A quick tasting of Summer reds
We taste a quick line up of delicious, natural summer reds with Florian. By Kate
Summer, thank God, is here. I can wear sleeveless t-shirts, eat dinner on the roof terrace without wearing a 5 layers, take off my shoes in the parks (where it is still mercifully green) and wriggle my toes in the grass.
(Provided it looks reasonably sanitary)
I can also spend most nights not sleeping because it is too warm and endure car journeys dripping gently all over the seat but this is a small price to pay. Sunday night, Jude and I drank a bottle of Thierry Puzelet’s Pet Nat (as we like to call it) on the roof terrace as the day started to cool. It was a moment of perfection. And then Monday, the very lovely Florian came in to show us a selection of suitable summertime reds.
We cooled them first in the fridge, so they were all about 12 – 14 degrees celcius by the time we got to them which really is as it should be. Take note, people! Obviously, the cooler temperature is the only one to drink reds at in this heat but all good reds are happier cooler than warmer despite what so many seem to think.
2007 Les Foulards Rouge ‘ Les Vilain', Rousillon, France
Our love of Jean-Francois Nicq truly knows no bounds – see :-
This offering is 50/50 Grenache and Syrah and, like all his wines, has delicious vibrant, perfumed red fruit but here there is an underlying earthy kick. The wine is actually very slightly reductive, but so pristine is the fruit in his wines generally that this actually just adds an interesting counterpoint. Truly, Jean-Francois (and his extraordinary wines) can do no wrong.
He is very serious about emphasising freshness and drinkability, Florian reminded us, and he has more than done that here, reduction or not. This starts with more-ish, zingy but elegant fruit that gets richer and more liquorice-y towards the back. Not quite as sweetly fruit as the Glaneuse and without the very elegant spice of the Soif du Mal, this is none the less very delicious too and I could have happily grabbed the decanter and headed off to the nearest park for an afternoon alone with it.
2004 Sextant Bourgogne Rouge , Burgundy , France
Off to Burgundy Dominique Derain is completely committed to biodynamic viticulture and has been since his first vintage in 1998, after having had a career as a cooper. He and wife Catherine (who he met while studying viticulture) are absolutely rigorous in their approach, doing everything by hand on their tiny parcels of land and then employing a similarly careful approach in the winery, adding not a single speck of anything that shouldn’t really be there, which includes sulphur.
This is a bona fida ‘natural wine’ and by Jove, doesn’t it just taste like it! The same feral and freshly squeezed fruit character is evident, as in so many of these, but being Burgundian, it has a deft, light touch balancing this. There is an earthy quality, but it is a very refined earth.
2006 Sextant St Aubin Rouge , Burgundy , France
Florian informs us that St. Aubin always makes very delicate reds. There are lots of fossils in the soil and minerality always shows through remarkably strongly, apparently.
The wine is very delicate at first and then a lean but sure enough, very defined mineral structure comes through. The flavours are intriguing – fresh herbs (spearmint?!) and tea. Florian thinks he can taste PEPS and I am momentarily completely confused, my head full of financial products, until we realise he means ‘pips.
Yes, there is a flavour of fruit pip. Like the Bourgogne
2005 Sextant Mercurey Rouge , Burgundy , France
Fresh fruit and funk on the nose – an unexpected but glorious combination. This one is much more edgy than the other two – the still delicate, fresh berry fruit is met head on, from the back of the palate, by a wave of earthy tannins. There is the same herbal quality to the fruit I found on the St Aubin. More Peps?
2007 Domaine de Chassornay Bedeau, Bourgogne
He also apparently is a great lover of the ladies, a fact Florian tossed in for free.
‘Bedeau’ was the name given to people in the church who looked after the vines, dating back to the days when pretty much all wine making in this region and in many others in France France
Great, fresh, vibrant red fruit again, sweeter than on the Sextant but very delicious. Very fine, elegant tannins but I find a bit more complexity – there is more spiced mineral underlying the fruit than on the others we have tasted. They share the same vital, lively quality though.
2008
From the south of Ardeche, just at the top of the river, this wine is made by Gerald and Jocleyn Oustric. Florian calls him ‘the less arrogant person I ever met’ which gets lots of gold stars in our book. They work completely organically in the vineyard and very naturally in the winery and have done now for more than 12 years.
Interestingly, this is a Cabernet Franc, which is not a much planted variety in this region. We actually are convinced that we tasted one of their wines in a Paris
This is extremely volatile on the nose, but on the palate the Cabernet Franc is showing itself beautifully with earthy, peppery, sweet black fruit. The volatility in the mouth adds an extra dimension of freshness (I can hear hordes of wine sticklers shrieking in pain and horror at that sentence but I make no apologies – it does) and there is plenty of clean, sweet black fruit to take the edge off it.
Also not fantastically complex but good to drink all the same. This was yet another great Florian tasting and on the strength of it we will probably be listing the Bedeau and the ‘Les Vilains’. We may already have two of his wines but you simply can’t have too much Jean Francois Nicq in your life!
(Provided it looks reasonably sanitary)
I can also spend most nights not sleeping because it is too warm and endure car journeys dripping gently all over the seat but this is a small price to pay.
We cooled them first in the fridge, so they were all about 12 – 14 degrees celcius by the time we got to them which really is as it should be.
He is very serious about emphasising freshness and drinkability, Florian reminded us, and he has more than done that here, reduction or not. This starts with more-ish, zingy but elegant fruit that gets richer and more liquorice-y towards the back.
This is a bona fida ‘natural wine’ and by Jove, doesn’t it just taste like it!
The wine is very delicate at first and then a lean but sure enough, very defined mineral structure comes through. The flavours are intriguing – fresh herbs (spearmint?!) and tea. Florian thinks he can taste PEPS and I am momentarily completely confused, my head full of financial products, until we realise he means ‘pips.
Yes, there is a flavour of fruit pip.
He also apparently is a great lover of the ladies, a fact Florian tossed in for free.
2008
