Your cart is empty!
New Zero-Zero Sparkling(s)
04/08/25
Two brand new sparkling cuvées, from two (actually, three!) producers we love.
Though they’re from very different regions, both are Champagne-method wines made without sulfur – and both are one-off bottlings, born of specific intentions and unlikely to ever be seen again.
One comes from longtime Mosel iconoclast Ulli Stein; the other is a collaboration between Burgundy’s Vin Noé and Le Grappin.
Whatever your take on no-sulfur wines, one thing is clear: sparkling bottles made this way evolve more quickly than their sulfured peers, sidestepping the often heavy, terroir-blurring autolytic notes. What you get instead are clean, direct expressions; wines that speak clearly of place and varietal.
We get into the details on both wines below.
Ulli Stein's 2019 '0 Dosage'
I’ve long admired Ulli Stein’s hand with serious, no-sulfur sparkling, and his ‘Ohne’ Riesling Sekts have become cult classics. Phenolic and powerful, they channel the gravitas of his old vines in Alf.
This newest effort is something else altogether. If anything, it’s even more serious – and somehow, more delicious.
'0 Dosage' is made entirely from Pinot Noir, which Ulli illegally planted in the Mosel (in quiet defiance of pre-WWII laws that were only recently overturned) It's from the 2019 vintage, an outstanding year that brought clean, ripe fruit with acidity to match; and he picked specifically for sparkling, harvesting early and pressing directly into a single 600L fuder. The wine spent a year on its gross lees in barrel, then four more in bottle before disgorgement without dosage or sulfur.
The result is fantastic. Without a doubt Pinot in its fruit profile, and unmistakably Mosel in its chalky persistence. And although it has the grace and textural finesse of the best sparklings, I wouldn’t mistake this for Champagne.
It's pure Mosel. Which is what makes this so damn special.
2019 ULLI STEIN PINOT NOIR '0 DOSAGE' $80
Ulli with his '0 Dosage' in a cask from the 1980s; photo via Vom Boden
Le Grappin x Vin Noé 'Bulles'
Truly, birds of a feather 🙌 Bulles is a collaboration between two micro-négociants, originally outsiders (Vin Noé’s Jon Purcell from California and Le Grappin’s Andrew Nielson from Australia) who were drawn to Burgundy and have come to define the region’s vanguard.
Andrew and his wife Emma work from Fanny Sabre’s old cellar in the heart of Beaune, and Jon from a centenarian cellar in nearby Auxey-Duresses; both making visceral, natural takes on some of Burgundy’s most iconic terroirs.
Jon Purcell in the vineyard; Emma and Andrew Nielson. Photos via Terrestrial and Le Grappin
With some fruit from the the devastating 2021 vintage ending up, as they put it, “sparkling-wine-ripe not top-shelf-Burgundy ripe,” they decided to make lemonade a sparkling wine from blended vin clair: 50% Aligoté from Andrew’s Mâcon-La Roche Vineuse, and 50% Pinot Noir from Jon’s Mercurey. The dry, still wines were blended in Spring 2022, followed by traditional method at crémant house Parigot & Co (who also works with icons like Fanny Sabre, Dominique Derain and Philippe Pacalet).
Secondary fermentation was with their own cultured yeasts and frozen juice; followed by 15 months sur lie, disgorgement in late Spring 2023, and an additional year in bottle. No sulfur, and no dosage; and even the label is a mashup of their respective styles, colors and symbolism.
Like Ulli’s wine, this is an extremely limited release; we’re so lucky to have some finally landed stateside. It’s a wine of fascinating tension, with broad orchard and strawberry fruit, a touch of oxidation; but tightly-knit texture that keeps it finessed and serious.
A physical manifestation of what it really is: Burgundy’s best coming together to make something beautiful out of one of the region’s most challenging moments.