Introducing Domaine Tinou, Jurançon and Le Jonc Blanc, Bergerac!
6/30/16 -
Serge Hondet, Domaine Tinou, Jurançon After reading about the great wines of Domaine Tinou, a 3 hectare estate in Jurançon that has been organic since 1964, we were determined to visit. 50 years of organic farming! We called proprietor Serge Hondet, who said he would be glad to see us, but of course he couldn't sell us any wine. Perfect! In January of 2014, after visits to Peybonhomme and Planquette in Bordeaux, we made the trek across to Pau and south into Jurançon. After some near-disasters on the short cuts recomended by Google, we arrived safely at Tinou and of course our tasting with the friendly and energetic Monsieur Hondet was fabulous. And not only the Jurançons, the Bearn rouge and rosé were marvelous as well - but still no wine to sell. "Maybe in a few years." So this past January we returned, the day of a blizzard in New York, on a sunny sixty-degree morning with the snowy Pyrenees rising majestically just to the south. This time, after tasting all the fabulous wines we couldn't buy, Serge agreed to sell us some of the moelleux, both the beautiful 2014 Tradition and the sensational 2014 Cuvée Speciale Petit Manseng! Yes, there is a lot of good wine in Jurançon, but the chance to offer the gorgeous wines of Domaine Tinou has us very excited. Although not exactly a tradition in the US, these moelleux wines, at 60 and 70 grams residual sugar respectively, are beautifully balanced and exquisitely flavored - they are fantastic aperitifs and pair wonderfully with fois gras, terrines, patés, sheep cheeses, Asian foods and fruit desserts and are just plain delicious - we urge you to try them.
Isabelle and Franck Pascal, Le Jonc Blanc, Bergerac Our recent visit to Le Jonc Blanc was a great pleasure - Isabelle and Franck are delightful, intelligent people whose committment to Biodynamic farming, natural winemaking and the preservation of their unique terroir is inspirational. (And their dog is hilarious.) Located on an unusual outcropping of two different limestones with very thin clay soils, giving tiny yields, the estate produces wines that transcend the appellation Bergerac. They are mostly bottled as Vin de France and show marvelous complexity of fruit and flavors of earth and stone. The reds here are bottled with zero added sulfur and the whites with minimal or zero SO2 as well. The first wines to arrive are the 2014 "les Sens du Fruit" red and white and the 2014 Bergerac "Classik." While the wines are inexpensive, they are superb examples of natural winemaking that reinforce our admiration for those vignerons who have chosen to work with respect for nature and for the consumer as well. The two reds on offer, in particular, are among the finest, most affordable natural wines to be found anywhere!
