It’s not entirely natural to start over in January. Spring feels a more apt moment with its lifting of chill and budding of green, the earth tilting towards sun rather than away. And yet, each year, thanks to Julius Caesar, January thrusts us against the invocation of resolutions and changes and betterment. Rather than undertake such notions of progress for progress sake at the shop, we decided that we’d name the wines we’d like to spend more time with this year, new and old—sparkling from the Finger Lakes, volcanic red from the Canary Islands, riesling from Rheingau—and perhaps, as a corollary, people with whom we’d like to share them, the people who nourish us and make us better. —LP

Red Tail Ridge "Perpetual Change" Finger Lakes, New York NV

I’d like to think I’m not the only one swimming in her own intrusive thoughts these days. As we turn into 2026, I feel the need to explore some lingering questions. Spending my days at ye old wine shop surrounded by the art and commerce of this intricate industry, I’m confronted with my place in it, as an American and as a human, and the ever-increasing sense of a world disrupted and disjointed. As the climate changes so must our intentions with terroir. As the political climate changes, i.e. tariffs/foreign relations, what can we do to invest in our own current agriculture and agrarians? So I find myself looking to areas like the Finger Lakes for some sense of peace—a place to invest and solve a bit of anxiety.

In upstate New York, deep glacial trenches carved millions of years ago mark this region where vines have been grown commercially here since the 1850s. Though winters can be harsh, the ancient lakes act as climate intermediaries, moderating tough Temperature drops by storing heat and saving it for later. The glaciers also left rich shale soils which add to the region's unique minerality. The Finger Lakes currently hosts 140 family-owned wineries and has become a hotbed of collaboration and innovation with winemakers currently producing age-worthy Rieslings, mineral Chardonnays, and spicy Blaufrankisch and Cabernet Franc.

On the west side of Seneca, the region's deepest lake, Nancy Irelan and Michael Schnelle tend to their vines at Red Tail Ridge, where they focus on sparkling and red wines. Using modern and historic methods, they manage the vineyards with sustainable practices that balance safety with environmental and economic responsibility. Many of our regulars have come back again and again to enjoy their tropical and beguiling Riesling Pétillant Naturel and your current wine club offering, the Perpétuelle Change. Produced in the style of a non-vintage champagne, each cuvee includes a unique blend of previous vintages based on expression. This current release, #5, is built upon a base of Cuvee #4 with additions of Pinot Noir, Zweigelt, Chardonnay and Riesling. Of the new wine added to the blend, 60% was fermented in stainless steel, 40% in neutral oak. Tirage (secondary fermentation) took place over the course of 6-10 months.

Riddling and disgorgement was done in batches beginning in January 2025 and ending in April 2025. Less focused on consistency across vintages, each cuvée tells its own story. Cuvee #5 smells like a fresh mountain stream. Meyer lemon, apple skins, and a deep stoney sharpness kept me going back for some deep sips and deep thoughts. It certainly feels like a nice place to sit and process my current state of mind, and what is to come in this new year. —Beth Altenbernd

El Piraña "Tarbissana" Andalucia, Spain 2023

I love to feel beguiled—intrigued and enchanted without entirely understanding how or why a thing works. Octopuses, eels, Caravaggio, Russell Westbrook, Aquariuses, mycologists, wowee. If you beguile me, I want to know more. Palomino, for me, is the most beguiling grape. The sheer spectrum of wine it can make is astounding, from nutty salty manzanilla sherry to deeply luscious amontillado, which is to say nothing of the vinos de pasto or unfortified wines that are gaining a foothold in Jerez. 

The sherry triangle is renowned for its beautiful fortified bottlings, which, in a different day and age, were wildly popular the world over with producers growing grapes simply to be sold off to the big sherry houses. But when the tides of fashion turned, sherry became passé, the region and its treasured, ageable bottles a dusty curiosity in the eyes of the mainstream. Though sherry has regained a bit of its regal cool vibe among a certain set of drinkers, young producers have sought a practical way to present their wines to the world while also translating the extreme terroir of this windswept plot of Spanish earth.

Juan Francisco Pulido Cabral aka El Piraña, is from a long line of palomino growers in Trebujena in the Sanlúcar de Barrameda section of Jerez, and is one the growing set of young producers making unfortified palomino to showcase specific pagos or parcels of grapes. The Tarbissana is made from a mix of Cabral’s parcels grown on Albariza soil—blazingly white chalk—harvested by hand, aged in steel and old botas or barrels, and bottled without any filtration. The resulting wine is hay-yellow, slippery in texture like smooth nickels, and tastes equally as yellow as it does like freshly minted coins, salted and mineral as a shell emerging from beach foam. Dear lord, I love palomino. 

I must admit, I keep collecting unfortified palomino for the shop shelves, and now, we have a total of four or five, which not many people drink until we pour them by the glass, hidden treasure to be discovered time and time again. But, now you have no choice but to spend time with this wine and be beguiled. —LP

Jolie-Laide "Grenache Syrah Mourvèdre" North Coast, California 2021

Last year was a long one, gang. A seemingly endless onslaught of distressing news and trauma-inducing images blaring from our phone screens and shouted from news desks. Then the holidays crept up and, in a flash, it’s a whole new year. 

Blow up your TV. Throw away your papers. This is my mantra (along with another half-dozen John Prineisms) for whatever is in store during this solar rotation. I was told recently, by one of our kind wine reps, that this is the year of the flaming horse on the Chinese calendar, and while that sounds wildly unsettling, I’m optimistic? I’m going to discard any grievances accrued over the previous 365 and give everyone a blank slate. I hope the same grace can be granted to me.

Speaking of past grievances, one of my favorite producers broke up with/was broken up with by their New Orleans distributor shortly before the ball dropped in 2025. Blame aside, sometimes, despite our best efforts, things just don’t work out. So here’s a send-off in a bottle for the folks at Jolie-Laide. The husband and wife team of Scott and Jenny Schultz in Sebastopol, California make a minuscule amount of wine each year, which were some of my favorite pours of 2025. (Grab a bottle of the Trousseau Gris while it’s still in the shop.)

An ode to the classic red Rhone blend, this Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre—or GSM in wine-speak—is whole-cluster fermented (meaning whole clusters of grapes are dropped into the vat, rather than grapes individually picked of their vines), lending a bright lift to the typical licorice, leather, and spice profile for which Chateauneuf’s home team grapes are renowned. I’m all for spending more time in the Rhone, here or abroad, even if it’s limited-time-only. —Drew Clowney

Weingut Eva Fricke "Riesling Trocken" Rheingau, Germany 2023

I’m looking forward to spending time with wines I can enjoy by themselves, but can equally enjoy over a dinner with friends and conversations—reality checks and harbingers for hope. Eva Fricke’s wines are so evocative and have such a sense of place for the Rheingau that, in a sip, they can evoke the feeling of sitting outside on a chilly, sunny day, enjoying the scenery, and absorbing the conversations around you.

The daughter of two doctors, Eva’s future in winemaking was not foretold. Yet she was inspired to attend the famous Rheingau university of Geisenheim for viticulture and oenology eventually travelling to work at various wineries in Napa, South Africa, and Australia before returning to Rheingau in 2002 where she worked for JB Becker and Josef Leitz. In 2006, she struck out to manage her own winery and vineyards, producing her first vintage by 2011. 

Fricke’s vineyards span between two contrasting regions of Rheingau, a place where riesling tends to have flintier power, in contrast to the Mosel where lacy delicacy is paramount. The upper Rheingau is sandy, clay soils that create classical, fruit driven Rheingau juice. The Northern vineyards are more mineral-forward, often with salty characteristics. This cuvée, Fricke’s entry-level trocken (read: dry riesling) marries the two with fruit, power, and acid.

For me, the wine is all peach pits, citrus rind, poached pear, wet rock, and salted honey. When let to warm up a touch, notes of mango pop out to say hello. Exactly what I want from the Rheingau, which is oft forgotten in its potential, a place I’m happy to spend more time always. —Allison Whittinghill

OCampo "Listán Negro" Canary Islands, Spain 2022

I spoke of beguilement by grape earlier, and just up against the allure of palomino is listán negro, a grape that, thanks to Spanish monks, made its way to the Canary Islands, an archipelago hanging off of Northwest Africa formed by volcanoes. Listán negro, for me, often tastes of wet blacktop after a thunderstorm, smooshed with brooding red fruit studded with minerals. In can also convey reductive notes (re: sulfuric) in some cases when fermented in whole clusters of grapes as if often the case in the Canaries. This is not the case with OCampo’s pristine bottlings from the island of Tenerife.

I was introduced to OCampo’s wines this summer while in Spain and Portugal with the importer La Luz. Grown by Lopéz Díaz and Jonatan Garcia on oceanfront plots, this listán negro comes from 50-year-old plots on volcanic loam. It’s rested on its lees (spent yeasts for nine months, providing texture, in old French oak and concrete tanks. A wonder of silken stones, young tobacco leaf, and pencil graphite, it’s a lovely thing to accompany hanger steak and cruciferous things, bone marrow and gougeres, or a bonfire on a new moon. —LP