Browse Tag

chaussard

Paula Cole

Chaussard “Nana, Vins et Cie” “You Are So Bubbly” (Loire) – The 2008 bottling, I think, but I don’t know for sure. Frothy and thick, a very particulate wine with a fair number of stylistic familial relationships with both the orange and the natural, yet with a quirky and variably appealing individuality of its own. Cooked strawberries, albino plums, earth, perhaps even a little fruit soda. Challenging, and not everyone will like it. But I do. (6/12)

Pangée Gupta

Nana, vins et cie 2005 “La Pangée” (Loire) – Like drinking squeezed berries out of an ashtray. Look, this is really more about me than the wine; I don’t like pineau d’aunis. This is only about half that (the rest gamay), but it still ruins everything for me. There are, inevitably, exceptions here and there (many of them from Domaine de Bellivière), but in general this is a grape I need to avoid, because to me it tastes of bitter, stale, wet cigarette ash. (Except of course when it doesn’t. Which is aggravating. Are there no certainties? No, no, of course there aren’t.) (9/11)

Oh say can you Cie?

Chaussard (Briseau) “Nana, Vins et Cie” 2006 Coteaux du Loir “You Are So Beautiful” (Loire) – A chameleon. For a while, it’s volatile and prickly, all tinny treble tones. Then it deepens, reaching its most appealing stage with exciting aromas of slightly underripe reddish-green berries gently crushed directly under one’s nose; the seemingly brittle exterior is supported by a good deal of pressure within. It broadens further with even more air, but as it does the fruit gains a vinyl sheen dusted with a fairly significant abrasion of fireplace ash, turns to darker berries, then sort of gives up on itself. I’ll say this: you won’t be bored. (1/09)

Émile Zola

Chaussard (Briseau) “Nana, vins et cie” Vin de Table “You are so nice” (Loire) – 2006 bottling. Plays at fun, but the structure’s a bit on the scowly side, with an angry slash of tannin and acidity cutting diagonally through the wine, reducing the appeal of the fruit. Is that some granite in the background? This might just need the right food to tame the angrier elements. (10/08)

Hey hey, Nana, drink it goodbye

Chaussard (Briseau) “Nana, vins et cie” 2006 Coteaux du Loir “You are so beautiful” (Loire) – Tense. Pretty, but nervous, with lovely red fruit and the numb snap of Sichuan peppercorn, done up in edgy colors and quavering textures. This is really very appealing, and seems to bend and twist to conform to a rather wide range of culinary partners, but it’s bracingly drinkable by itself, too. The label “real wine” is sometimes applied to wines like this, and here there’s good reason: it’s a very…winy wine, if that makes any sense. (8/08)

Nana, visitor

Chaussard (Briseau) “Nana, vins et cie” 2005 Vin de Table “La Pangée” (Loire) – The actual producer here is Briseau, but that appears nowhere on the label, so you just have to know, I guess. It’s got that fizzy, biting, razor burn texture, plus a musty raw paper aroma, that says pineau d’aunis to me (and in fact that’s here, along with gamay), and it’s the very reason I’ve always been cool towards the grape. Its sweet, almost keening melody – some sort of ancient woodwind on a misty hillside – is something I want to be more appealing than it is, but I suspect what I like about this wine (the pretty, light red fruit with a zesty zip of acidity) is mostly about the gamay and the lack of winemaking. Unfortunately, what I like about this wine is a very low percentage of its totality. (8/08)