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| Every year we receive a tiny allocation of wines from the dazzling Eric Pfifferling, and rather than hoard them and dole them out to the cognoscenti (who already know the beauty of these wines and understandably want to grab every bottle for themselves), we choose to present them you in a tasting. We do not have much of Pfifferling’s wine to go around but what we do have is yours. Pfifferling, a one-time beekeeper turned vigneron, got his start in wine working at several well-known Parisian natural wine outlets (e.g., Le Verre Volé) and eventually began farming a small plot of old vines in the southern Rhône, left to him by his grandmother. Early on, he sold his wines to the local and particularly good Estézargues co-op, but today keeps everything for himself and his sons Thibault and Joris who bottle the wines under their own domaine’s name, L’Anglore. Pfifferling works under the sign of the father of modern natural wine, Jules Chauvet, and as he got to know the wines and personalities of those who knew Chauvet directly, e.g., Lapierre and Foillard in Beaujolais his wines began to show their influence. I think he is making some of the most exciting wines of the southern Rhône in an appellation in which wine drinkers have zero expectation of excitement. The Tavel appellation he works within is a funny one, an appellation in which rosé is the only wine that may take the appellation name. Tavel is a grenache-based rosé and typically the standard it needs to meet is a value price point rather than quality, but Pfifferling chose a different path. His Tavel, which we will taste tonight, is closer to a light red wine, dry, medium-bodied, a little tannic, and truly what is the difference between a light red wine and a dark rosé, rather than the arbitrary categories foisted upon us by language? We are tasting three L’Anglore wines but also have a few bottles of additional cuvées for you to take, as well.
L’Anglore “Chemin de la Brune” Vin de France 2018 |