Elodie Balme

J

Jonathan Loesberg

Jonathan Loesberg
Sharon posted on this winemaker some time ago. Then I had a bottle of her Cotes de Rhone at Restaurant le Grand Pre a couple of years ago. Then I noticed that Joe Dressner was bringing her in and tried another bottle of the Cotes de Rhone from Chambers Street. So I decided it was time to make a visit. She makes 4 different wines. The VDP, with merlot in it, was better than other renditions of this kind of wine, even to my mind, the Charvin a Cote, but it is what it is and not my style. After that, she makes 3 delightful wines, a Cotes de Rhone, a Cote de Roaix she calls Chambre Libre (in 2009, she made it out of 100% grenache and so had to label it VdP because of rules demanding more than one cepage there) and a Rasteau. These all rest on floral and bright fruit elements, and eschew the over extraction that is now the style around these parts. Her wines are in the genre of Domaine Richaud in Cairanne. I've only seen the CdR at Chambers. I'd love to see the two other cuvees. On the other hand, I'm here for the summer and so can drink them here.
 
I had a bottle of the Rasteau and found it fresh and fantastic. I brought it back from Paris. Excited to hopefully see these wines around a bit more.

Cheers,

Kevin
 
I first heard about her from the folks at Richaud, where I believe she worked for awhile. I tried the Cotes du Rhone and found it too big but will have to do some further research.
 
originally posted by Cliff:
I first heard about her from the folks at Richaud, where I believe she worked for awhile. I tried the Cotes du Rhone and found it too big but will have to do some further research.
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What year? I had the 06 at the restaurant, the 09 from Chambers and the 10 there a couple of days ago. Different strokes, of course, but none of them seemed too big for me. But maybe you had the 07? Always a chancy vintage.

I'm surprised she worked at Richaud since I thought she worked with her father until she wanted to make her own wine, when he cedeed her some vineyards to work. But maybe that was part of her stagiere.
 
It was the 2009 CdR. As I say, more research is in order; it was just the one bottle. I think she was a stagière at Richaud before taking over some of the family vineyards.
 
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