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| Maison Crochet “Java” Pét-nat Lorraine/France Sclavos Zakynthino Cephalonia/Greece 2022 Calmette “Trespotz” Cahors/France 2022 Oneos Mittas Naoussa Macedonia/Greece 2022 Equis “Equinoxe” Crozes-Hermitage 2023 |
| And just like that, it’s autumn in Los Angeles. A few days ago, we were bitching about the dust, the heat. On Monday, I didn’t have the heart to close the door to the shop, longing to listen to the beat of the rain on the concrete rather than staying a bit warmer, a downpour that my parched soul has been thirsty for all summer long, perhaps even longer than that. And I know I’m not the only one. And so, we’ve organized a tasting this week centered on autumn, a season both of plangent endings and the ruminative stirrings of new beginnings.
We’re starting the tasting with a curious pét-nat from Lorraine, located in the east of France, on the western side of the Vosges Mountains. Curious, because although it was a historic wine growing region in France (the Champenoise once bought much of Lorraine’s produce to use in making Champagne, until appellation rules outlawed this practice), it was nearly bombed out of existence, as it was the frontline between France and Germany during the two world wars. Curious and curiouser, the wine is made from menu pineau, an archaic grape that is a fellow-traveler with chenin blanc, but hews more to the pear rather than the apple side of the pomaceous spectrum, where chenin often goes. The wines tend to be less acid-driven than chenin, more savory, and, for lack of better words, emit a distinctly autumnal vibe. No one makes bank from working with menu pineau: those who do so are smitten by it, so it’s always worth trying the rare bottle or two you come across, if you are susceptible to it (and I hope I can seduce you into being so). Even more curious, the grape is not cultivated in Lorraine, but today is only found in the center of the Loire, near Tours—the folks at Maison Crochet purchased a bit of menu pineau from friends in the Loire to make the wine at their domaine. Crochet is more focused on making the most delicious wines they can, so they eschew appellation regulations and take the generic “Vin de France” appellation for everything they do. We’re following this with a new-ish wine from one of our most beloved Greek growers, Vladi Sclavos. The grape is zakynthino, which he also makes as a shorter-macerated orange wine; this iteration is not orange, so you can taste the autumnal flavors without the artefacts of maceration. Then, three red wines. The first is a juicy malbec from Cahors, the homeland of the grape, located in France’s southwest (an area that itself seems to be in a perpetual state of autumn, resonant of walnuts and duck fat, and the long-lost souls of the Cathars who made their last stand there. Then, a xinomavro-based wine, a grape that often displays tannins that would make corncob pipe smoking pappy on the porch blush, but here tamed, a bit, by judicious barrel aging. Organically farmed, medium-full bodied, and not too tannic. To finish, a Rhone Valley wine from Crozes-Hermitage from Maxime Graillot, the heir of the brilliant Alain Graillot. |