April 2026
The Month of
After the Thaw
Winter doesn’t end on a date. It loosens its grip in stages — the morning frost burning off by ten, asparagus reappearing at the market, the first evening you eat outside without a coat. April is when the hold finally breaks. The wines that mark that moment have lift and tension instead of weight: a Languedoc white with sea salt in it, a light red that drinks cold, and a bottle of Champagne to acknowledge that something has actually changed.
Selections from a past month — availability may have changed.
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01
The Weekday Wine · Under $20
Cave de Pomerols "HB" Picpoul de Pinet 2024
Languedoc, South of France
The Piquepoul Blanc grape was nearly extinct by the early twentieth century — high-yielding, easily diseased, dismissed as a workhorse. The cooperative cellar at Pomerols (founded 1932) is the reason it still exists at scale today. Their HB bottling is the cooperative’s calling card, sourced from 400 hectares of Picpoul vineyards on limestone soils between the Pezenas garrigue and the Étang de Thau lagoon. The wine is what Picpoul does best when treated seriously — sea salt, white pepper, lemon pith, and a finish that tastes faintly of the brackish water the grape grew next to. At thirteen dollars, it is the wine you buy by the case for a season.
TASTING NOTES
Sea salt, lemon pith, white pepper, green almond
PAIRS WITH
Oysters, asparagus with butter
GRAPE
Piquepoul Blanc (100%)
DRINK WINDOW
2024–2026
Vintage Context
2024 was a cool, late-ripening vintage across the Languedoc — a relief after the heat-hammered 2022 and 2023 seasons that pushed acidity dangerously low in southern French whites. The Pomerols cooperative harvested with restraint and the wines came in fresher than recent years. The 2024 HB has the bright lemon-edge of older-style Picpoul, when the grape’s natural acidity could carry the wine without needing to be coaxed.
Build the Board
via Murray’s Cheese
A weeknight board for briny whites and a coastal Picpoul
Bûcheron goat · Spanish boquerones · pickled shallots · marcona almonds · sourdough crisps
02
The Saturday Pour · $20–$50
Charles Joguet Chinon "Les Petites Roches" 2019
Loire Valley, France
Charles Joguet took over his family’s Chinon vines in 1957 and reorganized the estate parcel by parcel, vinifying each vineyard separately the way a Burgundian would. He retired in 1997, but the parcel-based discipline is what the Genet family inherited, and what Anne-Charlotte Genet (now directing) and Kevin Fontaine (vines and cellar) preserve today. “Les Petites Roches” is the entry point — a blend of gravelly terraces along the left bank of the Vienne, aged in stainless steel rather than oak so the Cabernet Franc reads peppery and lifted instead of sweetly fruited. Serve it with a 30-minute chill in the spring; it drinks better that way.
TASTING NOTES
Crushed raspberry, graphite, green peppercorn, dried thyme
PAIRS WITH
Roast chicken with herbs, charcuterie
GRAPE
Cabernet Franc (100%)
DRINK WINDOW
2024–2028
Vintage Context
2019 was a generous year in Chinon — warm enough to give Cabernet Franc real depth without crossing into the jammy register that flatter vintages produce. Yields came in modest after April hailstorms cut bunch counts, which concentrated what remained. The result is a Joguet vintage with grip and aromatic clarity in equal measure.
Build the Board
via Murray’s Cheese
A French Sunday board for an herbal red
Comté 18-month · jambon de Bayonne · Dijon mustard · cornichons · seeded baguette
03
The Splurge · $50+
Pol Roger Brut Réserve NV
Champagne, France
Pol Roger started his Champagne house in 1849 in Aÿ at the age of eighteen; the family moved the operation to Épernay two years later and has stayed there ever since. The Brut Réserve — known to old Champagne hands as the “White Foil” — is the house’s calling card, blended in roughly equal thirds from Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Pinot Meunier across the Marne Valley and Côte des Blancs. The dosage is restrained, the autolysis time is longer than the legal minimum, and the result is a Champagne with the depth of a much more expensive bottle: brioche, white peach, lemon zest, and the chalk minerality the Marne is known for. It is still owned by the families that started it (the Pol Roger and De Billy lines are now into their sixth generation). Winston Churchill drank it; that is famously not the only reason to.
TASTING NOTES
Brioche, white peach, lemon zest, chalk
PAIRS WITH
Aged cheeses, oyster shooters
GRAPE
Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Pinot Meunier
DRINK WINDOW
Drink now
Vintage Context
Pol Roger Brut Réserve is non-vintage, blended from base wines with reserve wines drawn from a deep library of vintages stored at the house’s cool, deep cellars at Avenue de Champagne. The current release leans on a 2020 base — a warm, healthy growing season that produced ripe Pinot Noir and Chardonnay with surprisingly good acid retention. The reserve component buffers vintage variability and keeps the house style consistent year over year. Pour cold and fresh.
Build the Board
via Murray’s Cheese
A celebration board for a classic Champagne
Brillat-Savarin triple-crème · prosciutto di Parma · fig jam · marcona almonds · brioche toast
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— The TERROIR Editorial Desk
Producer Spotlight
Lilbert-Fils
A house you’ve probably never heard of
A 3.5-hectare grower-Champagne house in Cramant, run by the same family since 1746. They make 30,000 bottles a year — less than most large-house Champagnes spill in a single tasting. And the wine is some of the most precise Blanc de Blancs in Champagne.
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