Gilbourg and Foufoune - lovely Chenin and lively Syrah

Vin de Table Gilbourg, Benoit Courault

Benoit Courault, or Ben, as Alice Feiring dreamily calls him, makes a mean mackerel as well as some nifty wines. Two wines for the table, one to appeal to white vin man, the other to red vin girl. How easily one falls into these reductive tropes. Benoit took over the 6.5 ha vineyard in 2006, having cut his vinous teeth in Chambolle-Musigny and in Tavel with the one of the archbishops of natural wine, Eric Pfifferling. Farming is organic and the non-interventionist philosophy extends into the winery. The Gilbourg (name of the plot) is pure, but not so simple, Chenin. Sixty year old vines on clay-schist soils, very low yields, long vinification, wild yeast ferment without temperature control and maturation for twelve months in three to five year old barrels, makes for a rich, earthy style of wine with bruised orchard fruit. To say that not much of this is made is an understatement. We drank this over the course of three days and the changing flavours took our palates on an exotic journey. Imagine ripe apples rolled in honey-coated green leaves then add cinnamon and musk and some spiky acidity for definition. The wine moves, sometimes more mellow and textured, sometimes sharper and delineated. Drink it a la Ben with le big Mack or le quarter pounder of young goat’s cheese.

Crozes-Hermitage, Cuvee Foufoune, Les Champs Libres

As you know by now I am resolute believer in the less-is-more school. I don’t want superfluous getting in the way of flavour. Natural wine is about what lies beneath rather than the trimmings and trappings.  The traditional sommelier, the classic winemaker and the conventional buyer like their wines to be rounded up. I’ve heard the phrase: “This wine is not complete” to which I respond; “That wine is unnecessarily complicated”. At times I want to strip away the crap, the shallow veneer of sophistication, the fattiness that supposedly fills out the wine. Wines can be slender without being meagre and delicate without being shallow. Even I, however, found myself searching for the wine in Dard et Souhaut’s Crozes Foufoune, which, on initial acquaintance tasted like weak ribena. I should have had faith. The next day the wine stripped off and revealed those beautifully eloquent Syrah aromas. Sweet violets, orange blossom, juicy black olives and silky blueberry fruit mingled in the glass. In terms of drinkability let’s just say that the gradient of the glass projecting the wine down my throat steepened appreciably.