ZEV ROVINE , LOUIS DRESSNER SELECTIONS

This week courtesy of our friends over at LDM Selections and Zev
Rovine Selections we have some bottles coming from some absolute
benchmark natural wine producers. We're getting very little of these
wines, but they are all very important to us and it was time for a
refresher for me as well. It's a long one, apologies!

Tom Lubbe-Matassa

Tom Lubbe is a New Zealander who was raised in South Africa who ended
up in a tiny town near the border of Spain in the Roussillon. It's not
just any small town though, the town of Calce is the home of Gerard
Gauby, one of France's greatest winemakers who has inspired an entire
generation of fantastic winemakers in the small town. Tom learned from
Gerard, who was a friend of his wine mentor in South Africa. He fell
in love with the town and with Gerard's daughter, and eventually
settled there and opened a small winery. The region specializes in
Catalan varieties, Grenache (gris, blanc and noir), a little known
grenache variety known as Lladonner Pelut, Macabeo, Muscat
d'Alexandrie and Muscat de Petits Grains. Tom works with old vines on
steep slopes, which have the benefit of being cheap because no one
wants to work them, but also they're incredibly hard to work. The
quality of the wines however compared to the flatlands is enormous. We
have 4 cuvees from Tom, in tiny quantities.

The wines:

Matassa Blanc Coume de L'Olla Macabeu, Muscat d’Alexandrie, Muscat a
Petits Grains Blend 2022: This is Tom's basic white cuvee, a classic
Catalan blend. The difficulty with making wines from these grapes is
to pick them at optimal ripeness. Macabeo can tend towards low acidity
and flabbiness if too ripe, and mscat gets floral and overpowers the
rest of the wine. For me this is about as good as it gets in the area,
perfectly balancing acidity and aromatics.

Matassa Blanc Cuvee Marguerite Muscat d’Alexandrie, Muscat a Petits
Grains 2022: this is, to me, one of the great orange wines of the
world. Again with Muscat too much skin contact can make the wine soapy
and floral, but with just the right amount you get to the core of what
muscat can do.

Matassa Rouge Coume de L'Olla Grenache Noir, Grenache Gris, Macabeo
2022: tom's basic red,liek the white this is an elegant expression of
grapes that can be heavy and flabby if treated wrong. Tom was hugely
inspired by Chateau Rayas (which we have a precious few of) and I
consider them both benchmark examples of Grenache, though very
different.

Matassa Vin de France Rouge Brutal Syrah, Muscat Petit Grains 2022: I
don't know this one at all, it's named for Barcelona's famed Bar
Brutal. We have three bottles for the cool kids.

Phillipe Tessier

Phillipe Tessier is among a small handful of folks in the Loire valley
to really make the area one of the early hotspots for the natural wine
movement. The reasons for this are many. When French wine prices
dropped in response to global competition from Argentina, Australia
etc may appellations responded by trying to make their wines globally
appealing by moving away from obscure regional grapes to well known
international varieties (in the case of the Loire Sauvignon Blanc,
Pinot Noir, and Chardonnay were especially pushed). Many small
producers sold to larger brands, and yields were pushed with harsh
chemical farming (I feel I revisit these themes every week). All of
this led many young farmers to feel that the region, long famed for
its culinary products, was losing its soul. Starting in the mid 1980s
Tessier took over for his father, and inspired by the nearby Puzelat
brothers, as well as the work going in the beaujolais to make lighter,
more drinkable wines, he converted his farm to organics, and cut down
drastically on the inputs that went into the wine. Like nearby Herve
Villemade and many others the headwinds were sharply against these
early adopters. It was hard to get higher prices for these wines even
with the quality, all the while the cost of doing everything by hand
rose. They persisted however, and by the early 2000s a curious wine
world was firmly looking towards the Loire. Phillipe works with Pinot
Noir, Gamay, Sauvignon Blanc, and in the case of his Cour-Cheverny's
Romorantin, of which there's a mere 48 hectares left in the world
(compare to the 10000 hectares of Sauvignon Blanc in the Loire alone).
I count Tessier's Cour-Chevernys as among the top three being produced
alongside Herve Villemade and Francois Cazin (who's wines we will
hopefully work with soon).

The wines:

Domaine Philippe Tessier Cheverny Rouge  Pinot Noir, Gamay 2022:
Classic, light brilliant Cheverny. A wine like this should never take
itself too seriously, but that also doesn't mean it needs to be poorly
made or an afterthought. I could drink this wine every day.

Domaine Philippe Tessier Cheverny Blanc Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay
2022: As above, but in white.

Domaine Philippe Tessier Cheverny Rosé Pinot Noir, Gamay 2022: We're
getting this just in time for rose season in December. It's a good
thing this wine is so well made.

Domaine Philippe Tessier Cour Cheverny Blanc 'La Porte Doree' 2022:
The crown jewel of Phillipe's estate are his single vineyard
Cour-Cheverny's. This is an intensely textural with high acidity.
They're always drinking wonderfully, but with age they morph into one
of the Loire's greatest wines. Alas, we don't have that much time, so
we'll have to settle. Only 4 bottles of this, so sell it to someone
special.

Frank Cornelissen

Frank Cornelissen started his career as wine broker in Belgium, in the
same business as his father. He became obsessed with making his own
wine, and making it as natural as possible. He eventually landed on
the terroir, which at one point was renowned for its reputation but
had fallen out of fashion as the costs to get wine off the small
island rose in comparison to other regions. He was fascinated with the
variety of volcanic soil, and the chance to work with ungrafted vines
(volcanic soils are immune to the scourge of phylloxera). He started
with a mere .4 hectares, which has grown to 24, 19 of which are
dedicated to vines, the rest to olives and wheat. For red wines he
works with Nerello Mascalese, Nerello Capuccio, Allicante Boushet,
Minnella and Uva Francesa among others co-planted and for whites
grecanico and carricante mainly (most of these are grapes only grown
on Sicily, or some only on Mt Etna). With his connections in the wine
world he was able to get his wine out far and wide and quickly
established himself as a figure in the natural wine world. He became
controversial, with some people singing the praises of his wines,
others decrying him and the still nascent non-sulfur movement as
hipster bullshit, and others thought him as a rich kid who moved into
a region he didn't understand and started making wines that didn't
reflect the terroir or traditions of said regions. There's probably
truth to all three of these things, but what I've most appreciated
about Cornelissen is his dedication to constantly improving. There was
a moment in the late 2000s when Cornelissen could have quit making any
adjustments to his wines. He had the name, the customers, and his
critics no longer mattered. But he didn't, and his wines continued to
improve, becoming cleaner and more stable, while still maintaining his
vision of non-interventionist and organic wines.

The wines:
Cornelissen Susucaru Rosato Malvasia, Moscadella, Cattaratto, Nerello
Mascalese 2022: Frank has a lot of serious large reds that are fought
over world wide, but for me his best wine has always been his basic
rosato. I think it best reporesents what he is trying to do, it's
light, transparent, is reminiscent of other great Sicilian wines while
being something unto itself.

Cornelissen Munjebel Bianco Grecanico, Carricante 2021: Frank used to
make this as an orange wine but in 2015 he felt that it wasn't
reflecting Mt Etna, it was simply reflecting the technique. So he
stopped making it orange and now shoots for something pure Mt Etna.

Jean Pierre-Robinot/l'Ange des Ange

Jean Pierre Robinot was the founder of one of the world's first
natural wine bars, L'Ange Vin (The Angel's Wine, which is also the
name of his winery). Shortly afterwards he started France's first
natural wine magazine, the hugely successful Le Rouge et le Blanc.
After more than a decade of running a parisian wine bar and a magazine
the pull of the Loire valley where he grew up was too strong to resist
and he went out with the intention of making a little wine in the
upper Loire Valley, the land of intensely mineral chenin blancs and
the pineau d'aunis grape, one of the worlds most fascinating but
little planted grapes in France. After one year he decided it was time
to leave the city and gave up his wine bar, control of the magazine,
and moved to Chahaignes, a tiny town in the coteaux-du-loir where he
still makes a small amount of chenin, pineau d'aunis, cabernet franc
and gamay, always with zero sulfur, and always adhering to his
rigorous standards of organics.

The wines:
“Fetembulles” Pet-Nat Chenin Blanc: Both Uznea and I remarked how
lithe and light Robinot's wines are this vintage. He typically takes a
long time to ferment and they typically end up on the heavy more
serious side, while this is like the best prosecco you've ever had.

Jean-Pierre Robinot Les Annees Folles VDF Pet-Nat  Rose Pineau
d’Aunis, Chenin Blanc: Pineau d'Aunis is one of the most fascinating,
particular grapes in France. It requires an extremely light touch, and
seems to only like the particular terroir of the upper loire valley.
Too much heat and it completely blows out, and too cold and it becomes
hard and green. When done right it lends a certain earthy/beetroot
quality to wines that is found in precious little else.

Jean-Pierre Robinot Concerto di Venezia VDF Red 2021 Pineau d'Aunis,
Cabernet Franc: This is an earthy, contemplative wine. While it is
light, I wouldn't recommend to anyone looking for something fun, but
it is a wonderful wine.

Until next time (which will be shorter I promise)

Cory