Renardat-Fache

Mid-Summer is always a skitzophrenic time for me.  It's right about the point when, every year, I start getting bored with wine.  All I want to do is hike, eat fresh produce, and be away from alcohol, restaurants and my cellphone.  And being the mental case that I am, I soon start worrying that I'm not cut out for the wine business, that I should be doing something foolish like helping children or working to save the environment, and that This Is My Last Summer Carrying A Bag.  This temporary infection of healthfulness and professional insecurity typically lasts 4-6 weeks...or until right about the time the new vintage of alpine French wines arrive.  Because as soon as that container lands, immediately all I can think about is sharing these fresh wines with their existing small cult of followers, converting those who've never tasted them, and gulping them down, myself, with all manner of fatty alpine french foods.

Cerdon

Elie is the biggest boss you've seen thus far.

Perhaps the most exciting, and limited of all these wines is Renardat-Fache's Bugey Cerdon.  I realize that many - if not most - of you have had Cerdon before, and we can all agree that even the cheapest, shittiest, most industrial versions of this demi-sec sparkling Gamay-based wine are still pretty delicious!  Having said that, I am humbled that the portfolios I represent hold more than a few "best in the appellation" growers, and that in the region surrounding the village of Cerdon (a tiny, tiny town wedged deep into one of the Bugey's many valleys, just off the highway between Lyon and Geneva), Renardat-Fache is an obvious one. 



For me, there are myriad reasons that make this THE wine in the appellation, but I'll stick to the big ones:

1) There are 170 hectares of land under vines in Cerdon.  163 of those hectares are Gamay, and 6 are Poulsard.  3 of those 6 hectares of Poulsard are, and always have been, the property of Renardat-Fache.  Elie is a HUGE fanatic about Jura reds, and particularly those of Pierre Overnoy, and though the vines are far lower yielding and more difficult to farm, he is proud to have them play a starring role in the family's wine.  And ultimately, the inclusion of a significant volume of Poulsard is why the wines retain an extra degree of texture and depth that you won't find in other Cerdon.  ...and it's also a major contributor, for me, why the wines are not just simple dessert wines, but also ideal as an appertif, or with liver or charcuterie:

the best head cheese and pork belly i've ever had.  from here.

2) The overwhelming majority majority of Cerdon is fermented either by direct-injection carbonation (like soda), or industrial méthode champenoise (like cava).  Elie Renardat-Fache employs "ancestral method" which involves a) partial primary fermentation in tank for many months at very low temperatures to 6% abv, then b) second fermentation for bubbles and an additional 2.5 degrees of alcohol, then c) the sparkling wine is taken out of the bottle by an impressive and quite elaborate device (below) which maintains the wine's natural pressure while removing lees and preventing fermentation to "dry"...and then E) the wine is re-bottled in a second, and final vessel.  Needless to say, this is quite a complex process just to produce a few thousand bottles of $15 sparkling pink wine...but then you taste it and realize why Elie's gone the extra mile. 

3)  These are seriously some of the most dramatic, steepest vineyards I've ever seen in my life.  Steeper than the Mosel, steeper than the Ribera Sacra - STEEP:

4) Kids love dipping their 1,700-calorie sugary butter tart in it.

-Al

Cantina Noussan.  Saint-Chrisophe, Valle d'Aosta, IT

After spending some time in the Valle d'Aoste in June 2012, I can say with confidence that Franco Noussan is bottling the freshest, realest, most  un-tinkered with wines in the region. Granted, there is plenty of solid wine made there and due to the virtual absence of barriques and an apparent local affinity for tart, low-abv% reds (i.e. my soft spot), I enjoyed almost everything I drank there...but no bottles we opened even approached the raw purity of Franco's wines. I don't want to waste anybody's time with a bunch of wine nerd babble, but below are a few observations:

Franco Noussan

Franco
Franco is a stocky, barrel-chested, +/-5'8" guy whose energy, enthusiasm, and outward kindness make it easy to forget that he's a grandfather, and well into his 7th decade on the planet. Save a blown out hip, there is nothing "old" about him (and while the pictures don't show it, his facial features and expressions are very similar to my boss Jeff Vierra's).  Franco lives with his wife in a slate-roofed farmhouse above one of his vineyards in the village of Saint-Christophe. He works at a local community college and makes wine when he's not doing that. He works all the vines himself, does all the cellar work himself, and the only assistance he takes is from family during the harvest. Franco is a boss.

Geography/Vineyards
The landscape here is unlike anything I've seen in all my 13yrs of wine travel - The scale and severity of the peaks that loom over the vineyards is just jaw-dropping. I thought I'd seen it all at Foradori, but this takes the cake. Most of the vineyards are in the town of St. Christophe, which is really just a tiny 30-house neighborhood a few miles north of Aosta above the highway between Torino and Mt Blanc. Once you get below the snowline in this part of the region, the landscape is just trees and a cleared land for agriculture. The soil is extremely mineral-poor and rocky, and there is NO water so everybody has to irrigate young vineyards, and we saw very few vines that didn't have some "emergency" irrigation...that's always a bummer for me to see, but whatever. I think it's worth mentioning that I saw zero limestone or granite - In the past, reps have told me about the various soil types of their growers in the region, but I didn't see or hear shit: clay and rocks, that's it. Franco has an amazing patchwork of tiny vineyards: 15 parcels scattered all around a 20min perimeter surrounding his house, with all different grapes, vine ages, aspects etc. The grand total is <9ha, though, so it's still a pretty small operation, even by LDM standards. 

The Cellar
In a small, tight, low-ceilinged cellar dug into the hillside underneath his house, Franco keeps one of the cleanest work spaces I've ever seen in the business. It's evident that the guy doesn't have much in the way of money or resources to work with (his wines sell for <7 €/bottle in Italy), and I suspect this has something to do with why his tanks are gleaming and the grout between his floor tiles is bleached - It almost feels like a hospital. Anyhow, everything is fermented in 200-300L stainless steel tanks, with no new wood for anything (we had one pinot w/ neutral wood, but that was it).  The "flow chart" looks something like: small pneumatic press>small stainless tanks>no starter yeasts or bullshit>no tech, filtering, or any trickery after fermentation. 

Wines
Franco Makes: Pinot Gris, Pinot Nero, Torrette, a blend called "Cuvee de la Cote", and some delicious LH Pinot Gris. We've all worked with the Torrette before, but the "Cuvee" and Pinot Gris really surprised and stuck out to me. Cuvee de la Cote is an old vine blend from parcels near his house in St. Christophe: a little more minerality and fruit than the Torrette. The Pinot Gris was a perfect stylistic mid-point between Alsace & NE Italian "pinot grigio": really simple, and fucking great. 

-AL