Bow Street Beverage Connoisseur Wine Tasting Kit
The Connoisseur Box June 2026 (Famille Ogereau En Chenin Anjou Blanc, Peyrassol Les Commandeurs Rosé, Michel & Sylvain Tete Domaine du Clos du Fief Juliénas Tradition, Purple Hands Lone Oak Ranch Pinot Noir)
Welcome to the inaugural release of the Bow Street Beverage Wine Tasting Kit! We are incredibly excited to launch this adventure, and we hope you’ll join us in exploring the vast, delicious world of wine. Think of this as your monthly ticket to a world of wine, giving you access to our absolute favorite bottles. Each month, we’ll hand-select sets of four stellar wines—including brand-new arrivals and hidden gems you won’t want to miss. We’ll cover a whole range of styles and pack each set with insider write-ups so you can taste and learn right along with us. Each set is sold at a discounted price.
Choose Your Wine Adventure
We have two fantastic tiers to match your palate, both curated to bring you incredible savings on hand-selected wines every single month.
The Connoisseur Box delivers premium, standout bottles for the adventurous palate. You will receive around $100 worth of exceptional wine, packaged up for a sweet bundled deal.
The Enthusiast Box focuses on crowd-pleasing, delicious bottles that are perfect for everyday sipping. You will receive around $60 worth of fantastic finds, offered at a great savings.
Cheers to the first set of many great bottles!
Here are the wines:
Famille Ogereau En Chenin Anjou Blanc 2024; Loire Valley, France
This wine is a Bow Street exclusive in Maine. Famille Ogereau is part of the new wave of producers in Anjou and Saumur, in France’s Loire Valley, which I find very exciting. Some of these young producers are making my favorite Chenin Blancs from anywhere. In terms of value, this wine is definitely in that group.
Emmanuel Ogereau farms organically and makes his wines with a light touch (doing as little as possible in terms of “winemaking”). His happy, playful personality comes through in this wine, which features well-defined fruit and a strong core of minerality. He picks early to avoid botrytis (a drying mold that makes great sweet wines but is not always ideal for dry wines) and maintain freshness. This is helpful, as his vines are on the schist-heavy soils in the part of the region known as Anjou Noir, which can tend toward high ripeness without as much balancing acidity as Ogereau’s wines have.
With its ample flavor and palate-cleansing crispness, this would pair beautifully with a wide variety of foods, including buttery seafood preparations (fish or shellfish), roasted pork, and savory mushroom dishes such as risotto.
Peyrassol Les Commandeurs Rosé 2024; Côtes de Provence, France
Peyrassol Les Commandeurs is my benchmark for Provence Rosé. There are higher-end examples out there, including a couple from Peyrassol, but this one is so utterly classic, and so well valued, that it sets my standard. People looking for elegant, refreshing, restrained pink wine, particularly for under $30, seem to always be happy with this one.
Commanderie de Peyrassol was founded by the Knights Templar in 1204 and has operated continuously since. These days, all farming is certified organic. Beyond that, cover crops are planted between the rows, which increases biological diversity in the vineyards, improves soil health, and prevents erosion. Rigorous vine pruning limits yields and improves quality. In short, a lot of effort goes into making the best wines possible. Many growers in Provence do not take anywhere near this type of care. The owner, Philippe Austruy, credits the estate’s limestone-rich soil in producing the freshness that their wines always have, as opposed to the candy fruit flavors that many other rosés display.
This rosé pairs well with pan seared scallops, lighter seafood preparations (including recipes that feature tomatoes, which can be difficult to pair with white wines), and salad. I find a lot of joy drinking it on its own, outside in the sun.
Michel & Sylvain Tete Domaine du Clos du Fief Juliénas Tradition 2024; Beaujolais, France
Domaine du Clos du Fief is a new discovery for me, and one that I’m pretty excited about. They are in Juliénas, one of the Crus (named villages) of Beaujolais. Make no mistake: this is nothing like the candy-tasting Nouveau with flowers on the label. As Europe gets warmer, it is increasingly difficult to find the lighter side of Cru Beaujolais, brimming with red fruits and showing a lot of restraint. That’s exactly what you get here. It’s a great warm weather red that can do well with a slight chill if you like that.
Like Peyrassol, farming at Clos du Fief includes ample cover crops, to promote life both within (microbial) and above (beneficial insects) the soil. The domaine thinks this is an important element in the ultimate quality of their wines. Even tilling is limited, to allow all of that life to fully flourish.
This Cru Beaujolais will pair well with almost anything you do with chicken or turkey (classic Thanksgiving wine). You can also think of it with pizza, or whatever is coming off the grill. It’s very versatile as a palate-cleansing red. As such, if you like red wine with seafood, this is a good fit.
Purple Hands Lone Oak Ranch Pinot Noir 2023; Willamette Valley, Oregon
Purple Hands is another new discovery for me. As an avid fan of all things Willamette Valley, I don’t know how the producer wasn’t already on my radar. The wines are terrific. This is my current favorite Pinot Noir for under $30, from anywhere. It’s a complete wine with a clear sense of place, which is difficult to find in this price range. The beauty that is Willamette Valley Pinot Noir is apparent here, with its combination of red and dark fruits, soil notes, and floral character.
Cody Wright makes these wines. He is the son of long-time Oregon winemaker Ken Wright. To me, Cody’s wines are more delicate and nuanced than his father’s; I prefer these. Vineyards are farmed organically and dry farmed (no irrigation on mature vines). Dry farming is practiced by many of the best producers in the Willamette Valley. Some, including Purple Hands, are even members of a dry farming group called Deep Roots Coalition (deeprootscoalition.org). In short, the practice encourages roots to dig deep for nutrients and water, promoting higher quality across vintages, and intensifying wines’ sense of place. The vast majority of high quality wine from France and Italy is from vineyards that are farmed this way.
Classic pairings for this Pinot Noir include duck, chicken and turkey (another Thanksgiving classic), mushroom dishes, beets, and herbed preparations of pork or lamb. The earthy, savory wine harmonizes with herbal, savory foods.
Ready for harvest – photo courtesy of purplehandswine.com
