Clairette & fire: An old view of the future
Year 14, No. 12
July is always something of a strange month for me as while it marks the halfway point in the year for everyone, if you’re like me with a January birthday, it marks a halfway point in your own personal year as well.
Say what you want about the whole Zodiac thing, but I watch my Cancer friends frolicking about in sun-kissed shores, ice buckets filled with all manner of bottles, living up their most happy of birthdays. The envy, is real.
I can’t help but recall various birthdays of my fellow Capricorns and I where it’s cold, people are sick/still hungover, usually broke, and so few feel like celebrating. That or maybe we sea goats are just really unpleasant to party with because we’re very serious which, if you think that’s the case, then you’ve truly not partied hard enough with a Capricorn.
Whatever the perception of our being grumpy and less fun than just about anyone else, we’re actually a happy lot as it’s a fact that the most suicidal sign in Zodiac appears to be the Virgos! (**)
So the whole point in talking about this hinging of this year is that it’s a great vantage to look back as well as forward. This is why I’m happy to release the newest report on the official release of white wines from the Southern French region of Gigondas.
It’s been a long time in the making and, in my opinion well worth the wait as while I tasted a number of these for the 2024 Gigondas Report, they’ve evolved well in a scant few months and show great promise for the region as a whole going forward.
This Gigondas report looking to the future is then joined by an older, but still noteworthy piece I wrote about the Cain winery in Napa Valley when I visited a year after the Glass Fire of 2020 had destroyed nearly all their vines as well as the winery. They’re still rebuilding from that and while fires haven’t been a (huge) issue for Californian wine regions in the last couple of vintages, they seem to be coming back in force for 2024, so it’s still a very real threat.
Drink well, be well.
-Miquel
(*) Free to read
(**) I’m not making it up.
The Featured Report
Gigondas White Wine Release
It was a long time in coming and it’s finally here, white wines from the previously red (and a tiny amount of rosé) Southern Rhône region of Gigondas. Very much worth the wait!
And now this
I’ve been tasting wines for the forthcoming DOQ Priorat & DO Montsant reports. Amongst part of the early batch were the wines of Terroir al Límit and while they did a fine job with the 2022 vintage in all their wines (like those from DO Montsant tasted last year), it was this bottle of Pedra de Guix that really stood out.
If you’re feeling a bit ‘Ribera-y’ as in you’d like a bit of Ribera del Duero to drink, have a look at the wines of Pinea or perhaps it’s those of Bodegas la Horra that interest you more?