behind decades ago over a blending dispute, few wineries represent the region with more integrity and accuracy.

Montevertine

With roots dating dating back to the 11th century, when the property was used as a defense fortress, Montevertine was acquired by Sergio Manetti in 1967 as a vacation home for his family. Today, it is comprised of 18 hectares of vines, divided into 9 separate parcels, with the oldest vines planted in the Pergole Torte parcel in 1968.

As Sergion Manetti continually refused to incorporate Trebbiano into his red wines, Montevertine left the Chianti Classico consortium, thereby forgoing the Chianti Classico denomination; this set in motion a radical change in the way collectors viewed the wines of Tuscany, as Montevertine to this day is renowned as one of the most elegant, prestigious names coming from all of Italy. All the wines are labeled IGT Toscana, still.

Manetti died in 2000 and has passed the reins to his son Martino Manetti who runs the estate with Paolo Salvi Radda in Chianti.