SteveTimko
Steve Timko
Jean Paul Brun, Eric Texier
Craft Wine and Beer hosted a tasting from several rock stars in the world of natural winemaking on Friday night. Louis/Dressner brought Eric Texier, Jean Paul Brun, Franck Peillot and Gwen Croix (Domaine de la Pepiere) to Reno. I joked that wine distributor Devlon Moore must have roofied Josefa Concannon, Louis/Dressner’s national sales director, to get them to Reno. Here’s the group’s tasting tour in the United States: Los Angeles, San Francisco, New Orleans, New York. . . and Reno. I still can’t figure out how Reno fits on that list. Texier is a big fan of La Clarine Farm wines in El Dorado County so they stopped by on their way from San Francisco to Reno.
It wasn’t a good time to take notes and I even had a hard time getting a look at the bottles to know what I was tasting. All the wines were good. Brun’s Beaujolais chardonnay was nice. His Burgundy seemed darker and more brooding than when I had it before. Glenn felt it had a lot of acid. Loved Peillot’s wines. I had not had his mondeuse before. It was nice and seems quite ageworthy. The two stars of the night for me were Pepiere’s Clos des Briords, which had a stunning nose, bracing acidity and long finish, and Texier’s St-Julien en St-Alban Domaine de Pergault. It was dark fruit, olives, elegant but also fairly intensely flavored, especially for a 13.5 percent wine. I also enjoyed Texier’s whites.
The crowd was heavy and it was hard to get to the wines or talk to the winemakers, but all in all it was a good vibe and a date in Reno’s wine culture worth bookmarking.
Gwen Croix
Franck Peillot, Crooked River wine distributor Devlon Moore, Craft Wine's Ty Martin, Josefa Concannon, Gwen Croix
Eric Texier, Glenn Bienstock