2022 Pierre Menard Anjou - Orion Alpha Cabernet Franc
Regular price
$48.00
In Stock: 5
Pierre Ménard, besides sharing a name with Jorge Luis Borges’s titular “author”, is one of the Loire Valley’s younger star producers for cabernet franc (and chenin blanc). After working at wineries in Bordeaux, Portugal, Canada, New Zealand, and Hungary, he returned to Anjou (west of Saumur, Bourgeuil, and Chinon) and started bottling wines from his parent’s vineyards in 2013. 'Orion Alpha' is 100% cabernet franc from two parcels, one 15 and the other 70 years old, growing in schist soils. Farming is biodynamic. All of the grapes were destemmed and fermented spontaneously in barrels, with about three weeks of maceration. Élevage likewise was in barrels, of various ages, for about a year. There was no fining or filtration. The nose is explosively cabernet franc - the darker-fruited side of it, with herbaceousness as a complexifying component rather than dominant. The wine is equally expressive on the palate - both generous and classy; powerful and graceful. Try it with filet of beef, mushroom dishes, gruyère, and other aged Alpine cheeses.
