NOVEMBER 2024 - GAMAY, GAMAY, “NOUVEAU”
This month we are featuring three wines that encompass some of our ideas of what’s most enjoyable at this time of year, whether that’s being at the table during the holidays, with friends and comrades, or just preparing for the onslaught of cooler weather and the joy/stress of the season. We are thrilled to share with you two exclusive wines for the club and a third which encompasses our enthusiasm for a particular vigneron’s work. Not to say that we haven’t recognized the work from all three domaines over the years, and the contributions that each of them have brought to our world of wine. At this time of year, come November, our minds and hearts unmercifully head towards the holy grail of Gamay, that being the region of Beaujolais. For the record, only two of the three wines we are featuring are Gamay that come to us from Beaujolais. The third selection does though, by all means, encompass all that we have come to love with this region and grape. Without further ado, we present our November wine club selections.
Les Lunes
Les Lunes was founded in 2014 by Diego Roig and Shaunt Oungoulian. They met while studying viticulture at UC Davis. After finishing school they individually set out into the world to learn more about their chosen craft by working with some rather esteemed producers in France, Italy and New Zealand. In particular, Shaunt spent some precious time with Julie Balagny in Beaujolais and Philippe Valette in Macon. Diego worked with the legendary biodynamic farmer in Faugères, Didier Barral of Domaine Léon Barral.
Upon returning to California, they set out to find old vines throughout Napa and Sonoma counties. They are extremely dedicated to preserving old-vine sites, as they are intent to focus on pure, focused expressions of Northern Californian terroir, through the lens of thoughtful, low intervention wine-making. They achieve this through their diligent work, from pruning and suckering, to attentive forethought on when to provide the individual parcels with biodynamic principles that pertains to increasing the health & vitality of the vines and thus decreasing the need for inputs to combat pests. These processes help to preserve the indigenous microbes found both on the grapes and in the soils, which leads to more complexity and nuance with the finished wines. We are hard pressed to find another producer in California that is consistently making some of the most enjoyable wines we’ve had the pleasure to drink in the past ten years.
2024 Nouveau
Shaunt and Diego have fashioned this cuvée in the mold of a classic Beaujolais Nouveau. It’s a light red wine with fresh, crunchy tannins and bright acidity which helps to accentuate the mouth-watering fruit. All of the fruit is coming from Sonoma county, albeit three different sites, 50% Pinot Noir from deep Bay area soils, 30% Syrah from decomposed volcanic deposits and 20% Chardonnay from a deep gravel and loamy site. Everything is hand harvested and fermented separately. The Pinot Noir is destemmed and undergoes a 5 day maceration on the skins, the whole cluster Chardonnay spends 6 days in a carbonic maceration and the Syrah as well, although half of the grapes are pressed (saignée) and added back to the tank, which helps to make a brighter, more taut style of wine. It is finally blended just prior to bottling with a small (10ppm) SO2 addition taking place.
Romain des Grottes
(this excerpt taken from our recent mailer for our tasting November 2nd with Romain)
For those of you who have become familiar with his work, there is no need to remind one of the absolute deliciousness you encounter while drinking these wines. They simply shine. They possess freshness of fruit, savory and herbal delineations, and soft tea tannins. They are quite electric! It should be noted that Romain's wines have become the standard bearer model of the current natural wine "glou glou" culture that exists today, regardless of never asking for such.
Romain grew up in Paris and after finishing business school, his grandfather suggested he come down to Beaujolais and help out with the family farm. Having no real ties or affection for city life and already with the first of his three kids being born in fairly rapid succession, he thought why not? He began to learn about the financial side of the business and then took a keen fascination on the viticultural side, having accompanied those tending to the vines, and realizing that this was something of great interest to him. The farm is located in the broad Beaujolais Villages appellation south of Brouilly, specifically in the village of Saint-Etienne-des-Oullières.
Romain is, per se, a métayer (sharecropper). He works at his grandfather's 8 hectare Château de Lacarelle, which allows him some proclivities and certain freedoms other sharecroppers do not generally have. In 2003 he began to rip up vines, every 2nd or 3rd row, due to the disastrous year and choosing to plant cereal grains and allow for cover crops to intercede. There is even a potager, which he refers to as un jardin dans les vignes. There are fruit trees, loads of herbs, vegetables, etc. The reason he began to rip out vines is because he became aware of the health of the vines in relation to how densely planted they were. There was a succession of difficult years to follow which proved his theory correct, that by allowing more space, the vines weren't suffering as much or hardly at all from mildew, rot and the like.
It is correct to consider that because Romain didn't grow up in Beaujolais, he is perhaps liberated from lots of the constraints of the classic viticulture/vigneron model that exists. This allows him to think radically, to offer a different vision of what's possible in the realms of winemaking. To really ask, what is living wine? Is it deviant? Perhaps. Does it come with faults? Quite possibly. What we do know from tasting multiple vintages of his wines is that they possess structure, complexity, and richness, all the while maintaining freshness and low ABV levels akin to a primeur. There is a level of youthful purity; smiling, energetic, and soothing sounds that resonate vibrations of joy and freedom! Perhaps, the wines are inspiring simply because Romain himself is inspired.
2022 Moins Dix
Romain prefers short macerations on most of his wines, and this is no exception. It is in essence a primeur, with a 6-8 day semi-carbonic maceration followed by elevage of just one month in tank. The wine is then bottled thereafter. It is springy and fresh while maintaining a certain level of structure and richness, a complexity that’s hard to pinpoint due to the sheer exuberance of bright fruit and vibrancy on the palate. All of his wines could be labeled as Beaujolais Villages, yet he prefers to declassify as Vin de France due to the bureaucracy and control exhibited by the stodgy appellation controls.
Guy Breton
Founded in 1998, Guy actually took over the family domaine from his grandfather in 1986. Up until then, the family was selling their grapes to large cooperative wineries which completely dominated the region at the time. The cooperatives were seeking to produce a very uniform style of wine, where they employed laboratory yeast cultures to impart very specific aromas and flavors; they also utilized super controlled, high-tech carbonic macerations while relying on big marketing ploys to over commercialize this new brand of “Beaujolais Nouveau”, prioritizing, above all else, profitability. This move in Beaujolais to create one dimensional, mass produced wines that were rushed to market was a real blow towards the region’s reputation and also an oversight to the ability to produce singular wines derived from specific terroir capable of expressing a true identity of place & time.
Guy (known as P’tit Max to his comrades) was to choose a different path. Following the teachings of the well regarded chemist/biologist Jules Chauvet, who was to explain in great detail the downside of such colossal failures and the destruction of microbial life in the soils and terroir due to the mass, monoculture farming practices and vinification methods employed at the time, he set out for change. Along with three other local vignerons, Marcel Lapierre, Jean Foillard, and Jean-Paul Thevenet, they set out on a quest to prove that there was another way. These four upstarts were dubbed by importer Kermit Lynch to be the “Gang of Four” and they set out to return to a practice of viticulture and vinification by means of eliminating all herbicides and pesticides, harvesting at optimal ripeness, rigorous sorting of fruit to ensure only the healthiest of grapes made it through to the fermentation stage and beyond. They made decisions to use little to no sulfur additions with an utter refusal to chaptalise, acidify, filter, or fine the wines prior to bottling. The end results of such practices allowed for the fullest expression from the specific terroir with the most minimal intervention possible. This specificity of terroir became overwhelmingly evident in the fruit, the aromatics, the structure and acidity in the finished wines. By working this way, both in the vineyards and the cellar, to make wines in a real, honest and transparent way is where we find the utmost pleasure and the abundance of nature’s true mysteries. After all, aren't we really just searching for utter deliciousness when choosing what wines we want to consume.
Guy’s wines are always fairly low in alcohol and possess incredible freshness, in part due to his desire to harvest as early as possible, without compromising optimal ripeness. He likes to cool down the fruit in the initial few days of fermentation to slow the process down and capture all of the aromatics present. Fermentations are always whole cluster and carbonic, with native yeasts, and no fining or filtering. This is all done in order to craft wines that he ultimately likes to drink. And let’s be honest, these vignerons really like to drink! And what they prefer to drink are bright, aromatic, low tannin, and dangerously quaffable wines that are “Maxwell House” delicious!
2023 Régnié
The grapes that go into Guy’s Régnié are from two parcels that belonged to his grandfather. They are located near the village of Régnié-Durette in the hills between Côte de Brouilly and Côte du Py in Morgon. One parcel holds vines over 100 years old and the other is a parcel made up of 35 year old vines. Soils are quite shallow with exposed stones, which give the roots access to the granite bedrock below, creating wines that are effusive with bold acidity and fine, elegant tannins. These are remarkably age worthy as much as they are delectable and succulent upon release.