Issue 2: Anjou Milestones
The evolution of the ever-expanding natural wine community of Anjou.
Welcome to Issue 2 of the Not Drinking Poison newsletter! The second-best thing to happen to the world this week.
Trump may be out of office. But the wine world remains bogged down due to COVID. The Loire tasting salons that usually bring legions of vignerons, importers, and wine buyers to Angers and Saumur this month have been called off, as have the salons in Montpellier. (I got invited to a digital version of Millésime Bio, which sounds about as enriching as watching other people play video games.)
For anyone missing the chill humid air and the horizontal winter sunlight of the Loire this time of year, I used this issue to mark a few ANJOU MILESTONES:
A feature interview with Anjou vigneron-mystic PATRICK DESPLATS, on the occasion of his breakthrough 20TH VINTAGE, vinified in fifteen qvevri buried in his garden.
A feature interview with émigré vignerons KENJI AND MAI HODGSON, reflecting on their FIRST DECADE of winemaking in Anjou.
A profile of free-thinking young Angevin paysan vigneron ROMAIN VERGER of LE THIO NOOTS, who DEBUTED in 2019.
A profile of the quietly innovative and very tall Anjou vigneron JEAN-MARIE BROUSSET, and his INGENIUS method of effectively homeopathic sulfitage.
An article on SYLVAIN MARTINEZ’s stunning qvevri-macerated chenin.
A run-down of notable Anjou wines presented at the mid-December 2020 tasting salon EN JOUE CONNECTION.
The issue also contains two pieces unrelated to Anjou:
An article on the career of DENIS PESNOT, whose paintings comprise a visual motif of the early natural wine circles of the Beaujolais.
The first essay in a series about my experiences obtaining a professional winemaking license at the BEAUNE VITICULTURE SCHOOL.
In the spirit of French natural wine labels, I’ll leave you with an atrocious pun:
Anjou glad you subscribed?
-Aaron