Claire est ni Rouge ni Rosé 2015 Côteaux d'Ancenis

ich ripe light bright red, tight cherry funk. Vanilla bits. Creamy mouth. Acid and fresh. Happily living life. All the natural screamy brightness. Just lovely. It shows as a Rose in the bottle, chilled it was wonderful. Even just a little.

100% Gamay from Remi Sedes. The accordion playing bohemian moved from Paris, took on two hectares of land in the Loire and two Percheron draft horses. Making natural wine in a shed, he's on a quest to learn and improve the understanding of the AOC. Organic farmed on granitic soils.

Claire is neither Red nor Rose the label says. Clearly. 😉 Last summer #Samplemousse was the killer. Full of life altering chemicals, and magik powers if you remember. That was 2015 as well, so this is with a longer elevage? Desirous. Charming. Not labeled AOC or VdF, says Côteaux d'Ancenis Rose on the back, but nothing on the front. These rules. Shrug.

La Boutanche Rose 2016 AOC Touraine

Cranberry red. A zip of fizz when opened, but no bubble. Lemonade sings. Zing goes the acid on this, Bright. Fresh. Strawberry balsamic. Real depth, hinted again to those cranberries. Not a pissy saignee pink. Wow. Good thing there is a litre in this bottle.

100% Grolleau Cinq Mars which often gets a bad rap. Lots of color, but not a lot of structure or intensity keeps it disallowed in all Loire AOC Reds. Typically it's used for Rosé d'Anjou, and that too is on the outs. Typically they are over-sweet and not the modern soifable style. I made that up. Soifable. Start using it.

Our man Quentin Bourse, Le Sot de L'Ange, took over a friend’s estate in Azay-le-Rideau. Certified Biodynamic. 12 hectares on clay and silex. Native yeast fermented in steel and fiberglass. Cheap and neutral. Low sulphur. Less than 20ppm.

La Boutanche is a project in conjunction with Selection Massale. There are a few different wines, cheap in big bottles. A Sauvignon, and a Gamay from Frantz Saumon are also on the shelves now. Both on my hit lists.

Karine Lauverjat 2016 Sancerre AOC

Salmon pink. rocky edges, bitter grapefruit pith, saline brine, hard small cherries, tri-star strawberries, iron filings. lips like a day on a boat. Found this a day opened in the fridge, a glass gone, left by the house sitter. Bone cold and delicious after a good sweat.

100% Pinot Noir left to bleed to in tank for 12 to 14 hours, then vinified white in temperature controlled stainless steel for two to three weeks, with some circulation of the lees after. Left in the tank over the winter and bottled fresh in the spring.

The Lauverjat family have 12 acres of limestone and clay soil in the Loire valley where they grow Sauvignon, and Pinot Noir for a handful of estate cuvees. They practice reasonable intervention, using seaweed to combat disease if possible, and letting grasses grow to prevent erosion.

Les Chardons 2015 Touraine AOC

Grapey purple. Fruity rocks. Flint jam. Arrowheads in berry juice. Activated acid, blammo body. Bodacious. Pretty, off sweet, dank blanket. Stale quilt from a musty chest on a last cool night of Spring.

100% Gamay from 115 Acres of poor chalk and Silex soils in the Loire. Partial Carbonic, fermented in steel, let to rest in underground concrete tanks until bottling. The winery is new built by Sophie and Thierry Chardon. They converted over to AB certified organic and never looked back.

Famille Laurent 2016 Saint-Pourcain AOC

Cherries. Vanilla ice cream, light baking spices, nutmeg. Full and furious, ripe saignee. Greasy sour fruit.

The AOC allows Gamay and Pinot Noir for the reds and rose. Producer grows both, and the wine is often listed as a blend. Maybe neither. Or everything. Extremely short maceration, two hours, thirty minutes and seemingly while in the press, keeps this light bright.

The family has about 30 hectares, broken into eight plots across different municipalities. Some with limestone, others crushed granite soils. Both provide excellent drainage, and a challenge for struggling roots. Each parcel is harvested and vinified separately to isolate their characteristics.

The winemakers do everything by hand, natural yeasts, no Malolactic.

“A qualitative rather than a quantitative production so as not to piss the vine”

— Google Translate

Technically in the Loire valley, but sitting at the mouth of the river, nearer to Burgundy and Beaujolais, across climates.

Le Petit Chambord 2014 Cheverny AOC

Tinted red. Bright sour rocks. Fresh must. Lean juice. Ripe. Understated fruit. More Loire. Pronounce those last two words like they rhyme.

Pinot Noir, and Gamay from limestone soils. Vendages manuelles, is a fancy way of saying hand made. No robot assembly line. Sustainable. Indigenous yeasts. No filtration. Gravity does the heavy lifting.

Pinot Noir is destemmed, and fermented 10 days at 25c. The Gamay is whole cluster, 12 days at 20c. Love these details. Vinified separately, matured in tanks.
The estate website says there is "10% Côt, which completes the dominant Pinot Noir and Gamay" 
Assembled wine was elevated for six months to get everything singing. Bottled in January 2016. Fresh.

Cheverny and Cour-Cheverny are dominated by white wines, Sauvignon and Romorantin respectively, known for their fresh acidity, and shocking minerality. This rocky soiled red holds its own.

Poivre et Sel 2016 VdF

Dark dank beauty, drinks fresh, hints of manure. A lovely hard zing from the peppery Pineau d'Aunis, backed up and balanced lovely with pips of fruitiness. Textural, alive. Chatty really. A dinner guest on its own.

90% Pineau d'Aunis, 10% Gamay, from a mixed vineyard in the flinty soils of the Loire. Olivier Lemasson makes a continual stream of beautiful glouglou Natural wines. Organic, no sulphur, or manipulation. Tastes of natural yeasts, unfiltered. 

These wines are fresh, and don't last. Neither on the shelf, or once the bottle is opened. Of course I mean because it will get soif'd right quick. If you see any of these wines, grab them, there is a good chance they won't be around again until the next vintage. Typically only 500 cases are produced a year.

Brutal Domaine la Boheme VdF

Black. Gack. Sweet licorice. Berry juice. Powdered granite. What's the French version of licorella? I can imagine what these soils look like. Roiling passion. Bright blasting koolaid Berries. Lovely citric acid. Candy wand. Lick em stix. Swirl and wow. Dark. Bells. I want a case of this.

The Brutal Wine Company is a crazy wonderful concept. Based around a natural wine bar in Barcelona, named apropos, Bar Brutal. These are one-off cuvees from natural winemakers. Some bottles are for the bar, and accompanying wine store Can Cisa in el Born, but the rest are sold by the winemakers as a prestige project.

This is from Domaine la Boheme, winemaker Patrick Bouju has a few hectares on the gentle slopes of Auvergne, at the headlands of the Loire River, just west of Beaujolais, where he focuses on old vine Gamay d’Auvergne. Some broken mixed parcels with the vines too close together for a horse to plow. Had to get a skinnier horse.

50% Gamay d’Auvergne, and 50% Syrah. Patrick's vineyard and cellar practices are minimal, using observations not tricks. Zero sulphur for almost 10 years. Pure wine.

Domaine de la Pépière - La Pepie 2015

Inky leather. Boozy fruit rollups, lead weights. Cork hand grips on an old bike. Driftwood bonfire. Damp, smoke. Eucalyptus vapors. Soft body, zinging cherry acids. Chrome plated trailer hitch.

100% Cab Franc. Marc Ollivier is known for his Muscadet-sur-Lie, and of course there's no red appellation, so its Vin de Pays du Val de Loire, a 'fancy' VdF. Sort of. Country wine says Google.

Small parcel of red vines are planted on southwest hillsides with exposed granite. Hand harvested, a rarity in this area, destemmed, and let to rest for a week. Four day cold maceration before fermentation, five months in steel.

Organic, natural fermentation, biodynamic practices, nothing sprayed, more nettle, comfrey, and horsetail to fight pests.

Rouge G, Le Sot de L'ange 2015 VdF

Deep red. Long green grasses. Herbal tea, chamomile, citrus zest, Soft plush olives. Pillows. Carbonic pillows with juicy red tassels. Lively berries. vin de soif for days. Err it won't last an hour.

Grolleau and Gamay from the Loire. Last time I researched there was some trick with whole bunches of one under the other, creating an anaerobic environment. New package. New name. Dunno.

Laughably heavy clear bottle. Here's some glou, won't age, don't leave it out, also note the impressive heft. This one had a cork, some have screw caps. What's that all about @selectionmassale? 
Quentin Bourse makes these knockout, organic and sulphur free Loire wines. Minimal manipulation. Drink them if you see them.

Pinot de Soif 2016 - VdF

Ripe red. Blackberry funk. Lots of valley vitamins. Bright body. Tightening sourness. Dripping black cherry pie ash cans. Burnt newspapers. Chicory, roasted radicchio salad. Drink with bikes. 

100% Pinot Noir, grown in flint and clay soils; 30-year-old vines. Winemaker Olivier Lemasson has been running a small négoce since 2002 named Les Vins Contés, sourcing from organically farmed vineyards around the Loire Valley.  

“Lemasson gave up fighting the AOC boards over “typicity” and has intentionally declassified all his wines. ”

Like most of his wines, this is unfiltered, and without added sulphur, made in the caviste style. Small cellar, used wooden fermentation tanks.

This wine tastes of carbonic maceration which fits with the rest of his reds varietals, Gamay, Cot, Grolleau, Pineau D'Aunis. But beyond that, I found very little detail on this cuvee. I'll probably never see you again. (at least until the next time) Thanks Moz.