The acronym Breit comes from Hangenbriete, the name of the vineyard. The appellation rules for this wine were promulgated in 1976, and Mélanie’s father started making crémant in the early 1980s. From the first, he worked with a long aging period. Today, the Pfisters consistently make an unusually elegant, perfumed, top-end crémant. The wine rests on its lees for a minimum of twenty-four months (most French crémant, regardless of origin, ages on its lees for about nine months or so). There are three to four disgorgements of a given year’s production, and what you’re drinking could have aged as long as thirty-six months on its lees. This is a single-vintage wine without any older reserve wine, but the vintage is kept discreetly on the back label rather than printed on the front because of the multiple disgorgements.
The 2011 Rioja Gran Reserva 904 has been one of my go-to cuv?es since my earliest days as a wine lover. This latest release is a blend of 60-year-old Tempranillo from Briñas, Rodenzo and Villalba (89%) and the remainder Graciano from the Montecillo...
The sparkling 2018 Izar-Leku is from the Getariako Txakolina appellation and was produced with 90% Hondarrabi Zuri and 10% Hondarrabi Beltza grapes. It was kept with the lees for one year (one-third in barrel) and with a second fermentation in bottle wher...