LOIRE VALLEY!
New wine is rolling in, this heat is sadly not. Thanks so much for
sticking out these miserably hot days with us.
Quick reminder, tomorrow Monday the 14th Shitty Wine Memes will be
popping up 6-10 to sell some merch, hang out and we've got a special
all German wine list we're going to be pouring.
This week we got a bunch of wine from two of the leading lights in the
early natural world in the Loire Valley, Agnes and Rene Mosse and
Herve Villemade.
Herve took over his family's estate in Cellettes, a town in Cheverny
in the middle Loire in 1995. The area is known for mostly bulk
production wines from Sauvignon Blanc, Gamay and Pinot Noir. When he
took over he had just befriended fellow young vigneron Thierry
Puzelat, and had discovered the wines of Marcel Lapierre in Beaujolais
(which we also just received). When he started vinifying his own wines
Herve found them to be boring and lifeless, a far cry from the wines
he was falling in love with. Having a relatively large estate to
experiment with and with the help of his new friend he started playing
with low and no sulfur cuvees, and in 2000 he started converting all
his vineyard to organic farming.While most of the estate is still
comprised of the basic varieties of the region I've always felt that
there are very few winemakers in all of france whio make wines of such
honesty. They are always transparent expression of their variety, and
the light chalkiness of the Loire (the Gamay for instance could never
be mistaken for a Beaujolais). In addition Herve owns a few small
plots in Cour-Cheverny, a tiny appellation that only grows the rare
Romorantin grape. In most years Herve bottles two cuvees of this
remarkable grape by vineyard, "Les Châtaigniers" and the old vine "Les
Acacias" but in 2021, the year we received, frost damaged most of his
crop and he was only able to bottle a single cuvee. Romorantin is a
beautiful, high acid, textural wine capable of aging for years and
years, similar to Chenin Blanc. We also grabbed a pet-nat from chenin
blanc the "bulle blanche", the basic cheverny blanc and cheverny
rouge, a mix of chardonnay and sauvignon blanc and pinot noir and
gamay respectively. Then there's the rose, made from the same fruit as
the rouge, a basic sauvignon blanc and the Bovin, which are liters of
gamay. Again, these are wines I could have anyone drink if they asked
what natural wine was. They are pure, still priced like wine should
be, and meant to be drank.
About two hours west of Cellettes, in Anjou, about the time Herve was
beginning to beginning to convert his vineyards, Agnes and Rene Mosse
purchased their first small plot of land and started attending the
Oenology school in Amboise where they studied under Thierry Puzelat
and the legendary Christian Chaussard (RIP). If France, as opposed to
the states, making wine requires some form of formal education and
there's a great number of small schools that specialize in this. Most
are formalized, simpler formats that go overview basic scientific and
farming concepts, with an emphasis on cleanliness and standardization.
Some, however, like Amboise, are staffed by radical winemakers. The
crop of people taught by Thierry and Christian was one of the reasons
that the Loire valley became the hotspot for European natural wines.
While Herve has always had his family's history and the history of the
region to respect, and thus kept in the Cheverny appellation, Agnes
and Rene bristled under the regulations and restrictions and left the
appellation system almost immediately, choosing to make almost
exclusively Vin de France wines, which gives them much more room to
experiment, and to use many of the indigenous grapes (grolleau, pineau
d'aunis, cot) that aren't permitted in the AOC, and the wines have
always had a brilliant experimental flair to them, especially for a
region known mainly for sucking all the life out of chenin blanc. We
received a true mix of wine from the Mosse family, starting with a
single case of their legendary pet-nat, Moussamoussettes a mix of
Pineau d'Aunis and Grolleau. It's brilliant and highly allocated. Next
is the unclassifiable "Combo", a mix of 20% cabernet franc and skin
contact muscat. It's perhaps an orange wine, perhaps a rose. We love
it, but it's not going to be for everyone. Next are two wines that
really exemplify the spirit of what the Mosse is trying to do, field
blends of loire varieties that have been deemed too commercially
un-viable by the appellation. The red, Bisou is 30% Grolleau Noir, 20%
Pineau d'Aunis, 10% Côt, 10% Grolleau Gris, and 10% Gamay. The white,
the Magic of JuJu is 40% Chenin, 30% Sauvignon, and 30% Muscadelle.
Both wines are wild, spicy wines. The last is their basic Chenin
blanc, which is from the first four plots of grapes they planted
themselves in 2000. This is a wine that used to be classified as an
anjou wine and still could be, but the displeasure is so great that
they have opted for the VDF on almist every wine (the one exception is
their Savennières "Arena", which is from a very historic vineyard).
Anyway, I could go on and on about these two producers, but honestly I
hope y'all get to try some. In our era where this has become very
trendy it's good to return to the roots.
Also, since the cellar keeps expanding and there's definitely wines I
haven't talked about soif there's anything you'd like me to focus on
or if there's a wine you know nothing about just let me know and I'll
include it in the next few weeks.
Until next time,
Cory