Gossip. It's a human impulse to share with or tease information from one another. Gossip can be an icky sticky thing, but at its best, gossip can be fun and light-hearted or deeply existential. My best gossip companions are my husband Tony and our friend Abdi, both of whom I spent the pandemic with tittering about literally everything under the sun and moon. Our conversations start with something silly—an anecdote from the Bachelor, a nostalgia for the tea of the NBA bubble, the catalogue of Bob Dylan (don't get Abdi started), or the last dance party at The Saint (no, I was not there)—and then wind toward some deeper, weirder corner of analysis that belies the original thread. This is the best kind of gossip. The kind that starts on the surface and then cuts right into the meat of the thing.
The term "gossip wine" was coined, at least in our little shop, by lantern-keeper and shop gnome Beth Altenbernd while exploring her way through the shelves in one of the shop's earliest days. She came across a juicy rosé from Terra Bassa (which we've not seen since) that she deemed worthy of spilling all the secrets. Since then, it's a term we deploy when describing some of the bottles we can lose time to. Glass after glass, detail after detail, they just flow freely. These bottles range from juicy and easy to complex and thinky, each appropriate for its own brand of gossip. —LP
Remí Larroque "Gaillacoise" Pét-Nat, Gaillac, France 2022
Gossip can have a negative connotation, but I am choosing to use Merriam-Webster’s second definition as a “companion, crony” and “a chatty talk” as my reference point.
Termite swarms be damned, there is nothing better than calling up a companion/crony and ending up on the porch because there are details we must must must share with one other. Bad night at work, amazing night at work, awkward family conversation, amazing family conversation, the best free pools around town. From the mundane to the life-changing—sometimes the only way to spend a balmy night is a porch light, two glasses, and a bottle of wine.
So what equals a gossip wine? I like something with a spritz, low-alcohol (we might go through more than one), and something that can be equally enjoyed from a plastic go-cup or a wine glass. Enter → importer Mary Taylor’s “Gaillacoise” made by Rémi Larroque. At 11%, this cutie has a beautiful fizz, is 100% Mauzac, and it has that candied apple and pear fruit notes, all qualities perfect for a gossip session. It's made by ‘methode ancestrale,’ which basically means it is bottled while still fermenting, the trapped CO2 providing a lovely sparkle.
This is a seriously delicious wine that is meant for unserious occasions with our best cronies. —Allison Whittinghill
Jolie-Laide "Trousseau Gris" Sebastopol, CA 2023
A few times a week, my neighbor Brian Fuller of wine distributor Vino Wholesale swings by on his way home to my backyard bar to polish off whatever remains in his wine bag after a long day of sales calls. Fuller (as almost everyone calls him), infamously, never takes a day off.
Over a glass or three, we swap notes on the local wine scene, the glacial pace of ongoing “road improvement” projects, Mickey Loomis’s inexplicable job security, and whatever tangent Elon Musk is on (our version of gossip). The wine itself is rarely discussed—maybe a shrug or a contented sigh. Our workday is done, after all.
But every so often, something from Fuller’s wine bag stops me in my tracks. Something that demands closer attention. That happy accident is precisely why Jolie-Laide’s Trousseau Gris made it to the Gossip club.
Jolie-Laide—French for “pretty-ugly”—is a two-person operation run by Scott and Jenny Schultz of Sebastopol, California. They produce a mere 500 cases of wine annually, working out of a small shared facility that also houses, among others, former All Saints club favorite Arnot-Roberts. Their commitment to quality fruit and honest, minimalist winemaking yields singular expressions of European varietals.
The Trousseau Gris comes from seven-acre Fanucci Wood Road Vineyard in the Russian River Valley. These nearly extinct, 50-year-old vines yielded only half their usual crop in 2023, making this release particularly special. The grapes were foot-stomped and left whole-cluster for three days, producing a luminous rosé-gold hue. They then rested for six months in neutral oak, preserving their vibrant aromatics and acidity. Think lush cantaloupe racing into a bracing finish of ginger spice.
Enjoy with a neighbor. —Drew Clowney
Poderi Cellario "È Rosato" Piedmont, Italy NV
You’ve undoubtedly seen Poderi Cellario on our shelves. Big clear liter bottles with a crown cap at a good price that just sing out "bring me along!" I’ve taken these bottles to the beach for after-work chats, picnics in the park, or unexpected porch hangs. They are "social wines" if you will.
Fausto and Cinzia Cellario are third-generation winemakers working in Piedmont on the outskirts of Langhe. They have 30 ha (~74 acres) between five different vineyards. It's impressive for a mid-sized winery to be so dedicated to making natural wine or "living wine" as they refer to it. The couple focuses on indigenous varietals including Barbera, Nebbiolo, and Grignolino, though I love their inspired Dolcettos most. The È Rosato is made of Nebbiolo and Dolcetto grown on calcareous soil and aged in cement tanks. For me, it's all tart cherries, clove spiced tea, and polished minerality with a hint of oregano on the nose. This wine, whose "È!" prefix means "it's!" is fun and a little shifty—one minute fruity, another spicy, and another a bit herbaceous—not unlike a good conversation.
These wines inspire the kinds of moments in which the artist's intention aligns with the audience's emotion: "we’re all on the same page here." It's wine that will have you pouring another glass as you wade into the thick of the day's drama, or sit back and ruminate, or settle in for a friend's fresh intel.
All that said, let's get into it. —Cassandra Vachon
Maison Artonic "Melonade" Cognac, France
Psssssst. Can you keep a secret?
Neither can I, let’s go get a drink!
If you love a good T session as much as I do, I have some advice for you: make the details juicy and the drinks juicier. The trick is to keep those loose lips lubricated without too much thought about what's in your glass so you can focus on the more important topics at hand. May I recommend my new friend, Melonade for the job?
Maison Artonic's founders learned the art of delicate spirits in Cognac, France. Their goal was to use a collective knowledge of the region's rich spirit history to open a new door and develop its first line of organic mixers. They have a range of tonics and sodas as well as some very fun bitters and liqueurs.
In this particular bottle, they’ve extracted the unique essence of France's treasured Cavaillon melon. Found amongst the lavender-blanketed hills of Drome Provençale disguised as an ordinary cantaloupe, it has a signature bright and aromatic flesh that is said to come from “300 days of sunshine.” There is even a yearly festival in its honor. Using beet spirit as a base, the Cavaillon juice is blended with lemon juice and sweetened with cane sugar.
Herbaceous, ripe, and not too sweet, this liqueur is singular. We like to serve it with a little cucumber Aegean tonic, soda, and a lemon twist at the shop to bring out all that sunshine. Recommended gossip pairing: a Real Housewives New York marathon with some shaved prosciutto and aged parm. —Beth Altenbernd
Azienda Agricola Possa "Cinque Terre" Bianco, Liguria, Italy 2023
Perhaps one of the most iconic seaside scenes in the world, Cinque Terre is a little water-colored oasis perched atop impossibly steep cliffs overlooking the Ligurian Sea. For such a legendary scene, there is very little wine from Cinque Terre that makes its way stateside. In my recollection, this might be the only one I've ever experienced, and for good reason; it's difficult to make wine on such dramatic landscapes.
The eponymous wine of Agricola Possa is a time capsule from another century. Vigneron Heydi Bonnanini grows autochthonous varieties (indigenous grapes) that have been lost to time with deeply preservationist view of the region. The "Cinque Terre" is made with Bosco, Rossese bianco, Albarola, Picabon, Frapelao, none of which I'd encountered (aside from the first) heretofore acquiring it for our shelves. The grapes are fermented on the skins for four days, making it a skin contact wine—an ancient tradition—and then transferred to steel before moving into oak and acacia barrels. In addition to the precarious work of caring for terraced vines in such wild terrain, Bonnanini keeps bees, makes honey, raises pomelos and lemons, and employs biodynamic farming.
We only got six bottles at the shop this year, one of which I popped to share with the team before corking it and toting it along to Houston's for spiach-artichoke dip and a flank of buttery salmon. The wine is honey-gold and waxen-textured. It's fresh at first, and as it warms up, moves into earthy minerality and spice, a progression that mirrors the conversation that might go alongside. This is a wine for thoughtful gossip, maybe the kind moved along by an existential consideration of human behavior on Instagram, or the traumatic motivations behind Simone and Michaela's decisions in Sirens, or the signifiers of what one chooses to wear to the Cowboy Carter show. Or when we should hop a flight to Cinque Terre so we can gossip on the beach. —Leslie Pariseau