While I was doing my impromptu wine tasting at The Fine Wine Source in Livonia, Michigan; another regular stopped in to pick up some replenishments for his home, and he just started grabbing some bottles and helping himself.  He asked what I was just starting to taste, they poured him a sample, and as he took a sniff he said “that smells like three bottles” even before he had tasted the wine.  The wine was Domaine les Demoiselles de Pallus Chinon 2016.  The winery began in 2013, when Jacques Demars acquired an estate in Cravant les Coteaux, near Chinon.  He dedicated his wine work to his daughters Helene and Claire. The property has twelve hectares on a soil of sand on calcareous rock (tuffeau) and seventy-five percent is Cabernet Franc and twenty-five percent is Chenin Blanc.  This was a dark garnet wine and offers notes of dark cherries, blackberries, dark plums, traces of green pepper, “Sous-Bois” (the prettier way of saying forest undergrowth) and a touch of tobacco.  On the palate this was a medium bodied wine with a complex blend of dark fruits, with elegant tannins and a nice finish of fruit and pencil shavings (graphite) terroir.  I had to agree with my co-taster that this was worthy of three bottles, just to ponder it more at home, and I knew that my Bride would be happy.

We then had a chance to sample Bodegas Carlos Serres Rioja Reserva 2014 from the Rioja Alta region. Carlos Serres (nee Charles in France) a wine consultant left Bordeaux during the phylloxera period and found Haro (Rioja) to be perfect match for climate and terrain to Bordeaux.  He started business as an export merchant in 1896 and in 1907 helped create the Rioja Wine Exporters Syndicate, a precursor to the DOC board.  The Haro vineyards of the winery is sixty hectares of clay-limestone and gravel and they grow Mazuelo, Graciano, Viura, Maturana Tinta, and Tempranillo.  The grapes are hand-harvested and is ninety percent Tempranillo and ten percent Graciano and the vines are on average of thirty years of age.  After destemming, and gentle-pressing the wine undergoes fermentation on the skins for thirteen days in concrete vats.  They are then transferred to a combination of barrels of both French and American Oak for twenty-four months, followed by an additional twelve months of aging in the bottle, before release.  The wine is a dark-cherry-red color and offers notes of dark fruits, dark chocolate, balsamic and some espresso.  On the palate, a silky wine with tones of cherries, strawberries, pomegranates, chocolate, spices, and a tinge of orange zest with a finish of fruit and terroir.

Afterwards, a fresh glass was brought out for something different and I was intrigued just from the color.  We actually did a couple of tastes of Chateau les Roques Loupiac 2016.  Loupiac is one of three dessert wine appellations on the other side of the Garonne River, from Barsac and Sauternes.  It is part of the much larger, dry white wine Premieres Cotes de Bordeaux appellation.  Loupiac has around three-hundred-forty-four-hectares of vineyards, and the best are from the slopes above the banks of the Garonne; which also has the benefit of night-time and morning mists, that encourage botrytis to develop.  The winery is owned by Vivianne Fertal from Chateau du Pavillon.  The vineyard began in the Thirteenth Century, when two noblemen, the brothers Jean and Guillaume de la Roque planted on the slopes.  The estate has three hectares of forty-year-old vines planted on a clay-limestone soil.  The wine is a blend of eighty percent Semillon, eighteen percent Sauvignon Blanc and two percent Muscadelle and fermentation and aging are done in Stainless Steel vats. The wine had a beautiful amber color and offered notes of candied fruits, figs, honey, and flowers.  On the palate the tones were dominated by tropical fruits, figs, prunes, and currants in a fine honey-textured, full-bodied wine, with good acidity and a nice long finish of fruit and some terroir.