The Next Great Ultra Luxe Vodka

There are plenty of people out there (especially in the booze business) who don’t believe in high-end vodka, or the idea that one neutral spirit can outshine another and justify a higher price tag. I am not one of those people. Having done enough side by side tastings in my career—even volunteering to head the vodka panel at both the Good Food Awards and the San Francisco Spirits Competition—I have no illusions about the merit of great vodka.

That being said, not everyone likes vodka for the same reasons, which is something you have to think about when making a recommendation or singing the praises of a new brand. Unlike Bourbon, where most enthusiasts are looking for similar characteristics of richness and spice, the motivations of the vodka drinker are all over the map. I know plenty of people who value the way a particular vodka makes them feel more than how it tastes. Hence, when I find an exciting new brand that I think caters to the largest possible contingency of vodka drinkers, I can’t help but get a little excited.

You know you’re really on to something when the swankiest bars and restaurants in town are also in complete agreement. Whether it's at the Beverly Hills Hotel, Carbone, Catch, the Four Seasons, Montage, or Il Pastaio, you'll likely find yourself with a glass of Carbonadi when you order a vodka martini at these fine Los Angeles institutions. Ever since the Robb Report first broke the story on Carbonadi Vodka a few years back, there's been no looking back for the luxury label. It's the talk of the town, especially at high-end Italian restaurants. Piedmonte is known for Barolo and Barbaresco wines, not vodka, which makes it a fun topic of conversation in the Italian culinary community.

What makes Carbonadi so luxurious, you ask? You'll understand everything after the first sip, but it starts with Italian-grown winter wheat and it ends with a unique finishing process that involves clean alpine water from the Piedmonte Alps, micro-oxygenation, and filtration through rare carbonados—aka black diamonds. Yes, this vodka is filtered through diamonds! But before you laugh at what sounds like a gimmick, carbonados are highly porous and can remove impurities that other filtration methods cannot. The proof is in the glass. No vodka I’ve tasted in the last few years is as clean, smooth, or crystaline.

Granted, some things simply have to be tasted before they can be believed, which is why I’m excited to offer Mission customers an insane trial offer on Carbonadi Vodka to put my money where my mouth is. Search Carbonadi online, and you'll see it listed for $69.99 or higher all over the web. We're offering it today for $44.99, a $25 savings on bottle one. Take it for a test spin. Mix a few cocktails. See what your friends and family members think. I’m fairly certain you're going to love it as much as I do, and I’m convinced you'll be back for bottle number two.

-David Driscoll

Right Bank Bordeaux You Can Drink Tonight

While the rest of the fine wine world tries to figure out how to sell $500 bottles of Bordeaux futures for the 2020 and 2021 vintages (in the face of a global recession and rising inflation), we are turning back the clock here at Mission. With the way things are going right now, I have no idea where I’m going to be in two years, let alone if I’ll be ready to commit to $2000 worth of bottles that won’t show up until the end of 2023!!

Rather than sell you bottles today that you won't even get into your possession for the next two years, let alone be able to drink, I’m spending most of my time searching through Bordeaux's best cellars and negotiant warehouses for extreme values that are ready to drink today! Today's example: the 2015 Château Plince—a plush and heady Merlot-dominated blend from Bordeaux's renowned Pomerol appellation.

It's not often we find value from Pomerol with $5000 bottles of Petrus stealing most of the limelight, alongside cult labels like Hosanna and Clinet. There simply isn't much production from this Right Bank region, the smallest in production of Bordeaux's main appellations. Hence, when we find a great wine, from a great producer, in a great vintage, for a great price, we want to make sure you get first access! No need to cellar the 2015 Plince, as it's been matured for you and is ready to drink tonight. Simply decant, fire up the grill, and treat yourself to a fantastic bottle of Bordeaux.

2015 Château Plince Pomerol $39.99

93 POINTS: JAMES SUCKLING - Attractive red berries and light licorice notes with a lick of iodine lead to a palate that has plenty of red-fruit and -licorice flavors. Smoothly groomed tannins and a fresh cherry-pip finish. Try from 2020.

90 POINTS: WINE SPECTATOR - Steeped plum, blackberry and black cherry fruit forms the core here, while a liberal dose of warm fruitcake, mulling spices and bramble kicks in through the finish. All the elements meld well enough, with a slightly chewy hint at the very end. Best from 2021 through 2030. 4,100 cases made. 

89 - 91 POINTS: ROBERT PARKER'S WINE ADVOCATE - The 2015 Plince is a blend of 72% Merlot and 28% Cabernet Franc. It has a broody, sous-bois tinged bouquet, dried flowers tincturing the mulberry fruit that opens nicely in the glass, but never fully lets go. The palate has pleasing fatness and weight on the entry, grippy tannin, smooth and velvety in texture with a savory, almost meaty edginess on the finish. Drink over the next decade. 

-David Driscoll

Primo Tequila

It is exceptionally rare to find a new Tequila worth raving about because we all know there is a very limited number of distilleries making unadulterated juice. That being said, when Felipe Camarena from El Pandilo NOM 1579 makes a new product, I'm going to buy it sight unseen, liquid untasted, 100% of the time. Every Tequila brand has its loyalists and its supporters, regardless of whether its Fortaleza, Fuenteseca, Tapatío, Ocho, or Siembra Azul. I love all of those brands myself. But for my personal taste, no distiller captures the utter essence of agave like Felipe Camarena does. As I've said before, the juice from 1579 is like the Sancerre of Tequila: mineral-driven, herbaceous, clean, and fragrant. I always have a bottle of Pasote and G4 in my house, and now I'm going to have a bottle of Primo on hand as well.

To be clear, Primo Tequila is a sipping blanco. You could mix with it, but why would you? The nose alone is hypnotic: cooked agave, citrus, black pepper with insane clarity and distinction. It's like I'm holding a piece of roasted agave pulp in my hand, not a glass of Tequila. The palate is spicy, savory, and loaded with flavor. This is not your tropical, fruit-laden blanco, but it's also not without weight or richness. The texture is there, but it's kept in balance by the herbal notes and the spice. It's another masterpiece from Felipe and I'm obsessed with it. If you don't believe me, you can check out all the reviews on Tequila Matchmaker.

-David Driscoll

Alto Adige: Terlano

Whether you use the Italian name Cantina Terlano, or the German name Kellerai Terlan, there’s no difference in the way the wine tastes. Founded in 1893, the cooperative is one of the oldest in Südtirol/Alto Adige that features 143 different growers working together with about 190 hectares of mountain vineyards. One taste of any wine from this portfolio is enough to take your breath away. But what makes Terlano one of the most prestigious producers in the region isn’t just the quality of its wines, it’s also the longevity of them. Some of Terlano’s top white cuvées can last decades in the cellar, the acidity and minerality helping to sustain and bolster the wines as the years go by. Nestled into volcanic rock, the mineral rich soils (full of quartz) produce some of the most expressive grapes in the region.

All the wines of Terlano are incredible, but here’s what always grabs peoples’ attention: they have a $250 bottle of white wine called the Primo Grande Cuvee that gets monster scores every year and can age gracefully for a decade or more. The average wine drinker rarely thinks to mature white wine in general, let alone alpine wine from the Alto Adige. But when a white cuvée from Südtirol costs the same as a Grand Cru Burgundy, it raises a few eyebrows.

The Burgundy comparison is apt, however. Not only are the soils near Terlano capable of producing white wines of astounding complexity, the wine’s age-worthy potential is again a direct parallel to the great Chardonnays of the Côte d’Or. Eric Guido from Vinous writes, the Primo Grande Cuvée “can compete with some of the top white wines around the world. How do they age, you might ask? These wines were vinified and refined for one year in large oak before being placed into a steel tank and allowed to mature on the lees for ten years or more. In fact, drinking their top wines young is a total disservice to what winemaker Rudi Kofler and his team have created at this bastion of tradition. If there was one stop to make while visiting the region that could give you a real sense of the Alto Adige experience, Terlano is it.”

Check out the scores for the Primo as well:

97 POINTS: ROBERT PARKER'S WINE ADVOCATE - This is the top-shelf wine from Cantina Terlano, to say the least. It's a careful blend of 65% Pinot Bianco, 32% Chardonnay and 3% Sauvignon Blanc. The 2018 Alto Adige Terlaner Grand Cuvée Primo shows ripeness, but the fruit is plush, rich and beautiful. It's an intricate portrait of these three grapes, with brushes of grapefruit and Indian jasmine, or Turkish soap you might buy at an Istanbul bazaar. There is a very citrusy side to the wine with that grapefruit note and the perfumed skin of the citron fruit they call "cedro" in Italian. All in all, this wine is super rich with generous fruit weight and concentration. Cantina Terlano does its best work in terms of texture, mouthfeel and richness, and this release of 3,330 bottles is their masterpiece. 

95 POINTS: VINOUS - A compelling mix of dusty dried flowers, crushed stone, lemon oils and freshly sliced pear wafts up from the 2018 Terlaner Grande Cuvée Primo. Its textures are like pure silk, elegant and medium in weight, guided by saline-infused acids that give way to ripe orchard fruits and the slightest hint of vanilla bean. This lingers incredibly long, while tapering off perfectly balanced and perfumed with nuanced tannins and hints of tropical citrus. The Cuvée Primo is a blend of 70% Pinot Bianco, 28% Chardonnay and 2% Sauvignon Blanc. Thereʼs a balanced opulence here thatʼs not always present at this young age, which makes the 2018 impossible to ignore.

-David Driscoll

Alto Adige: Köfererhof

We’re back to the subject of alpine wines from the Alto Adige again, so I thought I’d post the above photo of the Köferehof vineyards in winter because it really hammers home the idea of wine from the Alps! If you’re thinking to yourself: “If the Alto Adige is an Italian wine region, then why is the winery’s name German?” I’ve got the answer for you. Because the Alto Adige is Italy’s northern-most province, sitting along the Austrian border, it has a large German population. You might hear it referred to as South Tyrol in English, which harkens back to when Tyrol was a German-speaking region that was eventually annexed by Italy in 1919, but in most wine circles you’ll see it referenced as Südtirol. Today, we’re going to talk about one of Südtirol’s top wineries, if not the top winery: Köfererhof.

First acquired by the Kerschbaumer family in 1940, the Kofererhof estate dates back more than 850 years, but only started bottling its own wines within the last thirty. With a few hectares of vines at the base of the Dolomite mountains, their fruit creates wines that are intensely fragrant, concentrated and well-balanced. They were also one of the first organic farmers in the region. All in all, the total production for the estate is only around 3,500 cases of wine per year, so what’s made available to us at Mission is always limited in supply. Whereas most of the wines from Köfererhof are crisp and clean due to their maturation in stainless steel, the one I’m going to tell you about today is an exception: an exquisite Sylvaner aged in acacia wood casks.

Rather than give you my two cents (which is highly biased because I’m completely smitten with these wines), I’m going to let you read the gushing press below.

2019 Köfererhof “R” Valle Isarco Sylvaner $39.99

94+ POINTS: VINOUS - The 2019 Sylvaner R is deeper and richer than the 2020 beside it, with nuances of vanilla bean and dusty white flowers blossoming into crushed pears and hints of sweet spice. This impresses with the silkiest of textures that are cut by a laser-like core of bright acids and penetrating citrus tones. It all results in a long and stimulating finale with a salty flourish that goes on and on, further complemented by hints of candied lime that linger. Hold onto your seat when tasting because this is one of the top wines being made in Alto Adige today!

93 POINTS: ROBERT PARKER'S WINE ADVOCATE - The Köfererhof 2019 Alto Adige Valle Isarco Sylvaner R is sharp and bright and held tightly together by a pretty limestone note of crushed stone. In addition to that mineral definition, you also get hints of tropical fruit, white peach and Golden Delicious apple. You might try this white with a bouillabaisse, from the South of France, or some other fish-stew recipe in your Rolodex.

VINOUS Continued: Frankly stated, Günther Kerschbaumer of Köfererhof is currently making some of the best wines in Alto Adige today. Located in the Isarco River valley, this family-run operation is considered one of the smaller growers in the region, even with their 80,000-bottle production. While Kerschbaumer is fully aware of just how well his wines are being received, he remains completely humble. In fact, you're more likely to find him working in the vineyard before anywhere else. He oversees all practices throughout their six hectares of estate vines and five hectares of long-held, contracted parcels throughout the valley. All practices have been organic since before 1995, when the winery began bottling. Elevations range from 650 to 850 meters above sea level and all on steep, well-draining slopes. Kerschbaumer firmly believes that itʼs the terroir that matters most, and as such the wines go through spontaneous fermentations, and nearly all of them are refined in stainless steel, with the exception of the Sylvaner R, where the wine matures in acacia wood casks. When tasting the Sylvaner R, you really taste the potential of this producer and the region as a whole. Check in on the wines of Köfererhof sooner rather than later because while thereʼs no talk of prices going up at this time, itʼs only so long before this producer is truly discovered.

-David Driscoll

Burgundy Comes To Oregon

For years, we were told that Pinot Gris was going to be Oregon's great white varietal, as more and more winemakers began adding the expression into their repertoire. In 2006, however, the team behind Evening Land had other ideas. They pitched the idea of Oregon Chardonnay to a group of Burgundian winemakers, including the legendary Dominique Lafon, whose curiosity was piqued. When Lafon came over the next year to begin consulting, he told the growers to pick their grapes earlier, noting that Chardonnay shouldn't be overripe or flabby.

That was the first real change for Oregon: higher acidity. Seven years later, the dynamic duo of Raj Parr and Sashi Moorman (the brains behind Sandhi and Domaine de la Côte in the Sta. Rita Hills) took over the winemaking and began shaping the vineyards there. Taking inspiration from Burgundy's hill of Corton, they began planting more Chardonnay, determined to prove that their Seven Springs site had the best terroir for the varietal in the state, let alone the Eola-Amity Hills. With the 2019 vintage, they may have finally made the case. The wine is simply stunning.

2019 Evening Land Seven Springs Chardonnay $29.95

93 POINTS: WINE SPECTATOR: A Chardonnay that's all about structure and minerality, with notes of apple, apricot and spice that build richness on the savory finish. Drink now. 660 cases made.

If you've tasted the white wines of Sandhi, then you know how obsessed with Burgundian style, mineral-driven whites Raj Parr and Sashi Moorman are. Yet, one can only make wines of this nature by finding the right spot of earth. As Parr wrote himself: "We are, first and foremost, faithful stewards of the historic Seven Springs vineyard, planted by Oregon wine pioneer Al MacDonald in 1984. On this dramatic east-facing slope, in the iron-rich and rocky, volcanic soils of the Eola-Amity Hills, Al MacDonald undertook what would become one of Oregon’s most recognized vineyards. Nestled against a forest of Douglas fir with views eastward to Mt. Hood and Mt. Jefferson, it is immediately evident to any visitor why Al chose this site." One sip of the 2019 vintage is all you'll need to understand as well. Clean, mineral-driven, and fresh on the palate, the 2019 Seven Springs is simply outstanding Chardonnay on any level.

-David Driscoll

Alto Adige: Erste + Neue

What is an “alpine wine,” you might ask? Literally, that term refers to wines from the French, Swiss, and Italian wine regions that hug the Alps mountain range, but stylistically it refers to wines that are brighter and generally lower in alcohol than warmer climate and lower altitude wines. Crisp and clean Pinot Grigios, racy and aromatic Pinot Blancs, and lighter-bodied Pinot Noirs are all examples of alpine-grown varietals, many of which reflect the freshness of the cool mountain air in the glass. If I had to choose a single word to describe them, it would be “elegant.” The cool nights and longer growing season along the alpine peaks and valleys result in wines with more vibrance and acidity.

The Vinous article I referenced in yesterday’s post describes the Alto Adige as a region of cooperatives and growers, which is an important point to understanding today’s featured producer: Erste + Neue. The name comes from the 1986 merger of the first co-op cellar in Caldaro (Erste), founded in 1900, and the newest (Neue) co-op cellar after the Alto Adige founded in 1925. Cooperatives are winemaking facilities that are co-owned by growers and vineyard owners in the region, allowing them to share production costs and pool resources to create greater scale. They account for a gigantic percentage of old world wines, and as much as half of the wine made in France. Whereas in the past, cooperatives were perhaps focused more on volume than a unique and terroir-driven character, today that’s changing. Erste + Neue is exhibit A.

Erste + Neue’s enologist Gerhard Sanin favors the bright and restrained winemaking style that shows the true character of Alto Adige alpine fruit, allowing the varieties to shine. Their white wines include Sauvignon, Pinot Bianco, Pinot Grigio, an excellent Müller Thurgau, and a number of reds, but it’s the inexpensive White Peak field blend that really rocked my world this year. A blend of Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Bianco, and Chardonnay, each of which is fermented individually, then blended together for a fresh, racy, and refreshing Italian white, it’s hard to believe we can charge just $13.99 for something so delicious. The team from Vinous agrees:

90 POINTS: VINOUS - The 2020 White Peak lifts from the glass like a burst of alpine air, with a display of savory herbs, crushed rocks and hints of lime. This is soft textured yet wickedly fresh, focused on citrus and mineral tones but with a pleasant inner sweetness to balance. The White Peak finishes finessed with a lingering twang of tart lemon. This is a zesty blend of Pinot Bianco, Chardonnay and Sauvignon that ferments with whole bunches and then refines on the lees for four months in stainless steel tanks. - Eric Guido

If you need an intro to both the alpine style and the Alto Adige as a region, this is where you start.

-David Driscoll

Focus On Alto Adige

There’s a certain sense of pride we feel when our favorite new band or hole-in-the-wall restaurant gets the critical reception we feel it deserves. As painful as it can be to watch something you love explode into the mainstream, no longer an insider secret for just you and a handful of admirers, there’s a validation that comes from wider recognition—a stamp of approval that you have good taste! While I dread the price increases that come from greater competition in the market for my favorite wines, I’m simultaneously thrilled for their success.

Let’s use the latest Vinous exposé on Italy’s Alto Adige as an example. As a longtime lover of fresh and food-friendly Italian wines, I’ve been turning to Italy’s alpine vineyards for more than a decade, crushing sub-$20 bottles of deliciousness with everything from pizza to pasta to charcuterie platters for most of my career. So when one of the best wine publications around hints that the Alto Adige’s time to shine may well be nigh, it gives me goosebumps and gets me all fired up. Nothing brings me more pleasure than shining a spotlight on under-appreciated bottles, and if I have the boys from Vinous as backup, it makes that conversation all the more compelling.

I’ll be beefing up our selection just a bit today as I want to take advantage of the additional press, and I’ll be posting some special highlights throughout the week. Check back daily for an in-depth profile into some of the can’t-miss selections.

-David Driscoll