Thrilling. This isn’t an adjective you see applied to wine very often, but it fits here. Maxime Magnon’s wines – every one of them – will make you stop for a second to contemplate their inner energy. You might like them, you might not. But there’s no denying that there’s something alive about them – something altogether different. Personally, I can’t get enough of them.
If you own a wine bar or restaurant in New York, Paris or San Francisco, you do everything you can to get Maxime’s wines on your list. What’s so good about them? It’s not just that they’re all nervy, vibrant, bright examples of Languedoc terroir. It’s the whole picture – it’s Maxime’s whole story that sets him apart. His story and his sheep.
Unlike many of the producers we work with, Maxime wasn’t born into a winemaking family. He was born in Burgundy – so the guy probably has some innate sense of why a place’s peculiarity must be preserved in order to imbue a wine with soul. When he finally decided that wine was his calling, Maxime didn’t stick around the Côte d’Or. First, he traveled to the Beaujolais, where he made wines with our friend Jean Foillard. Next, he studied under the madman of Faugeres, Didier Barral. Working with these two guys is like getting to peek into the essence of anti-manipulation. Do your best work in the vineyard – let it shine and the wine will shine.
Deciding that it was a place that could use a bit more illumination, Maxime settled in the Languedoc. He doesn’t have an ornate tasting room, or a bleeding edge winemaking facility – in fact, he rents a little crush pad. You won’t find any of the trappings of commercialism here. Rather, he has pieced together his holdings by buying prime fragments of abandoned vineyards and carefully, painstakingly resuscitating them. The difficulty of farming his property cannot be understated. These high-altitude vineyards do not have topsoil. Maxime is somehow able to farm a layer of solid rock bristling with garrigue. At least he has the sheep. Thought I forgot didn’t you. Maxime’s sheep graze his vineyards, eating the rough growth that would compete with his vines. These wooly marvels also provide potent, organic fertilizer. This old-school methodology is what defines Maxime Magnon. He’s willing to break his back, to risk his crop and his fortune to produce wines that speak to the beauty of the Languedoc.
The 2009 Rozeta is a field blend of, predominantly, Carignan with a bit of Grenache Gris, Macabou and Terret thrown in. These are old vines – 55 to 60 years old. After harvest and crush, the juice ferments on wild yeast in old barrels Maxime buys from a Chassagne-Montrachet producer. This wine is aromatic, juicy, spicy. It’s got a cola, rose and wild cherry blossom nose. The mouth is sleek, zippy – mint and red cherry, bits of clove and thyme in there. I love drinking this stuff – I love sharing it and watching the jaded wine geeks as they struggle to understand how a Languedoc wine can be this awesome, this deep and delicious.
A word about the Maxime’s wines – with the exception of a couple of restaurants, Dedalus is where you’ll find them in Vermont. If you like the Rozeta, make sure you talk to us about rest of his stuff. It’s on the water, and will land in Vermont shortly. You can be sure that it won’t last long.
