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La Tribu Alonso

La Tribu Alonso
Ambre Dissolved is an organic and natural red wine without added sulfites, made in Beaujolais by Cyril Alonso. It is a 100% Gamay grape made from several varieties of this grape and classified as a Vin de France. Its name alludes to the soft clocks painted by Salvador Dalí in his painting Persistence of Memory. According to Dalí, purple is the most harmonious of colors: it is also the color of Ambre Dissolved. A discreet allusion to the surrealist painter appears on the label.

Vinification
The Gamays from which Ambre Dissolve is made, grown organically, grow on a 3-are plot on granite soil with wild grass, in agroforestry and without plowing. Pruned in goblet form, they are four varieties of Gamay teinturiers (i.e., Gamays with black skin and red juice, giving a great density of color to the wine): Gamay de Bouze, Gamay de Troye, Gamay de Fréaux and Gamay de Chaudenay. Harvested by hand, the grapes undergo a five-day semicarbonic maceration, without a starter culture, and ferment with indigenous yeasts. Alcoholic and malolactic fermentations follow one another in fiberglass vats. No additives are added, no sulfites at bottling.

Tasting
Despite a short vatting period, Ambre Dissolved is a very sanguine, mineral, ferrous, slightly earthy and very rustic wine. The color is intense, the nose is spicy, the palate offers a beautiful texture. A very pure, balanced wine, offering a beautiful balance between fruit and minerality. To be paired imperatively with red meats: roasted, grilled, pan-fried, braised or cured. It is a beef wine. It will also appreciate Lyonnaise charcuterie and all regional dishes.

Learn more about the Alonso Tribe
This tribal name refers to Cyril Alonso, winemaker, his wife, naturopath, and their family. They take care, using organic farming methods, of a conservatory of traditional grape varieties from the Rhône-Alpes region located in Marchampt (Rhône), in the heart of the Beaujolais Vert region. This two-and-a-half-hectare ampel library, which has existed since 1952, contained forty grape varieties. It currently contains one hundred and forty. This unique location gives the Tribu Alonso wines their particular style. Instead of being single-varietal microcuvées, they are quite the opposite: wines by grape variety family, either a Chardonnay containing all the Chardonnays of the house or a multi-Gamay Gamay.

A biotope classified in 2008
The estate enjoys a unique ecological location: the house and the vineyard are surrounded by untouched forests, on the steep terrain of northern Beaujolais. Three rivers cross it, and the vines, close to the bedrock, capture all the minerality of the soil. Organic farming is practiced and the work, both in the vineyard and in the cellar, is entirely manual, without the use of any chemical additives or sulfites in the winemaking process.

The wines
Cuvées of co-plantation (and for good reason), the wines of the Tribu Alonso embrace all the complexity of their grape varieties and the viticultural history of Beaujolais. These are carefully crafted wines, made with great care, fermented and aged to the sound of Tibetan bowls, whose alpha waves are beneficial to the liquids. The vatting periods are short, to preserve the freshness and fruit, as well as the signature of the soil and grape varieties.

Domaine de Bois-Moisset

No Pressure Sparkling White 2021

€13,00

Sans Pression Sparkling White 2021

Domaine Bois Moisset
No pressure, no constraints, no stress, but always good press, vinified to perfection and with precision. This is the lesson Bois-Moisset offers us through this natural sparkling white made from Mauzac (80%), Sauvignon Blanc, and Loin-de-l'Oeil grapes totaling the remaining 20%. The color is cloudy with straw nuances. With a touch of yeast and vanilla that adds to its lightness, it offers notes of white fruits (apple, pear, white peach), warmed grass, and red fruits on the palate (strawberry, raspberry). A touch cider, it is an aromatic and tasty sparkling white wine, a sparkling pleasure that is obviously suitable for festive occasions but which also deserves to be savored without occasion, pretext or excuse.

To find out more

The name of Gaillac, the region where the Bois-Moisset estate is located, in the hands of Sylvie Ledran and Philippe Maffre, has been associated with wines since Antiquity; it is the oldest vineyard in France, with two thousand years of history and an impressive ampelothèque of ancient indigenous grape varieties. It is also a region of dazzling beauty, nicknamed "French Tuscany" because of its gentle hills planted with groves and its almost Florentine luminosity. Many estates, along with that of Bois-Moisset, showcase this uniquely rich winemaking heritage. Along with a vineyard, this is an organic mixed farm that sells its lentil, sunflower oil, cereal flour, and grape juice directly. A herd of old local breed cows also thrives there, and guest rooms are available during the summer months. It is in this small rural paradise that natural wines typical of their origin and terroir are born, on fifteen hectares of boulbènes, gravelly and sandy-loam soils carried by the Tarn for thousands of years. The grape varieties are dominated by Syrah and Duras, but the ampelographic richness of the Gaillac region (braucol, prunelart, loin-de-l'œil, etc.) is also evident in the Bois-Moisset estate's vintages, which consist particularly of red wines with crisp fruit, concentrated but with smooth and delicate tannins.

Domaine des Grandes Serres

Côtes du Rhône Villages Visan Red 2021

€12,00

Côtes du Rhône Villages Visan Rouge 2021

Les Grandes Serres
The Visan appellation is located in the north of the Provençal part of the Côtes-du-Rhône, in this enclave of the Popes, a small piece of Vaucluse embedded in Drôme Provençale. A land of hills, lavender, truffles, Aleppo pine, and vines that have held their AOC Côtes-du-Rhône-Villages designation since 1966. This is where the Domaine des Grandes Serres found the grapes from which this organic and natural cuvée from the Comics series is extracted, a fine and elegant wine strongly marked by red fruits, spices, and pepper. A wine for all occasions, produced from stony, clay-limestone, and sandy soils where, at an altitude of 600 meters and surrounded by forests, Syrah vines (98%) and a tiny bit of Grenache (2%) are grown, harvested by hand. The grapes are destemmed and undergo a cold pre-fermentation maceration. They are then macerated for three weeks on the skins, and the wine, after pressing, rests for six months in vats before bottling. Wonderfully drinkable and pleasant, from a terroir of great originality, deserving of being better known.

To find out more
Everyone knows where Châteauneuf-du-Pape is, but how well do we really know this appellation? The Domaine des Grandes Serres represents both its excellence and its vitality. The creator of exceptional estate and merchant wines, both red and white, he harvests, buys grapes, vinifies, and ages over a wide area, centered around Châteauneuf and the southern Côtes-du-Rhône, and including more peripheral areas such as Lirac and the Costières de Nîmes. In Châteauneuf-du-Pape itself, the estate owns twelve hectares. Founded in 1977, it has long been founded on respect for the environment and the terroir. Currently, a large portion of its vintages are organic and without added sulfites, although he does not publicly boast about it. Modestly, Samuel Montgermont, the estate's general manager, explains that the geological and climatic conditions, particularly the mistral wind, promote the health of the vineyard and allow for the elimination of inputs. Covering the entire range of white and red wines from the Midi and all their grape varieties, the estate is now committed to the production of natural wines under labels that take themselves in no way seriously, but the wines contained in the bottles - each bearing the name of its appellation - are solid and serious, in addition to being fresh and tasty.

Les Vignes de Babass

At the Red Help 2020

€19,00

Au Bon Secours Rouge 2020,

Babass
Sébastien Dervieux, Babass to his friends, is a warm-hearted character who practices the art of additive-free winemaking in the sweetness of Anjou. His vineyard is in Rochefort-sur-Loire, his cellar in Saint-Lambert-du-Lattay, and his headquarters in Beaulieu-sur-Layon. Through him, the work of the Hacquet family, pioneers of natural wine after the Second World War, is perpetuated, some of whose plots he has taken over. This legacy is expressed, among other things, in the Joseph-Anne-Françoise cuvée, whose appellation brings together the siblings' first names. The terroir is located on the last foothills of the Armorican Massif before the Paris Basin. It is a region of small hillsides; The Loire, very close, exerts a strong influence, as does the ocean, which is about a hundred kilometers away. The vines are neither too hot nor too cold. The particularity of this region is the schist, either degraded (giving clay) or not degraded in places. This terroir produces mineral wines, the climate of the wines rather "on the fruit" and moderately full-bodied. The plots are in a single block, planted with traditional Angevin grape varieties: 1.4 ha of Grolleau, 0.9 ha of Cabernet Franc, 1.2 ha of Chenin and 0.7 ha of Gamay. All the vines are cultivated in certified organic. The harvest is manual. In the winery, fermentation is natural and the wines are without sulfur or other additives ("apart from sometimes a few drops of sweat"). The red wines, including some single-varietal vintages, are macerated in whole bunches. The whites are pressed slowly in a vertical press. All the wines are aged in fiber vats and are neither filtered nor fined, simply racked if necessary and without abuse.
"My wine is the wine of a little guy in his little corner with his little grape varieties," says Sébastien modestly, who also declares that he makes grape wines, forged by the climate of the vintage, the terroir, the grape variety and his decisions (good or bad). His approach is not to distort this balance with magic powders that lead to standardization. His Cabernet Franc reds are round, peppery and fleshy; his Grolleau reds, pure fruit, are fresh and easy to drink.
This recent cuvée from Babass, without additives or filtration, is based on Gamays planted on schist terroirs in 1959 and 1960. After manual harvesting, the grapes macerate in whole bunches for about ten to fifteen days depending on the vintage. The devatting is manual, followed by slow pressing in a vertical press. The free-run and pressed juices are blended immediately, after which the wine is aged for five to eight months on fine lees. The wine is wonderfully gurgling, fluid and drinkable, fruity and crisp, with fresh acidity and a lovely aromatic palette of red fruits, earth and spices. A very fine Gamay.

Les Vignes de Babass

Groll N'Roll Red 2020

€17,50

Groll N'Roll Rouge 2020,

Babass
"My wine is the wine of a little guy in his little corner with his little grape varieties." Behind this good-natured modesty hides Sébastien Dervieux, Babass to his friends, a warm-hearted character who practices the art of additive-free winemaking in the sweetness of Anjou. His vineyard is in Rochefort-sur-Loire, his cellar in Saint-Lambert-du-Lattay, and his headquarters in Beaulieu-sur-Layon. Through him, the work of the Hacquet family, pioneers of natural wine after the Second World War, is perpetuated, some of whose plots he has taken over. This memory is expressed, among other things, in the Joseph-Anne-Françoise cuvée, whose appellation brings together the first names of the siblings. The terroir is located on the last foothills of the Armorican Massif before the Paris Basin. It is a region of small hillsides; the Loire, very close, exerts a strong influence, as does the ocean, which is about a hundred kilometers away. The vines are neither too hot nor too cold. The particularity of this region is the schist, either degraded (giving clay) or not degraded in places. This terroir produces mineral wines, the climate of the wines rather "on the fruit" and moderately full-bodied. The plots are in a single block, planted with traditional Angevin grape varieties: 1.4 ha of Grolleau, 0.9 ha of Cabernet Franc, 1.2 ha of Chenin and 0.7 ha of Gamay. All the vines are cultivated in certified organic. The harvest is manual. In the winery, fermentation is natural and the wines are without sulfur or other additives ("apart from sometimes a few drops of sweat"). The red wines, including some single-varietal wines, are macerated in whole bunches. The whites are pressed slowly in a vertical press. All the wines are aged in fiber vats and are neither filtered nor fined, simply racked if necessary and without abuse.
Sébastien says he makes grape wines, forged by the climate of the vintage, the terroir, the grape variety and his decisions (good or bad). His approach is not to distort this balance with magic powders that lead to standardization. His Cabernet Franc reds are round, peppery and fleshy; his Grolleau reds, pure fruit, are fresh and easy to drink.
A 100% Grolleau single-varietal red, without additives or filtration, from vines planted towards the end of the 1950s on schist terroir and vinified in whole bunches for ten days to two weeks depending on the vintage. After manual racking, pressing is done slowly in a vertical press. The free-run and pressed juices are blended immediately, and aging is short: five or six months on fine lees. Ideally served at 15°C, this is a wine that is not cold to the eyes or elsewhere, with a light color and a great freshness on the palate that gives the sensation of biting into a juicy and slightly peppery grape. A big favorite.