School of Wine & Spirits
White Wine
42 reviews
Domaine Wachau Grüner Veltliner Federspiel Terrassen 2022
Domäne Wachau
The terraced vineyards of the Wachau cling to granite and gneiss slopes above the Danube, and the wines grown here carry the rock in their bones. Domäne Wachau's cooperative model pools fruit from some of the region's best sites, and this Federspiel-level bottling captures the Wachau's essence at an accessible price. Chill it, pour it, and taste the terraces.
Planeta Etna Bianco 2022
Planeta
Planeta's Etna Bianco is a compelling introduction to Carricante, the indigenous white grape of Mount Etna's northern slopes. The 2022 vintage balances ripeness and acidity with precision. At this price, it's one of the most transparent expressions of volcanic terroir available.
Kistler Vineyards Sonoma Mountain Chardonnay 2021
Kistler Vineyards
Kistler's Sonoma Mountain bottling shows what happens when multiple vineyard parcels are blended by a winemaker obsessed with site-specific texture. Steve Kistler's Burgundian approach — whole-cluster pressing, native ferment, sur lie aging — creates a Chardonnay where the blending of parcels yields complexity that no single block could achieve. This is California Chardonnay at its most purposeful.
Terlano Pinot Bianco Vorberg Riserva 2020
Cantina Terlano
Cantina Terlano's Vorberg Riserva is arguably the finest expression of Pinot Bianco in the world, and the 2020 vintage is exceptional. Extended aging on fine lees in large oak gives this wine a gravitas that rivals top white Burgundy at a fraction of the price. A wine that will continue to develop for a decade or more.
Domaine François Cotat Sancerre Les Monts Damnés 2022
Domaine François Cotat
François Cotat is arguably the most singular producer in Sancerre, picking far later than his neighbors and allowing wild fermentation to run its course. The Les Monts Damnés vineyard — its vines clinging to perilously steep Kimmeridgian slopes — yields a Sauvignon Blanc of almost Burgundian density. This is Sancerre for people who think they've outgrown Sancerre.
Domaine Roulot Meursault 2021
Domaine Roulot
Jean-Marc Roulot's village Meursault is a masterclass in restraint. Where others in this appellation lean into oak and richness, Roulot pulls back, letting the limestone speak. The result is Meursault stripped to its essence — no veneer, just truth.
Domaine Marcel Deiss Pinot Gris 2021
Domaine Marcel Deiss
Jean-Michel Deiss's biodynamic approach in Alsace consistently produces wines that taste like place rather than variety. This Pinot Gris is rich yet disciplined — the sort of white that converts people who think they don't like Pinot Gris. Pair it with anything involving cream, mushrooms, or cured pork.
Mâcon-Vergisson La Roche Domaine Daniel & Julien Barraud 2022
Domaine Daniel & Julien Barraud
From the limestone slopes of Vergisson beneath the famous Roche, this Chardonnay looks like simple Mâcon on the label. Beneath that humility is a wine with real terroir expression — mineral, layered, and built for the table. It changes character as it warms, revealing Burgundian depth at a fraction of the Côte d'Or price.
Domaine Josmeyer Pinot Gris Le Fromenteau 2021
Domaine Josmeyer
Josmeyer is one of Alsace's biodynamic pioneers, and this Pinot Gris — named 'Fromenteau,' the grape's historical Alsatian synonym — shows why the variety thrives in this region. The wine's coppery color is a hallmark of the varietal, and the trace copper in vineyard treatments (permitted in organic and biodynamic farming) plays a role in both vine health and the wine's bright, focused acidity. A textbook Alsatian Pinot Gris.
Tenuta delle Terre Nere Etna Bianco 2022
Tenuta delle Terre Nere
Marc de Grazia's Terre Nere has become the reference point for Etna wines, and this entry-level bianco demonstrates why. The Carricante grape grown on Etna's volcanic soils at altitude produces a white wine with an unmistakable smoky mineral signature you won't find anywhere else on earth. For under thirty dollars, this is a masterclass in terroir-driven winemaking.
Domaine Marcel Deiss Alsace Blanc 2022
Domaine Marcel Deiss
Jean-Michel Deiss pioneered complantation — the practice of interplanting grape varieties in a single vineyard — as a way to let terroir speak louder than varietal. This Alsace Blanc is a field blend that shifts expression vintage to vintage, always grounded by the estate's biodynamic farming and a philosophy of deep listening. It is one of the great values in French wine.
COS Pithos Bianco 2022
Azienda Agricola COS
COS Pithos Bianco is fermented and matured in buried terracotta amphorae — a Georgian-style technique predating stainless steel and oak barriques. 100% Grecanico translated through clay and skin contact.
Domaine Ostertag Muenchberg Grand Cru Riesling 2021
Domaine Ostertag (Ostertag family)
Emidio Pepe Trebbiano d’Abruzzo 2018
Azienda Agricola Emidio Pepe
Emidio Pepe’s Trebbiano is the ultimate argument that subtraction can be a catalyst. In a world where winemakers add cultured yeast, sulfur, enzymes, oak chips, and a dozen other interventions to control outcomes, Pepe removed them all — and produced a wine that consistently ranks among Italy’s finest whites. The 2018 vintage is extraordinary: the warmth of the year gave the Trebbiano grape a concentration it rarely achieves, while the cement-tank aging and bottle maturation added layers of honey, toasted almond, and waxy texture that make this taste nothing like the thin, neutral Trebbiano most people know. This is a wine that makes you reconsider what you thought you knew about a grape — and that reconsideration is Pepe’s greatest legacy.
Domaine de la Pépière Muscadet Sèvre et Maine sur Lie Clos des Briords 2020
Domaine de la Pépière (Marc Ollivier & Rémi Branger)
The Clos des Briords is the wine that makes sommeliers fall in love with Muscadet all over again. Marc Ollivier's old vines, grown on granite beside the Atlantic, produce a white wine of startling mineral intensity — this is not the neutral, forgettable Muscadet of the supermarket shelf. The 2020 vintage, with its ideal growing conditions, delivered a wine of exceptional concentration and tension. At around $28, it might be the single greatest value in serious white wine today, and the world's finest partner for oysters, ceviche, and shellfish. If you've dismissed Muscadet, this bottle will change your mind. Cocktail — "The Nantais Spritz": Pour 3 oz Clos des Briords Muscadet over ice in a large wine glass. Add 2 oz Prosecco and a splash of elderflower liqueur. Garnish with a thin slice of green apple and a sprig of mint. The mineral backbone of the Muscadet gives this spritz a savory depth most lack.
Château Montelena Chardonnay Napa Valley 2022
Château Montelena Winery (Barrett Family)
Château Montelena Chardonnay 2022 is the proving ground that changed the wine world — and then kept going. The 1976 Judgment of Paris proved that California could rival Burgundy; every vintage since has proved that the result was no accident. Under winemaker Matt Crafton, the 2022 continues Montelena's signature style: restrained, precise, and unapologetically built for purity over power. The blocked malolactic and early picking deliver a Chardonnay of exceptional freshness and focus — a wine that lets the fruit speak rather than the oak. For a house with a Smithsonian bottle to its name, that kind of quiet confidence is the most powerful statement of all. Cocktail — The Judgment Spritz: 4 oz Château Montelena Chardonnay, 1 oz elderflower liqueur, 2 oz sparkling water, squeeze of fresh lemon. Build in a wine glass over ice. Garnish with a lemon twist and a sprig of thyme. A light, elegant spritz that preserves the wine's delicate aromatics.
Gravner Ribolla Gialla 2015
Gravner
Gravner's experiment was the most radical in this lineup: he didn't tweak a process or add an ingredient — he threw away thirty years of modern winemaking and started over with seven-thousand-year-old technology. The Ribolla Gialla spends months on its skins in buried amphorae, developing a tannic structure and amber color that no conventional white wine possesses. Then it rests for six years in large oak before release. The result is a wine that defies categorization — not white, not red, not rosé, but something ancient and entirely its own. It proved that the oldest methods in winemaking weren't primitive — they were ahead of their time.
Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay 2020
Leeuwin Estate
The Art Series Chardonnay is Australia's most compelling argument that great Chardonnay needs nothing but time and patience. The 2020 vintage received 98 points from Wine Advocate and 97 from Halliday, James Suckling, and Wine Front.
Pazo de Señorans Albariño 2022
Pazo de Señorans
Pazo de Señorans Albariño is the white wine that sommeliers pour for themselves. From a sixteenth-century manor in the Salnés Valley — the heart of Rías Baixas, where the Atlantic shapes every vine — this is Albariño at its most expressive.
Kumeu River Maté’s Vineyard Chardonnay 2021
Kumeu River Wines (Brajkovich family)
Kumeu River Maté’s Vineyard is the definitive proof that great Chardonnay can migrate from Burgundy to the Southern Hemisphere without losing its soul.
Benanti Etna Bianco 2022
Benanti Viticoltori
If fire built these eight bottles, then Benanti's Etna Bianco was built by the most patient fire of all — the volcanic eruptions that have been depositing mineral-rich ash and sand on the slopes of Mount Etna for thousands of years.
Joh. Jos. Prüm Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spätlese 2021
Weingut Joh. Jos. Prüm (Prüm family)
Pieropan Soave Classico 2022
Azienda Agricola Pieropan
Before Pieropan, Soave was a punchline — Nino Pieropan proved it could be world-class.
Dönnhoff Riesling Tonschiefer 2022
Weingut Dönnhoff (Family Estate)
Dönnhoff Tonschiefer — named for the Tonschiefer (clay slate) soils from which it springs — is proof that great wine architecture begins underground. While the world chases oak and extraction, the Dönnhoff family pursues the opposite: minimal intervention, indigenous yeasts, stainless steel, and the faith that if you farm well and get out of the way, the soil will speak. And speak it does. The slate minerality comes through as an electric current running beneath the fruit — green apple, citrus, white peach — giving the wine a tension and precision that oak could never provide. At under $35, this is one of the great bargains in fine wine: a pedigree estate Riesling with the kind of structural clarity that reveals more with every sip.