Since 2013 our mission has been to find great wines of great value that are ready to drink tonight.
Some wines feel like a discovery. Others feel like destiny. Our February Wine of the Month manages to be both.
The 2024 De La Montanya Pinot Meunier Christine’s Vineyard Sonoma Coast is a still wine made from a grape best known for playing a supporting role in Champagne. But here, Pinot Meunier steps confidently into the spotlight — delivering a wine that is vivid, energetic, and quietly complex. Think bright red berries, wild strawberry, a touch of rose petal, coastal salinity, and a whisper of spice that lingers just long enough to make you reach for another sip.
De La Montanya has long been a champion of cool-climate Sonoma Coast fruit, and Christine’s Vineyard provides the perfect stage: coastal fog, wind, and marginal ripening that preserve acidity and nuance. The result is a wine that feels both delicate and alive — light on its feet, yet deeply expressive.
Lately, we’ve found ourselves increasingly captivated by still wines made from Champagne grapes — the category known in France as Coteaux Champenois. There’s something thrilling about seeing Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Meunier outside the bubbles: raw, transparent, and unmasked by dosage or mousse. These wines feel like secret passages into the soul of Champagne varieties.
Our fascination became official last year when the 2021 Pierre Paillard Coteaux Champenois Bouzy Rouge “Les Mignottes” — a still Pinot Noir from one of Champagne’s great grower-producers — earned our 2025 Wine of the Year. That bottle opened a door. And the De La Montanya Meunier walks right through it, showing that this movement isn’t confined to France. The New World is embracing it too — with stunning results.
So this month, we celebrate a wine that represents where our palates are heading: toward freshness, transparency, and the quiet thrill of the unexpected. Champagne grapes without the bubbles. Still, soulful, and impossible to forget.
Discovery and destiny. We found our February wine of the month on an unscheduled stop to De La Montanya last month, a few weeks after trumpeting Coteaux Champenois as the best category of wine you’ve never heard of. Trust us — this is a category you’ll be hearing a lot more about. The 2024 De La Montanya Pinot Meunier Christine’s Vineyard Sonoma Coast is our February wine of the month.
Learn more about De La Montanya Vineyards & Winery, purchase their wine, and follow them here:
@delamontanya_winery
