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2013 Fitou “Atsuko”
Domaine Les Mille VignesValérie Guérin’s wines are all the rage in Paris wine bars, ground zero for the next vinous trends to infiltrate their New York and San Francisco counterparts. While she farms her meager holdings organically and scarcely intervenes in the cellar, the draw to Valérie’s wines does not lie in her philosophy or any radical techniques. Rather, the wines possess a level of purity and finesse that appeals to wine lovers on an elemental level, beyond what fashion may dictate. Atsuko is a regal expression of seventy-five-year-old Grenache, taut with energy and buried layers of complexity that will unfurl onto your palate and over many years in bottle. Mille Vignes is the real deal.
—Anthony Lynch
Wine Type: | red |
Vintage: | 2013 |
Bottle Size: | 750mL |
Blend: | Grenache Noir |
Appellation: | Fitou |
Country: | France |
Region: | Languedoc-Roussillon |
Producer: | Domaine Les Mille Vignes |
Winemaker: | Jacques Guérin, Valérie Guérin |
Vineyard: | > 75 years |
Soil: | Limestone, Marl, Schist |
Farming: | Organic (practicing) |
Alcohol: | 14% |
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About The Producer
Domaine Les Mille Vignes
About The Region
Languedoc-Roussillon
Ask wine drinkers around the world, and the word “Languedoc” is sure to elicit mixed reactions. On the one hand, the region is still strongly tied to its past as a producer of cheap, insipid bulk wine in the eyes of many consumers. On the other hand, it is the source of countless great values providing affordable everyday pleasure, with an increasing number of higher-end wines capable of rivaling the best from other parts of France.
While there’s no denying the Languedoc’s checkered history, the last two decades have seen a noticeable shift to fine wine, with an emphasis on terroir. Ambitious growers have sought out vineyard sites with poor, well draining soils in hilly zones, curbed back on irrigation and the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, and looked to balance traditional production methods with technological advancements to craft wines with elegance, balance, and a clear sense of place. Today, the overall quality and variety of wines being made in the Languedoc is as high as ever.
Shaped like a crescent hugging the Mediterranean coast, the region boasts an enormous variety of soil types and microclimates depending on elevation, exposition, and relative distance from the coastline and the cooler foothills farther inland. While the warm Mediterranean climate is conducive to the production of reds, there are world-class whites and rosés to be found as well, along with stunning dessert wines revered by connoisseurs for centuries.
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Where the newsletter started
Where the newsletter started
Every three or four months I would send my clients a cheaply made list of my inventory, but it began to dawn on me that business did not pick up afterwards. It occurred to me that my clientele might not know what Château Grillet is, either. One month in 1974 I had an especially esoteric collection of wines arriving, so I decided to put a short explanation about each wine into my price list, to try and let my clients know what to expect when they uncorked a bottle. The day after I mailed that brochure, people showed up at the shop, and that is how these little propaganda pieces for fine wine were born.—Kermit Lynch