San Francisco Wine Trading Wine Tasting

NV Jean-Luc Mouillard Crémant du Jura — $31.94

Jean-Luc Mouillard grew up on his family’s dairy farm near Château-Chalon before establishing his own winery in 1991. Based in the village of Mantry, he works alongside his wife, Annie, and son, Mathieu, farming small parcels across the Jura. The vineyards received organic certification in 2023.

Made entirely from Chardonnay, this Crémant comes from limestone vineyards at roughly 1,000 feet elevation. Production takes place entirely in-house, with the second fermentation occurring in bottle following the traditional method. The wine spends an average of 18 months aging on its lees before disgorgement, with a small dosage of approximately four grams per liter.

2024 Madson Chenin Blanc — $34.94

Madson was founded in 2018 by Cole Thomas, Ken Swegles, and Abbey Chrystal, three collaborators whose work brings together organic farming and small-scale winemaking in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The winery takes its name from Cole’s grandmother’s maiden name, and its approach begins with close involvement in the vineyards.

This Chenin Blanc comes from Cienega Valley, southeast of the Santa Cruz Mountains, where marine sedimentary soils contain substantial limestone deposits. A gap in the western hills allows ocean breezes to reach the vines, moderating the inland growing conditions. Fermentation takes place with native yeasts in neutral French oak barrels, followed by a move to stainless steel before bottling.

2024 Walter Scott X Novo Vineyard Chardonnay — $102.94

Ken Pahlow and Erica Landon founded Walter Scott in 2008, building their winery around vineyards in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. X Novo lies in the Eola-Amity Hills, where Craig Williams and his family established an unusually diverse planting of Chardonnay. More than twenty different Chardonnay clones grow together within the original two-acre block.

The organically farmed vineyard sits near Holmes Gap in Spring Valley, exposed to the winds that move inland through the Van Duzer Corridor. The vines are closely spaced in rocky Gelderman clay soils. Walter Scott sources the entire original Chardonnay block, harvesting and fermenting the different selections together so that the planting becomes a single wine from the outset.

2023 Ser Winery Cinsault — $32.94

Nicole Walsh founded Ser in 2012, drawing on years of experience in California vineyards and cellars. Based in Santa Cruz, her work centers on individual grape varieties and the places where they grow. For this Cinsault, she works with Bechthold Vineyard in Lodi’s Mokelumne River appellation, one of California’s remarkable surviving nineteenth-century plantings.

Joseph Spenker planted the vineyard in 1886, and its head-trained vines still grow on their original roots in deep sandy loam. For generations, the grapes were known locally as Black Malvoisie; they were formally identified as Cinsault in 2004. The vineyard remains a direct connection to California’s early winegrowing history, with vines that were already more than a century old when Ser began.

2023 Jean-Luc Mouillard Trousseau Sur La Cour — $37.94

Sur La Cour comes from two small, organically farmed parcels in Mantry, where limestone and clay-marl soils sit at approximately 1,000 feet elevation. Made entirely from Trousseau, it explores another side of the Mouillard family’s work through one of the Jura’s traditional red grape varieties.

For the 2023 vintage, the grapes were destemmed before fermentation, and both fermentation and aging took place in stainless steel. The choice of vessel keeps the winemaking straightforward, without introducing oak into the process. This was also the first vintage following the estate’s organic certification, formalizing the farming practices behind these small vineyard parcels.

2021 Giuseppe Nada Barbaresco Casot — $46.94

The Nada family’s connection to Casot began in 1900, when an ancestor purchased a vineyard, orchard, and small house on a steep hillside in Treiso. Estate bottling followed in 1964. Today, Enrico Nada oversees the cellar, continuing the family’s work while guiding its vineyards toward organic farming; the red-wine parcels received certification in 2017.

Made entirely from Nebbiolo, Casot comes from the family’s southwest-facing hillside, which receives the warmer afternoon sun. Fermentation begins spontaneously, with extended skin contact generally lasting six to eight weeks. The wine then spends two years in wood, moving from smaller used oak vessels into larger Slavonian and French oak casks before bottling without fining and with only a light filtration.