Thank you to importer Louis/Dressner for this profile: 

(Click here to learn more about Labaille on the Louis/Dressner website)

Years ago, we visited an old vigneron in Chavignol who had made fabulous Sancerre before his retirement, from old-vine vineyards in Monts Damnés (Sancerre's greatest vineyard site), with élèvage in old foudres and unfiltered bottlings. We asked him who continued to work in that style and he said "Cotat, and my friend Claude."

One thing led to another and we were off to meet Claude Thomas, who was busy pruning his vines in the rain. His wife dragged him into his cellar where he stripped off mud-caked boots and served us several vintages. Thomas was then 73, and wished to retire, but he was holding on in the hope that his daughter and son-in-law would take over. This finally happened when Jean-Paul Labaille, his son-in-law, quit his civil servant job and became a full-time vigneron (for the previous ten vintages, he had taken his vacation during the harvest to be the assistant winemaker to Claude Thomas).

Only minimal changes have occurred. The vineyards remain among the best in Chavignol, with a large proportion of old vines. The old barrels are not in use any more, but the vineyard and cellar work still follow the same time-honored techniques. The Monts Damnés plot is too steep a slope to ever consider machine harvesting, which is now the norm in the appellation, and it requires intensive, non-mechanized vineyard work, but this site is worth the trouble: drainage and exposure are excellen,t and ensure the best ripeness for the vintage. Labaille has somewhat tidied up Thomas' facilities, which used to be in sharp contrast to most cellars in the area; instead of a hyper-hygienic room, with wall-to-wall tiled floors and stainless-steel vats, his was a Burgundian type of cellar. Some cuvées still age in large concrete vats, others in stainless steel, and the oak barrels have been re-placed by newer ones, mostly second-hand, 2 to 3 years old, not in order to impart any oaky character to the wine, but to let it breathe and evolve slowly on its lees.The resulting wine is sensational: rich, fat, round, with layered aromas, a subtle nose and a long finish. Not a typical bistro Sancerre, but a graceful wine meant for aging and pleasure.

With the wines of the Canary Islands now firmly established in restaurants and shops across the US, it is always refreshing to see the work of new wineries pop up in the scene.  Next to the most recognizable names from the Islands we are slowly seeing the emergence of a new generation of growers exploring the varied and multi-faceted terroirs of the Archipelago.

Loreto Pancorbo and Gabriel Morales from Tierra Fundida (Molten Earth) are such growers. Living and making wine out of their house-cum-winery deep into the country in Tenerife, they started their label in 2017, after years of working in more conventional wineries.  The motivation to start their own label and build their own winery came naturally.  The family (they have three young children) tries to be self-sufficient, living as sustainably as possible, taking advantage of their large vegetable garden and the animals they raise, striving for independence.  It is this same spirit that they bring to their work at Tierra Fundida. 

Their wines come from six different vineyards spread around 7 hectares in the zones of Tacoronte, and Los Realejos (in the Orotava Valley). The 5 hectares in Tacoronte (where the majority of their red varieties come from) have historically been farmed organically but they are quickly introducing biodynamic practices, treating the soils not only with the 500 preparation, but using Maria Thun’s preparation, trying different tea infusions, and plants to enrich the land.

The whites come from two vineyards in Orotava, where temperatures are typically lower during the maturation period. There they are experimenting with different cover crops, feeling the difference between what they planted versus the spontaneous cover crops.

Their tiny production of 10,000 bottles is handled artisanally.  There is no machinery in the winery, the racking is done by gravity, and the wines are made from whole clusters, except for one white that is de-stemmed manually.  The wines are made in concrete and uncoated clay amphorae (to minimize the reductive quality of so many wines from the area), as well as old wood and even demijohns.

After so many years working with the oldest and most traditional wineries of the Canaries, we at BOWLER are happy to see the evolution of the wines in the region and welcome the progressive work of Loreto and Gabriel with wide open arms.

The magnificent Bandol appellation borders the Mediterranean Sea and is known for its powerful reds and structured, elegant rosés. Half a mile inland on a hillside near a tiny village called Le Castellet, Domaine de la Tour du Bon is quietly making some of the best wines that the appellation has to offer.

Tour du Bon was owned by the Mauric family previously and it was a polyculture farm with pigs, bees, vines, olives, and figs. 1955 was the first vintage bottled under the Tour du Bon label. It shows the distinctive forest in the center of the vineyard and it inspired today’s label.

Agnès Henry is the current winemaker and owner of Domaine de la Tour du Bon. She was born and raised in Paris. Her parents fell in love with Domaine de la Tour du Bon and bought the estate in 1968. There were some vines planted, but they spent the next two years digging into the rocky earth and planting more vines. In the late 1980’s, her family was considering selling the property and in 1990, Agnes decided that she would move south, into the house that had been her family vacation home her whole life.

The landscape is idyllic; the house and winery are on the top of a hill with a birds-eye view to the Mediterranean Sea, visible in the distance on a clear day. Seventeen hectares surround the winery, of which 12 hectares are planted to vines. There are still patches of untouched pine forest and trees and natural brush surrounding the vines. The terroir here is a clay-limestone mix with a red subsoil. With abundant sunshine and very little rain, this is the hottest area in the appellation.

In her 30 plus years of making wine, Agnes has embraced organic agriculture and she has worked with biodynamic treatments since 2018. Agnes likes the fact that she is secluded on the top of the hill. It allows her to truly be in touch with nature and to shut out the noise of everyday life. In the cellar, she named her foudres after philosophers and writers – Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and others. Her aim is to produce wines that have all of the power of Bandol, but with plenty of finesse, and pure, elegant fruit, built to evolve and age in the bottle. The grapes naturally have power, tannins, and grip, but Agnes believes that by focusing on fruit, the result is a singular expression of Bandol and her unique terroir– wines that are pure and without artifice.

Fermentations take place in open top cement vats and normally last about three weeks; she pumps over occasionally to get oxygen to the yeasts. Following Bandol’s requirements, the reds are aged in wood (a mix of foudres and barrels) for a minimum of eighteen months. The wines are not fined or filtered. Domaine de la Tour du Bon wines are traditional and unmanipulated, offering a pure and unique expression of Bandol.

Visit the site at www.tourdubon.com

Thank you to importer Louis/Dressner for this profile of Clos du Tue-Boeuf: 

(Click here for Louis/Dressner's Tue-Boeuf entry on their website)

Since the Middle Ages, there have been records about the lieu-dit “le Tue-Boeuf” and its excellent wines which were enjoyed by the local nobility and the kings of France; the family name Puzelat is mentioned in 15th century documents. History, though, is not the story here. It’s about two brothers, Jean-Marie and Thierry Puzelat, who tend their 10-hectare family estate in Les Montils (part of the Cheverny AOC) and rent four hectares in a village nearby to produce AOC Touraine.

The region, near the hunting grounds of Sologne, has always used a wide variety of grapes. Since the 60’s, the Puzelats' father had been making his own selections of vines to replant, leaving his sons with vines of Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris (since ripped out), Menu Pineau (or Orbois), Pinot Noir, Gamay, Cabernet Franc and Côt (or Malbec). A visit to their cellar feels like a tour de France of varietals, each wine with its distinct personality, lovely label and wonderful name. Some cuvées are so small that there is never enough to go around.

Jean-Marie was joined on the estate by his younger brother Thierry in the early 90’s and they began converting their vines to organic viticulture. When the Cheverny AOC was created with the 1993 vintage, some varietals became outlawed from the blends, and the brothers started a yearly struggle to get their wines accepted under the new appellation (it bears to mention that they were also in their earliest stages of experimenting with sulfur free winemaking).

While firm believers in the AOC system, this began a trend of the brothers selling some of their wines as declassified Vin de Pays (now Vin de France).  For us, it was one of the first examples of customers knowing and trusting the estate's work methods over the appellation itself. And while we cannot claim the Puzelats were the first to do this, it clearly served as a monumental influence in the world of natural wine, setting an example for those having problems or feeling stifled by their appellations' criteria.

Speaking of natural wine, Clos du Tue-Boeuf, along with Marcel Richaud, Dard and Ribo, Yvon Metras and a handful of others were at the heart of the nascent movement in mid-90's Paris. They are undoubtedly the impetus for spreading this philosophy in the Loire, which remains a hotbed of the style to this day. As Hervé Villemade, himself part of the the second wave of natural winemakers in the late 90's, puts it: "What really made me start to believe I could make wines in this style were Thierry Puzelat's. Marcel Lapierre's were the spark, but he lived 450 kilometers away from me and was working with very different terroirs; having a neighbor pull it off right next door was the inspiration and motivation to follow in his footsteps."