Imanol Garay

One early evening last month, while hanging out at the Auberge de Chassignoles, deep in the Auvergne, I was cheekily handed a glass by my friend Zoe, and told to guess what it was. Upon the first whiff of the nose, Poppy, a New Zealander in residence tending to the Auberge’s garden, and I both immediately guessed it was something from the white Burgundy or Jura zone. Or ... it could of also been a Richard Leroy Chenin, or perhaps a nobly reductive Riesling from someone like Schueller. Nope. Well, it was Riesling, but Riesling from the Spanish Basque country, and then vinified just over the border in the Sud Ouest by a name I had never heard of: Imanol Garay. During my week long stint at the Auberge, Garay’s name kept coming up between both staff and guests, and I got to share a few of his wines, each successive bottle as revelatory as the previous.

Imanol is originally from San Sebastien in the Basque Country, and is someone who provokes strong feelings from the ones who know him. While I missed an appearance by him at the Auberge by just a couple of weeks (apparently he drove a white piano there to play on during his stay), all talk about him invoked deep reactions from anyone who had met him, tried his wines, or both (a quick search for him on Instagram showed nothing but people whose tastes I respect already following him). I get it. Garay works with white grape varietals from France such as Petit Manseng, Petit Courbu, as well as the rare Raffiat de Moncade. He also works with fruit from Spanish Basque Country like Garnacha, Pinot Negra, Graciano, and even Riesling. Garay’s white wines evoke lifted and meditative, vibratory memories of bottles from the Jura, Burgundy, or Alsace, yet at the same time they contain a salty mineral richness that could only come from a more sunkissed land such as the Basque Country or France’s Sud Ouest. In contrast, the reds feel more closer to earth, rooted and rustic, yet still with an ethereal quality that an up top line of balanced acid brings.

I drank and tasted a head-spinning amount of profound juices on my trip to France last month, but Garay’s wines have stayed at the front of my cortex. As those who already know, and were kind enough to share with me, I have zero doubt that Imanol has the touch that we tend to all be after, and I’m excited to be able to offer a small selection of these special bottles now.

Clandestinus 2018
Garnacha / Graciano 
$48



Ixilune 2018
Petit Manseng / Petit Courbu
$66



Ixilune 2020
Raffiat de Moncade / Petit Manseng / Petit Courbu / Riesling
$66



Hegan Egin 2019
(made in collaboration with Alfredo Egia and Gile Iturri)
Petit Manseng / Hondarrabi Zuri
$72