Tasting wine: 8-16 July, 2022

Vinyer de la Ruca »Silvano«, 2019: marvellous, deeply moving and utterly delicious. At first, when we smelled it, this Grenache reminded us of old plums, a ›Rumtopf‹, fruit in rum. Deep, all-consuming. Strong! Next to it: one of two beautiful mouth-blown »Universal« wine glasses by Josephinenhütte which I gave Thomas as a present on the evening of my arrival (I broke one later, of course). »Silvano« is a song by Enzo Jannacci to which the drinker of this wine should listen to, says the small print at the bottom. »Amani e sgonfiami« translates as »Love me and deflate me« and is taken from »Silvano«

»The work is agricultural, elementary, almost spontaneous. Everything is done by hand. No fuels, no machines. Treading by female dancers. Nothing that filters, concentrates, is added. 743 bottles. Manuel di Vecchi Staraz. Since 2006«, is what the upper part reads. The treading of the wine by »danseuses« is a sort of feminist statement. In the olden days women were forbidden to enter the wine cellar when they had their period. The »Saltimbanco à Banyuls-sur-Mer« might mean that Manuel has been doing somersaults since his arrival in 2006. »Quelle che… Kikko Pesci«? I’ve got no idea. »Oplà«? Does that mean »oops«? I hope I get to ask di Vecchi Staraz one day

»Ma misi per l’alto mare aperto« is a quote taken from Dante’s poem »Divine Comedy«, from the first part called »Inferno«, and translates as »But I went to the high open sea«. »Ιθάκη« is the name of a Greek island, it being the final destination of Odysseus (thank you for that, Vasili!)

Les Roches, »Chenin«, 2010: an incredible wine with an opulent nose that reminded us of both honey and truffles. Slim on the palate, long finish. What remains is a fine aftertaste of naturally cloudy apple juice. Out of this world. It still tasted nice on day three but had aged considerably, obviously. See this entry for more info about this intriguing domaine

Peaux Rouges »Red Neck«, 2019: Thomas’s friend Benjamin Nerot invited us to an intimate Sunday-noon-tasting at his friend’s Jean-Guillaume Caplan’s winery Peaux Rouges in Monthou-sur-Cher

Peaux Rouges »San José«

Peaux Rouges »Little Big Wine«, 2020

Peaux Rouge »Côt Boy«, 2020: Puns seem to be as popular in the world of natural wines as they are in the world of hairdressers (the latter applies to Germany AND France, by the way). This is perhaps one of the better ones. ›Côt‹ is a grape variety, of course

Peaux Rouges »Paw ! Paw !«: The interesting thing here is that the space in front of the exclamation mark is not a mistake but the usual French way of placing it

Peaux Rouges »L’Été Indien«

Peaux Rouges »Vos geules les p’tites putes !«: A wine made for a series of paintings of the same name by Marine Luszpinski

Bonnet-Huteau »Plant B«, 2021: a great new Muscadet discovery, this domaine. Their Folle Blanche is very »frais et tonique«, just like it says on the back label

Thomas Puéchavy »Le Rayon Blanc«, 2020: It’s always to taste your own wines. Now, this wine is not my wine but Thomas’s. But as I help him from time to time and am also his agent for certain markets, I consider this to be my wine as well. Partly! The label you see is a misprint and features both the front and the back label. I was present when the labeling machine went berserk. I love the result! The wine? Stellar

Benjamin Nerot: I can’t tell you the name of this wine. Also also: We didn’t drink it. I took the photo to show you what a gifted artist Benjamin Nerot is. For this cuvée of his he designed a few hundred labels, all drawn by hand and referencing favourite songs of his. Speaking of songs: He mainly is a musician – as The Healthy Boy, EZ3KiEL and Transmission

Benjamin Nerot: a Gamay from a few years ago, no label. Ben used to work for Julien Pineau and got to make this wine from ungrafted Gamay grapes (›Frank de Pied‹ is the technical term for that) which grew in the legendary Clos Roche Blanche. Stunning!

Bonnet-Huteau »Medolia«, 2019: a Melon de Bourgogne from Muscadet that blew my mind. Raised in earthen eggs

Les Vignes des Babass »Au Bon Secours«, 2019: another label designed by Benjamin Nerot. What a great painter he is! It was a magnum bottle that he brought from his cellar, and we consumed quite a bit of it. A very solid Cabernet Franc

Cosmic Vinyaters »Valentia«, 2020: a biodynamically grown Carignan Blanc from Northern Catalonia, fermented in amphorae. The back label says that the winemaker Salvador Battle Barrabeig »works with sacred geometry«. We loved its bitterness! Like the wine from Vinyer de la Ruca mentioned above I had bought it to surprise Thomas, who is friends with the winemaker, and to taste with him wines mentioned on the fantastic book »Es brutal !« by Romain Cole which I have covered twice on my blog. Unfortunately, on day two, the wine had lost its appeal completely. Oh well!

Domaine Tessier »Cour-Cheverny«, 2020: Yes! Romorantin is a slightly obscure grape variety that I love for its honey-thyme flavour, acidity and body. Domaine Tessier is now being run by Simon, the son of Phillipe, and he definitely knows how to raise his vines and how to vinify (in this case in beton and inox tanks). Outstanding. Even better on days two and three

Domaine Yoyo »Akoibon«, 2020: great! 60% Grenache, 40% Mourvèdre. The Mourvèdre vines are both young (I don’t know how many years) and old (100 years, the back label said). The Grenache? 30 years young. The vineyard has been horse-ploughed. Ten days of carbonic maceration after cold stabilization, followed by a six-month-aging in barrique after pressing. Soft and strong at the same time. I could make out a chocolaty taste. A wine from the South, again from Banyuls-sur-Mer, part of my »Wines from Catalonia« tasting series, but very lean and active. Day two and three showed a quite strong mouse taste but we didn’t mind. It was an amazing wine nevertheless

Ab Initio »Illico», 2020: I suprised Thomas with this wine. Ab Initio’s winemaker Emmanuel Roblin is a dear friend of his. Thomas raved about this wine, »fennel, mint, rhubarb, The South, wow, deep, incredible!«. It is made out of 95% Grenache and 5% Syrah grapes. It’s a serious, extremely deep and soulful wine, not too far away from Vinyer de la Ruca’s »Silvano«, see above. It was raised in stainless steel vats, i.e. Inox, for eight months. 1970 bottles only. And wait until you’ve tasted the same wine raised in amphorae (it’s called »Kedron«). Ab Initio’s wines certainly are amongst the most fantastic wines I’ve had this year. And yes, I do represent them as an agent but that doesn’t mean anything

Maxime Magnon »Métisse«, 2021: a southern rosé from Corbières made out of Grenache grapes with a pronounced strawberry candy taste. I was missing a bit of tension

Partida Creus »SP«, 2019: SP stands for Subirat Parent, the rare white grape variety of this wine from Catalonia. We all liked it and didn’t mind the abrupt finish. Anne-Cécile explained that white grape varieties lack tannins which often leads to a slightly short echo (that’s why Chenin Blanc is so great, it being the white grape variety with the most tannins)

Domaine Perrault-Jadaud »Macération de Chenin«, 2017: I’m a sucker for Chenin blanc macerations and this was a brilliant example of how interesting, tannine-rich and fulfilling such a maceration can be. I loved the lemon zest note! To cut a long story short: This cuvée was an accident and had been forgotten in the cellar, Anne-Cécile Jadaud told us during our barbecue

Domaine Lajibe »Serres-Seques«, 2020: a Juraçon Gros Manseng, only my second ever. We mistook it for a Chenin Blanc at first. One of my favourite wines of this July series of tastings

Domaine de l’Oubliée »Tenue de Soirée«, 2019: dense, almost like a concentrate. An incredible wine from Xavier Courant (see the other entry below)

Curtet »Frisson des Cîmes«, 2019: I met Marie Curtet at Julien Pineau’s open house in May of this year. Together with her husband Florian she makes wine in Savoie. This light but nuanced wine was made out of 50% Gamay, 40% Mondeuse, and 10% Pinot Noir. Super!

Michel Autran »Cap à l’ouest«, 2019: Michel brought us his most recent release, not available in the shops yet, his new pét nat. Put into bottles on 30 October, 2019, disgorged on 4 April, 2022. He’s a neighbour and friend of Thomas’s, someone whom he can asksfor advice and someone with whom he’s shared a team of harvester also. I mean, what can you say… he makes fantastic wines and this is no excecption. It had been opened on Monday and was still going strong when we had it on Thursday. »Am I the first person from Berlin to taste this wine?«, I asked Michel. »No! That was Jeff from Rocket Wine!«

Anne-Cécile Jadaud »Charivari«, 2021: I represent Anne-Cécile as an agent for Germany and her wines are doing great there. You can find an interview with her here

Terra Vita Vinum »Terre de 3«: Bénédicte Petit and Lucy Briand make lovely wines. They are based in Mozé-sur-Louet, near Anjou. The élevage of this non-sulphured ›Anjou Blanc‹ (Chenin Blanc) took two years, »partiellement en barrique« – quite a bit!

Domaine de l’Oubliée »Combien tu m’aimes…«, 2020: one of the winemakers I discovered in May, at the fair at Mélaric’s premises. Xavier Courant is a very nice man and makes very good wines. This one had a dense, dark-chocolate nose. There were hardly any tannins. We all enjoyed it a lot. As it’s a ›Vin de France‹ the name of the grape variety wasn’t stated on the label. So… Michel Autran, with whom we’d been tasting the wine, rang Xavier up. It’s a Cabernet Franc, of course. We guessed right. Michel asked Xavier about the names for his cuvées, they are all references to the movies of Bertrand Blier. He couldn’t reach him to ask for permission so just went ahead. A while later, totally out of the blue, Blier called to say he had seen the wines in a shop and thought they looked great and could he have a bottle each, please? Brilliant!

Bertin-Delatte »Rabatière«, 2021: a Pineau d’Aunis from this winemaker couple from Rablay-sur-Layon, Loire

Bruno Duchéne »Corpo Maltese«, 2020: A slight nose of volatility (as in: nail polish) was about to ruin the experience for me but then I tasted the wine properly and realized how good this was. Extremely vibrant, cherry-like, pronounced tannins, fresh, summery. Phew! Again, this was part of the series of wines I had bought in relation to Romain Cole’s book. Duchéne is based in Banyuls-sur-Mer. A Pinot Noir, as we found out. This is from Duchéne’s négoce business, meaning he didn’t farm the grapes himself but bought them. You can’t tell that these aren’t his grapes by looking at the label which maybe is a bit misleading, isn’t It? Having said that Duchéne has vinified the wine in a way that made the Pinot Noir taste very southern

Christian Venier »Le Clos des Carteries«, 2021: a fabulous Cheverny blend of Gamay and Pinot Noir that we all liked a lot. Flowery, superbly balanced. A new favourite!

Philippe Tessier »Phil en bulle«, 2020: »mise en bouteille par Simon Tessier« whom I got to meet in May at Julien Pineau’s event. I’m a huge fan of the wines he is making, now under the name of »Domaine Tessier«. »Something for the parents«, my notes read. Classic, in a way. Round, deep. The first pét nat I’ve had that made out of Romorantin grapes

Nicolas Renard »Cabernet Franc«, 2017: quite sweet, past its prime, unfortunately

Guy Breton »Cuvée Marylou«, 2020: a legendary winemaker from Beaujolais who named this Beaujolais Villages cuvée after his daughter. Member of the so-called Gang of Four (which also included Marcel Lapierre, Jean-Paul Thévenet and Jean Foillard). 100% Gamay, smelling and tasting of Grenadine. A bit too sweet for my taste

Dominique Bellouard »Rousette de Savoie«, 2019: an Altesse (also called Rousette de Savoie, actually) from Ayse, »Terroir du Mont-Blanc«. From a winemaker whom I adore – sadly, he passed away last year. When we poured the wine that is not so easy to get anymore I smelt honey and cinnamon and loved its bitterness. A sparse, mineral wine, an absolute highlight for me. Thomas wanted to know how it was made, this is what I’ve found, scattered over various websites: »Cette cuvée confidentielle met à l’honneur l’altesse, autre cépage savoyard emblématique, pour laquelle Dominique a choisi de jouer la carte de la macération… Pas de levurage (levures indigènes), une fermentation longue (+ de 4 mois), la malo est faite naturellement. Filtration grossière sur terre blanche. Sédiments de glaciers : Strates argilo-calcaire. Exposition sud. Altitude 450m. Age des vignes : 15 ans. Assemblage parcellaire 4hl/ha«

Mosse »Bisou«, 2020: The smell and taste of nail polish remover was overwhelming, at least for Claire and me. Others liked it and found its volatility exactly right. A blend of Grolleau Noir, Grolleau Gris, Gamay and Chenin Blanc