The Supernaturals (Part One) Featuring Clos des Vignes du Maynes "Cuvee 910!
7/28/15 -
(Clos des Vignes du Maynes in winter)
Recent arrivals to Chambers Street have included some of the most sought-after natural wines of France (or "wines of nature" as Didier Barrouillet would say) - we've selected some of our favorites for this email and Racines NY will feature them by-the-glass - one night only - just up the road at 94 Chambers Street next Tuesday, August 4th, from 6:00 until closing. All of these wines are insanely delicious, made without or with minimal SO2 and are products of meticulous organic/biodynamic farming.
In the spotlight today is the wonderful Clos des Vignes du Maynes Macon-Rouge "Cuvée 910." The Guillot family has been in the vanguard of natural wine since the creation of the estate in 1952, "three generations of vignerons engaged from the beginning in a battle for wine produced in the most natural way possible, in the vines and in the cellar." (LeRouge&leBlanc #116) The vineyards in the Clos have never been treated with chemical fertilzers, herbicides or pesticides and contain many old varieties of Pinot Noir, Gamay and Chardonnay, maintained by massale selection. The Cuvee 910 is Julien Guillot's fantastic experiment - to make a wine exactly as it was made eleven hundred years ago. The grapes were hand harvested, transported in ox-carts, foot-pressed and vinified with wild yeasts with zero additives. In the 2014 vintage the result is outstanding - a refreshing natural wine that is also a complex and serious glass of Burgundy!
Also featured today are wines from Cyril Fhal at the Clos du Rouge Gorge - elegant, balanced and full of character, perhaps the finest from the new generation of wine-makers in the Languedoc-Roussillon. They are products of living soils, uniquely beautiful with pure silky fruit, moderate levels of alcohol and firm acidity - delicious examples of the indigenous grapes of the Roussillon. The vines have been tended in biodynamic farming from the beginning, with light plowing by hand, horse or rototiller. Natural composts and biodynamic treatments have revitalized the soil, and plants and flowers among the vines bring beneficial insects and a diverse fauna - the mountainside vineyards have a magical quality and seem to blend in with the surrounding sparse vegetation. Yields at Clos Rouge Gorge are normally 10 to 20 hl/ha, harvesting is by hand into small baskets, light crushing by foot is followed by slow fermentations (traditional, not carbonic maceration) with no extraction, alcoholic and malo-lactic fermentation in barrel. These are wines of great purity and finesse that combine delicacy and power.
