Being There

I vividly remember the ‘Park Scene’ in Good Will Hunting movie.

This Noëlla Morantin 'Chez Charles' Sauvignon 2009 (as in Blanc) has an uncompromising taste.  I can only tell this, not because I have drunk many bottles of the wine, but because I have spent time in the cellar and walked the vineyards with Noëlla Morantin.  I have smelled the cellar and touched the vines that she farms. Her wines are inseparable from the vigneronne.   

Every now and then, not too often, even through tasting and drinking, I simply cannot translate the emotional impact of a particular wine.  The tasting notes become so distant from the experience of being there.  It is as though you are trying to describe the fragrance of your lover the very first time you pressed your nose against her flesh.

Of all the vignerons and vigneronnes that I represent, Noëlla Morantin 'Chez Charles' Sauvignon 2009 is one of those ‘Park Scene’ bottles for me.

Additional info from a Danish writer about the wine.

Minerality of Muscadet

A great Mucadet is an antithesis to modern wines of fruit bombs and full bodies.

Whereas many modern wines are described in fruits of cherries, blackberries, peaches, blah, blah and more blah, a great Muscadet has no desire to fit into a category of a particular fruit.  When tasted in a typical trade tasting without foods, a great Muscadet doesn’t even show very well. 

A great Muscadet is all about minerals and food, especially shell fishes such as raw oysters and steamed mussels.  A great Muscadet without food is like Fred without Ginger, a rose without fragrance, or Leonard Cohen without poetry.  A great Muscadet is for wine and food lovers. 

The qualifier ‘great’ is important when choosing a Muscadet because the majority of Muscadet is merely a mouthwash that is made industrially with chemical farming, lab yeasts and mechanical harvesting selling at supermarket low prices.

The good news is there is still a handful of vignerons who still give a shit.  The vignerons who farm in harmony with nature, who hand-harvest and who only stick to native yeasts.  Two of my favourites are Marc Ollivier of LaPépière and Jo Landron of Domaines Landron.  I can hug these guys! And I do every year by visiting them and thanking them for giving a shit.  Above is a picture of Jo Landron when I visited him January 2012.