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Carnet de route

Sourcing & Producer Journal

The best bottles rarely announce themselves. This is our running log of the small estates, cellar doors and regional detours that turned up something worth drinking — and worth remembering.

  1. 01

    June 2026

    Producer visit

    Beaujolais →

    A morning on the blue stone of Côte de Brouilly

    Up at six with a grower whose Gamay vines are older than the Fifth Republic. Breakfast was last year's cru and a heel of comté.

    The slopes of Mont Brouilly catch the light early, and by seven the pruning scars on the old gobelet vines are throwing shadows. Our host farms three hectares here without touching a herbicide bottle — 'the grass is free mulch', he shrugs — and the fruit shows it: tighter, darker, more mineral than the plain below.

    In the cellar, semi-carbonic maceration in century-old concrete. The 2025 from tank is all crushed violet and iron, a wine that tastes like the hill it grew on.

    Cellar takeaway: Côte de Brouilly 2024 — dark cherry, graphite, a long stony finish. Drink 2026–2032.

  2. 02

    May 2026

    Trip notes

    Loire Valley →

    Tufa cellars and Chenin: four days between Saumur and Vouvray

    The Loire keeps its cellars in the rock itself. Notes on chalk galleries, a great dry Chenin, and where to eat between tastings.

    The tufa cliffs along the river are honeycombed with caves — some carved for wine, some originally quarried to build the châteaux above. At 12°C year-round they are the perfect natural cellar, and half the appellation seems to live underground.

    Two producers stood out: one making bone-dry Montlouis from sixty-year-old vines, another reviving abandoned parcels on the plateau above Vouvray. Both prove the Loire remains France's best source of world-class white wine at everyday prices.

    Bottle of the trip: Montlouis 'Les Vieilles Vignes' 2023 — quince, chamomile, wet chalk. Superb value.

  3. 03

    April 2026

    Discovery

    Rhône Valley →

    The galet-strewn bargain next door to Châteauneuf

    Same stones, same grape, a third of the price: why Lirac deserves a place in every northern-Rhône lover's rack.

    Stand on the Lirac plateau and you can see Châteauneuf-du-Pape across the river. The galets roulés underfoot are identical — the same rolled stones the Rhône abandoned millennia ago. Yet the wines trade at a fraction of their famous neighbour's price.

    The best estates here farm Grenache and Mourvèdre with real ambition. The wines are a shade wilder than Châteauneuf, garrigue-scented and honest, and they age gracefully for a decade.

    Discovery: Lirac rouge 2022 — blackberry, thyme, warm stones. Buy by the case.

  4. 04

    March 2026

    Producer visit

    Burgundy →

    Lunch in Marsannay: the Côte de Nuits' quiet front door

    No Grand Cru, no fuss — just serious Pinot Noir from the northernmost village of the Côte d'Or, and a grower who poured eight vintages back to 2010.

    Marsannay is where the Côte d'Or begins, and where the glamour hasn't quite arrived. That is precisely its appeal. Our host farms organically, ferments with whole clusters, and makes the village's celebrated rosé alongside reds of real depth.

    The vertical tasting told the story: 2019 still coiled and dark, 2015 just unfolding, 2010 all sous-bois and silk. Village Burgundy, cellared with intent, is one of wine's great quiet pleasures.

    Cellar takeaway: Marsannay 'Les Longeroies' 2019 — cherry, forest floor, fine tannin. Peak 2027–2034.

  5. 05

    February 2026

    Trip notes

    Jura →

    Under the voile: chasing Vin Jaune in Arbois

    Six years and three months in barrel under a film of yeast. A winter weekend among the Jura's oxidative whites and the patient people who make them.

    Vin Jaune is not made so much as survived. The Savagnin must wait six years and three months under its voile — the living film of yeast — before it can take the name. A third of the barrels never make it.

    In a vaulted Arbois cellar we tasted the 2018, still sleeping, and the 2011, fully awake: walnut, curry leaf, green apple, and a finish measured in minutes. Nothing else in France tastes like this.

    Bottle of the trip: Vin Jaune 2016 — walnut, saffron, sea air. Decant an hour, serve at 14°C.

  6. 06

    January 2026

    Discovery

    Champagne →

    Grower Champagne in the Aube: the south is rising

    The Côte des Bar was once the region's poor relation. Now its Kimmeridgian slopes produce some of Champagne's most exciting bottles.

    The Aube is closer to Chablis than to Reims — geologically and spiritually. The Kimmeridgian clay-limestone here is the same formation that gives Chablis its nerve, and a generation of young growers is exploiting it brilliantly.

    Pinot Noir dominates, ripening more fully than in the north, giving Champagnes of vinous depth and chalky drive. The prices have not yet caught up with the quality. They will.

    Discovery: Côte des Bar Blanc de Noirs NV — red apple, brioche, chalk. Half the price of a grande marque.

Explore the regionsConsult the vintage chart