I am starting our Cru Beaujolais series with Moulin-à-Vent because of the soils that lie beneath the vines. Thanks to those soils, Moulin-à-Vent can produce a wine that many Beaujolais-lovers consider to be the very greatest of all the wines of Beaujolais.
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Beaujolais is a great place to travel when you're with the team from Kermit Lynch. No U.S. importer has done more to promote the wines of Beaujolais than Kermit Lynch. Among his other great finds is the entire line up of the Gang of Four producers of Morgon: Thevenet, Breton, Lapierre and Foillard.
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From Joguet we drove directly to Pierre Breton. We had hung out at Pierre’s place only a few months earlier and it was good to see him again. On this visit, unfortunately, time was quite short and we headed straight to his underground tasting room and started opening bottles.
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It was a great appointment with Philippe Foreau – 90 minutes longer than he had slotted us in for – and so we were late to an embarrassing degree for our next appointment, with Pierre Breton.
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After Huet we just had time to squeeze in lunch at la Geule Noire, a nice farm-to-table in a cave carved out of tuffeau stone where the chef attempts to “fuse” Basque and the local Tourainaise cuisines (razor clams, pig’s snout, pig’s feet, veal with Serrano and Manchego, washed down with the local beer Noirette and a bottle of Pinon’s Silex Noir 2010). One of the best meals of our trip and highly recommended.
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Day 3 would turn out to be our longest day, and the five hours of sleep after numerous bottles of wine was not ideal preparation. Still, we managed to pile into the car early enough to arrive in Vouvray only 20 minutes late for our appointment at Domaine Huet.
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We drove straight from Marc Deschamp’s domaine in Pouilly-sur-Loire to Domaine Thomas Labaille in Chavignol. Chavignol is in the Sancerre appellation, on a hill across the valley to the west of the actual town of Sancerre. The narrow country road connecting the two villages is extraordinarily beautiful, passing through hilly vineyards with great views of medieval Sancerre up on the hill. The Labaille winery is right on this road, just before entering the village.
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