On Friday, we launched #MWCWineRelief and offered the latest Chiantis from Monteraponi via a piece written by John Burns Patterson, Bev Director for the Frankies Spuntino Group – one of our favorite restaurant groups in NYC. We’re excited to bring you another guest sommelier offer today!

No doubt life at home is challenging right now, but it’s a little better with delicious wine! Please grab some bottles from these offers as it will provide much needed support for folks who are currently out of work in our community. We’re teaming up with amazing sommeliers to sell some wine together to in turn make contributions to their staff benefit funds and to bring awareness to their shuttered restaurants. You can help and drink great while you’re at it! We’re offering exciting wines at discounted prices, so please take advantage of these limited offerings! Enter promo code "MWCWINERELIEF" at checkout. 

Today, we’re thrilled to introduce Master Sommelier, Pascaline Lepeltier, partner at Racines NY – another one of our favorite wine restaurants in NYC that is unfortunately, temporarily closed as a result of Covid-19.  Pascaline is one of the most talented, passionate and sincere professionals you’ll ever meet in our industry.  She is a dear friend who has taught me and countless others so much about wine, life and even Chartreuse! If there were a Mount Rushmore for wine peeps, she’d be on it. She’s as humble and hospitable as can be and an inspiration to us all. Before we get to her writing today about some exciting cuvées from Clos du Rouge Gorge, imported by Camille Rivière Selections, please know that you can also help Racines and their staff by purchasing gift cards to redeem once they re-open, and making direct contributions to their talented staff's Racines NY Disaster Relief Fund. Please follow the links at the bottom of this email to that end. 

Thank you for your continued support.  Stay healthy and please feel free to reach out to me to learn more about #MWCWineRelief, our store and storage operations, and all that we’re doing to keep our employees and customers safe during this time. 

The wines below are offered on a first come, first served basis. Follow the links below to purchase directly from our site or call/email us if you need some assistance. "MWCWINERELIEF" promo code is applicable only to the wines included in this offer. 

CLOS DU ROUGE GORGE - CYRIL FHAL

Written by Guest Sommelier Pascaline Lepeltier

High up in the Agly Valley looking up at the Albères (the mountains separating Roussillon from Catalunya) some of the best wines in France are discreetly produced by a true vigneron, Cyril Fhal. I fell in love with his work more than 12 years ago, and I have been working with his wines ever since.  Delicious young, I could pour his wines by the glass immediately, but they are also equally cellar worthy. We love them at Racines NY.  They are favorite of the staff and the guests, and Arnaud and I were very proud to offer a vertical dating back to 2009 on the list. Unfortunately, with the recent NYC hospitality shutdown Racine’s is currently closed.  We are doing everything we can to survive this crisis, and upon reopening we can’t wait to list it again!

But let me paint you a mental image of this beautiful place, and describe for you the magical touch Cyril has in his vineyard. 

First, the landscape. Exiting the famous “Holiday A9” highway connecting Montpellier to Barcelona, you begin to climb mountain roads, the gorgeous blue of the Mediterranean sea swells behind you, leaving behind the clamoring of the city.  Upon approaching the foothills of the mountain you will find soils of schists and gneiss.  To find vegetation growing here is rare, but the head-pruned vines, old and gnarly, are scattered everywhere on the rough slopes. The vines are assaulted by the harsh Tramontane winds that have also proven to create a landscape said, in folklore, to plant the “les germes de la folie” (the seeds of craziness).  Latour-de-France, with its medieval architecture, is one of the very few hamlets you will find. You feel you are at the end of the civilization, alone in the wilderness.

This is where Cyril, after working in the Loire, decided to start the Clos du Rouge Gorge in 2002. A couple of miles away in Calce, Gérard Gauby and Tom Lubbe showed the world that beautiful, terroir-driven, dry white and red wine could be produced in a region usually dedicated to fortified wines.  He was inspired.  He purchased aged vines between 50 and 100 years old, including the incredibly steep plot of l’Ubac. They demanded a lot of work. Patiently and carefully, he gardened them, using biodynamic farming and permaculture, observing nature to recreate land with living biodiversity.  Cyril knew this was the best method of farming for a region that receives very little rain, but an excess of wind. It is also the only way to allow the grapes to preserve their natural acidity, with a moderate level of alcohol despite the heat. And it is the only way to make wines with no intervention - Cyril just uses a tiny bit of bisulfites when needed. 

The result: some of the most elegant, burgundy-esque wines you will ever taste, produced from grapes usually considered hot, rustic or unexpressive like grenache, carignan or macabeu. They are transcendent wines, because Cyril doesn’t count the hours and the sweat spent among his vines, and he is so precise in the cellar that the wines have a pure beauty, with an incredible poetry and energy. They are just among the most elegant and subtle wines you can find. And if you are not a believer in natural wines, they will change your mind.

Today, MWC is offering several different cuvées. All can be enjoyed today, but treat yourself too and keep them 5, 10, 15 years in your cellar, both red and white. They are treasures!