{"title":"Magnums","description":"\u003cp\u003eMagnums and larger bottles from growers on the list. Wine ages more slowly and evenly in a big bottle, and one on the table changes the mood of a dinner. Numbers are small, so when they're gone, they're gone.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"brutal-blanc-magnum","title":"Magnum Brutal !! Blanc","description":"\u003cp\u003eTerret Bourret, Mauzac, Grenache gris and Muscat petit grain, blended from two terroirs. 25 hl\/ha. Direct pressing for the Terret; long maceration and trempette for the other varieties. Aged in tank for 5 months.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA nose of white grapefruit and exotic fruits, with a stony edge. On the palate, mineral character dominates with real tension and length, vine peach and citrus coming through, finishing on the typical saline note of these limestone terroirs. 2,500 bottles produced.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eThe producer\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen Antony Tortul began producing wines with his négociant project La Sorga in 2008, the iconoclastic verve of his wines and the contrarian artwork he labelled them with cast the aspiring winemaker as a radical disruptor who held little regard for the time honoured traditions of southern wine. Those who paid careful enough attention, however, came to recognise La Sorga's annual production of 30+ cuvées as a vinous almanac of sorts. Sourcing fruit from Toulouse to Provence and as far afield as Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Antony's portfolio is a comprehensive catalogue of Mediterranean France and beyond, offering a revitalised perspective on the rich and diverse viticultural topography of the south, much of which had been subsumed by the paint-by-numbers approach demanded by volume driven production.\u003cbr\u003eGrowing up in the Ariège, where he hopes one day to return, Antony learned the fundamentals of winemaking through a chemistry degree in Toulouse. This academic foundation opened windows of opportunity within the industry, and curiosity steered his formative years, working as a nomadic oenologist and cellar technician across Bergerac, Corbières, Fitou and the aforementioned Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Here he could put his academic schooling into practice and sharpen his intuitions as a winemaker. Given that experience and the extensive network he had established, the decision to work as a négociant made perfect sense when he set out on his own in 2008. It challenged the idea du jour, that to make wine the proper way one must grow the grapes oneself. The breadth of his work, and its subsequent significance, would have been impossible that way; his preference was to focus on the winemaking, deepening his understanding of the endless configurations of varieties, soils and sites through his practice as a négociant.\u003cbr\u003eI visited Antony and his young family at his cellar in 2021 (they have since moved), and the immaculate cleanliness was the first thing to strike me. It was a transitional period in the La Sorga story, a turning of the page, with Antony refreshing the intention behind his vinification, the reds especially, in response to the changing climate and his own evolving palate. Cuvées like Tireurs des Litres and Grande Pestilence, once deeply telluric and squid-ink dark, built for long ageing, had become lambent and sculpted, channelling the typicity of each site with clear-eyed precision. The decision to pick a little earlier and extend maceration times, inspired by his friend Alice Bouvot in the Jura, opened a new window of expression that has rewritten the rulebook yet again.\u003cbr\u003eIncidentally, Antony was a founding member of Brutal!!!, an open-source wine label now used by vignerons around the world.\u003cbr\u003eThese days, Antony's skilled cellar work and canny grape sourcing are widely recognised and highly regarded, to the extent that he was the subject of a two-page spread in Jon Bonné's recent tome The New French Wine. Not that it makes much difference to him; when I messaged to congratulate him on this inclusion, he was unaware the book even existed...\u003cbr\u003eFor me, the wines of La Sorga provided a sort of onboarding to Southern French wine, holding a kaleidoscope to the region, with each frame glistening as brightly as the last. In the Anglosphere, terms such as wine lake are often the first that come to mind when we think of the Languedoc, but Antony's wines are a key to unlocking this treasure trove, discoverable to anyone who looks.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGrapes:\u003c\/strong\u003e Terret Bourret, Mauzac, Grenache Gris\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRegion:\u003c\/strong\u003e Montagnac, Languedoc, France\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"La Sorga","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54988703826258,"sku":"17000410","price":79.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1116\/0246\/7154\/files\/original_743b1f5d-d299-4c88-88d0-43bec66abbac.jpg?v=1791451434"},{"product_id":"briand-2023-magnum-domaine-du-mazel","title":"Briand 2023 Magnum - Domaine du Mazel","description":"\u003cp\u003eGrenache Noir that saw 10 days of carbonic maceration in stainless, with elevage in stainless after pressing. Whole bunch vattings of Grenache from this valley produces a particular kind of red, deep and lambent in colour, sweet-fruited on the nose, almost candied cherry and violet, but balanced and savoury on the palate, with full, supple fruitiness. A great vintage from Gérald \u0026amp; Joce, best enjoyed lightly chilled.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eThe producer\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eI met Jocelyne and Gérald after Claire, who runs la Tour Cassée in Valvignères with her husband Jean-Claude, insisted I visit them while during a stay in 2021. She kindly arranged a tasting at their cellar for the following morning. The gesture was my introduction to the generosity of spirit with which anyone who has visited the region is familiar. The tasting the following morning was an education in wine that i will never forget, free from the pretence and ego that too often characterises encounters with vigneron(ne)s of such esteemed reputation.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA venerable estate of Ardèche wine, Domaine du Mazel was founded in Valvignères by Jocelyne \u0026amp; Gérald's grandfather in 1919. Today, Gérald and Jocelyne farm twenty-two hectares or so around the valley, selling some fruit to local winemakers and making about 60,000 bottles per year themselves. \u003cbr\u003eLe Mazel is a prelude for many of the region’s wine successes in recent decades with the likes of Sylvain Bock, Andrea Calek, Jerome Jouret, and Anders Frederik Steen all having worked with or at the estate before going out on their own. Gérald's influence can be felt throughout southern Ardèche, where the collaborative spirit he helped to cultivate has fomented a vibrant, dynamic scene that has few comparisons in the world of wine. \u003cbr\u003eWhen the siblings took over from their father in 1982, they continued as coopérateurs, remaining active to the point that Gérald would become its vice president. Convinced by his wife, who had travelled with a friend to work in Beaujolais with Jean-Paul Thévenet, that something very interesting was happening in the region, Gérald travelled north, where over several visits he befriended Marcel Lapierre and Jacques Neauport. Inspired by the wines they were making, Gérald brought their methods back to Valvignères and decided to chart a new direction for his family's estate. They left the cooperative and began vinifying themselves, using Carbonic maceration for the reds, no filtration and no sulfitage. This was a radical move from Gérald, though perhaps more viable in Valvignères, which had long been seen as an agricultural, workhorse grapegrowing enclave that offered little in the way of quality. The freedoms this offered, alongthe size of their estate and their ability to sell fruit, le Mazel could absorb the mistakes that came with learning to make wine this way, often keeping wines in their cellar for years before their release when they started off. They slowly moved away from barrels, preferring steel, and these days their cellar is stacked with great big stainless steel vats along with a large wooden basket press. Having narrowing the aperture of their intention the couple now make wines built on purity of fruit and mineral vitality, and the siblings produce some of the most rewarding wines money can buy. Developing their intuitions over 5 decades, nobody quite understands the subtleties of growing grapes and making wine in this valley quite like Gérald \u0026amp; Jocelyne.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGrapes:\u003c\/strong\u003e Grenache\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRegion:\u003c\/strong\u003e Valvignères, Ardèche, France\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eABV:\u003c\/strong\u003e 13%\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Domaine du Mazel","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54988707070290,"sku":"25\/000744","price":58.5,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1116\/0246\/7154\/files\/briand-2023-magnum-domaine-du-mazel.jpg?v=1791452517"},{"product_id":"chatons-de-garde-2019-magnum-domaine-andrea-calek","title":"Chatons de Garde 2019 Magnum - Domaine Andrea Calek","description":"\u003cp\u003eOne hundred percent Syrah from vines between 25 and 55 years old on calcareous clay soils at Alba-la-Romaine. Twenty-one days of whole-bunch carbonic maceration at low temperature, then ten months in old 228-litre Burgundy barrels (between third and fifteenth use, pretty much neutral).\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe long carbonic maceration of Syrah, especially on the clay and limestone here in Alba, gives a distinctive, more heady expression of dark fruits, violet, peat smoke, and fond brun, with softer tannins and curtain-weight aromatic intensity. Supple and elegant, this definitive of the house style and is drinking superbly at the minute.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eChatons de Garde, meaning Guard Kittens, is another poke at the wine industry taking itself a little too seriously, mocking the melodrama and pomp of terms like 'vin de garde’.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eThe producer\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eDuring a trip to the Ardèche in 2021, I arranged by email to visit Andrea at his cellar. I had tasted the estate's wines on several occasions, in London and elsewhere, and perhaps cowed somewhat by his reputation, I was eager to learn more about how he worked and to explore the potential of importing his wines to Ireland. Following directions to the address listed on Google, I arrived at the cellar door wet behind the ears but with wind in my sails. After a confusing exchange with the bemused proprietor, it soon became clear that Andrea was directing unwanted visitors from Google searches to a neighbouring vigneron (Anders Frederik Steen, as it happens), a joke at both parties' expense. My first experience of Andrea's wicked sense of humour.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHow a Czech ended up making wine in the remote valley between Valvignères and Alba-la-Romaine is a contested story, but what's certain is that Andrea managed to find himself in the right place at the right time on several occasions on his way to eventually establishing his own estate in 2007, buying 5 hectares from Gérald and Jocelyne Oustric, for whom he had been working. Prior to this, Andrea worked with Dominique Hauvette in Provence, successfully converting her estate's vines to organic viticulture. His time in the south was preceded by a stint in the Beaujolais, where he had fallen in with a progressive faction of vignerons like Guy Breton and Marcel Lapierre, whose influence remains fundamental to Andrea's philosophy of wine.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe story of Domaine Andrea Calek cannot be told without the reinvigoration Stephana Nicolescu brought when she joined Andrea in 2016, and she has since assumed the majority of the work in both the vines and the cellar. Stephana had been working with Loire vigneron Samuel Boulay, and had also spent time making wine in southern Spain. Today the estate is as much hers as it is Andrea's; she assembles a team of predominantly female vendangeurs for each harvest and ensures the estate's day-to-day running is relatively smooth. Stephana is fastidious in her management of the vines and delicate in the cellar, staying true to the estate's reputation for sultry, languid drinking reds and radiant, sinuous whites, while ensuring that every wine carries her recognisable signature (just not on the labels... yet).\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe estate is a single block of about 4 hectares on the slope below the cellar, between Valvignères and Alba-la-Romaine. The soil is blue marl with a silty character, heavy and clay-like when wet and baking almost to concrete once it dries. Roughly half is Syrah, with Grenache, a little Merlot and a single row of Viognier grafted onto Merlot during a grafting workshop with other local growers, the fruit that goes to Pénultième. There are proper old vines - a parcel of gobelet-trained Grenache around sixty years old on very long rows, and older Syrah lower down the slope. Grenache is in gobelet, but Syrah flops if left alone, so it is trained low and kept aligned within the row, what Andrea calls a \"crushed gobelet,\" a low hedge run without wires. Farming is largely by hand, with a tractor used from time to time. They no longer practise biodynamics, and they keep the certification off the label, explaining it only if asked. Sprays are the standard organic copper and sulphur, and disease pressure is usually low here, though a very wet spring can bring heavy downy mildew and long hours removing marked leaves by hand, vine by vine. Working the soils goes by every other row, one left in grass, the next lightly scratched to open the soil before rain, with the centre of the row left to whatever grows on its own. Yields average around 40 hectolitres per hectare in a good year.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe winery, built in 2010 on the Saint-Philippe site he took over from the Oustrics, is half dug into the foothill and designed to run by gravity. Grapes come in from above through three hatches and drop straight into the tanks whole-bunch, where fermentation starts. Sulphur is rarely added, though they prefer to add a small dose over losing a whole tank. Reds macerate whole-bunch for roughly a week to a month depending on the cuvée, worked by foot rather than pumped over; the free-run juice is drawn off and the marc pressed in a small 15-hectolitre Vaslin press, then the wine goes either to old barrels or back to tank until bottling. Wines that finish fermenting in barrel move to a fully underground cellar next door that stays cool and stable. During fermentation the tanks are tasted three times a day, morning, afternoon and evening, because an acetic spike can take a tank in the blink of an eye. The primeur cuvées like A Toi Nous, offering remarkable value, stay in tank for early bottling and come in around 10 to 12.5 percent, while more extracted wines like Chatons de Garde and Pénultième spend around a year in old Burgundy barrels, sourced by Andrea via his old contacts from his time as a barrel merchant in the Czech Republic.\u003cbr\u003eThe whites are fermented and aged in old barrels only, on very long, slow ferments that often finish well after the reds, with élevage up to about two years. They come in around 13.5 to 14 percent, and volume is tiny, roughly 4,000 bottles out of a total nearer 40,000, usually selling out within a couple of months. Historically the white fruit has been bought in, organic Viognier and Chardonnay from Gérald Oustric at Le Mazel, harvested by Andrea's own team.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eThe place\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Calek estate is just off the road between Valvignères and Alba-la-Romaine, with the estate vines surrounding the cellar in a single block. When Andrea first arrived here to make wine, and for several years afterwards, he lived in a trailer by the vineyards, building a  collection of old Citroen cars that remain strewn around the property in various states of disrepair. Andrea and Stephana have since built a cellar and bioclimatic home for themselves, and sitting on their front terrace, you feel how exposed the site is to the elements. The mistral blows strong, and devastating summer hails are becoming a regular scourge. The scrub and bush are sparse, and the sky feels heavy and close overhead. Here, in warm conditions on limestone and clay, Syrahs sugars climb fast and tannins and pigment accumulate rapidly. The semi-carbonic maceration teases out the subtleties of the variety in these conditions and helps to retain the elegant aromas of the Syrah.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGrapes:\u003c\/strong\u003e Syrah\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRegion:\u003c\/strong\u003e Alba-la-Romaine, Ardèche, France\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eABV:\u003c\/strong\u003e 13%\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Domaine Andrea Calek","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54988707627346,"sku":"1700022","price":60.5,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1116\/0246\/7154\/files\/chatons-de-garde-2019-magnum-domaine-andrea-calek.jpg?v=1791452516"},{"product_id":"flickering-through-my-naked-thoughts-2023-magnum-anders-frederik-steen-and-anne-bruun-blauert","title":"Flickering through my naked thoughts 2023 Magnum - Anders Frederik Steen \u0026 Anne Bruun Blauert","description":"\u003cp\u003eDestemmed Grenache Noir from their vineyards on the hillside of Valgrand, just outside the village, macerated in the directly pressed juice of Cinsault from Le Mazel. The maceration was long, a little more than nine months. This was because winter and the cold came early in 2023, and they didn't want to press the grapes in the cold cellar and expose the wine to the risk that follows. Instead they waited until the cellar regained some temperature in the spring of 2024 and made the décuvage in May. From the pressoir the wine was filled directly into barriques, where it stayed another year, and was bottled in June 2025.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe complexity of this wine is obvious and outspoken. With its light colour you might think it an easy, light wine, but the long maceration has given it another direction and a whole other structure, closer to a full-bodied wine with richer tannins. Not that it is a wine with a lot of tannins, but it has a beautiful strong structure, dressed up as a Ploussard of Jura according to Anders himself.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eThe producer\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the midst of the dynamic and collaborative viticultural and winemaking esprit emanating from the remote valleys of southern Ardèche, Anders and his wife Anne remain distinct among their peers in both ambition and approach. The undeniable individuality of their wines is a result of their deep commitment to their process in the vineyard and cellar techniques developed over 15 years in Valvignères, where Anders first began making wine with the enigmatic Jura vigneron Jean-Marc Brignot at a small cellar in the village in the noughties. Anders had met Jean-Marc during his time working as a sommelier at Noma, and by the time he had opened Relae and Manfreds as chef sommelier with Christian Puglisi, the seeds of this collaborative winemaking project had been sown.\u003cbr\u003eAnders' path to wine was somewhat serendipitous, resulting from a brave decision he took while working as an ambitious young chef in Copenhagen. The bright lights of San Sebastián were an irresistible draw for most of his colleagues, with elBulli in its heyday at the centre of world gastronomy. Swimming against the current, Anders took a job at Noma as a sommelier. For the budding chef, bridging the divide between kitchen and service could only deepen his understanding of cuisine.\u003cbr\u003eThe timing here is important. Pontus Elofsson was the head sommelier at Noma at the time, and the restaurant began serving wines that upheld the philosophy already at work in the kitchen. Anders would never look back.\u003cbr\u003eFirst splitting his time between Valvignères and Copenhagen, Anders became fully immersed in viticulture and winemaking with Jean-Marc. Eventually, after Brignot moved to Japan, Anders moved to southern Ardèche full time and was joined by his wife Anne and their young family, setting up in a tiny, 2,000-year-old cellar at the heart of the village. Initially Anders bought fruit from his neighbour and mentor Gérald Oustric and his wife Jocelyne, who had been farming organically in the village for 40 years and making wines in the way they learned from Jacques Néauport. Anders also rents a small cellar in Alsace, where he heads directly after the harvest in Valvignères every year, buying fruit from the Bannwarth family in Obermorschwihr. They now farm 3 hectares of vines themselves around Valvignères, growing on clay and limestone, with a small holding of Petite Serine growing on a vein of Marne Bleue that goes to their cuvée Les Vignes des Enfants every year.\u003cbr\u003eIn the vineyards, Anders is exacting, refusing to use sulphur or copper, preferring the lactoferments and tisanes he brews from local bush herbs and the seawater he collects from the Mediterranean. In the cellar, the fruit is most often pressed slowly over several days, with Anders determining how each portion of the press will be used by tasting the juice. Fermentation is usually started in fibre, and a long élevage in barrique non-ouillé follows, meaning many of these wines take quite some time to rediscover their balance and be released. The idea is to let the wine go where it wants to go, reading the cues he detects as they evolve over time and following along.\u003cbr\u003eThe results are breathtaking, peerless expressions of Valvignères and Obermorschwihr respectively, wines that remain true to the place they come from while taking an entirely new perspective on what is possible with the ripe fruit of southern Ardèche or the rich, unctuous fruit of Obermorschwihr. Often lightly oxidative and salty in expression, the wines have a complex structure that does not rely on acidity. Anders picks at the very last minute, prioritising phenolic ripeness above all else, building instead on a thread of saltiness and fruit drawn out over these long, thorough presses. Since expanding their cellar a few years back, Anders and Anne have moved to lengthen the élevage in their wines further. The results speak for themselves.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eThe place\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eHistorically overlooked and ignored, Valvignères has emerged as an epicentre for progressive viticulture and winemaking in the 21st century. Existing in the shadow of the hulking economy of the Rhone valley, the small valley west of le Teil made it's name when Gérald Oustric and his sister Jocelyne decided to cease selling their fruit to the local co-op(which Geralds father helped found in 1919) to begin producing wines themselves. Having farmed organically since the 80s, Gérald had been convinced to make his own wine after several trips to beaujolais in the eighties, where he met Jacques Neauport, Jules Chauvet, Pierre bonneton et al. This move would have significant domino effects, with Gerald adopting Carbonic maceration for his reds, no filtration or fining, and no sulfitage in his cellar. this freed to small region from the shackles of the etablished wine industry in the region and reconnected with the valleys historical winemaking traditions(Valvigneres comes from the Roman Valis Vinaria, meaning valley of vines). Gerald would go on to mentor 15 growers in the region, cultivating a spirit of collaboration and sharing of ideas that existed few other places in France. The wines from cellars in this cluster share an iresistably heady, telluric, and deeply soulful quality that makes them great value and well worth exploring. In terms of Geology, we are almost in the south, but noticeably cooler than you might find just 20km south. Situated on what's traditionally known as the Bas Vivarais, the soils are predominantly clay and limestone, with outcrops of marne bleue and basalt\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGrapes:\u003c\/strong\u003e Grenache Noir, Cinsault\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRegion:\u003c\/strong\u003e Valvignères, Ardèche, France\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eABV:\u003c\/strong\u003e 12.8%\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Anders Frederik Steen \u0026 Anne Bruun Blauert","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54988708577618,"sku":"17000196","price":92.5,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1116\/0246\/7154\/files\/flickering-through-my-naked-thoughts-2023-magnum-anders-frederik-steen-and-anne-bruun-blauert.jpg?v=1791452517"},{"product_id":"les-oeillets-2021-magnum-jean-yves-peron","title":"Les Oeillets 2021 Magnum - Jean-Yves Péron","description":"\u003cp\u003eFrom the same east to north-east hectare of fifty-year-old clay-limestone vines at Les Marches, given a month of maceration with punch-downs before aging in 300L and 225L barrels.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eThe producer\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eBy the time Jean-Yves returned to Savoie to make wine in 2004, he was already a well-travelled student of wine. Growing up between Paris and his mother's home in Annecy, his formative years were spent in the Haute-Savoie, not far from where he keeps his cellar today. After completing studies in biochemistry he went to Bordeaux to study oenology, then on to Oregon as a budding apprentice. Returning to France, he took a job with the legendary Rhône winemaker Thierry Allemand, whose work on the abandoned terraces of Cornas is reflected in Jean-Yves' approach today. He also spent time with Jean-Louis Grippat, a foundational figure in modern Rhône winemaking, in Saint-Joseph and Hermitage. Both men farmed the steep slopes of the northern Rhône, and the influence of the two can still be felt in Jean-Yves' work. During his time there he met Hirotake Ooka of la Grande Colline, through whom he came to know Bruno Schueller in Alsace, ending up as his apprentice. He set out on his own in January 2004, picking up old plantings on steep sites his neighbours had deemed too difficult to work. Those first fermentations did not finish until August 2005, a bold debut from a nascent estate.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJean-Yves' vines grow in Conflans, a walled medieval quarter above Albertville where the Arly meets the Isère. Over a century ago the hillside carried 80 hectares of vines, but phylloxera devastated the region and the industrial expansion of Albertville drew the working population away from viticulture. The pervasive availability of cheap wine from the Midi did not help, and the wines of Savoie came to be considered vins de laboureur. By the time Jean-Yves returned, the terraces were home to mature oaks and in places had been reclaimed by the forest. Where most saw worthless land, Jean-Yves saw Savoie's own Reynard, the great lieu-dit of Cornas from which Thierry Allemand had reclaimed some of his most cherished parcels. Like his mentor, he could see the diamond in the rough and an opportunity to resurrect these old sites. Today he has restored or replanted 2.5 hectares, and with further holdings in Fréterive he farms 4.5 hectares himself. He embarked on the project solo, but the thankless work on these steep hillsides, all of it by hand, made help necessary, and today Briton Camilla Murray works full time with Jean-Yves in the vines and the cellar.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGrapes:\u003c\/strong\u003e Jacquère\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRegion:\u003c\/strong\u003e Conflans, Albertville, Savoie, France\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eABV:\u003c\/strong\u003e 11%\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Jean-Yves Péron","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54988709921106,"sku":"170945","price":108.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1116\/0246\/7154\/files\/les-oeillets-2021-magnum-jean-yves-peron.webp?v=1791452550"},{"product_id":"like-pearls-on-a-string-2022-magnum-anders-frederik-steen-and-anne-bruun-blauert","title":"Like pearls on a string 2022 Magnum - Anders Frederik Steen \u0026 Anne Bruun Blauert","description":"\u003cp\u003eFrom Anders…\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSo, in short, in 2021 we lost 100% of the grapes from our own vineyards to a very violent hailstorm that was centered in the area around Valgrand. Again in 2022 we were hit by a hailstorm, less violent than in 2021, but a combination of the two events left us in 2022 with only 25% of a \"normal\" harvest.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBecause of that we decided, in 2022, to harvest all the remaining grapes the same day, destem the Grenache Noir, Grenache Blanc, the Petit Sirah, Syrah and the Viognier, to be able to sort and select only the most beautiful berries, and blend them into the directly pressed juice of Sauvignon Blanc to macerate for around a month. After décuvage the fermenting juice was filled into one of our old Foudre. Here it continued to ferment for a year, but without the yeast being able to finish the sugar. For that reason, we made a soutirage in the summer of 2023 and transferred the wine to Demi-Muid. In these barrels the yeast worked better and finished the sugar within 6 months, from there we kept the wine another two years of élevage in the barrels, meaning in total around three years of élevage.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eThe producer\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the midst of the dynamic and collaborative viticultural and winemaking esprit emanating from the remote valleys of southern Ardèche, Anders and his wife Anne remain distinct among their peers in both ambition and approach. The undeniable individuality of their wines is a result of their deep commitment to their process in the vineyard and cellar techniques developed over 15 years in Valvignères, where Anders first began making wine with the enigmatic Jura vigneron Jean-Marc Brignot at a small cellar in the village in the noughties. Anders had met Jean-Marc during his time working as a sommelier at Noma, and by the time he had opened Relae and Manfreds as chef sommelier with Christian Puglisi, the seeds of this collaborative winemaking project had been sown.\u003cbr\u003eAnders' path to wine was somewhat serendipitous, resulting from a brave decision he took while working as an ambitious young chef in Copenhagen. The bright lights of San Sebastián were an irresistible draw for most of his colleagues, with elBulli in its heyday at the centre of world gastronomy. Swimming against the current, Anders took a job at Noma as a sommelier. For the budding chef, bridging the divide between kitchen and service could only deepen his understanding of cuisine.\u003cbr\u003eThe timing here is important. Pontus Elofsson was the head sommelier at Noma at the time, and the restaurant began serving wines that upheld the philosophy already at work in the kitchen. Anders would never look back.\u003cbr\u003eFirst splitting his time between Valvignères and Copenhagen, Anders became fully immersed in viticulture and winemaking with Jean-Marc. Eventually, after Brignot moved to Japan, Anders moved to southern Ardèche full time and was joined by his wife Anne and their young family, setting up in a tiny, 2,000-year-old cellar at the heart of the village. Initially Anders bought fruit from his neighbour and mentor Gérald Oustric and his wife Jocelyne, who had been farming organically in the village for 40 years and making wines in the way they learned from Jacques Néauport. Anders also rents a small cellar in Alsace, where he heads directly after the harvest in Valvignères every year, buying fruit from the Bannwarth family in Obermorschwihr. They now farm 3 hectares of vines themselves around Valvignères, growing on clay and limestone, with a small holding of Petite Serine growing on a vein of Marne Bleue that goes to their cuvée Les Vignes des Enfants every year.\u003cbr\u003eIn the vineyards, Anders is exacting, refusing to use sulphur or copper, preferring the lactoferments and tisanes he brews from local bush herbs and the seawater he collects from the Mediterranean. In the cellar, the fruit is most often pressed slowly over several days, with Anders determining how each portion of the press will be used by tasting the juice. Fermentation is usually started in fibre, and a long élevage in barrique non-ouillé follows, meaning many of these wines take quite some time to rediscover their balance and be released. The idea is to let the wine go where it wants to go, reading the cues he detects as they evolve over time and following along.\u003cbr\u003eThe results are breathtaking, peerless expressions of Valvignères and Obermorschwihr respectively, wines that remain true to the place they come from while taking an entirely new perspective on what is possible with the ripe fruit of southern Ardèche or the rich, unctuous fruit of Obermorschwihr. Often lightly oxidative and salty in expression, the wines have a complex structure that does not rely on acidity. Anders picks at the very last minute, prioritising phenolic ripeness above all else, building instead on a thread of saltiness and fruit drawn out over these long, thorough presses. Since expanding their cellar a few years back, Anders and Anne have moved to lengthen the élevage in their wines further. The results speak for themselves.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGrapes:\u003c\/strong\u003e Grenache Noir \u0026amp; Blanc, Petit Sirah, Syrah, Viognier and Sauvignon Blanc\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRegion:\u003c\/strong\u003e Valvignères, Ardèche, France\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eABV:\u003c\/strong\u003e 13.8%\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Anders Frederik Steen \u0026 Anne Bruun Blauert","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54988710150482,"sku":"26\/000394","price":92.5,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1116\/0246\/7154\/files\/like-pearls-on-a-string-2022-magnum-anders-frederik-steen-and-anne-bruun-blauert.jpg?v=1791452551"},{"product_id":"maelys-2020-magnum-le-raisin-et-lange","title":"Maelys 2020 Magnum - Le Raisin et l'Ange","description":"\u003cp\u003eFrom Antonin’s own vines below the cellar, on open Urgonian limestone. Syrah planted by Gilles in the early oughties, picked by hand at a tiny 17 hl\/ha. Twenty-one days of maceration, four fifths destemmed with a fifth in whole bunches, with elevage in stainless.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e2020 was a warm, with harvest in early September, and this wine shows cool minerality and tension to compliment the ripeness of the Syrah. Allow time to breathe before service.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eThe producer\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eGilles Azzoni left office life in the banlieue of Paris behind in the early 1980s and journeyed south, eventually settling in les Salelles, a remote hamlet in southern Ardèche, in 1983. He took the scenic route south, studying at the agricultural school in Mâcon, after which a spell with Gilbert Violot in Pommard and cellars further south in Bandol and Provence emboldened him to pursue winemaking as his métier. Setting out on his own at 29, Gilles took on a fermage from a retiring farmer, complete with six hectares or so of vines. In those early days, Gilles followed the prescriptions of conventional viticulture as it is taught in the formal schools, making vin de pays and Vivarais VDQS (an extinct level between vin de pays and AOC; Vivarais has since been promoted to AOC status). With the passing of time, the use of agricultural products in his vineyards diminished, and by 1997 he was fully organic. Impressed by how this affected his wines, Gilles extended his philosophy to his cellar work, and by 2007 his wines were made without filtration or sulphur. This would herald the dawn of a vital new chapter for the wines of the southern Ardèche, and Gilles' philosophical approach to making wine, alongside that of his good friend Gérald Oustric of le Mazel, would inspire generations of winemakers and sommeliers to come, none more so than his son Antonin.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAntonin, a trained chemist, succeeded his father in 2014, with Gilles continuing to mentor and advise up to 2023, when he finally retired. Having grown up in the cellar with his father, with a rotating cast of winemakers visiting at weekends, Antonin has a palate as sharp as a tack, and this is his primary guide in his work: he follows his intuitions in the cellar and only afterward applies his training in chemistry. More often than not, this confirms what he had expected. He wasted no time in stepping out of his father's shadow, focusing solely on winemaking and continuing to work as his father did in the cellar. Antonin refers to Gilles as his sulphur, with his almost prescient ability to detect problems in the wines before they have appeared. Building on his father's legacy, Antonin encouraged young growers around the region to move to organic viticulture, with the promise that he would buy their fruit to make his wines. And so le Raisin et l'Ange became primarily a négociant house. Gilles kept a couple of hectares for himself, as did Antonin, and the rest was taken over by Samuel Boulay, who had moved into the adjoining cellar from the Loire. This new approach opened windows for Antonin, who could now showcase the diverse terroirs of southern Ardèche and the talents of the region's growers, such as the Ozil brothers and Vincent Fargier of les Deux Terres.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe harvest is intense. Antonin works with a small team to harvest early in the mornings in small crates, and the sight of their iconic yellow Transit zipping through the bending gorges of the Vallée de l'Ibie provokes beeps and hollering as they pass neighbouring cellars. The fruit is sometimes chilled for a day or two at the cellar after harvesting, a technique that helps preserve the fruitiness Antonin cherishes in his wines and precipitates an early, almost pre-carbonic fermentation in the bunches. Conveniently, this also serves as a holding space while the cellar is at capacity! The whites go mainly to the press, sometimes seeing a little time on skins first, and the reds are primarily vatted as whole bunches before pressing in a 1960s Vaslin press from Burgundy. The idea is to make wines that they like to drink themselves: soft and supple in the fruit, digestible, and full of character. Somehow, the languid charms of the region and the winemaker have found a voice in these wines, and the soulful, spirited quality of wines made from well farmed fruit has become their calling card. Antonin always makes the assemblages post fermentation, each year recreating the estate's iconic cuvées like Nedjma from a new configuration of varieties, capturing the typicity of the fruit and the intricacies of the vintage while somehow staying true to the recognisable personality of each wine year after year. Antonin has now taken over Gilles' smallholding of Roussanne, Muscat, and Syrah, along with his tiny cellar below the house, so we're entering a new chapter for this storied estate. With their succulent fruit, effortless drinkability, and irresistible personality, these are wines we always keep close to hand, offering value that has become all too rare these days.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eThe place\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis parcel sits below the cellar, across the Gardon riverbed. The open, rocky urgonian limestone makes it tricky to manoeuvre, even by foot, and the vines have to reach deep down into the earth to reach the water and nutrients they need. These tough conditions significantly limit yields, and result in intensely concentrated berries that give deeply coloured must, even with light maceration. Antonin chooses neutral vessels when vinifying this wine, as not to distract from the particularly pure expression of Syrah on limestone this special parcel of vines gives.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGrapes:\u003c\/strong\u003e Syrah\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRegion:\u003c\/strong\u003e Les Salelles, Ardèche, France\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eABV:\u003c\/strong\u003e 13%\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Le Raisin et l'Ange","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54988710248786,"sku":"1700432","price":73.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1116\/0246\/7154\/files\/maelys-2020-magnum-le-raisin-et-lange.jpg?v=1791452551"},{"product_id":"na-2023-magnum-cantina-giardino","title":"Na 2023 Magnum - Cantina Giardino","description":"\u003cp\u003eA blend of local varieties Greco, Coda di Volpe, and Fiano, along with Falanghina. 4 days of skin contact before pressing off into concrete to age over winter. A year of ageing in bottle before release.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith more depth and structure than previous years, all the dusky floral aromatics we expect from these varieties, with petitgrain tannins, angular acidity, and the salinity of volcanic soils.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eThe producer\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eDaniela and Antonio di Gruttola began making wine as Cantina Giardino with a group of friends at the turn of the millennium. Natives of the Irpinian hills, it was the encroachment of mechanised viticulture and the uprooting of the regions ancient vineyards that compelled the couple to radically alter the course of their lives and dedicate themselves to the preservation of the ampelographic artefacts growing in the vineyards of Avellino, and the intuitive winemaking and crop husbandry techniques that, over many generations, had adapted to this remote, rugged wilderness. Based in Ariano Irpino, in the saddle of the Apennines and at just under 800 metres elevation, the winters are cold and the summers short, with harsh winds blowing from the north and from the Adriatic coast. The landscape is dramatic, defined by mountain ridges and undulating hills, with a diverse geological complexion that can be explored through the Cantina's eclectic portfolio of wines, from their own holdings or from grapes bought from neighbours and friends.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBeginning as a project among friends aiming to cultivate biodiversity between the vines, train their vines in the old way, and working without additions or filtration at the cellar, they had few, if any, peers in Campania in the early years, confirming the significance and timeliness of their work. In the decades since, their wines have become a benchmark for the timeless and evocative wines of Irpinia. Anyone who has experienced the enchanting pleasures of old vine aglianico like Le Fole, or the heady potency of fiano in, say, Tu tu will immediately understand why. Today, the original group remain active in the project, but Daniela and Antonio make the wines and drive the project forward.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eThe place\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese blended, skin fermented white wines were the bread and butter of this region before the DOC system was established and single varietal blocks and wines became the status quo. In a time before temperature control, the structural stability achieved through skin maceration was practical more than anything else. These qualities make these wines excellent for the table, great to pair with a variety of food, and we get all the aromatic intrigue of these southern varieties. The irony is that today, the DOC stipulates that these grapes be vinified as monovarietal, clean, and fresh wines, leaving behind so much of what makes these varieties interesting.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGrapes:\u003c\/strong\u003e Greco, Coda di Volpe, Falanghina\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRegion:\u003c\/strong\u003e Ariano Irpino, Campania, Italy\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eABV:\u003c\/strong\u003e 12.5%\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Cantina Giardino","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54988711166290,"sku":"1700715","price":50.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1116\/0246\/7154\/files\/na-2023-magnum-cantina-giardino.jpg?v=1791452553"},{"product_id":"raoul-2023-magnum-domaine-du-mazel","title":"Raoul 2023 Magnum - Domaine du Mazel","description":"\u003cp\u003eCarignan from older vines(approx. 50 years old) that saw 10 days of carbonic maceration and ageing in stainless. All the intensity of Carignan here but with a soft stone mineral freshness that opens everything up. Superb right now.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eThe producer\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eI met Jocelyne and Gérald after Claire, who runs la Tour Cassée in Valvignères with her husband Jean-Claude, insisted I visit them while during a stay in 2021. She kindly arranged a tasting at their cellar for the following morning. The gesture was my introduction to the generosity of spirit with which anyone who has visited the region is familiar. The tasting the following morning was an education in wine that i will never forget, free from the pretence and ego that too often characterises encounters with vigneron(ne)s of such esteemed reputation.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA venerable estate of Ardèche wine, Domaine du Mazel was founded in Valvignères by Jocelyne \u0026amp; Gérald's grandfather in 1919. Today, Gérald and Jocelyne farm twenty-two hectares or so around the valley, selling some fruit to local winemakers and making about 60,000 bottles per year themselves. \u003cbr\u003eLe Mazel is a prelude for many of the region’s wine successes in recent decades with the likes of Sylvain Bock, Andrea Calek, Jerome Jouret, and Anders Frederik Steen all having worked with or at the estate before going out on their own. Gérald's influence can be felt throughout southern Ardèche, where the collaborative spirit he helped to cultivate has fomented a vibrant, dynamic scene that has few comparisons in the world of wine. \u003cbr\u003eWhen the siblings took over from their father in 1982, they continued as coopérateurs, remaining active to the point that Gérald would become its vice president. Convinced by his wife, who had travelled with a friend to work in Beaujolais with Jean-Paul Thévenet, that something very interesting was happening in the region, Gérald travelled north, where over several visits he befriended Marcel Lapierre and Jacques Neauport. Inspired by the wines they were making, Gérald brought their methods back to Valvignères and decided to chart a new direction for his family's estate. They left the cooperative and began vinifying themselves, using Carbonic maceration for the reds, no filtration and no sulfitage. This was a radical move from Gérald, though perhaps more viable in Valvignères, which had long been seen as an agricultural, workhorse grapegrowing enclave that offered little in the way of quality. The freedoms this offered, alongthe size of their estate and their ability to sell fruit, le Mazel could absorb the mistakes that came with learning to make wine this way, often keeping wines in their cellar for years before their release when they started off. They slowly moved away from barrels, preferring steel, and these days their cellar is stacked with great big stainless steel vats along with a large wooden basket press. Having narrowing the aperture of their intention the couple now make wines built on purity of fruit and mineral vitality, and the siblings produce some of the most rewarding wines money can buy. Developing their intuitions over 5 decades, nobody quite understands the subtleties of growing grapes and making wine in this valley quite like Gérald \u0026amp; Jocelyne.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eThe place\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eHistorically overlooked and ignored, Valvignères has emerged as an epicentre for progressive viticulture and winemaking in the 21st century. Existing in the shadow of the hulking economy of the Rhone valley, the small valley west of le Teil made its name when Gérald Oustric and his sister Jocelyne decided to cease selling their fruit to the local co-op(which Geralds father helped found in 1919) to begin producing wines themselves. Having farmed organically since the 80s, Gérald had been convinced to make his own wine after several trips to Beaujolais in the 80s, where he met Jacques Neauport, Jules Chauvet, Pierre bonneton et al. This move would have significant domino effects, with Gerald adopting Carbonic maceration for his reds, no filtration or fining, and no sulfitage in his cellar. This freed to small region from the shackles of the establishment in the region and reconnected with the valleys historical winemaking traditions(Valvignères comes from the Roman Vallis Vinaria, meaning valley of vines). Gerald would go on to mentor 15 growers in the region, cultivating a spirit of collaboration and sharing of ideas that existed few other places in France. The wines from cellars in this cluster share an irresistably heady, telluric, and deeply soulful quality that makes them great value and well worth exploring. In terms of geology, we are almost in the south, but noticeably cooler than you might find just 20km south. Situated on what's traditionally known as the Bas Vivarais, the soils are predominantly clay and limestone, with outcrops of marne bleue and basalt.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRegion:\u003c\/strong\u003e Valvignères, Ardèche, France\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eABV:\u003c\/strong\u003e 12.5%\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Domaine du Mazel","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54988712083794,"sku":"25\/000748","price":58.5,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1116\/0246\/7154\/files\/raoul-2023-magnum-domaine-du-mazel.jpg?v=1791452552"},{"product_id":"tireurs-des-blancs-magnum-la-sorga","title":"Tireurs des Blancs Magnum - La Sorga","description":"\u003cp\u003eUgni Blanc (40%, 9-year-old vines), Grenache Blanc (30%, 67-year-old vines), Terret Bourret (30%, 11-year-old vines). Yields of 32hl\/ha. All the fruit comes from the calcareous sands and villafranchien of the Hérault Valley.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Ugni Blanc was destemmed and macerated in sandstone jars for 92 days, the Grenache Blanc destemmed and macerated in tank for 33 days, and the Terret Bourret directly pressed. Nine months ageing in tank.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA nose of great complexity, moving between stone fruit (plum, apricot, pear) and flint. The palate is dense and full-bodied with great length, finishing on quince, gentle spices and a chalky mineral bite. 2,600 bottles produced.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eThe producer\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen Antony Tortul began producing wines with his négociant project La Sorga in 2008, the iconoclastic verve of his wines and the contrarian artwork he labelled them with cast the aspiring winemaker as a radical disruptor who held little regard for the time honoured traditions of southern wine. Those who paid careful enough attention, however, came to recognise La Sorga's annual production of 30+ cuvées as a vinous almanac of sorts. Sourcing fruit from Toulouse to Provence and as far afield as Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Antony's portfolio is a comprehensive catalogue of Mediterranean France and beyond, offering a revitalised perspective on the rich and diverse viticultural topography of the south, much of which had been subsumed by the paint-by-numbers approach demanded by volume driven production.\u003cbr\u003eGrowing up in the Ariège, where he hopes one day to return, Antony learned the fundamentals of winemaking through a chemistry degree in Toulouse. This academic foundation opened windows of opportunity within the industry, and curiosity steered his formative years, working as a nomadic oenologist and cellar technician across Bergerac, Corbières, Fitou and the aforementioned Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Here he could put his academic schooling into practice and sharpen his intuitions as a winemaker. Given that experience and the extensive network he had established, the decision to work as a négociant made perfect sense when he set out on his own in 2008. It challenged the idea du jour, that to make wine the proper way one must grow the grapes oneself. The breadth of his work, and its subsequent significance, would have been impossible that way; his preference was to focus on the winemaking, deepening his understanding of the endless configurations of varieties, soils and sites through his practice as a négociant.\u003cbr\u003eI visited Antony and his young family at his cellar in 2021 (they have since moved), and the immaculate cleanliness was the first thing to strike me. It was a transitional period in the La Sorga story, a turning of the page, with Antony refreshing the intention behind his vinification, the reds especially, in response to the changing climate and his own evolving palate. Cuvées like Tireurs des Litres and Grande Pestilence, once deeply telluric and squid-ink dark, built for long ageing, had become lambent and sculpted, channelling the typicity of each site with clear-eyed precision. The decision to pick a little earlier and extend maceration times, inspired by his friend Alice Bouvot in the Jura, opened a new window of expression that has rewritten the rulebook yet again.\u003cbr\u003eIncidentally, Antony was a founding member of Brutal!!!, an open-source wine label now used by vignerons around the world.\u003cbr\u003eThese days, Antony's skilled cellar work and canny grape sourcing are widely recognised and highly regarded, to the extent that he was the subject of a two-page spread in Jon Bonné's recent tome The New French Wine. Not that it makes much difference to him; when I messaged to congratulate him on this inclusion, he was unaware the book even existed...\u003cbr\u003eFor me, the wines of La Sorga provided a sort of onboarding to Southern French wine, holding a kaleidoscope to the region, with each frame glistening as brightly as the last. In the Anglosphere, terms such as wine lake are often the first that come to mind when we think of the Languedoc, but Antony's wines are a key to unlocking this treasure trove, discoverable to anyone who looks.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eThe place\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eUgni Blanc, or Trebbiano in Italy, is prized mainly for its acidity, and the majority of what’s grown is used for the distillation of Cognac and Armagnac. The long maceration here is notable, Ugni’s skins don’t bring much to the aromatics of this wine, but add some grip and length in the mouth. Terret Bourret is an old indigenous variety of the Hérault, a variety sometimes described as a sponge for the soils, retaining freshness late into the season. Here Antony pressed the Terret of the skins without maceration, with the skins of terret quite thick and rich in bitter phenolics. The fruity weight and way structure here comes from the Grenache Blanc, and with a 33 day maceration we also get some of the variety’s citrussy, herbal aromatics.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGrapes:\u003c\/strong\u003e Ugni Blanc, Grenache Blanc, Terret Bourret\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRegion:\u003c\/strong\u003e Montagnac, Languedoc, France\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"La Sorga","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54988712444242,"sku":"1700261","price":63.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1116\/0246\/7154\/files\/tireurs-des-blancs-magnum-la-sorga.jpg?v=1791452552"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.brianswines.ie\/collections\/magnums.oembed","provider":"Brian's Wines","version":"1.0","type":"link"}