Halloween Tasting, Oystermania, etc

Olivier Cazenave Bel A Ciao Skin Contact Sémillon 2021, Bordeaux, France $21

Organic and biodynamically farmed, skin-contact Semillon from a 25 acre parcel in Le Fleix (Dordogne, on the border of the Gironde), on clay/limestone soils. Vines average 25 years in age. The grapes are macerated 3 weeks on the skins and fermented at 68°F in stainless steel tanks, then matured 6 months on the fine lees in concrete tanks. Bel A Ciao is named after the 1940s Italian anti-fascist folk song, which likely originated as a song sung by women who worked rice fields in northern Italy. Whatever its origins, it is a song about freedom from oppressors, a timeless theme indeed. 

This orange Semillon is the perfect orange wine for people who are new to the category, or he think they don’t like it. It is subtle and nuanced, with a touch of orange peel and flowers on the nose. The palate is savory and low-toned, with a slight touch of tannins and a lightly salty finish. Do not over-chill, as the subtleties will be masked. It is a perfect partner for seafood, salads, and feta with olives. 

Olivier Cazenave is from Libourne, west of Bordeaux. After working in export sales for a number of years, he started one of the first wine e-commerce websites (we’re not really fans of this, haha!) and then decided he would rather make wine. In 2003 he and his wife Anne bought 4.5 hectares with a garden that meandered to the banks of the Dordogne, just south of his hometown. With his father-in-law’s help, he and his wife purchased another 4 hectares, of mostly Merlot and Cabernet Franc. The next few years were spent planting and converting to biodynamics. He created the Bel a Ciao label as an outlet to break the rules of Bordeaux.

Famille Guibert Blame the Monkey Blanc 2022 1 Liter, Languedoc, France $21

This organic liter is a part of the Guibert family of wines, the same people that make the Herault's Mas de Daumas Gassac line––always bang for the buck. Blame the Monkey is fermented and aged at the estate, but is made from local co-op fruit. It’s 50% Terret (a local variety) and 50% Sauvignon Blanc. 

This is a crisp, bright, citrus-driven white with green apple and on the palate and a zippy finish. All around crowd pleaser. We have the red too. Fermented in stainless steel, low sulfur (18ppm)

Teutonic Pinot Meunier Borgo Pass Vineyard, Willamette Valley, Oregon $31.99

Teutonic focuses on single vineyard, single varietal wines that are dry farmed and made in a precise, Germanic style.

The Teutonic MO is old vines, cold climate, high elevation, dry farmed, old wood, and wild yeast. Or, as proprietors Olga and Barnaby Tuttle put it: old and cold, high and dry, wood and wild, inspired by the wines of Mosel, Germany. The combination of old vines and dry farming means that vines go super deep into the earth in search of nutrients, and therefore absorb layers of terroir-driven flavors. Teutonic is a member of the DRC (Deep Roots Coalition), a group that promotes “sustainable and terroir-driven viticulture without irrigation.”

Producer’s tasting note: This is one of our favorite wines to make. Most folks know Pinot Meunier as a component of champagne. We love it as a still red wine. It's bright and fruity with a touch of minerality and lovely soft tannins. We call it our darling wine, you will too once you taste it. This year's vintage is silky smooth with notes of blood orange, sandalwood, cranberry, raspberry…the aromatics are light. 

Éric Texier Chat Fou Vin de France Rouge 2021 $23.99

This red Rhône blend is 50% Grenache, 30% Cinsault, and 20% white grapes (this time Clairette) predominantly from vines planted on a south-facing slope on granite soils in the St-Julien en St-Alban zone (in the Ardèche, at the southern edge of the northern Rhône Valley) as well as some sourced fruit; like the estate wines, all fruit is certified-organic. Harvest is by hand, then the bunches are partly de-stemmed and co-fermented with native yeasts in open-top concrete tanks with a short maceration (around 5 days) and no sulfur. Like all Texier wines, very little to no extraction techniques are applied. Chat Fou is aged in concrete tank on its fine lees for around 12 months and bottled without fining or filtration, and with a small amount of sulfur. Starting in 2021, the wine is bottled as a Vin de France rather than as a Côtes-du-Rhône. 

This crazy cat (named for one of Éric’s cats, which was supposedly crazy, is easy, fruity, and light-bodied compared to your usual Rhone red; the white grapes are used in the blend in order to keep the wine on the less-heavy side of the spectrum. Cheerful notes of strawberry, raspberry, a touch of cherry, and citrus rind finishes with refreshing acidity, making for a perfect bistro-style wine. 

Here’s our old note on Texier: Éric Texier came to wine without any family connection or romantic, multi-generational story. In 1992, after years as a nuclear scientist, he opted to follow his passion for wine and formally study viticulture and oenology at Bordeaux University. He read a lot, visited winemakers around the world, and worked in Burgundy with Jean-Marie Guffens, at Verget. There he learned the benefits of minimal-intervention wine-making: native yeasts, little to no herbicides, no machines, etc...

As a beginner, he was unable to afford his own vineyards, so he became a négociant, buying only from small growers philosophically aligned with himself. He has since acquired plots in Côte Rôtie and Condrieu in the northern Rhône, and replanted several hectares in long-forgotten Brézème with Syrah and Roussanne. All of his wines are aged in the underground 16th-century cellar at his home in Charnay-en-Beaujolais.