Tag: France

Flowery Fleury

Published 13. January 2023 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

This was one of the very best from a recent tasting of pure chardonnay extra-dry grower champagnes.

Maison Fleury was established in 1895 in Courteron, in Côte des Bar, southern Champagne. The 15 hectares are all cultivated biodynamically. In fact Fleury was the first producer in Champagne to be certified biodynamic. Jean-Sébastien Fleury has since 2009 been responsible for both vineyards and cellar. He introduced plowing with horses in the vineyards, and today half of them are cultivated in this way. It was also Jean-Sébastien who introduced the first sulphur-free vintage champagne.

Near to Chablis, the grapes are grown on Kimmerigian calcareous clay soils. Most of the vineyards are located on steep slopes facing south and south-west, where the grapes get a lot of sun and thus high ripening. The grapes are hand-picked, and the wines are spontaneously fermented in steel tanks and in 6,000 liter old oak vats, where they also ripen. Cuvée Cépage Blancs Extra-Brut 2011 is elaborated from 100% chardonnay. 35% is vinified in oak barrel.

Cépages Blancs Extra-Brut 2011 (Maison Fleury)

Straw yellow, careful mousse. Lovely complexity on the nose: citrus, green apple, white flowers, brioche, and a touch dried fruit. Persistent acidity, almonds and lovely fruit throughout; and even if it’s a dry wine there is a hint of honey in the finish.

Price: High

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Wine of the Week

Beaujolais revelation

Published 16. December 2022 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Even though I recently have come across a few good nouveau wines, this is probably the Beaujolais revelation of the year for me.

Romain des Grottes has since 2001 run his domaine organically, and it has been biodynamic certified since 2006. The soil is granitic. In the vineyard he does not use any synthetic substances, and very little copper. He prefers herbal teas and fermented extracts. Trees and hedges are planted to contribute to biodiversity. The domaine has been welcoming volunteers for more than 10 years to transmit their values and allow them, in Romain’s words, “to bring down into reality our dreams of a world of sharing, exchange and respect”.

Here is a super low-extraction red beaujolais made without sulfur and without filtration. It’s obviously made from solely gamay. The natural carbonic maceration lasted for 5 days.

Brut de Cuve 2018 (Domaine des Grottes)

Light amber, almost currant coloured. Lovely scent of raspberry, currant, white flowers and a touch of apricot. Super, cool fruit in the mouth, lovely acidity.

Price: Medium

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Articles

Beaujolais twins

Published 21. November 2022 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

This is a followup to the Beaujolais article last Friday. Today I came across two wines made by Pierre Dupond. One of the twins showed freshness and elegance, while the other was more bold and ripe. We will come back to that, but first a look at the background.

The Dupond family has its roots in Burgundy and the Rhône Valley. It began with Antoine Dupond, who was originally from Beaujolais, but began commercializing his wines in Lyon and St. Etienne in the 1860s. His son Joanny expanded the family’s estates to the Rhône area. Hervé Dupond, fifth generation, is today leading the business. Hervé has expanded production, building partnerships with nearby winegrowers and neighboring families that the they have known for generations. Each year Hervé selects the best possible plots to make his wines. A traditional method of winemaking is practiced to ensure wines produced are reflective of the land. Ageing takes place in concrete vats that allow for ideal temperatures.

The gamay grapes were handpicked and underwent carbonic maceration with indigenous yeasts. These are natural wines, both with low sulphur (one with nothing added). One is with minimal filtration, one without. To sum up: Sans Soufre Ajouté is the most fresh/acidic of the twins, while Non Filtré is the most ripe and fullbodied wine. Both are highly recommended.

Beaujolais-Village Sans Soufre Ajouté 2022 (Pierre Dupond)

Dark red, blue hint. Cherry, raspberry. Medium body, fine-grained tannins, fresh acidity.

Beaujolais Nouveau Non Filtré 2022 (Pierre Dupond)

Dark red, blue hint, a touch more dense than the other wine. Blackberry, eucalyptus, chocolate/coffee earthy tones. Medium-bodied with ripe fruit, a bit structured (more than the other wine), rounded acidity.

Price: Low

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Wine of the Week

Indigenous

Published 11. November 2022 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Jura is a small, yet diverse wine region. Stéphane Tissot is one of its most dynamic and creative producers, and boasts a huge varieties of styles. Here he has made a sparkling wine with vin de paille in its dosage. And vin de paille? A traditional Jura thick and sweet dessert wine made of dried grapes.

Indigène ferments with indigenous yeasts, hence the name. Then the second fermentation is begun with vin de paille. This wine has the same grape composition as Tissot’s crémant Normale: 55% chardonnay, 35% pinot noir, the rest poulsard and trousseau. These two wines are separated after the first fermentation, when Indigène is dosed with vin de paille, added daily in tiny amounts. The second fermentation takes six months – and adds to the richness and complexity of the wine.

Indigène (S. Tissot)

Straw yellow. Aromas of clementine, yellow apple, spices, dried fruit, bread and nuts. Glyceric, smooth with good concentration, and a long salty finish.

Price: Medium

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Wine of the Week

Brilliant Loire red at Bellies

Published 4. November 2022 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Last Thursday I had the pleasure to revisit Bellies, a 100% vegan restaurant in the eastern neighborhood of Stavanger, Norway. Here you are not served “vegan burgers” and such. The focus is on the tastes of the ingredients, and there is a high level of creativity in the presentation. Add to this a select wine list that mostly highlights natural wines and you have got the picture.

I had the “Full Bellies”, a ten servings presentation (dishes of various sizes), accompanied by a package of five wines, plus an elegant champagne, the Les Vignes de Montgueux blanc de blancs extra brut (J. Lassaigne). Among the wines were a stylish, slightly buttered, tropical fruit-scented Saint-Véran, Les Pommards 2020 by Jessica Litaud, a fresh Loire white, Saumur 2021 (B. Stater-West) and an interesting relatively full-bodied oak-treated beaujolais, Morgon Dynamite 2020 (A. & Y. Bertrand). All these were wines that I will keep an eye on, and good enough to be featured.

Our wine came with a dish that I have forgotten the name of, which contains jelly, blackberry, pepper with sea urchin, a.o.

This time I concentrate on a brilliant fruity, earthy, full-of-life red from the Loire valley. Nadège Lelandais can be found in Rochefort sur Loire, a few miles southwest of the city of Angers. There she cultivates 4.5 hectares of cabernet franc, cabernet sauvignon, and chenin blanc. She has been practicing organic and biodynamic viticulture since the start in 2005.

Our wine Vigneronne is made of cabernet franc, handpicked and fermented in fiberglass vats and aged several months in older barrels.

Vigneronne 2021 (Nadège Lelandais/ Les Vignes Herbel)

Dark purple. Fragrant with raw red fruits (cherry, red currant), blackberry, and with an earthy note. Juicy and fleshy in the mouth with fine tannic structure, herbaceous with fresh acidity. Simply delicious.

Price: Medium

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Wine of the Week

A two pinots Champagne

Published 28. October 2022 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

The Olivier Horiot domaine is located in Les Riceys, a commune in Côte des Bar. We are in the southern part of Champagne, and it’s an area that has once belonged to Bourgogne. Here in the Aube département the vineyards are more scarce than in central parts of Champagne, and interspersed with forests, waters and farms.

The Horiot family continues to produce wonderful natural wines from biodynamic viticulture, and has by the way also done a great job to recover the region’s indigenous grape varieties, like arbane.

Maybe inspired by nearby Bourgogne, the domain separats its different terroirs into distinct cuvées. The result is champagnes with strong individual character.

The name Métisse refers to the fact that this cuvée is made from several different terroirs in the village of Les Riceys. It’s a non vintage, made from pinot noir and pinot blanc. It has a minimal addition of sulphites and undergoes neither fining nor filtering.

Métisse Pinots Noirs et Blancs Extra Brut (O. Horiot)

Pale yellow, small, delicate bubbles. Aromas of apples, pears, citrus, flowers, brioche and spicy notes. It’s fresh and lively on the palate, with a fine-tuned interplay between the autolysis and the fruit. Completely dry, good length.

Price: Medium

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Wine of the Week

Smooth wine ‘de Soif’

Published 21. October 2022 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Domaine du Bel Air is a producer of fine, age-worthy wines from cabernet franc. Jour de Soif (Day of Thirst) is their entry-level wine, made from younger vines of 20 years.

The Gauthier family is found in Benais, in the Bourgueil appellation since 1600. Today Pierre Gauthier and his son Rodolphe run the estate. It covers more some 18 hectares. Pierre Gauthier begins his winemaking work with a real philosophy. In 2000, the farm converted into organic viticulture.

The wine is a 100% cabernet franc. Manual harvest. The grapes are destemmed and then sorted on the table before being put into vats. Maceration was gentle and lasted 8 days with pumping over and a temperature not exceeding 25% to preserve as much fruit as possible. Ageing was 6 months on fine lees.

Jour de Soif 2020 (Dom. du Bel Air)

Purple colour. Aroma of dark and red fruits (blueberry, cranberry), flowers. Mouthfilling with smooth tannin, medium acidity and long fruity aftertaste. Quaffable.

Price: Low

Food: Thirstquenching, but can also be drunk with light meat, Caesar and other salads and charcuterie

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Wine of the Week

L’orangeade

Published 26. August 2022 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Philippe Formentin had worked 10 years at Domaine Chabanon in Lagamas, near Montpellier, before he became a “flying winemaker”, consulting at vineyards around the world. Then he found a small winery in the south of France, just outside Clermont l’Hérault. Here in the foothills of the Larzac, Philippe has brought life to his dream of making his own natural artisan wine.

His wines are made from grapes grown organically and according to biodynamic principles. They grow in different plots with clay-limestone soils and various exposures.

The grapes are manually harvested in the cool, early mornings, then stored in a cool environment 24 hours to slow start fermentation. They ferment naturally, with indigenous yeast and without sulfites.

A manual vertical press is used to gently extract the juice. The wines are then aged in containers, decanted, and bottled without filtration. L’orangeade 2020 is a varietal grenache blanc.

L’orangeade 2020 (Opi d’Aquí)

Light orange. Fresh aroma with apricot, orange peel, eucalyptus, a touch of honey. Medium full, light tannin structure, good length.

Price: Medium

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Wine of the Week

Tradition from Jura

Published 22. July 2022 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

As the rain set in on the rugged coast we wanted a bold wine for the cheeseboard. Luckily this Côtes du Jura was offered by the local store.

Domaine Maire is one of the largest producers of Jura covering 234 hectares of vines, and they sell their wines at affordable prices. The word tradition on the label here refers to a typical blend of the local white grapes varieties ahardonnay and savagnin. Maire’s cuvée comprises around 80% chardonnay and 20% savagnin.

Chardonnay, originating from Burgundy but cultivated in Jura since the 10^th Century, has become a native, and is especially well suited on limestone and light soils. The savagnin is typical to Jura and matures slowly on grey marl soils. It’s the ideal grape variety for an oxydative maturing process under a veil of “flor”, referred to locally as “sous voile”. Most of the chardonnay was aged in stainless steel tanks for 2-3 months, the rest on fine lees in wooden vats for the same period of time. A part of the savagnin juices were matured in oak barrels under flor for 8 to 12 months.

Grand Héritage Tradition 2017 (Dom. Maire)

Yellow with green hints; apples and flowers (from chardonnay), flor, butter, roasted almonds and nuts (from the savagnin ageing); full in the mouth, good and persistent acidity, meaty.

Price: Medium

Food: Comté or blue cheeses, tapas, shellfish, paté, charcuterie

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Wine of the Week

Dangerously drinkable samsó

Published 15. July 2022 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

This wine can be said jo be dangerously drinkable. It’ contains “only” 11% alcohol, but it’s hard to stop once poured, with all its inviting fruit and low acidity (5g, the 2021 has only 3, by the way).

Domaine Cazes has been producing wine since 1895 in Rivesaltes, south of France. Cazes is operated according to biodynamic principles. Cazes is France’s largest certified producer of organic and biodynamic wines with 220 hectares of vineyards. (Read about a vin doux naturel here.)

This wine is made with traditional maceration, and fermented without yeasts for 6 days at low temperature (between 19 and 22°C). It was pressed with integrated presses. The end of alcoholic fermentation took place in in wooden vats before racking, then malolactic fermentation. The appellation is IGT Côtes Catalanes.

Finally a piece of ampelography (“grapeology”) here: Samsó is a synonym for cinsault in this part of Catalunya, also spelled sinsó. Samsó can also refer to carignan (a much more thick-skinned variety).

Samsó 2020 (Dom. Cazes)

Light red, violet rim. Fresh and fruit-driven with raspberries, wild strawberries, hints of licorice. Medium full, rounded, some spices at the end.

Price: Low

Food: Delicious on its own, with charcuterie, patatas bravas, pasta…

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