2018 Autour de l'Anne 'Los Annegeles’

Region: Languedoc < France

Grapes: Rolle (aka Vermentino) + a splash of Colombard

Vineyard/Cellar Stats: Certified biodynamic farming; limestone, red clay soils; fermentation in concrete tanks; bottled unfined/unfiltered with no added So2; 12% ABV

Winemaker: Anne Paillet

Anne Paillet worked in finance in Paris, until a bad car accident forced her to reexamine her life, at which point she ditched corporate life to make wine. She’s married to one of the Loire’s top natty vignerons, Gregory Leclerc of Chahut et Prodiges (a Rock Juice fav), so she already knew the ropes. But Anne didn't want to make the same wines as Gregory, so she rented about six acres of biodynamic vineyards from a friend in Coteaux du Languedoc.  She assists with the end of the growing season, then harvests the grapes (on the early side) and guides the fermentations, before trucking the wine back up to the Loire in bulk containers to finish Touraine style. Which is why her wines tends to be more similar to Loire wines than the Languedoc. The early pick avoids heaviness and high alcohol, and the Loire treatment leads to lighter, more terroir-expressive wines.

This white blend is her homage to the perpetually sunny City of Angels, with the label designed by Sylvestor-Rovine’s (importer) LA rep who begged her to make it.  Refreshing and seductive, lemony and textured, it’s like a glass of blended sunshine and salt spray sipped while watching the sun sink into the Pacific from a Malibu balcony...  Like all of her other wines, it’s a micro-production, zero-zero blend that is extremely allocated and limited, but somehow we scored the last 2.5 cases -- super exciting!  Anne’s wines have a cult following, however, and this one will fly, like her Wonder WomAnne, which lasted about 6 seconds….