Notable: Early February 2026
Decades-old bottles of Chateau Montelena, Château d’Armailhac, and Coteaux du Layon, plus new wines of Barboursville and Ferrari
Welcome back to Notable, where twice a month I reflect on the best wines of recent tasting.
Last week New York Times Cooking ran an article titled “I Need Herbs and I Need Citrus.” Girl, I feel you. Temperatures in Northern New England were hovering in the single digits and I was suffering a head cold, medicating myself with lemongrass ginger tea and balms of menthol-eucalyptus. That’s perhaps an unwise admission at the top of a tasting roundup, but my cold was mild and the sinus distress paradoxically only heightened my olfactory powers. Sometimes it pays to be sensitive.
But winter’s clench is easing. The sky’s become less gray, more blue and yellow, and there’s fresh energy in the sunlight now that we’ve passed Imbolc, which Christians call Candlemas and Americans call Groundhog Day. It’s that moment midway between Solstice and Equinox when the house plants reawaken, my Mediterranean Bay unfurling delicate new leaves, bronze and shiny, my 40-plus-year-old Philodendron, purchased for my freshman dorm room, reaching windoward with tender shoots.
My cat’s been chasing sunbeams around the house. I’ve been growing grass for her in batches, soaking soft winter wheat berries for a day, then covering the container with cheesecloth and rinsing regularly to encourage sprouting. By the third or fourth day roots appear, then shoots, at which point I collapse the cheesecloth onto the berries to make a kind of sterile medium, then move it to the windowsill.
I’ve tried using soil and metal mesh and other substrates, but none allow a small carnivore unaccustomed to herbivory to snack on grass without mayhem. So twice a day, usually at her command, I sit with her on the floor, picking off individual blades to feed her, one at a time. Most make their way down her gullet, but some get mauled and spat sideways onto the rug. No matter. Mom’s always ready with another.
The things we do for vitamins and sunshine and love.
Notable Wines
Below are my notes on a handful of wines that recently stood apart from the pack. There’s a Ferrari Brut Trentodoc, a traditional method sparkler from the Dolomites opened in honor of the Winter Olympics; a 2017 Barboursville Octagon, a red-bend winner in the 2025 Virginia Governor’s Cup; a 1995 Chateau Montelena Estate Napa Cabernet, perfectly aged; a 2000 Château d’Armailhac Pauillac, opened alongside the Montelena just because; and a 1990 Domaine Touchais Coteaux du Layon, a sweet botrytised Chenin for the ages. Enjoy.
Ferrari Brut Trento DOC NV
12.5% ABV | About $20
In 1902, Bruno Ferrari launched a sparkling wine project in Trentino, in Italy’s Dolomites, to make wines to rival French champagne. Ferrari had studied winemaking at the Imperial School of Viticulture in Montpellier and believed his native region, with its cool climate and limestone soils, was perfect for sparklers made from Chardonnay. In 1906 his wine won a gold medal at the International Exhibition in Milan, and over the next few decades his success grew. But he remained small, releasing no more than 10,000 bottles per year.
By the early 1950s, Ferrari was approaching retirement with no heir or obvious successor. Scanning his territory, he tapped Bruno Lunelli, a wine shop owner in neighboring Trento, to take over. He admired Lunelli’s work ethic and commitment to his native region, and while the shop keeper had to take loans to make it work, Ferrari committed to staying on during the transition. Eventually, Lunelli enjoyed success, and was able to expand production and introduce new cuvées from Chardonnay and Pinot nero.
Today, the third generation of the Lunelli family heads Ferrari Trento. They source fruit from their own extensive vineyard holdings and work with 500 regional growers to produce both nonvintage and vintage wines. They release about seven million bottles annually, but their cellars hold about twenty-four million at any given moment. It sounds like a lot, but this quantity pales in comparison to that of many French champagne houses.
I visited the estate in the fall of 2013 to see the vineyards and winemaking and taste the wines, sitting also for a tasting of their vintage bubbles against peers’ prestige cuvées (read my report in Divining Ferrari’s Substance and Style: A Comparative Tasting of Twenty-four Traditional Method Sparkling Wines).
The Brut, their entry-level wine, is 100 percent Chardonnay and spends twenty months on lees; this particular bottle was disgorged in 2024. I’ve discovered over the years that the Brut ages beautifully, growing more nutty and enchanting with even a decade of storage. When it’s fresh like this it’s crunchy, cooling, Dolomitic; it reads like mountain air. The flavor is citrusy, limey, both rind and pith, with a sense also of fresh sourdough bread. The bead is active, the texture creamy and mouth filling. It’s a happy expression of Chardonnay on limestone.
Barboursville Octagon Monticello 2017
13.5% ABV | $135.00 (current release $75.00); sample
In 1814, Thomas Barbour, former Governor of Virginia and U.S. Senator, began construction of a manor house, recruiting design help from his friend, Thomas Jefferson. The house burned on Christmas Day in 1884, but today its bones remain standing on the 900-acre estate.
In 1976, Gianni Zonin, a sixth-generation viticulturist from the Veneto, Italy, purchased Barboursville. Working with winemaker Gabriele Rausse, he planted Vitis vinifera grapes at scale, eventually proving these European vines could succeed in Virginia’s climate. In 1990, Luca Paschina, originally from Piemonte, Italy, replaced Rausse. In 1996, he created the first vintage of this wine, Octagon, named for the octagonal drawing room from the original manor house.
This vintage, 2017, was among the winners of the 2025 Virginia Governor’s Cup. It’s a blend of Bordeaux varieties Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Petit Verdot. It was a gutsy move to submit a slightly older wine to the competition, or perhaps it was a flex to show what this wine can do with age. The oxidation was evident in its brickish cast and aromas that skewed toward tea, dried fruits, and dried flowers. The flavors were likewise more dried than fresh (prune, raisin, dried fig) and it had a woodsy bass note. Its concentrated, chewy tannins got a lift from the wine’s acidity. Certainly this was a mature wine, offering interest and refreshment.
Chateau Montelena Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 1995
14.1% ABV | About $170 (current release $200)
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Judgment of Paris, when a 1973 Chateau Montelena beat a 1973 Domaine Roulot Meursault. Those wines were both Chardonnay, of course, but here is Montelena’s Estate Cabernet, opened as a tip of the hat to the anniversary. The bottle was bought by a friend on release and cellared in cold and stable conditions.
Bo Barrett made the wine. Son of founder Jim Barrett, he became winemaker in 1982, then transitioned in 2013 into the role of CEO, handing the reins to new talent, Matt Crafton. The 1995 California vintage saw a cold, wet winter and spring, with higher than average rainfall and hail in some locations. Bloom was late, as was veraison. Then it warmed, delivering a hot July followed by steady ripening weather for harvest. Napa Valley wineries fared especially well that year, and Wine-Searcher lists Chateau Montelena among their top producers of the vintage.
The Montelena Estate Cabernet Sauvignon uses fruit grown on vines that ring their stone building in Calistoga. (It is distinguished from their Napa Valley Cabernet, which uses some purchased fruit and often has a large proportion of Merlot.) The Estate Cab is usually 98 or 99 percent Cabernet Sauvignon with a touch of Cabernet Franc and sometimes a dash of Petit Verdot.
Red with clear rim and hardly any bricking, the wine seemed spirituous at first, but with a bit of air the genie was released. There was a sense of dark nut, black fruit, tea, tobacco, and greenery wreathing its solid fruit core, plummy with a minty lift and lingering senses of herbs and forest. Gorgeous acidity lit up the fruit. In the distant finish the wine grew sweet, even charming. You can taste the California sunshine.
Château d’Armailhac Baronne Philippine de Rothschild Pauillac 2000
12.5% ABV | About $125
We opened the Pauillac alongside the Montelena as a fun A/B of Napa and the Médoc. This bottle was originally purchased at retail on release, probably from MacArthur Beverage, which direct imports. The bottle’s front label had been destroyed, but the back label and cork were intact.
In 1600, the d’Armailhacq family acquired land in the Médoc that had been in vine since at least the 1300s. In the Bordeaux Classification of 1855, the estate was designated a 5eme Grand Cru Classé. In 1933, neighboring Baron Philippe de Rothschild acquired the estate and its holdings, and the wine was subsequently re-labeled until 1989, when Baroness Philippine decided to restore its original name.
The estate’s 70 hectares lie adjacent to Mouton Rothschild and not far from Pontet-Canet. The wines always have a high proportion of Cabernet Franc; this vintage the blend was 52 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, 36 percent Merlot, 10 percent Cabernet Franc, and 2 percent Petit Verdot. It spent 18 months in barrel, half new.
Solid red with a clear rim, its fragrance offered fruit and flowers, anise, violets, tobacco, and cedar. It smelled, well, Bordelaise. With more air I sensed earthy mushroom, perhaps a touch of Brett. The tannins had fully dissolved into the wine, powdery with a chalky after-effect. Fruit there was, but not as much as its aromas promised; instead it felt woodsy, stern, firm edged. Drinkable now, but cresting the hill. Don’t wait!
Domaine Touchais Réserve de nos Vignobles Coteaux du Layon 1990
13% ABV | About $50-85
Coteaux du Layon is a tiny appellation in the Loire’s Anjou district producing only sweet wines made from 100 percent Chenin blanc. Grapes may be simply harvested past maturity, sun-dried and sugar-ripe, but many producers prefer their clusters infected with Botrytis cinerea, or noble rot. This fungus makes grape skins lightly permeable, allowing moisture to evaporate while concentrating the sugar inside the berries and also (ironically) protecting them from other pathogens. Conditions for Botrytis are finicky, requiring cool, moist mornings and warm, dry afternoons. This spot of the Loire Valley delivers.
Domaine Touchais is one of the oldest producers here, dating to 1787. They favor the botrytised style, making multiple passes to select affected clusters. The wine ages for at least ten years before release, and can last years longer; Touchais is sitting on four decades’ worth in their cellars in the medieval town of Doué-la-Fontaine, southwest of Saumur.
Deep golden hued, it had a honeyed, floral fragrance, perfumed with jasmine and citrus but punctuated by an earthy hit of fresh button mushroom (from the Botrytis). Sweet and sumptuous, it was rescued by salivating acidity and fey, sunny flavors of chamomile, apricot, sultana, and Tahitian vanilla. Let the sun shine in.
All images ©2026 Meg Maker. The Barboursville Octagon was a sample for review.
Love this series, thanks for sharing Meg!
That definitely sounds like the ‘95 Montelena Estate that I know. Still have two from dad’s cellar, but secondary market buys, so keeping fingers and toes crossed.