Ostia 2021 - Es d'Aqui
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Ostia 2021 - Es d'Aqui
Chardonnay · Limoux, France · 75cl
Pickup available at 3 Cornmarket Street
Usually ready in 2-4 days
How to serveChilled, 8 to 10°C. Let it come up a few degrees in the glass for the stony side to show.
Pure Chardonnay from Castelreng, on the clay-limestone soils of the upper Limoux valley. Direct press, no skin contact, aged on lees in a stoneware jar (Jean Louis likes these for their slower, more gentle oxygen exchange).
A taut, mineral-driven wine that shows more limestone than Chardonnay, lean & citrus flecked, with a polished stone grip from the time in ageing in clay.
The producer
Jean-Louis works from an unassuming cellar below his house in Moulin-neuf, close to Limoux. Trained as an oenologist, he worked at large commercial wineries in the mid-noughties, at one point managing a cellar that produced 160,000 bottles a year. After tasting the wines of his friend Antony Tortul of la Sorga, Jean-louis was convinced to walk a different path, and established his own label the following year.
Predominantly a micro-negociant, Jean-Louis scouts fruit from remote and isolated vineyards across the South-West, from Gaillac out to Saint-Chinian and further afield, as well as working closely with respected growers like Remi Poujol. A varying portion of his output every year comes from his own vines nearby, depending on the vintage. Bottling under the label Es d'Aqui, meaning "from here" in Occitan, Jean Louis reminds us that each of his wines is a singular expression of where they come from. Producing about 10,000 bottles a year, some cuvées in tiny quantities(sometimes as little as 400-800 bottles), Jean-louis' wines catalogue the breadth of intricacies that define southern wine.
The place
Castelreng sits on the upper Aude, in the Limoux appellation territory, on clay-limestone soils that produce wines with a particular kind of pointed, mineral acidity. The clay-limestone gives lower potential alcohol and the cooler-climate signature you get from the Pyrenean foothills. Ostia is among the more direct, nervy wines from Jean-Louis' cellar, and how he vinifies fruit from this site, quite differently from almost all his other wines, tells us something in itself.
Grapes: Chardonnay (Limoux)
Region: Ariège, France