There’s a lot to love about low-intervention wines. Their freshness, texture, and occasional funk can make natty bottles especially food-friendly, often revealing new sides of familiar flavors. When the SAVEUR team traveled to Madison for the Wisconsin Art of Cheese Festival, I asked Square Wine Co. owner Andrea Hillsey to share her favorite pairings using her home state’s cheeses. From savory gouda to lush brie and a ­singular blue-veined cheddar, these combinations show how thoughtful wines and carefully crafted cheeses can bring out the best in one another. 

Pét-Nat + Bloomy Triple Crème

NV La Staffa Mai Sentito! Pét-Nat, Marche, Italy + Schroeder Käse Triple Crème Brie, Rewey, Wisconsin

Hillsey gravitates toward bright, gently fizzy farmhouse bottles when pairing with Schroeder Käse’s silky, soft-ripened wheel. This pét-nat (or “pétillant naturel”) wine’s faint yeastiness echoes the triple crème’s mushroomy rind, while its mellow bubbles and acidity cut right through the richness, priming your palate for the next indulgent bite.

Old-School Red + Hard, Aged Cheese

2014 R. López de Heredia Viña Bosconia Reserva, Rioja, Spain + Roth Cheese Canela, Monroe, Wisconsin

“There are wines you’d never guess are natural,” Hillsey says of low-­intervention, traditional producers like this one in north-central Spain. The aged Rioja’s earthiness and soft tannins bring out the umami depth of Roth Cheese’s Canela—Wisconsin’s cow’s milk riff on Spanish Manchego. The pairing is both harmonious and complex.

Chillable Red + Earthy Blue

2024 Licorne Méchante “Le Cri du Loup,” Mendocino, California + Roelli Cheese Haus Red Rock, Shullsburg, Wisconsin

Hillsey likes a juicy, easy-drinking red (or as the French say, “glou glou”) with this subtle Roelli Cheese Haus blue-laced cheddar. Carbonic maceration—a technique popularized in Beaujolais, where grapes are left to ferment inside their skins before being pressed—creates a wine with savory depth and low tannins, helping it stand up to the elegant Wisconsin original without overpowering it.

Classic Dry White + Alpine Styles

2021 Valentin Zusslin Les Chapelles Riesling, Alsace, France + Alpinage Cheese Classic Raclette, Oak Creek, Wisconsin + Uplands Cheese Pleasant Ridge Reserve, Dodgeville, Wisconsin

With firm, mountain-style cheeses, Hillsey suggests a dry, structured white with enough weight to match their savory depth. A mineral-driven Alsatian riesling—with clean acidity and citrus and stone fruit on the nose—is an exceptional match to Upland’s Pleasant Ridge Reserve’s caramel and hazelnut notes and Alpinage Cheese Classic Raclette’s buttery allium character.

Orange Wine + Nutty, Aged Gouda

2021 American Wine Project Antipodes Frontenac Gris, Fillmore County, Minnesota + Hill Valley Dairy Luna, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Natural skin-contact (aka amber) wines are among Hillsey’s most cheese-friendly picks, thanks to their delicate yet structured tannins. Erin Rasmussen’s Antipodes—made in Wisconsin using cold-hardy hybrid grapes—lends a distinctive grip and freshness that complement award-winning Hill Valley Dairy Luna’s nutty crunch, enhancing its roasted walnut notes and caramelized sweetness.

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This bubbly, pink concoction of champagne dosed with fruity crème de cassis and spicy ginger liqueur is inspired by the mysterious drink of the same name from Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was served at the now-closed Social Restaurant and Wine Bar in Charleston, South Carolina.

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This fun, fizzy cocktail is perfect for ringing in the Lunar New Year (or for any party, really!). It’s inspired by Korean yakgwa, deep-fried flower cookies soaked in honey, sesame, and ginger. Here, a homemade honey-sesame syrup imbues the classic French 75 with a nutty flavor and creamy texture, while Domaine de Canton adds a soft, balanced ginger flavor. Leftover syrup can be drizzled over ice cream, used as a sweetener for coffee, or made into tea with more hot water. 

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Cinnamon is an essential ingredient in this German mulled wine, whose name translates to “glow wine.” This glühwein recipe is adapted from The German Cookbook by Mimi Sheraton.

Featured in the October 2009 issue.

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In this French 75 variation, chef Dominick Lee pays homage to réveillon’s roots, combining French cognac and Champagne with a Creole twist: cinnamon-infused elderflower liqueur. To make it, simply submerge a cinnamon stick in a full 750-­milliliter bottle of St-Germain and set aside for at least 48 hours. Lee recommends topping the cocktail with real-deal brut Champagne—it is a celebration, after all.

Featured in “In Montreal and New Orleans, A French Holiday Celebration Endures” by Chantal Martineau and Kayla Stewart in the Fall/Winter 2025 issue. See more recipes and stories from Issue 205.

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Georgia doesn’t take its time seducing you. On my first visit in 2011, Cupid’s arrow went right to my heart. The country—widely considered the cradle of wine—was reviving its 8,000-year-old tradition of fermenting in clay, a practice nearly wiped out during Soviet times. The energy of that reclamation was palpable, and I could taste it in the wines: fierce, unfiltered, emotional—much like Georgians themselves.

The reds, mostly from the inky saperavi grape, were massive. The “whites,” mainly rkatsiteli, came out amber, concentrated, tannic—months of skin contact will do that. They had what I call digestibility. Their real calling card, though, was being made in kvevri: clay pots buried underground, tended by hand, cooled by the earth. Once dismissed by Soviet planners as backward, they’re now recognized by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage. A small but devoted cadre of natural winemakers—Pheasant’s Tears, Iago’s Wine, Archil Guniava Wine Cellars—brought the tradition roaring back, cheered on by natural wine lovers. Still, in Georgia, a country steeped in Orthodoxy and patriarchy, wine has long been a man’s game. Even now, I’m often the only woman at wine dinners.

When I first started coming to Georgia, I could tell you in broad brushtrokes what its wine was like—where it came from, who was making it well, what it tasted like. Fifteen years and 25 trips later, that’s impossible. This museum piece has grown wings. The explosion of grape varieties unseen a decade ago is staggering. Phylloxera and Soviet monoculture had whittled Georgia’s hundreds of native grapes down to a handful. Now, each year seems to deliver another “new” unpronounceable name pulled from the pre-Soviet past: dondghlabi, jghia, aladasturi, mgaloblishvili …

As natural winemakers revive Georgia’s ancient grapes, conventional wineries have begun piling on, cashing in on the kvevri craze with European varieties and industrial yeasts—tidier wines, maybe, but far less interesting. Still, it’s the natural producers who set the tone. They make tiny quantities, which only adds to the allure, and theirs are the bottles that end up on Michelin-starred lists—Noma, for one.

The growth in Georgia’s natural wine world is immense—and thrilling. But as a cynic, I wondered if it could also bring unwanted change. So, curious, I traveled to the country last month, just minutes before harvest. I wanted to hear from new voices and revisit old ones, to see where everything was headed with a more critical eye. Had modern techniques crept in and diluted the tradition? Was long skin contact—which gives Georgian wines their power—still in fashion, or were lighter styles trickling in? One thing was certain: What I’d find would be a far cry from the chocolate-and-vanilla homogeneity of the Soviet era.

These days in Tbilisi, I might be poured a pet-nat, a West Georgian wine made in Kakheti’s high-extraction style, a rosé or limpid garnet blending red and white grapes, or even a light-bodied saperavi. The old binary—big, inky reds or tannic amber whites—has been blown wide open. Kvevri remain the gold standard for the natural crowd, but alternative materials—wood and stainless steel, for instance—are losing their stigma. And one of the biggest changes, patriarchal structures notwithstanding, is the growing visibility of women in the industry.

One evening in 2013, I found myself at a supra (traditional feast) not far from Stalin’s birthplace, the dusty factory town of Gori. I was researching For the Love of Wine, my book on Georgia’s revival of traditional and natural winemaking. At the table—yes, the only woman—I was spellbound by a juicy wine fermented on its skins for nine months. It glowed deep amber, tasting of orange blossom, with a green tea-like freshness. Then an old-school wine consultant sitting next to me disrupted the moment. The conversation had turned to who might become Georgia’s first female winemaker, and he suddenly exploded: “Women don’t make wine in Georgia!” The belief lingered that women didn’t belong in winemaking, as a menstruating woman would allegedly taint the product. At that moment, Marina Kurtanidze, a winemaker from Kartli, was about to break that glass ceiling with the release of her first bottle, a mtsvane. A year later, more women-made wine followed—and that trend shows no signs of slowing.

While outright prejudice against women winemakers is mostly a thing of the past, gossip still swirls. Some whisper that Kurtanidze’s husband, Iago, is the one who actually makes her wine. She laughs it off: “No disrespect—what don’t we do together?”

Jane Okruashvili of Sister’s Wines is often overlooked because her brother John (of Okro’s Wines) is the more famous family winemaker. But is her wine any less delicious? They share a marani—the Georgian word for wine cellar—in the picturesque hilltop village of Sighnaghi. All their wines are made in kvevri, and hers are consistently pleasurable, from light, sparkling whites to full-skin kisi. I asked Jane why she chose to call her project Sister’s Wines. Without irony, she said, “Because I’m Okro’s sister.”

It is possible for a woman to strike out on her own, without a male family member by her side—meet Natia Cheko. On a sweltering day in Terjola, Imereti, where she established her marani, White Mulberry, Cheko poured me the first of her three wines. She explained that at 33 she found a job at a wine bar—even though she didn’t like wine. But in Sighnaghi, at Pheasant’s Tears, she said with a full heart, “Wine entered my soul.” The wines she trained her palate on were not just some of the best in Georgia—they were among the finest natural wines in Europe.

When she was given a small plot of promising land, the male winemakers in her life encouraged her. More than the sturdy wines of Kakheti, her home region, the lighter wines of her adopted home resonated. The move suited her, and she reflected poetically on why: “In Kakheti, people are more serious and more emotional, like the wines. Here, the wines have less angst.”

Thirty minutes from Cheko, Archil Guniava embodies another kind of evolution. One of the original “fathers” of Georgia’s natural wine revival, Guniava’s cellar remains defiantly medieval—buried kvevri, no running water, no temperature control—yet his wines are more enchanting than ever. He works with the region’s ubiquitous whites, tsolikouri and tsitska, and increasingly explores rarer local varieties like low-tannin dzelshavi, rescued from the brink of extinction. It makes thought-provoking wine, savory and fruity (think pineau d’aunis). I was stunned, though, when I saw stainless steel tanks—a modern gleam in a centuries-old habitat. They weren’t used for fermentation but rather to store and age the wines for longevity, so he doesn’t have to bottle them before they’re ready.

It’s hardly a transgression—just a practical choice. Yet with all the experimentation in Georgian wine today—the new techniques, profiles, textures, and even types of clay vessels being used (such as Spanish tinajas)—one question keeps coming up: What, in the end, makes a wine truly Georgian?

Unpredictably, the biggest rising star is an expat: Aidan Rafferty. In 2019, he moved to Georgia from Australia for love. He married, had a child, and set up life in the ever-popular western region of Imereti. His little vineyard was tragically trampled by his neighbor’s cows after its first vintage, but until he replants, he buys fruit from plots he scouts from farmers he trusts. He ferments in old oak, acacia, and chestnut, as well as above-ground kvevri, producing lighter, west Georgian-style wines with his own twists, under the name Igavi Wines. One barrel holds a tsolikouri-based blend. It’s already three years in, with four more to go, emulating the style of Jura’s vin jaune—a dry, sherry-like wine, and certainly a Georgian first.

I asked Rafferty, whose wines are exceptionally ethereal even by West Georgian standards, whether he felt obliged to make them taste “Georgian.” He smiled at the question and said, “I’m a foreigner making wine in a foreign way using local kvevri, local wood, and local grapes—so what about the wine isn’t Georgian, except me?”

Paired with several bottles, the question of what a Georgian wine is “supposed” to taste like could fuel a night-long debate. Should it adhere to its ancient roots, fixed in place, or is it allowed to move and breathe? Right now, the consensus is the latter. And breathe it will—deeply and fascinatingly—as a new generation steps in, shaped by travel and the world’s wines, while the older generation gradually fades, perhaps taking some of its secrets with it.

Exploring how the new generation is reinterpreting tradition, I sought out the Lotus Eaters—Maiko Zakaraia, Niko Turmanidze, and sisters Lela and Manana Jobava—a quartet of young friends who make wine both individually and collectively. For a year, I was asked time and again if I had tried their wines, so I was determined to see where the magic happens. I didn’t expect their “winery” to be in an abandoned house on the outskirts of Tbilisi—more like a squatter’s refuge, with blown-out windows. But it had been loaned to them for free, and it even came with a marani. Inside were kvevris, demijohns, and stainless-steel tanks.

Zakaraia, one of the Lotus Eaters, told me she had always appreciated feather-light natural wines—and that was exactly what she wanted to make. Talking with her, I found myself thinking of that old sexist consultant and how radically tastes have shifted in just a couple of decades.

A few days earlier, I had been discussing this with Mariam Iosebidze, who began making wine at her eponymous marani in 2015. “In the Soviet era,” she told me, “there was style, not tradition.” The Communists had hardened the rules: no kvevri used in production, but styles assigned to regions—sweet wines to Racha, skin-contact to the east, light wines to the west. Today, Georgia is reaching toward the future while honoring the past—a difficult tightrope to walk.

Zakaraia, who delights in working with rare grapes, told me she was about to be gifted 440 pounds of rkatsiteli, that old Soviet stalwart known for powerful amber wines. “How will you work with it?” I asked. Her answer was immediate. Speaking with reverence, as if stepping into a Georgian church and lighting a candle for her ancestors, she told me everything I needed to know about the future: “I will honor the grapes with full-on skin contact.”

The post How Women Are Breathing New Life Into Georgia’s 8,000-Year Wine Tradition appeared first on Saveur.

This elegant aperitif is named for Canon Félix Kir, a hero of the French resistance during World War II and, later, mayor of Dijon, France. The cocktail is traditionally made with two ingredients from the Burgundy region: crème de cassis, a black currant liqueur, and aligoté, a dry white wine. To make a kir royale, substitute champagne for the wine.

Featured in the November 1998 issue.

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Equal parts cola and red wine (and sometimes a touch of citrus), this Basque Country refresher is easy to pull together with ingredients typically on hand. The drink, also known as calimocho, is popular throughout Spain, parts of Eastern Europe, and in South America, under different names.

Featured in ”Drink Up” by Rosie Schaap in the June/July 2012 issue.

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“If you’d called two minutes earlier, you would have heard the jets overhead,” Eddie Chami tells me by phone. The winemaker at Mersel Wine says it’s impossible to count the number of warplanes that have flown over his winery since the bombardments intensified in September. Chami lives in northern Lebanon, a distant 80 miles from the southern border with Israel. Last fall, the sounds of war both surprised and terrified him. (A month after our conversation, Hezbollah and Israel reached a ceasefire that didn’t hold; as I write this, the airstrikes have not stopped.)

Few areas of Lebanon have been left unscathed by the current flare-up—including the Bekaa Valley, the Levantine country’s most prolific wine region, where Hezbollah has a stronghold. This landscape of rolling vineyards, olive groves, and magnificent cedars sounds like the farthest thing from a war zone, but “conflict has always been here,” says Michael Karam, author of Wines of Lebanon and narrator of the 2020 documentary Wine and War. From the time of the Phoenicians to the present, winemaking and war have gone hand in hand here, Karam tells me by phone. With Lebanon at the intersection of empires for millennia, farmers have been forced to grapple with colonization and all sorts of violent incursions. “Being Lebanese is an act of resistance,” he says

 Winemaking in Lebanon has prehistoric origins, stretching farther back in this part of the world than in nearly any other. This is where Phoenicians planted their vines, where Ancient Romans worshipped at the Temple of Bacchus, and where Jesus purportedly turned water to wine. Recently, archaeologists unearthed a grape press in Tell el-Burak that dates to the Iron Age.

Yet despite that rich history, Lebanese wine was virtually unknown in Western wine circles until the 1970s, when a charismatic vintner named Serge Hochar of Chateau Musar, the country’s best-known winery, began eliciting international acclaim for his work with varieties such as obaideh and merwah. Incredibly, that micro-revolution in Lebanese winemaking was taking place under the shadow of a bloody civil war, which lasted from 1975 to 1990 and resulted in at least 150,000 deaths. 

Hochar’s mission to produce world-class wine in the face of such adversity was not an anomaly but rather a core national trait. For vineyards in France and Italy, the main enemies include hail and downy mildew; in Lebanon, vintners are also up against missiles and cluster bombs. “When you opened a bottle of Musar, you weren’t just opening this great wine from Lebanon. There was an edge to it. It was wine that was made in very difficult circumstances,” Karam says. 

Since then, Lebanon’s wine industry has blossomed, and far more wineries are affected by the current conflict. Here are stories from four of them.

Coteaux Du Liban, Bekaa Valley

On the eastern edge of the Bekaa Valley, Roland Abou-Khater has lost up to 20 percent of his grapes. Roads across the Bekaa were bombed and rendered impassable, and many of Coteaux Du Liban’s dependable harvesters from Syria have returned home. It’s been a tough run for the family business: After Abou-Khater’s father, who ran the vineyard, died unexpectedly in 2009, Abou-Khater’s mother, a professional pianist, took over. “She didn’t even know how to open a bottle of wine,” he says. 

Spending his childhood in the winery, Abou-Khater “always wanted to be a winemaker,” he tells me. “I used to taste the grapes with my father and tell him, ‘This should be harvested on Monday, this one on Tuesday.’ All of my best memories are with him at the cellar.” 

Last year brought new hardships. “Even though we are in a relatively safe area, hearing the bombing all day, hearing the planes flying at low altitudes—that was traumatizing,” he says. “We were always alert. We were always afraid.” 

Chateau Rayak, Bekaa Valley

East of Coteaux Du Liban, near the Syrian border, sits Chateau Rayak, helmed by Elias Maalouf. Maalouf was born in Ecuador; his father resettled there in 1976 after Lebanon’s civil war broke out, and his winemaking grandfather, Philip, joined the family in the late ’80s. In Ecuador, Maalouf’s grandfather drank wine from Chile, Argentina, and California, but as a “stubborn Mediterranean,” that “wasn’t wine to him at all,” Maalouf says. “He was always nagging his children to take him back to Lebanon.”  

After the war, Maalouf moved back to reclaim his family’s winemaking legacy. “I’m the fifth-generation winemaker, even though my father never made wine because of the civil war,” he says. He proudly built his winery in the Bekaa Valley and reveled in welcoming guests. On September 23, an Israeli air strike purportedly targeting a nearby Hezbollah ammunition store hit Maalouf’s land, destroying his business, his home, and that of his parents. “We are not on the border. We’re in a city, and the bombs are falling next to schools, universities, hospitals, onto houses of civilians,” he says. 

Despite the terror and destruction—Chateau Rayak is still in disrepair, and production is on hold—Maalouf is committed to continuing his craft and to advocating for long-term peace. “My heart is broken,” he says. “What more can we lose? We must invest in peace.”

Mersel Wine, Wadi Qannoubine

Eddie Chami’s winery is flanked by the Qornet es-Sawda mountains and is situated nearly 5,000 feet above sea level. “You can see Mount Hermon, where Jordan, Syria, Palestine, and Israel come together,” he says. “It’s a beautiful place to make wine.”

Chami’s property has remained relatively unscathed, but he couldn’t escape the violent tendrils of war. While harvesting one day, he was caught in the crossfire and had to run for cover. “It’ll be a relief when this all ends and the wines are in the tanks and we are okay,” he says. “We are a mighty country, but we can’t outrun the gunpowder the U.S. and Israel keep throwing our way.” 

Chami says the conflict has become part of his day-to-day experience but doesn’t define every moment of it. “You need to go to work. You need to finish harvesting…A friend of yours gives birth, gets engaged.” Chami says. “The most difficult part was getting on with life and living while people were dying around me.” 

Sept Winery, Northern Batroun

In western Lebanon between the Jaouz and Madfoun rivers is the Batroun District, home to one of the country’s only biodynamic wineries. On the land Maher Harb inherited from his late father, who was killed by a car bomb during the Civil War, Harb has planted some 5,000 vines. Sept Winery is as much an homage to his homeland as it is to his father. 

Today’s war is the latest in a series of challenges. Shortly after Sept’s founding in 2017, Lebanon was plunged into several years of tumult due to the COVID-19 pandemic, financial crisis, and Beirut’s catastrophic port explosion. Harb is undeterred: “We adapted. Why? Because the whole Lebanese society adapted. We always have.” 

What wears on him the most, though, is the uncertainty about when (or whether) the war will end. He grows late-ripening obaideh grapes near Baalbek, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that is threatened by Israeli shelling. Last fall, Harb spent days coordinating pickers and drivers, but harvesting became too risky. “We’d get a call at four in the morning telling us there were ongoing bombardments,” he says. “I’ve thought to myself, ‘I don’t feel traumatized,’ but that’s delusional. Of course I am.”

The trials of the past year have only strengthened the winemaker’s resolve. At age 42, he has endured decades of war in Lebanon, losing his father in one of them. “I still would give anything to stay here and raise my child,” he says. “I would never leave this land.”

The post In Lebanon, Winemaking Persists Through Conflict—as It Has for Generations appeared first on Saveur.

Created by Alba Huerta of Houston’s acclaimed cocktail bar Julep, this fragrant chamomile-infused gin cocktail was served at SAVEUR’s Issue 203 launch party. Lighthouse Gin—a bright and balanced, citrus gin from New Zealand—shines alongside fresh lime and pineapple, while an effervescent topper of sparkling cider makes this a refreshing and festive serve for any season. Don’t forget to garnish with a few pineapple fronds, a timeless symbol of hospitality in the American South.

Featured in “Toasting SAVEUR’s Latest Issue in Houston, a Culinary Destination on the Rise.”

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This mulled wine recipe was developed by chef Marcus Jernmark when he was at Aquavit in New York City as part of the restaurant’s traditional Julbord, or Christmas table, spread. “Glögg is one of those things where every family has their own recipe,” says Jernmark. “And there are trends—one year it’s white, one year it’s red, one year there’s dark rum, one year there’s vodka.” This version, to his mind, is close to the Platonic ideal of spiced wine, with brown sugar, dried fruits, aromatic spices, and Indonesian long pepper—not as unusual a Scandinavian ingredient as it might sound. “Long peppers were one of the first things that Sweden brought back” when the Dutch East India Company established trade in 1602, Jenmark notes. “It’s been used in Scandinavian cuisine for a long time.” 

Since glögg mixes wine with many, many other ingredients, Jernmark advises against using a particularly nice bottle. “You’re totally destroying the wine,” he says. “Obviously you shouldn’t use a defective wine, but a cheap red is fine.” He prefers a cabernet. Serve your glögg as they do in Sweden—with blanched almonds and raisins on the side to spoon into your glass or mug, plus a plate of buttery, fragrant pepparkakor or gingersnaps.

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