06/01/2022
June Wine Tastings and L'Apéro Wine Club Offerings
Hooray to a great May!
Now time to tune in to June...
Lots of great things on the horizon and we are getting very excited about narrowing down to the day we close the doors to Joe's Wine Cellar, and reopen them to Le Midi! This month we are offering two incredibly fun tastings that you can read about below and respond directly to this newsletter to sign up. We look forward to having you all in soon!
Wine Club is also in full effect so RSVP those bags soon!
L'Apéro Wine Club:
June Offerings
Tier 1: $25 and Under
Domaine de L’Oiselet, Vacqueyras, 2017
As we start approaching more BBQ-worthy days in June, I thought it was necessary to provide a pairing that will rock your charcoal grilling socks off. The Rhône Valley always inspires images of powerful savory Syrah from the north and robust fruity Grenache-driven blends from the south, and there is absolutely nothing better to pair with grilled foods than Grenache!
This bottle is very unique as it’s not your typical Grenache/Syrah/Mourvedre blend that comes out of the Rhône but rather a Grenache driven style blending in Carignan and Cinsault imparting more red fruited, baking spice, and herbaceous characteristics. This five-year-old wine is starting to showcase more of a floral, fig-driven nose with a bold, spicy, and meaty palate built to pair with all kinds of grilled goodies.
Vacqueyras is not a wine region many American consumers are as familiar with as the larger Côtes-du-Rhône and the famously lauded region of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, so this is where this wine really starts to stand out. If you ever want to bump up the quality of your Rhône blends but don’t want to break the bank with Châteauneufs, the best regions to seek out are Vacqueyras and Gigondas. A funny thing about these appellations is that the French haven’t decided which pronunciation they prefer, so you will find some in the south who will pronounce the hard “s” sound at the end, and others in the north who pronounce it with a silent “s”. After spending a little time in the region and hearing their dialect, I have opted for the hard “s”, but either way works!
At the base of the Dentelles de Montmirail mountain range L’Oiselet’s certified organic vineyards are farmed mostly manually by the 5th generation winemaker Yannick Pelletier and his family. This is one of only two wines they produce which changes yearly depending which ratio of varietals are incorporated that vintage. 2017 was a tougher vintage due to an unexpected cold snap that reduced yields drastically, but still created some powerful and age worthy wines, and this five year old bottle is in a very nice place right now. For under $20 bottle, this wine packs much more of a punch than its price reflects and you can’t beat the pairing. I recommend serving it a bit chilled!
$19/bottle or $228/case
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Quinta das Bágeiras “Branco Reserva”, Bairrada, 2018
I admit that before I got into a partnership with Craig Perman to open Le Midi (coming soon!), I did not have a ton of exposure to Portuguese wines and didn’t think too often about them outside of the sticky fortified wines we all know and love. As I started to delve more into the dry table wines with Craig, I realized I had been greatly remiss by not exploring these wines sooner! I am now an avid proponent for this country’s various regions producing some of the greatest and most value-driven wines of all styles.
The Bairrada appellation is one of Portugal’s greatest DOCs for wine production as it’s just a hop, skip, and a jump to the Atlantic Ocean directly to its west, alongside having limestone-rich clay soils (barro is Portuguese for clay) which vines prosper in. Although Bairrada is more known for its sparkling wines and tannic red wines, white wines also perform very well in Bairrada with the moderate climate assisted by the Atlantic breezes giving way to exquisite mineral-driven wines built for seafood pairings.
Quinta das Bágeiras was founded in 1989 by Mário Sérgio Nuno Alves who now works alongside his son Federico producing wines running the gamut from sparkling, white, reds, and rosé. As fantastic as the normale white wine drinks, the Reserva leaps out of the glass with even greater complexity making this more of a contemplative style than an everyday easy drinker. The stainless fermented Bical and Maria Gomes grapes show intense aromas of orange blossom, mint, and herbs while the palate is full of saline, crushed rock, and white pepper.
Mario Sérgio has implemented very rigid winemaking practices: hand-harvesting, natural fermentations, strict sorting of the best fruit which are then decanted into small lagares before blending which help make these quality wines stand out. These wines inarguably contributed to putting Bairrada on the map for world-class wine production.
If you haven’t yet had a table wine from Portugal, then I implore you to change that immediately with this bottle and I guarantee you will quickly become a zealot for these wines too! Make sure you grab some fresh white fish with lemon to pair beside this one and take those flavors into the stratosphere.
$22/bottle or $264/case
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Tier 2: $50 and under
Coume del Mas “Folio Edition Spéciale”, Collioure, 2018
For those who are yearning to be relaxing on the sandy beaches of southern France but can’t make it there physically, you’ll be happy to know the Mediterranean is coming to you! If you have never heard of the medieval town of Collioure which rests on the precipice of Spain and France, I ask you to just Google it and take in a deep imaginary ocean-filled breath and transport yourself to some of the most beautiful Catalan-inspired architectural views of the Mediterranean on Earth (and then open this bottle of wine and keep yourself there just a bit longer.)
The lauded biodynamic vignerons Philippe and Nathalie Gard created Coume del Mas in the Languedoc-Roussillon region in 2001. Their vineyards rest on the steep slopes around Banyuls sur Mer where the mountains dive right into the sea, and this white wine is year after year considered to be one of the best from the region. With harsh climactic conditions and vast rocky drops, grapes must be hand harvested as machine harvesting is simply not viable. This single vineyard Grenache Gris was grown on various poor black slate soils, wild yeast fermented in barrel, and rested on its fine lees in a mix of new and old demi-muids for 12 months. For Grand Cru White Burgundy lovers, I recommend trying this one on for size and pairing with grilled turbot with lemon, or fresh porcinis sautéed with truffles.
The ”Edition Spéciale” of Folio is the hand selected best fruit that goes into this top cuvée made only in great vintages and spending twice as long in oak as its normal “Folio” counterpart. On an average year, only 3,000 bottles are made so this is an extremely hard wine to find and we are excited to have gotten the last bottles in Illinois to offer for this month’s wine club! This is not a wine for the faint-hearted as it packs a massive body full of saline, lemongrass, papaya and finishing off with what reminds me of creamy panna cotta and pink sea salt. These multiple layers of flavors and aromas will make you stop in your tracks and really ponder what just happened to all of your senses. We hope you enjoy the ride!
$46/bottle
(no case prices due to limited availability)
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Domaine Breyton, Crôzes-Hermitage, 2019
So since Tier 1 got a little Southern Rhône action this month, I thought I’d put a great Northern Rhône on Tier 2 for good measure. In the same Summer BBQ pairing vein, if you’re not having Southern Rhône Grenache blends, then you must have Northern Rhône Syrah! However, whereas the Tier 1 Vacqueyras is laden with ripe fruit and big bodied meatiness, this bottle is all about introversion and nuance.
The Breyton Crôzes-Hermitage is a classic and outstanding example of what Syrah should taste like from this region. In my humble opinion, it is closer in quality to Syrahs from the famous hill of Hermitage rather than its lighter styled counterpart in Crôzes (but still not costing you the astoundingly high prices of an actual Hermitage!)
Jacques Breyton farms only a few hectares of these 70-year-old vines on dramatically steep granite-laden vineyards with the intension to represent Syrah as perfectly as possible. Certified biodynamic by Demeter, using all stainless with no oak treatment (which is a rare method in this region,) and using only native yeasts, his wines are a true expression of terroir allowing you to taste the place where the fruit is grown. The unique technique of fermenting and aging in stainless steel also helps make this style of Syrah much more warm-weather friendly.
To be a quintessential representation of Northern Rhône Syrah like Breyton aspires to achieve, there are indicative things to look for in the glass: violets, black pepper, cured meat, and black olives. If you ever blind taste a wine and get all of those in spades, you can pretty much guarantee it’s from this area of the world, or at least made in this style. This wine is precisely all of that. As soon as you take in the first breath of its aromas, you are immediately transported here, and you will then also see why this is such a great wine for grilled game being able to accentuate all of the charred savory and spicy flavors with perfection.
$30/bottle
(no case prices due to limited availability)
Wine Tasting Events
Some Wine Over the Rainbow
Wednesday, June 8, 7:00
$60/person
Light snacks provided
You guessed it. It's Pride month and being that one of the business owners identifies as LGBTQ, and the other is a strong advocate of the LGBTQ community, we thought we might as well celebrate this month along with the rest of the country by lifting up a glass (or many) to the spectrum of colors from the Pride flag! This event is open to all, so regardless of your orientation you are more than welcome to join while we have night filled with all of the colors various grapes have to offer (and maybe some Madonna and Whitney peppered in for good measure.)
Wines of the Midi
Wednesday June 15, 7:00
$60/person
Light snacks provided
As we gear up for our rebranding into Le Midi, we wanted to give a little teaser for what's to come when it opens! The French word midi has many definitions: it can mean the middle, or midday, and it also refers to the geographical boundary that separates France, Italy, and Spain through the Alps and Pyrenees. This area of the world is where Craig and I primarily focused our attention when we decided to come up with this new business. We have respectively spent a lot of time in the south of France, and northern Italy and Spain, so we wanted to impart that culture onto Chicago! Come in and get familiar with the various wines from this region and see why we love it so much!
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