Wine Makers Visiting Portland From Chile and The Loire Valley! Roberto Henriquez Visiting this Weekend! Roberto Henriquez is coming from Bio Bio Chile to visit on Friday and Saturday! Roberto is an amazing person making beautiful wines from vines that are hundreds of years old in a rural part of Chile. He’s also a lovely human being and I’m so excited to have him back in Maine. We have several events planned if you’d like the opportunity to meet him. Public Tasting at Maine and Loire Friday the 6th 4-5:30Friday afternoon Roberto will be pouring his wines at Maine and... Continue reading

Devenish is Selling Beer! They're just as crazy as you'd expect KoelbusBeer Made in a School Bus with Wild Yeast Yes, you read that correctly, we have beer now. Back of February of this year Eric Michaud (of Novare Res and Liquid Riot) texted me and told me he had something exciting he wanted me to taste. We met up and he had a 5 gallon bucket packed with snow and these three beers. And he proceeded to tell me this crazy story. Back before the Pandemic he had this idea that was just to crazy and too good not... Continue reading

Incredible wines from Julien Pinon in Vouvray Some of the Best Chenins I've Ever Had Domaine Pinon Vouvray Visiting Julien Pinon earlier this month was incredibly moving for me because I love the wines so much but also because they’ve had a hard couple years. Julien’s father passed unexpectedly in January 2021 and then a few months later a late frost destroyed the buds on 95% of the winery’s vineyards. The wines of Francois and Julien Pinon have long been important moving wines and rank among the wines that set my standards for expression of not just a place but... Continue reading

Old Vintages of Domaine de la Chevalerie These are Limited! Domaine de la Chevalerie Last month I and three of the Devenish sales people visited Domaine de la Chevalerie in Bourgueil. Chevalerie has been a touchstone winery for me that has produced some of the most beautiful and transcendent wines I have drunk. These wines have a beautiful energy to them; they taste alive and joy filled to me. They’re precise, supple, and integrated but have such lovely and accessible fruit. All of these wines are in stock at our warehouse but only a few cases of any came into... Continue reading

Maine Wild Wine Fest This Saturday Wine Makers and Importers Visiting from All Over! 2nd Annual Maine Wild Wine Fest is this Saturday the 20th! Maine Wild Wine Fest 2023 is one week away! We have so many more importers and wine makers I can’t even put them all in here! Martha Stoumen! Kevin McKenna, Owner of Louis Dressner! Laurent Bonnois of Maximilien Selections! Dierdre Heekin of La Garagista! But it’s all the people you don’t know who will be there that you should really be excited about. People like Shaunt Oungoulian from Les Lunes in CA making beautiful elegant... Continue reading

Valentines Day Wines! Sexy Cabernet, Petnat Rose, and of course Champagne Valentines Day Cometh! Well, here we are 1 week away from Valentines Day! Fortuitously Devenish has received some wines that I think are perfect to impress and send the message “I think you’re hot stuff”! Kobal Bajta Pet Nat Rose 2022 Approximately $24 Find it at Maine and Loire, Bow Beverage, Portland Cheese Shop, Graze and Vine, Lorne, Meridians, Folk, and The Rosemont Markets. I just wrote about this last week and here it is again! What is this?! Am I getting lazy? No, it’s just that this petnat... Continue reading

Unicorn Nebbiolo from the Italian Alps These Pictures are Crazy Carema: Growing Grapes in the Italian Alps Back in the very beginning of October I was on a trip through Piedmont. I've had to hold off on writing about my visit to Muraje in Carema until now though because I didn't have any wine! It was hard to sit on these pictures because, well, you can see why. Muraje is Federico and Deborah Santini. There first vintage here was 2017. They fell head over heels in love with this crazy place and threw themselves into wine making here. Currently there... Continue reading

Champagne, Prosecco, Petnat, Cava!! All our fizzy wines and where to find them ALL THE BUBBLES!!! Here you are: a list of nearly all the exciting sparkling wines we've got and where you can find them! You can of course also order any of these from a wine shop that's local to you; we cover most of the State. 2022 was another crazy year, but here we are at the close of it. Thanks for following along with me through it all. I hope we all get a bit of time to catch up and reflect. Happy New Years! -Ned... Continue reading

Our 6 Best Wines for December! The top 6 wines I'm focused on for the Holiday Season Whoa! Here we are, once again it's happened: the holidays sneak up on me every year! I do love this season though. I love the feeling of bringing things to a close and then the pause and new beginning of January. Right, the whole point of this though is the 6 wines I am really in love with and that I want to celebrate the passing of the year with. Here they are! AT Roca Reserva Metode Tradicional Approximately $29/btl. You can find... Continue reading

Staying at Iuli was a High Point of my Piedmont Trip And now I have all their wines! IULI Two months ago I flew to Piedmont and I kicked off my trip with a stay at Iuli in Monferatto. I've held off on writing about the incredible experience I had until now for the simple and inarguable reason that I did not have enough of the wines on hand! Finally new vintages have arrived in the US so I am free to pass on my Iuli stories! I took an overnight flight as always and I always manage to sleep... Continue reading

Thanksgiving Wine Recommendations Here's What I'm Drinking for Thanksgiving! Happy Thanksgiving! Yes, that picture is actually from my Thanksgiving last year. I hope we all have as fun and wacky a Thanksgiving this time around! Here's a quick list of some suggestions. Thank You All So Much! Cellario La Grinozza (liter) Approximately $19 You can find this at Smalls, Folk, Portland Food Co-op, Meridians, Bath Natural, Bow St, Monte's Fine Foods, RSVP, Cheese Shop of Portland, Liquor Locker, and Broad Arrow Farm Fizzy red Grignolino? How can you not love this!? Fausto Cellario makes this from Grignolino grapes that he... Continue reading

Visiting Tiberi in Umbria: Story and Pictures 8 acre family winery that I love On Thursday Danilo and I took a drive over to visit the Tiberi family in Montepetriolo. The Tiberis have about 8 acres of vines on this beautiful windy hillside looking west. As much as anything in reality can actually live up to an ideal the Tiberis epitomize what I love about the natural wine movement. They've lived here on this hill top and grown grapes for generations but around 2010 the price they could get selling their grapes wasn't enough to make ends meet. The specter... Continue reading

Hanging out with Danilo in Umbria Earlier this month I spent a whirlwind 30 Hours in Umbria When I planned out this whole trip to Piedmont I felt like I had to get down to Umbria to say hi to Danilo and my friends there. Umbria isn't that far away! So I booked my return flight out of Rome. Turns out it's a solid 6 our drive on the Autostrada to get down to Umbria. Good thing I had an Abarth Cinquecento! It was cool to directly and suddenly experience the difference between Piedmont and Umbria. Piedmont was cooler, more... Continue reading

My Wine Trip in the Foothills of the Alps Pictures, stories, and videos from High Piedmont! Alto Piemonte Hi Everyone I just got back from an incredible 9 day trip in Italy, mostly up in Piedmont. Piedmont is a powerhouse of food and wine (Barolo, Barbaresco, and white truffles sound familiar?). Going into this I didn't truly realize how big and diverse Piedmont truly is. 1500 kilometers of driving back and forth fixed that! I'll be sending out a succession of newsletters with the stories of the people I visited and stayed with, but I'll wait a bit to send... Continue reading

Maine's First Natural Wine Festival 40 importers and wine makers by the water in Freeport Maine Wild Wine Fest Saturday the 21st is the inaugural Maine Wild Wine Fest! Last autumn I had a few hours of free time and I decided that Maine should have a Natural Wine Fair. So I set about organizing one! Now it's 10 days away and it's crunch time, but it is all coming together and looks like it's going to be really fun. I have about 40 presenters coming including wine makers from across America, Fredi Torres from Spain is the lone European,... Continue reading

ALL THE BUBBLES!!! Champagne, Cava, PetNat, Prosecco ALL THE BUBBLES!!! I've never tried to do this before and it seems kind of crazy but here are all the sparkling wines Devenish has got! Champagne Tarlant Cuvee Louis Approx $160/btl You can find this at Browne Trading and the Lil General Store The Tarlant family has been growing grapes in Champagne since the late 1600s. at the beginning of the 20th century Louis Tarlant was running the vineyards and also mayor of Oeuilly, a major town in Champagne. Champagne had been internationally famous for at least a century already, but there... Continue reading

My Favorite Wines of the Year Available for Christmas Vacqueyras, Vermouth, Cava, Riesling Holiday Wines 2021 Wow, it feels surreal that it's already almost Christmas! I know: Christmas and Thanksgiving are always the same distance apart and I shouldn't be surprised but every year it's a sprint to get everything done. It's been a crazy year and we're sending it out with a bang! Here's a short list of the wines I'm particularly excited to celebrate with and where to find them. Anima Mundi Cami del Xops Approximately $24/btl Find it at X Vault, Friends and Family, The Vault in... Continue reading

Limited Offer of Exciting Burgundies Savigney-les-Beaune, Hautes Cotes de Nuits, Declassified Puligny Montrachet Burgundies for the Holidays! Village Wines, one of our importers, recently had a limited Burgundy pre-sale of some fantastic wines. Burgundy is a complicated place of tiny producers with multiple holdings and a bewildering array of appellations and classifications all lain on top of each other. The exciting wines are often so expensive that they're unattainable. For these reasons Devenish doesn't do a lot with Burgundy; however I couldn't pass up this chance to snag some of these gems just in time for Christmas! I always say... Continue reading

Thanksgiving Wines: Orange wine, Petnat Prosecco, Fizzy Red Gruner Veltliner, Chilean Pais Thanksgiving Wines This year feels like it's been non stop and now Thanksgiving is in sight. Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays and I'm looking forward to really enjoying it and...maybe even taking a break! Here are some of the wines I'm particularly excited about this year. -Ned Ceppaiolo Cepparosso 2020 Approximately $32/btl You can find this at Treats, Maine and Loire, and Cafe Louis. Or of course you can order it from any wine store. Ceppaiolo is Danilo Marcucci's little private wine project in... Continue reading

Making Wine with my Heroes in Umbria Last Month Elbow Deep in Fermenting Grapes! Four Days in Umbria I just got back from Italy! I was there in Umbria for all of 3.5 days, but somehow it felt more like 10. I managed to visit 8 wineries and help make wine at 3 of them! It didn't feel rushed, but it was so immersive and intense that it felt like longer. I'm going to write a series of emails to cover what I did in some detail. In this email I'm going to cover Ceppaiolo and Dinamo Dinamo Here's a... Continue reading

Public Wine Tastings are back! Wednesday and Thursday Happy Second Week of Summer! French Picnic Wines Wednesday the 29th, 4-6 pm At Maine & Loire Wednesday I'll be at Maine and Loire pouring French picnic wines. I've gotten pretty used to taking it easy and hiding in my warehouse over the Pandemic, but I'm really going to try to clean up and shake off any antisocial habits from the Pandemic. I'm going all out, shaving and wearing a shirt. I promise: the shirt will even have sleeves! In all seriousness we'll have great wines open: Telquel, Pepiere, Aubron Pet Nat,... Continue reading

Wine Tasting at Terlingua and Dinner at Chaval! Here comes Wine Week! This coming week is Portland Maine Wine Week and I'm hosting a pair of events! Tuesday the 15th at 2pm I'm hosting a traditional Chilean lunch (Almuerzo) with Justin at Terlingua. Southern Chile was the last place I visited before the start of the pandemic and I'm excited that one of my first public events in the past year and a half will center around the wine makers I met. This is just $50 per person! Terlingua Tickets Sunday the 20th, to close out wine week, I'm hosting... Continue reading

Rare Library Releases from Domaine de Chevalerie in Bourgeuil Domaine de Chevalerie in Bourgeuil is so awesome that it's hard for me to know where to start.... so I'll just start with the beginning. Domaine de Chevalerie dates back to 1640 when a Pierre Caslot moved to the village of Restigne on the Loire and began farming grapes. Over the centuries his descendants acquired some of the best vineyard plots in and around the town until in 2012 Pierre's great grandson x10 who was also named Pierre owned nearly 100 acres. This is Bourgeuil, where the only AOC approved grape... Continue reading

The Most Exciting Wines for the Holidays!!! Here we are! We have made it to the holidays! The end of this year is in sight; Christmas, Hanukkah, the Solstice are all right around the corner. Without further ado here's the list of wines I am particularly excited about and promoting for Christmas. Cantina Sociale di Gattinara 2011 How crazy is it that the current vintage of this wine is 2011!? This Nebbiolo from Gattinara, up in high Piedmont, spends 2 years in Slovenian oak botti, then 1 year in cement tank, and a further 6 months in bottle....minimum. The aroma... Continue reading

Happy Thanksgiving! Below are the wines I'm most excited about and where to find them. Yes, this is going to be a hard Thanksgiving (I'm having Zoom guests at dinner) but I am holding onto every little piece of normalcy and pleasure that I can! What can I even write here that's meaningful and unique? We're all feeling cut off and unsure of the future. We may be coping and processing the hardships differently but we're all struggling with the same basic circumstances. At least in that knowledge we know that everyone is missing seeing people they care about. Staying... Continue reading