This wine was from the same Morgon theme tasting as last week’s wine. Jean Foillard is a favourite on these pages. See fx here.
Côte du Py is a prestigious slope in the outskirts of the village of Villié-Morgon, that gives name to the Morgon cru. The soil is decomposed schist, rich in ferrour oxide and called morgons.
Domaine Jean Foillard is a family-run winery founded in the 1980s by Jean Foillard, who took over the estate from his father. Foillard was one of the so-called gang of four, vintners that were inspired by the teachings of natural wine guru Jules Chauvet. The majority of the 14 hectares of vines on the estate are found in the Côte du Py.
The wine is made with natural viticulture and vinification techniques, without the use of herbicides or pesticides, and with minimal sulphur additions. Some keywords: Hand-harvest, whole cluster maceration and fermentation with indigenous yeasts. The wine was raised a good half year in used oak barrels.
Morgon Côte du Py 2022(Jean Foillard)
Deep cold cherry colour. Intense aroma of cherry, with chalk and earth. Though concentrated it also has a layer of fresh raspberry and flowers on top. Quite powerful in the mouth, with young tannins, fresh fruit, an integrated acidity. Fabulous wine that currently is good with food, but will probably benefit from 5-6 more years.
Last Monday my local wine club served a dozen of Morgon wines. Most of them originate from the various climats that make up the appellation. This one is from a small climat called Douby, next to the famous Côte de Py.
Domaine Louis-Claude Desvignes is located in the town Villié-Morgon, that gives name to the Morgon appellation in Beaujolais. Today it’s run by eighth generation, the siblings Claude-Emmanuelle and Louis-Benoît Desvignes. They work their soils in the most natural way possible. No synthetic products are used in the vineyards, and the work in the cellar is carried out with as little intervention as possible.
Their Morgons are made without aging in wood. Instead they spend some time in concrete vats. The macerations depends of the wine. In preparing the tasting I also tried their Morgon Voûte Saint-Vincent. That one is macerated only for ten days and aimed at earlier consumption, while other bottlings see longer macerations.
This wine comes from an 80 year old 1 hectare vineyard in Douby. Here at this place called Château Gaillard the soil is sand and granite. The harvest is manual and the vinification traditional with 10% of the grapes destemmed. Fermentation lasts 10 days, then the wine is aged in cement vats for 7 months.
Morgon Château Gaillard 2021(Louis Claude Desvignes)
Deep cold cherry colour. Intense aroma of cherry and flowers, with chalk and earth. Quite powerful in the mouth with fresh fruit, an integrated acidity and young fine-grained tannins. I think the 21s in the tasting had benefitted from one year more than the 22s. Still this one is probably at its best after 4-5 more years.
The tasting of mature Muscadets in our local wine club slowed once again that the western Loire can produce perfectly balanced wines at very economic prices. This wine was among my favourites in the tasting.
The domain was founded by Michel Brégeon in the 1970’s and run today by Fred Lailler. Today Lailler disposes of 8.5 hectares of vineyards. Some are on gabbro soils, an old, blueish-green, igneous rock that imparts complexity, length, and an intense minerality to the wines. The Gorges cru is particularly known for this soil. All of the domaine’s vineyards are planted here.
The wine, from 70 years old vines, is aged on the lees in underground, glass-lined cuves for more than 2 years.
Gorges 2018(Dom. Brégeon)
Light golden colour. Aroma of apples, saltwater and a touch of lime. Textured, with a stony minerality, a fresh acidity and good length. Well-balanced.
I am fully aware that Sébastien Riffault has been in the spotlight for things other than his wines lately. Let’s keep this aside for a while. The quality of his wines can hardly be doubted. Okay, there are people who don’t like the mature style. Some even say they are not typical of Sancerre. Remember that many people believe that the early-harvested commercial yeasted cat’s pee in a gooseberry bush is the real thing. Riffault is, in my opinion, very Sancerre, but clearly a different take.
The sauvignon blanc was planted on limestone and clay some 35 years ago. Akmèniné means “made of stone” in Lithuanian (the nationality of his wife). The grapes were harvested by hand in mid-October, directly pressed without skin contact, 30 percent of the grapes having botrytis. It was then fermented in large old barrels, then aged on the lees. No sulphur added, not fined or filtrated.
Akmèniné 2019(S. Riffault)
Pale amber. Aroma of mature apples, mango, herbs and yeast. Good volume and concentration, rich, tasty, with ripe fruit and adequate acidity.
A Portuguese island white was my first wine at yesterday’s tasting at Vinmonopolet, the Norwegian state monopoly. And what a start to the day! Producer Fitapreta is based in Alentejo, but winemaker António Maçanita is very active on the islands. Here is a wine made from palomino grapes grown in Porto Santo, brought to Madeira and finished there. Made with 30% whole bunches, 40 days of maceration, 8 months in used French barrels.
As the company explains on their website: On the island of Madeira, people from Porto Santo are called profetas (prophets), as a response to villões (villains), which the people of Porto Santo call Madeirans. The last nickname comes from vila (city), which thus takes on a double connotation. The wines of Profetas e Villões therefore reflect this duality.
Listrão dos Profetas 2021(Profetas e Villões/ Fitapreta): Pale yellow color with some green. Intense nose with lemon peel, iodine and a flinty minerality. Rich and textured in the mouth, full of flavors with super acidity and a salty finish. Very persistent. This is Portuguese island white taken to a new level.
I have known António and Sara of Casa de Mouraz for many years now. Here I got the chance to re-taste two of their magnificent Dão wines. The Encruzado 2022 is one of the best examples of that variety that I know of. It’s fresh with notes of citrus, flowers and minerals, grapey in the mouth and full of flavours. Unfiltered, it comes really close to nature and the true quality of the grape. Casa de Mouraz Dão 2021 is a cherry red wine that smells like home at their estate, pine forest, red fruits and herbs. In the mouth it’s juicy with some spice.
Importer Non Dos also offered three magnificent sparklers. Two of them were from British producer Oxney, from East Sussex. Oxney 2019 is a complex wine with apples, peach, flowers, nuts and some brioche. Non vintage Oxney Rosé, with 25% seyval blanc, shows red berry fruit, apples and kind, with good concentration of flavours. They also represent Champagne house Fleury, here their Blanc de Noirs non vintage, that came with mature apples, dried fruits and biscuits, along with citrus and a stony minerality. Creamy in the mouth with good concentration.
Guro also poured many good wines that came with unbeatable prices. Various colours of Meinklang was among them. Their Rosa pouch (1,5 liters) in 2023 version was fabulous, with a clear-cut fruit of red berries and herbs, and with a distinct acidity leading to a delicately bitter finish. In spite of its everyday lightweight image it has a decent concentration.
The Wine Merchant is a subsidiary of Non Dos. Pierre here offered champagnes from Colin, that stands for an elegant, less autolysis-marked style. Their Parallèle is a long time favourite, clean, apple and citrus-driven with a layer of anise and herbs.
Liquid is the one importer that is supplying the largest number of Georgian wines to the Norwegian market, here represented by Lasha, himself Georgian. New in their portfolio is Dakishvili. Giorgi and Temuri Dakishvili, father and son, make wines from the family vineyards in Kakheti using the traditional qvevri method. They don’t hesitate to blend in international varieties with the local either. The Family Selection Cuvée 2021 is a beautiful blend of saperavi with cabernet sauvignon, an exciting very dark, sturdy wine that showcases a typical cabernet pepper quality.
Selected Wine Partners presented a bunch of wines from Koncho, also of Kakheti, Georgia. Orange 2021 from rkatsiteli and kisi was light amber in colour, with evident skin-contact on the nose, with notes of orange peel and apricot, along with a full mouth-feel and a distinct acidity.
I came across this wine at Katla, a wine bar with a decent Burgundy list but few pretentions, on a corner of central Oslo, one Thursday night not long ago.
The vineyard is located on the east side of Bordeaux, and comes under the Cadillac Côtes de Bordeaux appellation. The vines are south and southwest facing on clay and limestone, overlooking the Garonne River in the village of Cambes. The vines are some 30 years old, and the cultivation is organic (formally in conversion).
The blend is 80% merlot and 20% malbec. The vinification was traditional, the maturing was done in big vats and smaller barrels.
Domaine de Saint Amand 2019 (Dom. de Saint Amand)
Dark cherry red. Aroma of mature dark fruits (blackcurrant, blackberry), leather and smoke. Good volume, dense fruit, velvety tannins. Quite simple, but fresh and good.
Chance had it that the same vintage of Tempier that I tasted when visiting the domaine in 2013, appeared at a dinner last week. Tempier may be most famous for their stylish rosés. I am a huge fan of their reds (not to say: whites).
From my visit to Tempier
A little piece of history. When Lucie “Lulu” Tempier married Lucien Peyraud in 1936, her father gave them Domaine Tempier, a farm that had been in the family since 1834, just outside the Mediterranean village of Bandol. Tasting a pre-phylloxera bottle of Domaine Tempier Bandol (a wedding gift from his father-in-law) inspired Lucien to research the terroir of Bandol extensively. Up until that point, old vineyards planted with mourvèdre had been systematically replanted to higher-yielding varietals. However, more research not only showed its historical roots to the area, but the grape proved to be more resistant to oxidation, producing wines with great aging potential. By 1941, with the assistance of neighboring vignerons, Lucien worked with the I.N.A.O. (Institut National des Appellations d’Origines) to establish Bandol as its own A.O.C.
This story is told by Anthony Lynch, American importer, whose family are close friends with the people behind Tempier. Lynch calls Lucien the godfather of Bandol and the man who revived mourvèdre to its former glory. And he continues, “if any wine can be said to have soul, it’s Tempier”.
From my visit to Tempier
The wine comes from various sites with clay and calcareous soils. The varieties ate predominantly mourvèdre with small quantities of grapes such as grenache, cinsault and carignan. It was aged in large oak casks some 18 months before bottling.
Bandol 2011 (Domaine Tempier)
Cherry red with brick nuances. Rich nose of mature fruits (cherry, plums), herbs (cinnamon, thyme), mushroom, a touch of barnyard (maybe game). Good volume in the mouth, still plenty of fruit and some fine tannins, hints of earth and toast. Subtle and balanced, maybe at its peak now.
There are many different dessert and fortified wines. This one is very little known, but I don’t understand why. It’s a moderately sweet wine that pairs well with typical Christmas fruit cakes like panettone and pandoro. The category is ratafia, elaborated throughout the Mediterranean, but this specific wine belongs to the sub-category Ratafia de Champagne (or: Champenois). It was my contribution to a blind tasting session in the local wine club, and one of the highlights of the evening.
The term “ratafia” can be used in about three different products; some may know the almond biscuit and the liqueur. The dessert wine has seen a solid upturn in recent years, and there are now at least 120 producers of ratafia in Champagne.
An anecdote explains that the name is supposed to have come from Catalunya, where three bishops are said to have argued fiercely, but finally reached an agreement. They wanted to celebrate this with a toast, and got some wine from a local farmer. As his drink had no name, they suggested “rata fiat” (Lat. ‘it is signed’), the last words of the document they had drawn up.
The wine is fortified, but it’s not marked by alcohol,. It’s fresh, and not overtly sweet. The basis are organically grown 1 cru chardonnay grapes from Montagne de Reims. They were manually harvested in october 2013. The alcoholic fermentation was blocked by adding distilled wine (marc). It was then aged for 7 years in wooden casks of 400 and 600 liters. The wine clocks in at 18% alcohol and 100 g sugar.
Vilmart & Cie is a récoltant-manipulant (RM) in Rilly-la-Montagne, just outside the city of Reims. They are now in their 5th generation and grow their grapes organically.
Ratafia Chardonnay(Vilmart)
Golden colour. Fresh aroma of mature lemons, candid apricots, menthol. Medium-bodied with good concentration, fresh acidity and a natural/integrated sweetness reminiscent of acacia honey. Great length and balance. Inspiring.
Yesterday was that day again. The third Thursday of November I always await with excitement. I feel that nowadays the craze is gone, the hype is silenced, it’s not that many people who talk about it as before. But the wines are better than ever. Well, the best wines might not be equally “sensational” as in the past few years (that means, the ones I have tasted, a few favourite producers and some wines I think I ought to try), but the overall quality is superb. Even if the wines are lovely now, there are a few that will drink well throughout the whole of next year.
Credit: the producer
A novelty for me is the no sulfur added nouveau from Laurent Perrachon. I read that the producer is based outside Juliénas and harvests six appellations, among them Chénas, Fleurie and Saint Amour. Martine and Laurent are fifth generation, and the sixth is also involved in the family business. They claim to be the independant winemaker in Beaujolais with the most comprehensive list of crus.
This nouveau originates from 3 hectares with gamay with an average age of 45 years, pruned in Gobelet (bush vines) in crystalline soils. The grapes were picked manually, before a semi-carbonic maceration for 4 days. Always in stainless steel vats. Total production is 8.000 bottles.
Beaujolais Nouveau Sans Sufre 2023(Laurent Perrachon)
Dark red colour. The aromatics consist mainly of dark and wild fruits like blackberry, but also has some cherry and a component of strawberries, sweet flowers, and a balsamic note behind. It’s moderate on acidity, but compensates with a dense and generous fruit quality. It’s lightly structured with fine tannins, quite full on the palate, and good length with a fruity finish. A possible crowdpleaser.
Mademoiselle M is a sauvignon blanc from Kimmeridgian limestone soils (marl with oyster sediments), located in the appellation of Pouilly-Fumé. It’s made without added sulphites, aged in used oak vats for 18 months.
Alexandre Bain owns 11 ha in Tracy-sur-Loire. Like his friend and collegue Sebastien Riffault across the river in Sancerre, Alexandre harvests later than most in his region, which gives the wines a darker colour. To retain the maximum acidity in his grapes, Alexandre trains his vines low. Harvest is done by hand, and yields are small.
Mademoiselle M 2015(Alexandre Bain)
Dark golden, slightly turbid. Aroma of mature apples, flowers, a touch of honey and a flinty minerality. Quite full on the palate, glyceric, concentrated flavours. Rich for a sauvignon blanc. Probably at its peak right now.
