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| Jousset “Exilé” pét-nat Vin de France (Loire) 2024 Sons of Wine “Soulographie” Vin de France (Alsace) 2024 Sons of Wine “Bisous Bisou” Vin de France (Alsace) 2023 Château Lestignac “Michel Michel” Vin de France (Loire) 2024 Domaine Les Enfants Sauvages “Bouche Bée” Côtes Catalanes 2024 |
| Fatuous fool that I am, I find the misuse of the wine term “varietal” equivalent to nails on a chalkboard. It’s not something that keeps me up at night (I can thank over-gorging on pizza for that), yet it’s something that appears to be a trivial morsel of pedantic rubbish, but it is actually not. A good rule of thumb is that when you find your mouth about to utter the word varietal, don’t. The word you’re searching for is “variety.” Varietal is an adjective that refers to a wine that carries a grape variety’s (noun) name on the label. For example, the lovely Trail Marker Santa Cruz chardonnay that we sell is a varietal wine, as the chardonnay variety is emblazoned on the label; the Moreau-Naudet Chablis we stock, on the other hand—always made from the chardonnay grape variety as all Chablis is—is not a varietal wine, as the Chablisien do not print the grape variety’s name on the label. Why in the hell do they refuse to do that? The answer is that they’re proud advocates of the unique terroir, traditions, and sensibility of their region—chardonnay is merely a vehicle for their weltanschauung. If we smear the distinction between varietal and varietal, all is lost, I’m afraid, all is lost, in a wan voice, hand waving, staring into the distance. Ok, it’s not as terrible as all that. Still, the distinction between variety and varietal is good to keep in mind as you try to make sense of terroir, and why growers in Burgundy rarely make varietally labeled wines (but do focus almost exclusively on the pinot noir and chardonnay grape varieties): the cosmos of Burgundy is more important to them than the grapes that they use, and the grapes they use are themselves a function of this cosmos. It’s why devout Burgundians would never dream of growing, let’s say, zinfandel, and even give a grape like gamay, with deep historic roots in the region, a tough time.
We’re hosting wine impresario Phaedon Papadopoulos to present this week’s wines, all from the import portfolio he represents, T. Edward. Phaedon will be pouring five French natural wines, four of which lack a varietal labelling. Four of the wines lack even a regional designation and bear the “Vin de France” moniker, despite being made with traditional and permitted grape varieties in their respective regions. In France, it is the INAO (L’Institut national de l’origine et de la qualité), a public-private hybrid trade organization, that controls the regulations allowing a vigneron who adheres to them to apply an appellation name to their wine, in theory. In practice, the INAO can also be an iron cage of obedience which some growers chafe at, even as they faithfully respect the regulations that adhere in their region: each vintage, the INAO employs tasting panels to vet wines, and if the tasting panel deems that the wine lacks typicity (e.g., it might be turbid when typically, the wines from the region are not), a grower may be compelled to demote their wine to a more basic regional appellation, e.g., no longer a Mâcon blanc, but simply “Bourgogne,” or simply Vin de France. The growers who make the wines we’re tasting this week are trying, to the best of their lights, to make the most delicious wines they can, and do not want the Man to step on their efforts; they want to let their freak flags fly, unfettered by the iron cage of appellation designation. |