Pollux Membership August 2023: Which One Is It Again? and The Alchemy of Exclusivity
The small hamlet of La Ribaudy in St. Joseph, providing the “Les Ribaudes” with its name.
“Which One is it Again?”
Domaine Faury St. Joseph Blanc “Les Ribaudes”, France 2021
Many moons ago when I regularly attended (and for four years hosted) a tasting group in Washington, DC that practiced blind tasting via the deductive method of the Court of Master Sommeliers, we came to understand that every somm had their own blind tasting Kryptonite. We had a young sommelier who was attached to Albariño and would erroneously call the northwest Spanish grape on a weekly basis, sometimes more than once in the same six-wine flight. Another group member had fits (as many professionals do on an ongoing basis) with detecting Tuscan Sangiovese vs. Piedmont’s Nebbiolo-it should be noted that said sommelier overcame their bugaboo with such success that many of us now use some of their tutelage to keep our own determination of those two varieties in check. My personal tasting flaw? I had the “On the Radar” syndrome. “On the Radar” is an affliction whereby you taste and describe a wine perfectly but forget, upon conclusion, that certain wine regions and grapes exist entirely, leading to our group leaders often evaluating my performance with “well, you gave us a textbook definition of this wine on sight, nose, and palate, but at the end you just left (insert your own maddeningly obvious grape, region, or style that NO SELF-RESPECTING SOMMELIER SHOULD EVER LEAVE OFF THEIR RADAR here) off your radar.” Thankfully, both experience and therapy exist, the latter sometimes obtainable and the former begrudgingly inevitable.
This month’s Pollux white wine reminds me of another friend of ours, whose Achilles’ heel in blind tasting centered on two grapes that are fairly ubiquitous in France’s Rhone Valley: Marsanne and Roussanne. However, this particular somm buddy would often fail to recall that, at least in the wine world, the Rhone is split into two halves, Northern and Southern, with deeply contrasting climates, soil, and yes, varietal blends in each. Marsanne, in particular, is extremely uncommon in the Southern Rhone Valley, and forbidden completely in that area’s foremost white wine, Chateauneuf-du-Pape Blanc (though the grape does feature further south in the Languedoc). So, upon encountering a Southern Rhone white wine when tasting blind, this esteemed colleague would constantly conclude that the wine was a “Marsanne blend” for, well, about a six-month stretch, until one Sunday morning (we held the group on Sunday mornings, a desperate time for restaurant workers as you are either recovering from service on Saturday night or heading to the much-dreaded Sunday brunch service) when he finally threw up his hands and shouted, “I give up! Which one is it again?!?!?”, to much frivolity. The answer he was searching for is the lovely grape Roussanne, produced in Chateaneuf-du-Pape and elsewhere in the South. To truly understand both of these similarly-sounding varieties, Marsanne and Roussanne, however, one must look to the Northern Rhone Valley, where the two grapes frequently work together with aplomb in a marriage of fragrant aromatics and exotic, tropical structure, and so it was with great pleasure that I procured the minute quantities available of a Marsanne-Roussanne blend from the appellation of St. Joseph: the Saint Joseph Blanc “Les Ribaudes” from one of GWC’s (read:my) favorite producers, Lionel Faury.
The exotic, underrated Roussanne grape, with flavors that evoke the South of France but a textural weight that rivals Burgundy.
In the Northern Rhone town and AOP of St. Joseph, the Faury family have been putting out the dictionary definition of the region’s wine style since the 1970s. Back then they were a small operation selling wine, peaches, and cherries to an entirely local clientele; then Philippe Faury reconcentrated the family’s efforts on wine and gradually built the domaine’s vineyard holdings (although not too heavily; the total production of all cuvees is still only 7,000 cases combined) and consequently, its reputation. Whether from their home village of St. Joseph, the celebrated steep slopes of nearby Cote Rotie, or the Viognier-lined avenues of Condrieu, Faury wines became known for a sort of rustic elegance, particularly with the region’s dominant red varietal, Syrah, but also with the more subtle, finessed treatment of their white wines.
On the western side of the Rhone River, running vertically from its shared environs with the white-wine-only appellation of Condrieu in the north to its border with Syrah-only Cornas AOP in the south, St. Joseph AOP is at once the harbinger of excellent relative value wines both red and white, and a perplexing appellation wherein the quality can sport unexpectedly high ceilings and disappointingly low floors. It is a gross generalization, but European wine labels are still concentrated on the subject of terroir and location above all else, and as such the names of Marsanne and Roussanne are often nowhere to be found on a bottle of white wine from St. Joseph AOP. Appellation law, however, reveals white wine composition in St. Joseph to indeed be a two-horse race between these grapes, although unlike many other winegrowing areas there is no stipulation as to one or the other leading the way. St. Joseph sports the same granite soils as its more famed neighbor across the river, Hermitage, but often with it being in the form of bedrock, at lower elevations, and with less favorable exposures. As a seeker of high quality in St. Joseph, one would do well to look for smaller-production cuvees, with the logic being that you’d find a wine produced in one terroir (ideally elevated sites with higher levels of granite and more south/southeast exposures), with lower-yielding vines that would concentrate the best elements of Marsanne and Roussanne in anticipation of their eventual union. Lionel Faury’s “Les Ribaudes” fits the bill: the wine is named for the small hamlet of La Ribaudy, in the northernmost part of St. Joseph’s long, narrow land area-from this tiny village just outside of the Condrieu appellation, it is a 50-minute drive north to France’s second city of Lyon. The relatively miniscule 1.5-hectare site faces south by southeast on steep slopes of up to 35% grade, creating natural scarcity with both the number of vines planted and the smaller quantities of fruit they produce, leading to this optimal expression of both Marsanne and Roussanne. And just what are those “best elements” or “optimal expressions” that I keep referring to, anyway? Well, to bullet point:
-Marsanne: a low-acid variety that shares a roundness of texture with its neighbor Viognier produced in Condrieu to the north. Unlike Viognier, the Marsanne’s aromatics deal in thankfully more subtle tones (think acacia blossoms and white flowers as opposed to the aggressive “lilies left in a very small room” bouquet of Vigonier). Marsanne can ripen easily, giving it an elevated alcohol content and the potential for phenolic bitterness if not minded carefully, but when properly tended to, it produces flavors that tantalize: ripe melon, baked yellow apples, spiced apricots, quince paste, and marmalade.
-Roussanne: One of my favorite white wine varieties in the world, and one whose incredible potential is met with a surprising lack of awareness, Roussanne is the exotic foil to Marsanne, providing deep, nuanced tropical fruits (grilled pineapple, papaya, guava, passionfruit), a potential for malolactic notes of cream and butter, and fresh Mediterranean herbs. When aged in barrel, Roussanne develops a texture and weight not unlike that of Chardonnay.
Although the Domaine traditionally has an aversion to new oak, the “Les Ribaudes” Blanc does benefit greatly from having 30% of its juice resting in 1-5 year old barrels from coopers like Vicard.
The sheer volume of the St. Joseph appellation itself (stretching almost 40 miles) leaves much variation to be found in the various white wines produced, and in my experience makes the choice of cepage and certain decisions in the cellar crucial, even for my preferred “non-interventionist” style of winemaker. So how does Lionel Faury combine the best of Marsanne and Roussanne in “Les Ribaudes”? Firstly, the blend of “Les Ribaudes” changes each vintage to maximize that year’s best fruit-Faury’s US importer lists the typical ratio in “Les Ribaudes” as 80% Marsanne and 20% Roussanne, but the 2021 vintage leans a little closer to 60-40, with more Roussanne meaning more exotic notes, particularly if the service temperature rises to the upper end of the white wine cellar spectrum (50-52 degrees F). The other factor that makes “Les Ribaudes” so compelling is its 10 month long aging regimen: although the Faury family is traditionally against new oak in their wines, here they employ a selection of barrels ranging 1-5 years in age and nurture about 1/3 of the cuvee in them, giving the naturally aerated qualities of Marsanne room to show themselves; the remainder of the wine stays in stainless steel, which works wonders to add verve and freshness to two grapes that want for acidity. Enjoying the “Les Ribaudes” is like sitting through a multi-movement piece of music, with the wine constantly surprising the palate as it swings back and forth between spicy tree-fruit centered Marsanne and fleshy, full-throated Roussanne. “I give up! Which one is it again?!?!?” If our friend had been tasting a sip of the “Les Ribaudes”, it may not have mattered-D.
Domaine Faury St. Joseph Blanc “Les Ribaudes” 2021
Country of Origin: France.
Places and People: The Faury family have been putting out the dictionary definition of the Northern Rhone region’s ethos since the 1970s. They began as a small operation selling wine, peaches, and cherries to an entirely local clientele; then Philippe Faury reconcentrated the family’s efforts on wine and gradually built the domaine’s vineyard holdings (although not too heavily; the total production of all cuvees is still only 7,000 cases combined) and consequently, its reputation. His son Lionel currently helms the winery. The “Les Ribaudes” is so named for the tiny hamlet of La Ribaudy, located in the northern part of St. Joseph AOP, closer to the vineyards of Condrieu. The minute 1.5 hectare plot of vines are grown at steep slopes (up to 35 degree angles) and face south-southeast.
Soil: The steep, elevated plots for “Les Ribaudes” keep the soil type primarily granitic.
Grape Varieties: Marsanne/Roussanne (The blend is proprietary and changes each vintage; while normally broken down into around 80% Marsanne and 20% Roussanne, the 2021 vintage is closer to 60/40).
Winemaking: The grapes are hand-harvested and a pneumatic press is used; the “Les Ribaudes” is fermented entirely in stainless steel cuves.
Aging: The “Les Ribaudes” 2021 is aged for 10 months in a mix of stainless-steel tanks (70%) and an oak barrel program for the remaining 30%; the barrels range in age from 1-5 years.
Flavors and Foods: A golden straw color in the glass, Lionel Faury’s “Les Ribaudes” begins with a nose of deep, exotic tree and stone fruits: Asian pear, apricot, and yellow apple, followed by scents of honeydew, mango, white pepper, and quince (in case you can’t tell, I find the wine to be complex and intriguing). The mango comes forward to take the lead on the palate, along with the aforementioned quince/quince paste. As I’ll mention in the service notes below, the “Les Ribaudes” is really a tale of two temperatures: served cooler and the spice components come to the fore along with marine notes and a textural spritz. Let this wine warm to the higher end of the white wine cellar spectrum and the exotic, Roussanne-driven notes take over, with more mango, pineapple, and wild orange blossom honey. The Faury would be an excellent pairing with “heavier” selections of sushi (i.e. fatty toro tuna nigiri, or maki with heavier sauces and/or a tempura feature, such as dragon or spider rolls).
Service and Cellar: Obviously, serve a wine at two different temperatures and you’ll probably get two different flavor profiles; the difference in the “Les Ribaudes” that I found fascinating is that most of the time I’m cautioning against/advocating for a certain temperature-with this wine, I truly enjoyed it at both ends of the white wine cellar temp spectrum. Serving between 46-50 degrees F will highlight the spritz and spicegarden aspects of this complex wine; allowing it to reach 50-52 degrees F really highlights the expansive, more tropical components. The 2021 “Les Ribaudes” is drinking excellently currently and will cellar well for the next five years.
The incredible 10th-century Abbaye de Bourgueil.
“The Alchemy of Exclusivity”
Pierre and Catherine Breton Bourgueil “Nuits d’Ivresse”, France 2020
The wine world often revolves (like many commodities) around the tenet of exclusivity. You can’t get this wine because your local importer only brings a few cases a year, or because the winery only produces scant quantities to begin with. Maybe it’s the vineyard being a pint-sized parcel that keeps the wine rare and special; perhaps it’s because the bottle is 100 years old and costs as much as a luxury car, or…well, you get the idea.
One category of cache that can gift a wine the feeling of exclusivity that I didn’t mention above is actually one of my favorites: when a wine becomes rare or unique because of the manner in which it is made. Take, for instance, a gravity-pressed, free-run rose, where the grapes are stacked up until the ones on bottom are crushed under the collective weight of the harvest, and when the juice stops flowing…that’s it. Another example: I once represented a Rioja Alavesa producer who made a biodynamic Tempranillo by harvesting the grapes overnight during a full moon, and then pressing them traditionally by foot immediately, getting as much juice as they could before morning; like vampires, at the breaking of dawn they were finished, and whatever they managed to get into fermentation tanks by the sun’s first rays was how many barrels ended up being produced in that particular vintage. Gimmicks? Only if seen as such; in actuality I think true believers in winemaking’s relationship to nature and the earth’s already-existing forces are hard to come by, and worthy of respect-the burgeoning natural wine movement certainly proves that consumers have a predilection for wineries and stories such as these. Sadly, the simple fact that one is an acolyte of biodynamics or “natural” (the term has no set definition) winemaking does not mean that what emanates from the glass will be excellence-too many “natural” wines taste like unfinished, unstable, non-delicious disasters. So what kind of alchemy does it take to produce a wine in a completely biodynamic, “natural” method and actually have it taste clean, pure, and pleasurable? The wine world struggles for a definitive answer to this, and indeed the mystery enshrouding these rare magical wines that transcend their “natural” status into the realm of “just plain tasty for their own sakes” is what makes the search so rewarding.
Along my Journey in wine, I have encountered precious few examples of wines that claim to be “natural” and really stand alongside their more conventional brethren in terms of quality, but now I can add another: what if I told you about a wine that was pure magic to taste, crafted in such small quantities that only five cases were imported into Virginia this year, and so specially made that it had to be stored in a dark, chilly place or drunk immediately; otherwise the spell would break and the wine would be less than what was intended. Some mystical “natural” wine fairytale? Fear not, this bottle springs from farm to fable, er, reality: the 2020 “Nuits d’Ivresse” Cabernet Franc from the Bourgueil-based power duo Pierre and Catherine Breton.
Putting the “vivant” back in bon vivant: Pierre and Catherine Breton.
Pierre and Catherine Breton are easy to champion; they make wines with integrity, are truly passionate about what they do, and enjoy sharing that enthusiasm with you, often over a lengthy evening in which the only thing that surpasses the couple’s generosity is their bon vivant approach to wine and life. To truly understand the sorcery that enables them to produce “Nuits d’Ivresse”, however, it behooves us to briefly examine the Breton’s inspiration for this special cuvee: Mr. Jules Chauvet.
French vigneron and pioneer of natural winemaking, Jules Chauvet.
The making of “Nuits d’Ivresse” (the name means “drunken nights”-did I mention that Pierre and Catherine Breton were fun people?), a 100% Cabernet Franc produced from a small 3 hectares of old vines (50+ years) from top clay and limestone sites in Bourgueil, is an homage paid by Pierre and Catherine to renowned French winemaker and chemist Jules Chauvet. Born in 1907 in the Beaujolais wine region, Chauvet came into his own in the 1950s and 1960s, where his work as a proponent of techniques that became the basis of non-interventionist winemaking (native yeast fermentation, no chemicals used in the vineyards, and a drastic reduction in or elimination of additives in wine) was both groundbreaking and reviled at the time by the largely corporate and industrial wine industry (sound familiar?). Chauvet argued persuasively that mainstreaming methods such as adding preservatives and using commercial yeasts created boring, homogenized bottlings, and robbed wines of that which made them unique: their own terroir combined with the varietal profile of the grape.
One of Jules Chauvet’s most passionate pleas that isn’t covered above is his advocacy for the use of little to no sulphur dioxide (SO2) in the production of wine. Often used in conventional winemaking to prevent spoilage and limit oxidation, Chauvet argued that the overuse of SO2 diminished a wine’s true flavors and muted its sense of place. From my personal taste perspective, I am torn on this topic, as I have seen many wines turn into mush without the stabilizing influence of SO2, but I remain firmly in the camp of using as little as is required to ensure the wine stays a true reflection of the way it tastes at the winery: most winemakers that I work with will add the tiniest amount of sulphur just prior to bottling, particularly those in the Old World, so as to make sure that their wines survive overseas shipping with their ethos intact. Setting out to make a zero-sulphur wine in the style promoted by Mr. Chauvet is a challenging endeavor, to say the least, requiring a combination of climactic good fortune and cellar conditions that don’t botch things at the end of the journey. The Bretons attempted to acknowledge Jules Chauvet with “Nuits d’Ivresse” beginning over 20 years ago and have been using biodynamically farmed parcels to achieve this alchemy of exclusivity ever since.
Vineyards of Domaine Breton, winding the gently undulating path, with the village of Bourgueil in the distance.
Cabernet Franc is a grape with a rather fickle place in the hearts of most wine drinkers; lumped in as a Bordeaux varietal alongside Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec, and Carmenere, Cab Franc often doesn’t hold up its end of the bargain: it’s thinner-skinned than Cabernet Sauvignon, ripens earlier, and is more susceptible to mildew. The expressions of Cabernet Franc around the world are also stunningly varied: you can have 14%-plus alcohol and saccharine fruit in California, chock-full of off-putting green pepper in Chile, plump and lush but over-oaked and tasting of spoiled meat in Virginia (sorry, VA winemakers, but I personally don’t think it’s the best variety to showcase our state’s terroir). Cabernet Franc is also different from its Bordeaux partners in that its elevated tannin levels are joined by higher acidity as well, which can contribute to sour fruit notes if the winemaker isn’t careful. The defining characteristic of the varietal for many is its propensity to exhibit pyrazine notes on the palate-present in grape compounds, pyrazines can give wines notes of herbal character, and even spicy aromas and flavors reminiscent of green pepper and celery seed. While other grapes like Sauvignon Blanc and Cab Sauv are also higher in pyrazine levels, Cabernet Franc’s relative structural delicacy can leave these notes playing a larger part than one would like.
On the flip side of Cabernet Franc’s much-debated coin is a grape variety that can yield incredibly complex wines bursting with new descriptors in every swirl and sip. In the best examples, bright red fruits and spicy black ones meld seamlessly with purple flowers, a pronounced mineral component that really comes alive in limestone, clay, and granitic soils, and non-fruits from cigar wrapper to cedar and a slew of others in between. In its now-spiritual homeland of France’s Loire Valley, Cabernet Franc is known by the synonym “Breton” (very apropos for our story), and in the Chinon and Bourgueil appellations within the Loire’s Touraine department, the finished product rarely rises above 13% abv and can sport freshness of fruit and texture or tannins that run rustic-either style is a marked contrast to what you’ll find in the New World.
Pierre and Catherine’s 2020 “Nuits d’Ivresse” is a revelation-a beautiful montage of black cherries, dark plums, and red apple skins that also features trademark chalky earth notes and non-fruits of espresso and Connecticut cigar wrapper. The wine incredibly does not see a drop of SO2 during its entire existence from vineyard to vinification to bottling, a fact that in these current days of the “natural” wine movement isn’t necessarily unique in and of itself, but what is most striking about “Nuits d’Ivresse” are the tasting notes it DOESN’T have: namely, volatile acidity that typically presents itself with non-SO2 wines, and the distinct lack of pyrazine/green pepper/unpleasant herbal elements that so often come along for the Cabernet Franc ride. The lack of SO2 does give the wine a certain mystical quality; during my tasting, as the wine opened up it became almost ethereal in its expressiveness-I found myself contemplative, immersed, at peace. Like most fairy tales, this enchantment comes with a price-the “Nuits d’Ivresse” really must be stored in a dark place at a temperature of less than 60 degrees F to remain the wine as intended; barring that, refer to the translation of the cuvee’s name and start drinking now. With just 60 bottles imported to Virginia this year, I am thrilled to present Domaine Breton’s “Nuits d’Ivresse” to you, and I hope you find it as special and select on your palates as your trust and support feels to me-D.
Domaine Pierre and Catherine Breton Bourgueil “Nuits d’Ivresse” 2020
Country of Origin: France.
Places and People: Pierre and Catherine Breton seem to define the term bon vivant in a sense that is sometimes lost in the world of wine today. Passionate about their craft and ardent in their beliefs, the Bretons’ winery located in the small village of Restigne within the Bourgueil appellation in France’s Loire Valley is certified organic by Ecocert and many of their holdings are also certified biodynamic; it is some of these biodynamic vineyards of 50+ year old Cabernet Franc that serve up the fruit that goes into the “Nuits d’Ivresse”, an homage to French winemaker Jules Chauvet’s (often called “The Godfather of Natural Wine”) advocacy for little to no sulphur dioxide (SO2) in wine production. The “Nuits d’Ivresse” is not stabilized by sulphur additions at any point in its journey from vineyard to bottle.
Soil: Clay and limestone.
Grape Varieties: 100% Cabernet Franc.
Winemaking: Hand-harvesting in accordance with biodynamic calendar. After a total destemming, the grapes for the “Nuits d’Ivresse” are fermented over a three-week span under native yeasts, with full skin and juice contact for the entire period. Malolactic fermentation takes place in neutral oak barrels.
Aging: The Breton “Nuits d’Ivresse” spends the next 12-18 months of its life (2020 vintage was closer to 18) in neutral barrels in a dark, cool cellar. Again, no SO2 is added at any stage of cellaring or prior to bottling.
Flavors and Foods: A gorgeous wine in all aspects. The ruby rim that fades to pink is indicative of the thinner skins of Cabernet Franc. On the nose, the wine is a complex array of fruits and non-fruits, never overpowering but always present: dark cherries, pomegranates, and Santa Rosa plums, with inorganic earth notes of chalky mineral and non-fruit offerings of tobacco and dark chocolate. A very savory wine within its medium-bodied context, the palate of the “Nuits d’Ivresse” also has black cherries and plums, with more red apple skins than the pomegranate found on the nose. A clinical balance between the fruit and non-fruit reveals mild cigar wrapper, chalk, stony earth, a subtle waxy element, the mercury gaminess of red meat or fine tuna, and dark espresso flavors of chicory and kirsch, all encased within a smooth, velvety texture that is very clean, particularly as the wine opens. Conspicuously and happily absent: the volatility that can typically announce a “natural” wine, and Cabernet Franc’s trademark underripe, green herbal aspects. The Breton’s website lists a review that recommends the “Nuits d’Ivresse” as a “habitual and excellent accomplice of roasted red meats”, a description that is very apt, particularly with steak from non-fatty, highly sanguine areas of the cow (such as the tenderloin; both filet mignon and chateaubriand would be amazing), and I would love to see this wine matched with high-quality tuna sashimi. An outside the box idea: try the “Nuits d’Ivresse” with traditionally-styled tacos, particularly birria and barbacoa.
Service and Cellar: The 2020 “Nuits d’Ivresse” is bottled without any sulphur dioxide; this talismanic element to the wine brings singular flavors and aromas but also requires some special care: this wine really must be stored in a dark, chilly place (56-58 degrees F) or the wine will become unstable and not taste as described or intended. If for some reason you proudly display your wine collection at room temperature by the largest window you can find, plan on enjoying the “Nuits d’Ivresse” very soon. Serving in the same temperature range as recommended for storage is optimal, and a decanting or aeration period of 30-60 minutes will reward you with calmed tannins and brighter fruit notes. Properly stored, the 2020 vintage will age well for the rest of the decade.