Andrea Calek "A Toi Nous" 2015 tastes like a supernova

Andrea Calek’s 2015 "A Toi Nous" is a 750ml s u p e r nova all speed»»»»» and motion and we hooked it down out of the bottle dancing to hard tek. This I know rhymes (tek-Calek) but is also honest true.

It was 22 October and we’d finished up the last drop of Riffault eating salty skinned meats with Frederico sitting in his store and talking talking because some wines are for sitting down and talking, some for thinking and others for fighting. The Calek was for the road and for !f i g h t i n g! which is how you look with hard tek dancing but also for hydration. 

Calek I have read started his domaine in the Ardèche in 2007 close to and because of Gerald Oustric and lives in his mobile home next to his vineyards which people seem to like writing about probably for the same or similar reason I choose to write about the time we gulp-gulped his juice behind a five high stacked sound system powered by a generator pulled by a tractor driven by squatters rather than the time we drank it nice-nice on the couch, which happened too but we were talking about his 2015 A Toi Nous, namely whole clusters of low alcohol select Syrah + Grenache grapes short time @ low temp a-macerated and later foot-stamped. Two bottlings (December 2015, June 2016), unfiltered and no SO2. Colour of sun shining through a ruby-red, tastes 🌀🌀crazy juicy alive and j a m doughnut jammy of tangy, stick-to-sides-of-your-mouth cherry.

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Andrea Calek
"A Tois Nous" 2015

70% Syrah + 30% Grenache

Alba-la-Romaine, Ardèche

More vin du Calek.

Baptiste Cousin "Marie Rose" 2015

Even on a root day drinking Baptiste Cousin’s wines makes me feel like it’s my birthday. They’re d i s c o wines: fun, foot  l o o s e and fancy free, skip the Kool-Aid and Acid Test these juice b.o.m.b.s best drunk out of cups bikinied or, better: not actually in a bikini because let’s face it; push comes to shove and most people feel better not worrying about what’s wiggling but in XXL shirts and their geography teacher's hiking socks. But you get the vibe I’m going for.

Baptiste works in the Loire and makes this wine with the native Grolleau which is great news as far as someone who pretty much only drinks neon strawberry wines cold from the fridge is concerned. Other good news is he works without sulphites, works with horses like his outlaw dad from whom he bought his vines, has dreads / is handsome and makes a SUPER FUN Grolleau Gris pét nat called "Puppet Nat" that I can personally attest to being perfect to celebrate the first time you’ve skated on natural ice slash ever really skated. And so you see, bikini not always necessary.

Tasting notes: 

Pale rose petal rosé pink in your glass on your eyes but there's also something rosy in the mouth zone too. Like the herby, woody bowls of potpourri mom puts on the window sills to collect dust, or how those raw liquorice bars with pandas on them that look better for you but are still liquorice bars smell. But in a good way. Anyway, by now you’re on your third, fourth sip n' golly gone and changed your mind sir, because why no, sir, this isn’t as ABC a wine as you first thought, sir. It’s light, sure, juicy, sure, but there's nuance and layering and texture and gravity and it coats your tongue like velcro or at any rate a Bourgogne. In a good way. **

** and this was on a root day.

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Baptiste Cousin
"Marie Rose" 2015

Grolleau Gris

Martigné-Briand, Loire

Julien Meyer "Les Pierres Chaudes" 2015

We were drunk and still drinking and talking about name dropping and I said, ‘Meyer, why do people talk about Julien Meyer?’ What happened next is we knocked back his 'Les Pierres Chaudes' Pinot Noir in about 3.8 minutes and now that I’m thinking about how to describe it I keep coming back to heavy velvet wizard cloaks and Patagonia night skies. To gravity and potential and mushroom-seeking boars’ hair caught on bramble bushes fallen to the mossy forest floor. To the electricity running ‘tsk’ through those electric tennis rackets of death used to zap flies, to shadow play and the

M   i  l  k  y     W  a  y.

Tasting notes:

Small wild berries growing with midnight plums in the tangly bramble undergrowth that's taken over a magical mystical garden somewhere elsewhere and shot through with comet-bright acidity and all that in your glass because this is wine even if it doesn’t sound like it and I know it doesn’t, I get it, I let it not, but who cares ‘cus seriously HOW GREAT DOES WINE SOUND WHEN YOU'RE NOT OBVIOUSLY TALKING ABOUT WINE?? Les Pierres Chaudes is intense, pure, balanced and water on your face fresh and I think I know why people talk about Meyer.

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Domaine Julien Meyer 2015
"Les Pierres Chaudes"

Pinot Noir

Nothalten, Alsace