Wino Wrestling Federation #7
In Praise of the Vigneron
WWF Lineup ~ AUGUST 2021
When I think of natural wine, I think of the vigneron: a person who cultivates grapes for winemaking. When the winemaker is involved in the growing process, cultivating the vines, and tending them throughout the year, they necessarily become intimately familiar with the land. They become tuned in to the seasons, and the smell of the vineyard in the early morning. They learn the names of the flowers and weeds that grow around the vines, and are careful to not disturb the rare birds nests they find in the vines. They can’t ignore the concept of terroir and the role it plays in the finished product--the wine. It’s all around them.
The vigneron is there to prune and to shoot thin, to watch the bud break, to witness the shifts all the way through harvest season. And then, once the fruit has been pressed, fermented, and bottled, the cycle begins again.
This past season, I was presented with the opportunity to help some of my friends in their vineyards. They don’t have their own vineyard; rather, they offer their time and labor in exchange for the fruit that they would otherwise purchase from the owners. They act as stewards to the land, fostering the grapes from dormancy to ripeness, and in some cases even rehabilitating vines and teaching the land owners about better practices, guiding them towards a more natural approach to vineyard maintenance.
While purchasing one’s fruit to make wine with is not inherently inferior to the vigneron model, there’s something undeniably special about drinking a wine whose maker also grew the fruit. This month we present to you some very special cuvees made by women who know the value of tending the land. When you drink them, think about the land from which they come.
Ode to the vigneron!
- Kelly Rowe
Aline Beaune -
Aligote 2019
Varietal: Aligoté
Region: Saterney, France
Viticulture: Certified Organic as of 2020 with Biodynamic practices
Vinification: Elevage in neutral cask rounds everything out and melds it all together.
Taste: Golden Apple, Lemon, White Peach, White Flowers
Our Take:
This 2019 Bourgogne Aligoté by Aline Beauné Is wonderfully well balanced and bright. It’s like Chardonnays fun aunt, she’ll sit you down to have that serious talk but then she’s taking your ass to Disneyland.
On the nose it bursts with golden apple and delicate white flowers, leading into some un ripe peach and earthy herbs later on.
It’s light bodied, dry and has lots of bouncy acidity
On the pallet it starts out slightly creamy juicy and then gives way to a little bite of lemon pith and ends with some great smoky notes of burning sage.
I would pair this wine with white fish in a lemon caper sauce or some rich melty cheese
- Megan Walker
Producer Notes:
Aline has been making wine at the top tier in Santenay for over a decade, but all the while her parents have been renting out a familial plot in Montagny. In 2018, the contract with the previous tenants on 5 HA of prime vineyard land expired. Aline jumped at the opportunity to take over these vines and start her own domain. The previous tenants were farming responsibly, but Aline felt the land had more to offer. She is transitioning to organic farming and already using some biodynamic treatments to ease this transition for the vines. The wines in 2018 are shimmering and gorgeous - and she is just getting started.
Terre Des Dames -
La Diva 2016
Varietal: Syrah (55%) Grenache (35%) Alicante (15%) from a 100- year-old vine.
Producer: Lidewij van Wilge
Region: Murviel-Lès-Béziers, France
Viticulture: Certified Organic
Vinification: Harvested and sorted by hand. Aged in 600 french oak barrels for 12 months. Bottled by the lunar calendar to best respect the living character of the wine.
Taste: Ripe Cherries, Blueberry, Black currant, Plum, Cedar
Our Take:
Tastes like: an overripe cherries served in a wooden bowl.
Smells like: summer blackberries being freshly picked. Note: I have never actually experienced this action but I imagine that is what it would at least smell like.
I'm also pretty confident that this would pair nicely with a beautifully marbled steak but I don't have one of those. I do know that it compliments a fig bar that you're snacking on as you hurriedly do your assigned wine homework, that is this, an hour before work.
The color resembles that of a deep ruby gem. Therefore, this is a jewel in the Nile of wines.
- Rhaisa
Producer Notes:
Terre des Dames (“Land of the Ladies”) is led by the fearless and fierce Lidewij van Wilgen (Lee). At 30, she and her husband left the world of advertising in the Netherlands to refurbish a run-down 18th century farmhouse in the Languedoc outside the medieval town of Murviel-Lès-Béziers.
When they and their three daughters moved in, both the house and the vines were in poor shape. While those were under renovations, Lee studied oenology at the local school where she faced scrutiny because she was neither French nor a man. Meanwhile, her neighbors were pressuring her to pull out the old vines, replant with high production, and spray, spray, spray. To which she adamantly refused. Oh, and she and her husband divorced, leaving her alone to tend to the farm, the house renovations, and three girls.
Thanks to her determination, Lee was one of only three students in her class of 30 to graduate, and now enjoys the concentrated, beautiful, organically grown fruit from her old vines (most between 50-70 years, with one parcel over 100).
Lee farms 14ha in total, all organic (certified 2009), and regularly reduces yields below 40hl/ha. She sorts rigorously and uses a gentle hand in the cellar. Always native yeasts, and minimal oak for aging.
Martha Stouman - Post Flirtation White 2020
Varietal: 75% Colombard, 12% Marsanne, 9% Roussanne, 4% Muscat blanc
Producer: Martha Stouman
Region: Sebastopol, California
Viticulture: Colombard comes from Ricetti Vineyard in Mendocino County; planted in 1948; certified organic; dry farmed on loam.
Roussanne, Marsanne, and Muscat blanc come from The Urban Edge Farm in Contra Costa County; certified organic, sandy soils.
Vinification: The co-fermented CoCo fruit (Marsanne, Roussanne, and Muscat blanc) is all tumbled in the press to get just a hint of skin contact before pressing, then juice is fermented on full lees in stainless steel. Early season Colombard is also fermented in stainless steel and adds all the zippiness to this blend. We like both the filtered and hazy versions of this wine, and went unfiltered for the 2020 vintage. We move the wine as little as possible to preserve the CO2 produced from fermentation, which acts as a natural preservative and gives the mouthfeel a little boost. The final blend was bottled after 6 months of aging and once malolactic fermentation was complete.
Taste:
Our Take:
Producer Notes:
“This is always a fun wine to make, as it marks the beginning of harvest in late August. The Urban Edge Farm is located outside of Oakley, Contra Costa County (affectionately CoCo). The weather and soils of CoCo are reminiscent of the Mediterranean, with a hot land mass, super duper sandy soils, and a near constant cooling wind coming off of the very cold, salty waters of the Carquinez Strait. The old vine Colombard in this blend is versatile, as it maintains basically the same sugar level and acidity on the vine from August to November. When picked in late August it reminds me of a featherweight Basque Txakoli (while our late season Colombard going into our Honeymoon has a more Chenin-like characteristic). The combination of these two vineyards results in a wine full of summer flavors, slightly salty, and extremely drinkable.”
-Martha Stouman
Anne Sophie Dubois - Les Cocettes 2019
Varietal: 100% Gamay
Producer: Anne Sophie Dubois
Region: Fleurie, Beaujolais, France
Viticulture: Certified Organic
Vinification: Hand Harvested, whole bunch carbonic maceration. Pressed in a vertical press
Taste: tart cherries, pomegranate juice, white pepper
Our Take:
Producer Notes:
“Because it is important to never lose touch with its vines, I am first and foremost a winegrower. 80% of the wine is made in the vineyard. Being a wine grower, it is primarily a vocation”
Anne Sophie’s vines are all located in the AOC Fleurie on 400 meter high west by southwest facing slopes that exceed 30% grade. The soils are pink granite. The vineyards form a “cirque” like amphitheater of 18 plots. She began Organic certification in 2018.
In the cellar she continues the respect for the purity and life of the product as she had in the vineyard. All grapes are hand harvested. All juice is pressed with a vertical press.
Autour de L’Anne - Pot d’Anne
Varietal: Malbec, Cab Franc
Region: Cahors, France
Viticulture: Biodynamic
Vinification: Fermented in old oak or cement, partial carbonic maceration, unfined and unfiltered, < 30 ppm SO2
Taste: Plum, Cherry, Marijuana
Our Take:
Like a true Californian, the first words out of my mouth after seeing the label was, oooo! Pot wine! Surprise to us all, the initial aroma after popping the top was a strong hemp smell. Influenced? maybe, herbaceous, yes. Along with the fresh picked weed, my sniffer sent visions of sugar plums and fresh pressed cranberries.
Initially as I tasted it I found one of my fav red wine characteristics, a sort of ziiiiiiiing on my tongue. I translate that as it tastes alive, fresh, and dances on your taste buds.Bright flavors of tart cherries and unripe plum fill my mouth with every sip. It is light to medium in body and there’s a lovely parmesan cheese and marzipan flavor in the finish. I’ll take a case please, thanks.
— Brooke Arthur
Producer Notes: Happy accident? Anne Paillet had spent years working for a large industrial company in La Defense (financial district of Paris), when a serious car accident made her realize that corporate life was not the life for her. Seeking a new reality, she left her job in 2010 to join her husband Gregory Leclerc, a natural winemaker in the Loire.
Always up for a challenge, Anne wanted to make different wines than her husband, with different grapes on a different terroir. She also realized that she needed her own vines for the style of wine that she felt inspired to make.
Anne’s friend Christophe Beau, a biodynamic producer in Coteaux du Languedoc, offered her a partnership on his 6ha estate, renting her 2.5 ha of his land. In 2011 Autour de l’Anne was created, with the help of Christophe and his son Victor.
Anne hand-harvests the grapes and fermentation occurs naturally with wild yeasts in concrete tank without any SO2. The particularity of the estate is that at the end of fermentation, Anne takes the wine to the Loire to finish its aging at Gregory’s winery .
Anne told us that the style of her wines tends to be more similar to wines from the Loire Valley than the Languedoc. She avoids heaviness and high alcohol level, preferring lighter, terroir-expressive wines.
Vin de la Gamba - Mehr Frauen? Ja Bitte!
Varietal: Pinot Blanc, Pinot Noir, Riesling
Producer: Alanna Lagamba
Region: Rhienhessen, Germany
Viticulture: Organic
Taste: Bright Cherry, Raspberry Soda
Our Take:
This one is youth incarnate. It’s got a bit of fizz to it and a slight electricity that makes for a vivacious drinking experience. Tons of red fruit with a playful tickle on the tongue.
Allana Lagamba is part of a new generation of winemakers who are bringing a refreshing edge to the winemaking community at large. Her origins are Canadian but after meeting Marto Worner in berlin and working in his vineyards in the Rheinhessen. She hit the scene with her first vintage Frauen Power in 2018
Noella Morantin - Tango Atlantico 2018
Varietal: 60% Cabernet Franc, 40% Cot
Producer: Noella Morantin
Region: Touraine, Loire, France
Viticulture: Certified Organic
Taste: Black Currant, Cassis, Blueberry, Raspberry, Earthy, Mushroom
Our Take:
Noella Morantin is originally from Pornic, a small town bordering the Atlantic ocean. Her father had a little vineyard and would make wine for personal consumption but she didn’t pursue the path of a vigneronne until she had a chance encounter with a professor of viticulture who encouraged her to give it a shot. She got her BS in agriculture/oenology in 2004 at which point she was working for Agnes and Rene Mosse (One of the RSB teams favorite producers). She went to the Salon de Vins de Loire, an annual wine trade fair in the Loire, where she met Junk Arai from Bois Lucas whom was looking for someone to replace Pascal Potaire as the main overseer of the estate. She was trained by Pascal and oversaw the estate until 2008 when she started to oversee who own vines.
Noella ages her wine in barrel for a long time and adapts to the wines needs as time goes on but without any chemical intervention aside from a small amount of SO2 at bottling for preservation.
