Vin de joie

Do we really gain by deconstructing joy?

Fer Servadou, carbonic, from the Aveyron. Made by a gentleman named Nicolas Carmarans, who used to run a wine bar in Paris - there seems to be something about the experience of selling wine in Paris that drives people to move to the countryside to make it.

He doesn't make this one anymore but if this was anything to go by, his wines are well worth seeking out.

Old School

90/10 Viura/Malvasia. 6 or more years in barrel. These wines are still fined with egg whites, a practice which speaks to the unyielding traditionalism of its makers, three sisters who are the fourth generation to run the winery.

It was a good year. This was a wine of depth and mystery. Drinking beautifully, but every sip hinting at something in reserve. Quietly aromatic, slightly oxidative, tautness without acid. A muscular and graceful poise.

Oh Montevertine. The first of many middle fingers raised to the Consorzio, and still one of the very best. Nearly all Sangiovese, the remainder Canaiolo, and the odd drop of Colorino. Also from a good year, as evidenced by the existence of Pergole Torte from that vintage. Not light, but with an impression of lightness created by perfect posture. Old fruit sighing out the last of its freshness, leather, the expected aromatics, but all thrown into a new light by that perfect, perfect carriage. Too little of this to go round.

The Lost and The Proscribed

95% palomino fino, 5% garnacha tintorera.

A white wine stained red, smelling orange, or like flower water. Intensely, overwhelmingly, disgustingly, seductively aromatic. In the mouth, balance, tannin, not precise, but centered. Lovely, but only in small doses.

Les Sucettes a L'Aunis

A new low in hipster wine labels, from Julien Pineau. Perhaps a deliberate throwback to the minimalist excesses of the nouvelle vague, perhaps merely 30 years out of date.

Reductive, spritzy, grippy. Obviously a hipster wine, but one that still acknowledged its origins in some very ripe bunches of pineau d'aunis.