Bojalien 2017

Domain des Grottes, Beaujolais, Monday 4 April 2017

*

Thanks to Romaine and Perrine and for ALL THE WINE

Acid-clarity wines

Babass the band

J-P and a drunk me

  
                                                                             Romain 

 All in it together

Again

For the cuvée 

Making the new cuvée (yes, from the leftovers)

Bottling

Corking

Labelling

I've had worse

Big format

\m/

We started our Dive week drunk after visiting Laurent Lebled (A la vôtre!)

Starting with the obvious: you shouldn’t turn up to a wine fair drunk. And if you do, and you’re also late, like, only have an hour before it’s all finished-late, you shouldn’t start on John Wurdeman's wines — not because they're John's of course, (read about our visit to Pheasant's Tears winery in Signagi) but because they're Georgian; and how you might actually want to be able to taste other wines after that don't happen to be Georgian. 

We learn. 

Also what should have been obvious was that 99% of winemakers in the Loire would be at La Dive during La Dive or otherwise with their friends or importers and you, being neither friend nor importer, should therefore not bother emailing to ask for a visit. Except we did and, worse, they said yes and, worst still, we had to cancel because we, ok, me, had gotten the dates wrong, ok, had used last year’s dates and had thus delivered us directly unto their junk box except for the one who said sure, anytime. And this is how we met Laurent Lebled (A la vôtre!) and we figured we’d better meet early because we had a fair to go to later and all except that when we left we left late and drunk and then started drinking Georgian wine. But let’s begin at the beginning which was 10 o’clock.

We drive to Savigny-en-Véron (western part of AC Chinon) from Saumur straining for the telltale signs of a winery rather than listening to Google. Not committing fully to whatever your navigation system requires of you is something I generally advise against, but in the past we’ve been sent up too many driveways belonging definitely not to wineries but to people definitely annoyed at having to always send people away. So nowadays we check. And, check: an otherwise unidentifiable piece of land next to a shuttered mansion with a barn stacked with red crates. Arrivé.

Laurent is as friendly looking as his etiquettes (one of them being him), and I’m struck again by how comprehensively and not at all awkwardly the French are able to communicate without you speaking the language they do. Their hand gestures, half sounds and eye twinks are so evolved that they can carry across the message no sweat even when their words are algebra to you or worse, French. But as magical as communicating sans words can be, I’m grateful that Charles was there because Charles spoke English and about wine in English (Charles helped Laurent with the 2015 vintage — hey Charles!)

And so to the wines and first, the Juicy Fruit gum exotic Sauvignon Blanc 2016 "La Sauvignonne”, left sitting in a fibre glass tank on its lees until bottling mid March. Granny Smith drips on your chin juices and a squeeze of citrus fresh without a trace of the grape’s varietal flavours (hoorah! Nope, not a fan) — banished, Laurent tells us, by the long maceration period: 8 days, whole cluster carbonic maceration: unusual, Laurent tells us, not only in the Loire but for white wine in general. 

Next up is a bone dry, stream clear 2016 Menu Pineau: de-stemmed to de-bitter, racked and pressed with a wooden paddle after 7 days a-macertain’. Laurent explains this is the first time he’s bothered to de-stem as well as the first time he’s used the paddle, and by his half sounds and full smiles you can tell that he’s pleased as pie with the result. This is true for later, too, when we try the (bottled) 2015 Menu Pineau pet nat: equally dry but now a concentrated herby nectar like those Alpine cough drops with mountain scenes on the box plus porcelain-fine bubbles. Left covered and sealed in the tank without interference and bottled without disgorgement, Laurent’s pride bubbles as the bottle explodes into our glasses and Charles tells us how what he’s learned working here goes against everything he’s been taught at the Loire Ecole du Vin. The pet nat will be released 2018.

(After this came the 16 Cab Franc "On Est Su l' Sable" but all I have is, ‘Raspberry, pepper plus stalks. Hard to get stems to mature = green taste. Too cold').

The 2016 Gamay "Ça C'est Bon!” is a meaty Gamay. Rustic rather than fruity. Dry. Folded laundry fresh. Frothing and furious in its (also) fibreglass tank, happy-gassy (gas protects the wine) and murky (because of a storm; it had been clear last week). It battled its way through 21 days maceration in a concrete tank with chestnut slats at the bottom, in place to separate the juice from the skins but also to kick start the fermentation — laden as they are with a whole forest of family trees of yeasts. 

This, we’re told, is an old beaujolais method that Laurent learned from the book he read when starting out in 2010. As in, the 2010 seven years ago when he started from scratch and read a book because he was a wood merchant not a winemaker and was all of a sudden buying a parcel of land in the Touraine finding a chai and making wine with the help of his friend Patrick Corbineau and Sébastian Bobinet like it was all no big deal. To him. I remain impressed. Impressed I also remain with the rabbit rillet Laurent ‘round about now put on the table. Best rillet ever or maybe rillet just really comes into its own in Loire wine cellars after drinking on no breakfast. 

Next we start drinking from bottles. My notes:

— ’15 Sauvignon "La Sauvignonne": amber block with insects in golden, super cider dry, cold apple crunch, saline, slight mouse. Spit out first sip to lower pH level in mouth so next sip doesn't taste so mouse.

— ’15 Gamay "Ça C'est Bon!”: ripe: can take a bite out of it.

— ’15 Cabernet Franc "On Est Su l' Sable": supple, strawberries.

— ’14 Cab Franc “Les Picasses": earth, rocks! de-stemmed, no carbonic maceration cus doesn’t want the tannins. Left for two years in vat without disturbing or opening tank. Without air, yeasts left to eat dead yeasts and create more aroma, ether and alcohol = adds to complexity. Not on market.

— ’15 Menu Pineau pet nat: see above

On our way out we saluted the spider webs.

'Baliverne' 2015, Deboutbertin

There must be countless good stories that start 'on our way to Dive' and this one does too (and doesn't start with our turning up to Dive drunk, like this one does the time we visited Laurent Lebled). It was on our way to the Dive that we stopped at Les Becs à Vin in Orléans around 8 and drank a bottle of Deboutbertin. I remember the time because I remember thinking 'How civilised' to manage to drive to France and be round abouts were you need to be round abouts drinking time, and I remember the wine because it needed time to open and we still needed time to drive so we corked it and took it with us and it rolled around under our feet in the car all week. So we did what any civilised person would do in as civilised a country as France and took it with us when we stopped back at Les Becs à Vin for lunch 5 days later and asked if we could finish it where we started it. 

The guy at the bar said sure, if I can try it too and it had opened and it was delicious and this after a week of wine. It was a Pineau d'Aunis called L'Aunis Étoilé so when I saw the Grolleau this summer I thought it a good way to go.

Grolleau isn't accepted by the AOC as a red wine but who cares about a AOC recognition on a Sunday morning when your mamma's cooking blueberry pancakes in her robe and you wake to the smell of them brown-sticking to the pan and scoot your ass downstairs 'cus you like the the doughy ones that come out first? Or not literally but that's what this wine tastes like.

Tasting notes:

Looks like Welch's Concord grape jam. Smells like Cassis syrup on warm blueberry pancakes with a dollop of vanilla cream. Flavours on the palate echo the nose, starting as poppy blueberry juice with a fermenting fruit fizziness (no actual fizz but the feeling of fizz, or is it fuzz?) to open to supple meaty blueberry leather that I also find in Georgian red wines. Clean, very mineral (schist), smooth medium body. 

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'Baliverne' 2015

Deboutbertin

Grolleau Noir

Faye d'Anjou, Loire

'Groll n'Roll' 2015 by Babass rules

It’s March. This means you’ve had about one month to stick to your New Year resolution(s) adjusted for the time it takes to actually start acting with any resolution as well as the time it takes for that resolve to die, bringing us up, as I said, to March. Christians know all about this so invented lent*, and I know all about it because I know that I think I started the year with three, have forgotten two and don’t practice the third. So I’m starting again.

I hereby resolve to give wine more time before I drink it. So it opens. Coughs up the courage to sing. Fuck just singing; let’s make it DANCE hips swinging hair down low to the ground change the track half way through no fade and everyone’s going whaat and dude, what the fuck man but then they’re laughing and grooving and smiling and everything’s back to ok.

Because seriously, it’s too often that I go OH this is getting interesting 'round about the time it’s also getting finished due to the mathematical rules that apply to two people drinking one bottle of wine and by now it’s your last glass and it’s also your best glass and now it’s gone and that’s sad — I get that — but let’s just for a moment come out of the body, open our minds, and try to imagine what life would be where every glass was at its best and by this I mean just ready and you thinking about 15, ok, 10, minutes ahead of the time you know you’re absolutely going to be too thirsty to live.

Tasting notes:

Resolution inspired by drinking Sebastian Dervieux's (so, Babass') "Groll n’Roll" on a roll (so, two): a Grolleau which, when open, smells like dew on grass and violets and reminds you of that micro bubble, fig, wet grass and laurel flavoured, dark-hue kombucha you buy every weekend at the organic-or-die market from the guy with the golden beard and his old Russian kvass cart mainly because you heard it's good for you but to your friends you say it's because you’re hooked on that deep earth / tea / smokey incense kick sensation and how taking a sip takes you back to before you lived in California and somewhere with bramble hedgerows and seasons and the smell of leaves crunching underfoot and blackberry picking blue stained fingernails and somehow, also, watermelon: big sugary bites over the grass spit out the pits and talking about pits, what about DATES or maybe prunes, dry wrinkled withered heads and sticky condensed deep-sweet. (But which, when closed, tastes like green strawberry tops). 

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"Groll n'Roll" 2015

Les Vignes de Babass

Grolleau

St Lambert du Lattay, Loire

*I know, I know, 'not'.

'Blanc' 2013, Andrea Calek

For those who think it’s the journey that counts, here’s what my white wine drinking journey up until roughly last week looked like:

Stole wine lighter fluid off the cart left in corridor at school for parents event, drank wine lighter fluid, got drunk, repeated, associated all white wine with either lighter fluid or paint stripper (variety!), swore I'd never drink it again, graduated, decided Riesling was the only way forward if the way forward had to be white which it seemed to be because girls seemed to only drink white, graduated, Riesling got sweet, no more Riesling, made friends that drank beer i.e. boys i.e. only drank beer, graduated, moved to Amsterdam, they drink a lot of beer here, learned to love oysters, made an exception and would drink tiny glasses of white wine only if ice cold and only if eating oysters >>> 2014: learned the difference between Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc but wasn't interested in either but Chardonnay was worse >> 2015: went to the Jura, had Savagnin, thought wow, this with OYSTERS, tried Jura Chardonnay, thought DIAMONDS, returned, got told, 'your wine's natural', didn’t pay much attention and just drank the wine, started paying attention, started associating wild, cloudy, juicy white wines with natural wines, started drinking white wines if they were wild and cloudy and juicy or Savagnin or Axel Prüfer, talked a lot about Prüfer, happened to drink La Stoppa's Ageno while I happened to be in Milan, got back from Milan, it got warmer, drank a lot of Sylvain Saux on the balcony in the sun, heard for the first time about skin contact, thought about Ageno, drank a lot of Nestarec and Meinklang and had a wonderful summer, made my first wine list, put Prüfer and Saux and Nestarec and La Stoppa on it, went to Friuli, picked grapes, came back sick of skin contact, drank a 2010 Sebastian Riffault Auksinis, returned from the dead thirsty, fast >>>>>>>>>> forward >>>>>>>>> 2017, February, La Dive, Robinot >> last week, Federico: ‘Let’s open the Andrea Calek "Blanc" 2013', me: ‘I don’t really like white wine…’

Tasting notes: 

Lush, creamed honey and tangy beeswax that keeps your mouth coated like those tight leather lady driving gloves. Sun-washed warm and tropical, white flowers whiffed in the dark on a hot summer night. Layered and structured like scaffolding. Ever evolving. 

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"Blanc" 2013

Andrea Calek

70 % Viognier, 30% Chardonnay

Alba la romaine, Ardeche

More vin du Calek.

Dirty Bird NYC has a secret natural wine bar called Verre de Terre and it's cheap AND good

I’m gonna tell you what Eban told me: There's a secret wine bar in a chicken place called Dirty Bird. Who’s Eban? Eban's Eban Lillie from Chambers Street Wines and he does the wines at Dirty Bird which is not actually Dirty Bird but Verre de Terre which is at Dirty Bird. Eban — actually I couldn’t tell you any more about Eban. I maybe kinda definitely sorta stopped listening after the words ‘cheap wine and chicken’.

Cheap natural (organic and biodynamic) wine and chicken. Like, in New York. New York, like where every glass you take is going to set you back 16,17,18 dollars no tip. Trust me, I have a tonne of receipts I exchanged for tonnes of money. We'd spent our day balanced on barstools, our backs and bank accounts at breaking point. Cheap wine and chicken sounded like a great idea.

And I'm sure that for many, the straight up finger lickin’ mop it all up with a tonne of napkins, free range, free of antibiotics, veggie-fed, rotisserie organic chicken is what this place is all about. The neighbourhood go-to with a to-go. But with glasses starting at $8 and bottles at $20, might I also suggest a gazillion side orders of perfectly chilled strawberry juice 2015 "La Gravotte" Clos Tue du Boeuf (spring rain on soil, smashed in half pomegranate and cooling herbs) closely followed a side of Nicolas Carmarans’ 2015 "Mauvais Temps" (heavily perfumed, herbal, animal musk, spice, smoke and cherries rotting on the forest floor) not only because you can, but because they're fucking brilliant?

Oh, and ask for the spicy mayo.

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What: La Gravotte 2015

Where: Clos Tue du Boeuf, Cheverny, Loire

Grape: Pinot Noir

What: Mauvais Temps 2015

Where: Nico Carmarans, Aveyron, SW France

Grapes: Fer Servadou, Cabernet Franc, Côt 

From: Verre de Terre @ Dirty Bird @ 204 W. 14 Street 

We went to 5 natural wine bars in New York and drank 13 wines. Here are my notes

         

December 27, 21.30, New York. 

Have been drinking all day except at lunch when we were eating — Katz’s — but first we did Brooklyn and very first: Diner. Perched at counter, coats off, global warming shock warm remember this is December. Chicken soup for our souls and a white Burgundy I’m promised don’t taste classic but does. Fresh, clean, whatever. Free re-fill of $16 glass like it’s coffee for that diner feelin’ or flirting. Both good. Next is litre bottle orange “Vino Bianco” 2015 by Cantina Giardino (Coda di Volpe + Greco fermented on the skins for 10 days then aged in chestnut casks) which is sage and honeysuckle and apricot. Very easy, a little toasty and 100% juicy. Did I mention litre bottle?

Next up: next door. This is the first of two pairs of bars we visited serving only natural wines next to each other. This is civilisation. Step into Marlow & Sons or step into upstate New York rustic cabin wine bar with all natural list (does this exist???), pine boughs hanging, smelling, gloom-lit and candlelight and the difference is the same. This is how it feels here, ‘here’ being New York not upstate. This is civilisation. Taste-sips down the list and we think ‘how cool’ they have their own ‘Marlow’ wine. This is every year from someone different and this year an unfiltered, fragrant, slightly oxidised 2015 Romorantin by Hervé Vilimade all canary yellow wax topped 1.5l of it with label drawn by Andrew Tarlow, cookbook writer Dinner at the Long Table and owner. Order a dozen Bird Island oysters that taste like Rhode Island big gulp of the Atlantic and drink juicy, slightly spicy Grolleau (“Grappe Full” 2015 by Adrien Baloche from the Auvergne). Small, tart wild-picked cherries. Smashable

Lunch break.

It’s 16.30 not yet 17.00 so it’s the Ten Bells via Chambers Street Wines and we’re kids in a candy store when kids still liked candy more than their iPhones. We are three and we buy a 2012 “Saulétas" Sancerre (bright, sweet and deep, thank you always Sèbastian Riffault); “Calico” 2015 by Vignenvie Collective (earthy, citrusy but lacking anything bright), a 50 strong collective preserving vines in Charnay, Beaujolais; Mariam Iosebidze's 2015 "Tavkevri" (a girl!!) from Georgia (notes) and "Torre Nova" 2015 by Del Prete (notes). Guy helping us is called Eban. Eben tells us to go to a place called Dirty Bird. Eben prints out wine list for Dirty Bird. 

Time for Ten Bells and for sitting. Wrap around bar wrapped round Sev Perru is full at 18.00 so we sit in the corner where the empty magnums are kept. Could be worse. Place is dark with corners and candlelight. I taste the “Ploussard de l’ami ami Karl” 2015 (Domaine de la Pinte) and decide instead (sorry Karl) on “Cardamine" 2014 by Les Herbes Folles (Grenache) which is flamboyant: jammy (cherry), luscious and Grenache intense-spicy. A black eye bruiser for sure. To my right sips an aromatic, flinty 2015 Georgian qvevri orange, “Kisi” from Do Ré Mi, and on my left Domaine Binner's 2014 Gewurztraiminer Pinot Gris which tastes like roses. Then lastly a glass of something American  for the road (“Jambalaia” 2015 by La Clarine Farm: 59 % Mourvedre, 21 % Marsanne, 15% Grenache + Syrah) that was zippy, zesty, crisp and juicy and remarkable for the way it honest to god smelled like Florida red grapefruit  and tasted 'French' despite being from California. And then we go to Contra.

Contra. Contra is next to Wildair making this the second pair of couples. Wildair looks like to drink you must also eat so we sit at the hallway bar of Contra and are greeted by a fierce cocktail shaking lady that talks a soft ‘y’all’. Colour scheme is grey or shades of silver and concept clean, minimal, cool, cocktails. Mostly cocktails actually and why not when a Negroni costs the same ($16) as my (stemless) glass of resinous green twist nervy “Gamay Aunis” 2015 (Jean-Christophe Garnier, Gamay). Friend to my left is drinking “La Pierre aux Chiens" 2015, a tobacco leaf sweet leather raspberry Pinot Noir by Christian Venier, and on my right “Matassa Blanc” 2014, Domaine Matassa (Grenache Gris, Maccabeu): Sicilian lemons plus skin + pith.

As I said we skipped Wildair because we had Dirty Bird which is to say a whole free range organic rotisserie chicken with hot sauce and hotter mayonnaise, three sides, a wonderful waitress and two awesome bottles of wine ("Mauvais Temps" by Nicolas Carmarans and "La Gravotte", Clos du Tue Boeuf) each at $60 which is to say CHEAP which is the whole concept: chicken and cheap natural wine. Talk about civilisation (but read about it, and the wines, here).

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In short:

Vino Bianco 2015, Cantina Giardino, Campania — sage, honeysuckle, apricot

Romorantin 2015, Hervé Vilimade, Cour-Cheverny — unfiltered, fragrant, slightly oxidised

Grappe Full 2015, Adrien Baloche, Auvergne — tart wild-picked cherries

Saulétas Sancerre 2012, Sébastian Riffault, Loire — bright, sweet, deep

Calico 2015, Vignenvie Collective, Charnay — earthy, citrusy, lacking something bright 

Tavkeri 2015, Mariam Iosebidze, Georgia — teeth-suck tart, herbs

Torre Nova 2015, Del Prete, Salento — Haribo cherries

Ploussard de l’ami ami Karl 2015, Domaine de la Pinte, Jura — blood orange, rhubarb, pepper

Cardamine 2014, Les Herbes Folles, Languedoc — jammy (cherry), luscious, Grenache intense-spicy

Kisi 2015, Do Ré Mi, Samegrelo, Georgia — aromatic, flinty, apricots

Jambalaia 2015, La Clarine Farm, Sierra foothills, USA — zip, zest, ruby red grapefruit

Gamay Aunis 2015, Jean-Christophe Garnier, Anjou — resinous, green twist, nervy

La Pierre aux Chiens 2015, Christian Venier, Touraine — tobacco leaf, sweet leather, raspberry

Matassa Blanc 2014, Domaine Matassa, Roussillon — Sicilian lemons, skin, pith

Mauvais Temps 2015, Nicolas Carmarans, Aveyron — smoke, spice, animal musk
La Gravotte 2015, Clos du Tue Boeuf, Loire — spring rain on soil, smashed pomegranate, cooling herbs  

Georgian girl power = Georgian power wines | Mariam Iosebidze "Tavkveri" 2015

We were in New York and asked the guys at Chambers Street Wines for something volatile, read: a little weird. This being New York and this being Chambers Street Wines, the guys gave us a qveri buried Tavkveri from Georgia, Georgia ("Tavkveri" 2015 from a Mariam Iosebidze which makes her a girl, which makes her one of very few girls in Georgia making wine) and it was tart as hell. Tart like the sides of your mouth go TING tequila lemon tart or teeth-ache cranberries not yet cooked, tart. 

Tasting notes:

Barn on the nose, Ploussard punch pink on the eye, bruised laurel in your mortar and your vitamin C fix of cranberries and red currents in the mouth plus chewing gum chewy tannins besides. Read: an austere little thing and, New England winter inside sitting considering and not outside hot Georgian summer let’s say grilling, a little too strict though certainly intriguing but let's get to the point shall we: quickly emptied.

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Mariam Iosebidze
"Tavkveri" 2015

Tavkveri

Kartli, Georgia

From: Chamber Street Wines, NYC

Andrea Calek "A Toi Nous" 2015 tastes like a supernova

Andrea Calek’s 2015 "A Toi Nous" is a 750ml s u p e r nova all speed»»»»» and motion and we hooked it down out of the bottle dancing to hard tek. This I know rhymes (tek-Calek) but is also honest true.

It was 22 October and we’d finished up the last drop of Riffault eating salty skinned meats with Frederico sitting in his store and talking talking because some wines are for sitting down and talking, some for thinking and others for fighting. The Calek was for the road and for !f i g h t i n g! which is how you look with hard tek dancing but also for hydration. 

Calek I have read started his domaine in the Ardèche in 2007 close to and because of Gerald Oustric and lives in his mobile home next to his vineyards which people seem to like writing about probably for the same or similar reason I choose to write about the time we gulp-gulped his juice behind a five high stacked sound system powered by a generator pulled by a tractor driven by squatters rather than the time we drank it nice-nice on the couch, which happened too but we were talking about his 2015 A Toi Nous, namely whole clusters of low alcohol select Syrah + Grenache grapes short time @ low temp a-macerated and later foot-stamped. Two bottlings (December 2015, June 2016), unfiltered and no SO2. Colour of sun shining through a ruby-red, tastes 🌀🌀crazy juicy alive and j a m doughnut jammy of tangy, stick-to-sides-of-your-mouth cherry.

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Andrea Calek
"A Tois Nous" 2015

70% Syrah + 30% Grenache

Alba-la-Romaine, Ardèche

More vin du Calek.

Baptiste Cousin "Marie Rose" 2015

Even on a root day drinking Baptiste Cousin’s wines makes me feel like it’s my birthday. They’re d i s c o wines: fun, foot  l o o s e and fancy free, skip the Kool-Aid and Acid Test these juice b.o.m.b.s best drunk out of cups bikinied or, better: not actually in a bikini because let’s face it; push comes to shove and most people feel better not worrying about what’s wiggling but in XXL shirts and their geography teacher's hiking socks. But you get the vibe I’m going for.

Baptiste works in the Loire and makes this wine with the native Grolleau which is great news as far as someone who pretty much only drinks neon strawberry wines cold from the fridge is concerned. Other good news is he works without sulphites, works with horses like his outlaw dad from whom he bought his vines, has dreads / is handsome and makes a SUPER FUN Grolleau Gris pét nat called "Puppet Nat" that I can personally attest to being perfect to celebrate the first time you’ve skated on natural ice slash ever really skated. And so you see, bikini not always necessary.

Tasting notes: 

Pale rose petal rosé pink in your glass on your eyes but there's also something rosy in the mouth zone too. Like the herby, woody bowls of potpourri mom puts on the window sills to collect dust, or how those raw liquorice bars with pandas on them that look better for you but are still liquorice bars smell. But in a good way. Anyway, by now you’re on your third, fourth sip n' golly gone and changed your mind sir, because why no, sir, this isn’t as ABC a wine as you first thought, sir. It’s light, sure, juicy, sure, but there's nuance and layering and texture and gravity and it coats your tongue like velcro or at any rate a Bourgogne. In a good way. **

** and this was on a root day.

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Baptiste Cousin
"Marie Rose" 2015

Grolleau Gris

Martigné-Briand, Loire

Julien Meyer "Les Pierres Chaudes" 2015

We were drunk and still drinking and talking about name dropping and I said, ‘Meyer, why do people talk about Julien Meyer?’ What happened next is we knocked back his 'Les Pierres Chaudes' Pinot Noir in about 3.8 minutes and now that I’m thinking about how to describe it I keep coming back to heavy velvet wizard cloaks and Patagonia night skies. To gravity and potential and mushroom-seeking boars’ hair caught on bramble bushes fallen to the mossy forest floor. To the electricity running ‘tsk’ through those electric tennis rackets of death used to zap flies, to shadow play and the

M   i  l  k  y     W  a  y.

Tasting notes:

Small wild berries growing with midnight plums in the tangly bramble undergrowth that's taken over a magical mystical garden somewhere elsewhere and shot through with comet-bright acidity and all that in your glass because this is wine even if it doesn’t sound like it and I know it doesn’t, I get it, I let it not, but who cares ‘cus seriously HOW GREAT DOES WINE SOUND WHEN YOU'RE NOT OBVIOUSLY TALKING ABOUT WINE?? Les Pierres Chaudes is intense, pure, balanced and water on your face fresh and I think I know why people talk about Meyer.

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Domaine Julien Meyer 2015
"Les Pierres Chaudes"

Pinot Noir

Nothalten, Alsace