Louis/Dressner Selections is a portfolio of over 60 vignerons fro France, Italy and Portugal. They are a partnership of Denyse Louis, a native Burgundian, Joe Dressner and Kevin McKenna. Collectively, They spend nearly nine months a year in Europe working with their growers and selecting wines for importation to America.

They represent a group of often fanatical growers who are doing their best to make wines that are original because they are honestly crafted. These might seem old-fashioned, but in the present context it is almost revolutionary.

There are no gobs, no exaggerations, no over-this and over-that. They don’t have fruit bombs in their portfolio. Their wines won’t have beet juice in them, they won’t be oaked up with favored artificial wood chips. Their wines will not be 16% alcohol. They won’t have amazing vanilla aromatics induced by some designer yeast. Their wines are natural wines.

They work with growers to produce nation wines that follow several basic principles:

• Wild Yeasts (no cultured yeasts, enzymes or hormones)
• Hand Harvesting
• Low Yields
• Natural Viticulture
• No or Minimal Chaptalization (no added sugar to the must)
• Non-Filtration

Their wines have a sense of origin and varietal character. You can find their wines at Astor Wine & Spirits and Chambers Street in the NYC area.

Every wine labeled as a Louis/Dressner selection has a great story — and is a mark of traditional, natural winemaking — similar to the Good House Keeping seal of approval. Their selections are in the same category as Kermit Lynch and Neal Rosenthal.

I sent Joe Dressner an email asking where I might be able to find more of their wines in the DC area — and he got back to me within an hour. Unfortunately, their wines are not widely available in DC. They can be found, but the best selection is available online.