We wanted to send an email about our Cellar Sales and how we are proceeding with them. Some of you may have noticed that our curated wine pack offerings have moved from every week to every other week. Well, we are making it official that our offerings are moving to every other week. Last week we released 4 packs and we will release a new batch of curated wine packs the week of the 27th.
For this week we have just a few Runner Up Sipper 6-packs and Burgundy Trio 3-packs still available. We are also adding one wine to the sale. A special wine available in a 2 pack or 6 pack.
TO ORDER select your wine bundle of choice, follow the steps to securely order your wine. All payments will be processed ahead of time through our website.
Once you order they will be available for pickup at Le Pigeon on Tuesday through Saturday from 12:00pm to 4:00pm. You can pick them up from our front door, or we can bring them out to your car. If those times do not work for you, please let us know and we can arrange an alternative.
We are all in this together, and when you’re drinking good stuff, well hey, you’re keeping it classy.
Faugères, Valinière, Domaine Leon Barral, 2015, Languedoc (FR)
Note from Andy: Hi Everyone, Usually when write our wine notes we’ll write them in the third person, sometimes the second person, or in the first person plural – a lot of “we.” This note is coming from me.
I try a lot of wines, it’s a big part of my job. Wine is also a passion and a love. All that said, it is not that often that a wine surprises me, that it makes me look up, take notice, and smile ear to ear. When I tried this wine the first thought I had was that when travel becomes possible again I want to go to the Languedoc and visit Barral’s vineyards and winery.
The Languedoc is a vast region for wine. If the larger Languedoc-Roussillon was a country, it would be the world’s 5th largest producer of wine – it accounts for 1/3 of France’s production. However, you have to know where to look. Across this expanse of vines there are smaller, more precise, more quality focused areas with stricter rules. Appellations like Pic St Loup, St Chinian, Corbières, and others. Faugères is a pretty small one. It is deep in the Languedoc region on rolling hills of the Hérault (not quite mountains). It is marked by a predominance of schist in the soil which sets the wines apart from neighboring appellations.
Didier Barral is the 13th generation of his family to farm here. He was the first to estate bottle the wines in the early 1990’s and named the Domaine after his grandfather, Leon. All of the vineyards and farm incorporate biodynamic farming practices, and he endeavors to make them a self sustaining ecosystem, where the cows, insects, birds, and worms in the soil create the balance to produce healthy grapes. He does not fool around. Valinière is the winery’s top cuvée made up of 80% Mourvèdre (south facing) and 20% Syrah (north facing). The grapes begin their journey to wine in cement tanks for 3-4 weeks with manual punchdowns before going into barrel (only 10% new) for 2 years before bottling. Always indigenous fermentation, and the most minimal of sulphur additions at bottling. What is the wine like… wow, like a warm day with a cool breeze blowing through a cherry orchard and across a patch of lavender and rosemary before it hits your nose. There are notes of black cherry, plum, lavender, cured olive, hints of meaty earth, and it truly has garrigue – the term used to describe the mix of bushy herbs like rosemary, thyme, lavender, and juniper that grow low to the ground across French Mediterranean. It is delicious today, but is built to age, and I look forward to revisiting the bottles I put aside in a few years.
This wine is usually pretty darn expensive, but in these times there are often deals to be had, I must admit that’s why I bought myself a bottle to try, and I now want to share it. If you are still reading now you probably want a bottle. Rarely is this wine sold in a stores for less than $80. We are offering it two ways:
Two-Packs for $130 ($65 each) Six-Packs for $330 ($55 each)
