July 2020 Wine Club
Connections to the Languedoc
Welcome back to Grandiflora’s wine club blog! This month we are featuring wines from two very small producers around Roussillon and the Languedoc, and we have a special event planned for you: on July 8th, at the bar at Grandiflora, we’ll be hosting a portfolio tasting! Cason Love, founder of Terres Blanches Wine Merchants and importer for both of this month’s wines, will be pouring and sharing his wealth of knowledge and experience in Southwestern France with us.
Peeling Back the Curtain
Although we take responsibility for the impact of the wines we sell and the information we provide with them, Grandiflora would not be possible without a larger community of dedicated wine professionals. We largely focus on the people growing the grapes and making the wine because they’re the foundation of the international wine community. This month, we are shifting our focus a bit to highlight the critical role that importers play in making these incredible wines available to the Norfolk wine community. Cason’s travels in France and personal knowledge of its terroir and winemaking community have been an invaluable resource in making our selections and understanding the greater context of natural winemaking in France.
In this article, to give you a sense of the depth of knowledge he is bringing to the table, I will be quoting extensively from Cason’s well researched trade materials and linking the tech sheets that help us make our final evaluation of what wines to bring on to the Grandiflora menu. Enjoy!
La Bancale, ‘Chair Blanches Marnes Noires’ 2020
Producer Focus: La Bancale
I’ll let Cason set the scene:
The Fenouillèdes, is a minor mountain range stretching from Axat in the West to Estagel, a small village outside Perpignan, in the East. Quite literally wedged between the Corbières Mountains and the northern rim of the snowcapped Pyrenees, this is a land of geological and climatic extremes. The blue skies, garrigue covered hills and sheer rocky crests, make for a breathtaking landscape. Undeniably beautiful, it’s easy to forget the difficulties that the arid climate, poor rocky soils, and near constant winds from the Tramontane present to those who work the land. Amidst this dramatic scenery, nestled in the foothills of the Fenouillèdes at the western end of the Agly Valley, is the small village of Saint-Paul-de-Fenouillet. Here in a tiny cellar under their warm and inviting home, Bastien Baillet and Céline Schuers are crafting some of the most unique wines in Southern France.
Tasting La Bancale’s wines brought me back to my early days of wine in western Washington state. Over the years I developed a fondness for the dense, gamey reds and savory, aromatic whites grown in the Columbia Valley’s hot, dry continental terroir. Bastien and Celine spend their whole year tending vines, grapes, and wine in the extremes of Fenouillèdes, and their substantial effort shows in the excellent depth and polish of their wines. Bastien and Celine are also young for winemakers! They started out on their own in 2014 after years of study and apprenticeships, and we feel some solidarity with them as we all try to build a world with more natural wine in it.
What We Love about Chair Blanches Marnes Noires
Let me show you the raw material I’m working with when I’m figuring out how to educate about these wines. Here’s an excerpt from an exceptionally detailed tech sheet from Cason.
Vinification: The grapes were harvested on the mornings of August 26th and 27th and direct pressed upon arrival in the cellar. The juice undergoes one-night of cold settling in stainless-steel tanks, then is racked off the heavy lees straight into large neutral vats for fermentation. Alcoholic fermentation begins naturally using only indigenous yeasts. Fermentation lasted 10 days for the vat containing the juice from the August 26th harvest (mostly 20-year-old Grenache Gris), and 6 days for the vat containing the juice from the August 27th harvest (70-year-old Grenache Gris & 40-year-old Macabeu). No stirring of the fine lees and the wine goes through full malolactic fermentation. After the completion of malolactic fermentation, the two vats are blended in a stainless-steel tank and a very low dose of sulfur is added. The final blend is racked back into neutral vats for ageing.
Maturation: Aged in neutral vats for 5 months.
pH: 3.19
Total SO2: 24ppm
Boiled down, we are looking at a very tight, clean production process. They use all organic farming and the only intervention in the winery is a tiny dose of sulfur, a single blending, and careful stewardship of fermentation.
The result, as you will taste, is silky and incredibly polished. This wine is savory up front and opens up into tropical flowers, fruits, and citrus aromatics. As this wave fades the savory tones return and the finish is just as polished as the palate, with no loss of balance.
Domaine Des Deux Clés, ‘Clés en Main’ Rose 2020
Producer Focus: Domaine des Deux Clés
I’ll let Cason introduce these two again:
Situated among the rocky valleys of the Hautes-Corbières, just 25km from the Mediterranean Sea, and only accessible by small winding roads is the sleepy village of Fontjoncouse. Despite its relative isolation and a population of just over 120 inhabitants this tiny village is home to Gilles Goujon’s world renowned, Auberge du Vieux Puits. Gourmands the world over travel to Fontjoncouse to dine at this three-star Michelin restaurant. Many are perhaps oblivious to the tiny Domaine located at 1 Avenue Saint-Victor as they pass it on their way to Auberge du Vieux Puits. Here, not much more than a stone’s throw from one of the world’s best restaurants, Gaëlle and Florian Richter are producing some of the most distinctive and soulful wines coming out of the Languedoc today.
Domaine Des Deux Clés is distinctive for their commitment to biodynamic winemaking. Both trained in Burgundy and make their terroir-driven Fontjoncouse wines in the Burgundian style, with
low pressure pneumatic pressing, fermentation and maturation in 228L French oak barrels, with gentle rackings and light batonnage. The reds are fermented utilizing a combination of whole clusters and whole berries in large concrete and stainless-steel tanks. In order to maintain freshness and avoid the extraction of harsh tannins, the reds undergo one light pump-over a day. A minimal amount of sulfur is added at the completion of malolactic fermentation and all wines are bottled without fining or filtration.
The most striking thing about their work process to me, however, is this:
all vineyards are Demeter certified or in the conversion process. Work in the vineyards is dominated by meticulous manual labor, as the narrow vine rows of the older plantings make working with a tractor impossible. Gaëlle and Florian are in the vines daily and intimately understand each parcel they farm.
It’s one thing to be working with indigenous grapes and minimal intervention in the winery. It’s another to be biodynamic certified, which is fantastic. But to keep plantings that make mechanical farming impossible is another level altogether. Gaëlle and Florian farm 14 hectares, which is 35 acres. That’s a lot of vines! Farming that much land by hand requires them to be very efficient with their labor. That’s part of the promise of biodynamic farming — that careful stewardship of the land can partially replace backbreaking manual work. Our hope is that this type of farming can become the norm for many crops, not just for wine!
What We Love about the ‘Clés en Main’ Rose
Take a look again at the tech sheet:
Winemaking: Each variety and parcel are whole cluster pressed separately. The newly pressed juice undergoes a 4-day cold maceration on the gross lees in a stainless-steel tank. The wine is then racked off the gross lees into 228L French oak barrels (15% new) for fermentation. The fermentation begins naturally using only indigenous yeasts. The 2020 rosé went through full malolactic fermentation.
Maturation: Aged 4 months in 228L French oak barrels (15% new), followed by an additional 3 months in stainless-steel tanks. Bottled unfined and unfiltered.
pH: 3.1
Total SO2: 50ppm
Similar to their farming style, Gaelle and Florian omit many labor and energy intensive steps — destemming, multiple rackings, cold stabilization — in favor of a more honest wine. The element that stands out the most to me in this rose is that it’s fermented and aged with some new oak! Normally we are cautious about oaked wines because oak can be used to compensate for less than stellar fruit, but the oak here is instead used to complement and enhance the robust natural characteristics of some powerful grapes — Carignan and Syrah.
The result is a rose that expresses the full potential of its red grapes with a heady, smoky savoriness and a richly textured midpalate, balanced by the bitter and spicy oak structure. Gaelle and Florian are selective about the terroir of their oak and it shows — this rose is poised without sacrificing expression and powerful without sacrificing balance.
We look forward to seeing you on the 8th! Come try these wines with 6 others from Terres Blanches and let us know what you think!
Cheers,
Jason
