Barrère “Clos de la Vierge” 2009 Jurançon Sec (Southwest France) – Mineral-infused wax, hard panes of glassy structure, secretive greenish-white forest fruit. A really intriguing wine, faceted and somewhat mysterious. (7/11)
Browse Tag
clos de la vierge
Lend me your Barrère
Barrère “Clos de la Vierge” 2005 Jurançon Sec (Southwest France) – Beeswax, sand, dried pineapple bereft of all its sweetness, and beige minerality left naked by a great transparency of fruit. There’s some summer sweat, as well, but mostly the wine stands, stark and silent, waiting. Ready? Nowhere near? Wines like this are so deceptive. (3/09)
Virgin secs
Barrère “Clos de la Vierge” 2005 Jurançon Sec (Southwest France) – Intense summer vegetables, green and complex, with piercing acidity and a narrow, planar texture. It seems to possess an inner chill, as if it were turning to ice from the inside out, yet the solidity stays just underneath the surface of consumption. (8/08)
Virgin manseng
Barrère “Clos de la Vierge” 2005 Jurançon Sec (Southwest France) – Herbal with a post-rainstorm, humid, sweaty character and an acrid, biting acidity; it all works beautifully, but it’s not a wine you want to serve to New World chardonnay types. A wine in 7/8; not danceable, but forcing you to listen carefully, after which the pulse eventually permeates. (5/08)
Vapor Barrère
Barrère “Clos de la Vierge” 2005 Jurançon Sec (Southwest France) – Very crisp, but the acidity has a refinement and place to it, and the rest of the wine exists in service to it…yet the wine is not dominated by its acidity. It’s hard to describe, I guess. There’s a beautiful, washed-granite starkness to this, and yet the palate is full of rocky generosity, with little alpine flowers clinging to the rock face. Long, exquisitely poised, and rather breathtaking. (12/07)