For the last few years, I’ve made it a tradition to make the December club all about party wine in party format, that is, the liter bottle. There was a moment just before the pandemic and well on into it when the liter bottle rolled onto the natural wine scene with its broad shouldered bulk and signified freshness, populism, and accessibility. It expressed the joie de vivre of good, affordable wine in a vessel that said, “party on.” I don’t think that era is over necessarily, but I must say that prices have crept up over the last seven years, and almost each week when stocking, I balk at what tariffs hath wrought on some of the bottles I started buying as a consumer a decade before, liter or otherwise. In the bottles we bring to you for the club, our aim is value—you’re getting wines at a better price than you would on the shelf—and discovery; so what you have this month is a selection of higher brow liters, which may seem incongruous, but all the better for you and your friends when you bring the good wine to the party this season. 

This month, I and the team would like to thank you for being a part of this community. You buoy us through each month when you come in to pick up your clubs, hang out for a glass, and remain loyal to the All Souls cause. And for this, you get a fresh denim tote. Take it everywhere! Tell everyone! Truly, thank you. We adore you, club friend. —LP

JP Rietsch "Tout Blanc" Alsace, France 2024

As I sit in my sister's old farm house in the middle of Kansas City in December I am reminded of my complicated relationship with winter. A soft blanket of snow covers the yards and trees. Holiday lights are abundant and I’m wearing my favorite sweater that rarely sees its way out of my New Orleans storage trunk. You know what else is abundant? Cold. Bitter, biting, eye-tearing cold. No time for Midwest pleasantries or taking in the sites when you're shuffling your frozen toes as fast as you can to the nearest refuge. Many drinkers crave a deep, soothing red in these god forsaken temps. I am inclined to seek out something bright and light to bring my spirits up as the temps go down.

Cue a beautiful blend of Auxerrois and Riesling from the slopes of Alsace. Winemaker Jean-Pierre Rietsch tends to his plots in the fairytale landscapes of Mittelbergheim. His family has managed this limestone and clay soil since the 1600s. Once farmland for a mix of crops, the Rietsch family decided to focus solely on vines in the early 1970s, converting to strictly organic farming in 2008. 

For the 2024 vintage of Tout Blanc, a liter we stock annually, the grapes were harvested from various sites including their grand cru vines in Zotzenberg and the sandstone soils of Stierkopf. Fermented using indigenous yeasts, the blend also goes through malolactic fermentation and ages on its lees, or spent yeasts, for eight months in steel tank. The result is a soft, round wine with notes of flinty peach and salty meyer lemon curd. That peek of warm sun through the bare frozen trees, will carry you swiftly through the journey of winter, wherever it is spent. —Beth Altenbernd

Ampeleia "Unlitro" Rosso, Tuscany, Italy 2024

With its squat rustic bottle and sweet, handmade label, Unlitro is perennial fan favorite of our shopgoers (and our own team). Marco Tait of Ampeleia is old-school in terms of natural and biodynamic winemaking; the vineyards themselves are located in a UNESCO Global Geopark , and are a wild ecosystem of diversity—animals, olives, vegetables, woodlands. Unlitro is a blend of alicante nero, sangiovese, carignano, and mourvedre—midweight, totally pleasant red wine that will make no one unhappy. Bright cherries and herbal undertones conjure a youthful fruit roll-up quality, a sans souci soul perfect for the gathering of your peoples. —Allison Whittinghill

Montemelino "Malpasso" Rosato, Umbria, Italy 2023

Cult Friulian wine rock star, Stanko Radikon, bottles his wines solely in 500ml (1 person) and 1L (2 people) formats. This always made sense to me as I don’t really ever need a whole bottle of wine (though I’m not saying it doesn’t happen from time to time). The proliferation of liter bottles (and canned) wine years ago was widely regarded as a sheerly utilitarian product by myself and my wine peers. Ideal for parties with non-nerds, innocuous, inoffensive. Your over-served aunt (love you, Aunt Jean) delighted in pairing it with her Christmas ham. Meanwhile, you hide your nice bottle in the back bar.

Times have changed and liters are no longer boring. Take Montemelino’s Malpasso sangiovese-drenched liter series. The Cantarelli family, led by couple Margret and Guido, has been vinifying grapes on the shores of Lake Trasimeno in northern Umbria since 1961 and running a diverse, organic farm (we also sell their award-winning olive oil in the shop). 

There’s Sangiovese here because, of course, Tuscany is just a few hills away. Cillegiolo, Grechetto, and Trebbiano and Spoletino thrive in the alluvial soils on the estate, providing lift and vitality to the rosé and white wines. This liter, the Malpasso Rosato, is Sangiovese and Gamay di Trasimeno (grenache), directly pressed to preserve freshness and acidity. Red apple skins and melon on the nose give way to a wash of dried strawberries and tart pomegranate on the palate. Simultaneously soft and unctuous, it would pair well  with a front porch and friends on the parade route or a balmy Christmas afternoon grilling session. —Drew Clowney

Partida Creus MUZ Vermouth

Here in the States we think of vermouth as a tool for cocktail construction: a building block of Manhattans, Martinis, Negronis, Boulevardiers. But in Europe, in cocktail- and wine-drinking circles, and for older generations, it is its own attraction. Under EU law, vermouth is an aromatized wine that has been fortified and flavored with at least one artemisia-based botanical (for example, wormwood). What other herbs and spices that go into each blend are often guarded by the producer and unique to geography and what it produces. In Spain, where Partida Creus is made, “la hora de vermù’ or a pre-lunch vermouth hour, is standard—perhaps a ritual to install in your household this holiday season.

Founders of Partidea Creus Antonella Gerosa and Massimo Marchiori were born in Italy but fell in love with a remote village in Spain in the Penedes region in 2001 and moved there with the intention of growing food and making wine for themselves while continuing with their careers as architects. But soon, their small endeavor flourished, and they dedicated themselves to re-growing nearly dead local varietals such as Sumoll and Garrut, tending to old parcels of Gra Gross, Xarel-lo, and Macabeo. And with that, they had more wine then they could consume by themselves and decided a change in career was in order. Today they are known for vibrant, low intervention wines, the “Muz” an extension of this abundance. A blend of red and white grapes, aromatized with herbs from Turin, Italy and fortified on the lighter side at 16-percent alcohol. Its rich black raspberry, orange peel, warm clove spice, and soft sage makes for a lovely night cap or an hora de vermù opener for you and yours. —Cassandra Vachon

Milan Nestarec “Okr” Moravia, Czech Republic 2023

Milan Nestarec is very aware of his brand. His savvy is rare in a sect of wine that is deeply agricultural in the Czech Republic. He declares his methods "normal" rather than "natural" or "low intervention,” a way perhaps to de-cultify a term that can sometimes be used as a commodity rather than a meaningful practice. Whatever the term, his wines are normal—and also not.

The Okr, named for the color ochre and the literal earthiness of the namesake, is meant to be orange-y rather than orange. Like all of Nestarec’s wines it has an energy, an up-ness, and a charm that comes from the combination of good wine and good branding. The last of this style of labeling, the bottle is adorned with a beautiful woodblock print by Milan's wife, Mirka, and contains a blend of Gruner Veltliner, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Gewurztraminer, Pálava, all free run juice that is macerated to create softness rather than tannin, easy-drinking wine reflective of the rusticity of the plump, beer-like bottle.

And before we depart without a little political banter: Let us remember the geography; take a peek at a map. The Czech Republic is at the center of Germany, Austria, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. It was also a Communist (lightly branded "socialist") country up until 1990 with a shifting economy that moved from cooperatives to privatization within a few years. This is at the core of a wine’s identity—the way it's farmed, produced, distributed, and more. It's something to consider when it comes to thinking about how Czech wine ends up on a shelf in New Orleans. —LP