Marie-Pierre Bories

Marie-Pierre Boires runs one of the most flourishing wineries in the south of France and makes wines with character.
At the beginning of 1990's she started working at her family winery Domaine de Blanes but felt that she needed to understand the winemakers first before understanding the wine. She worked for two years for Didier Dagueneau in Loire Valley, than for Cave Coopérative in Ribeauvillé , Alsace followed by harversting and vinification periods in Argentina, Chili and Australia.
In 2000 she came back to Roussillon and  took over Domaine de Blanes. She started by producing only one cuvée of red wine and moved forward step by step. Today Marie-Pierre makes ten different cuvées of white, red, rose and VDN . Fascinated by biodynamics she is working ever so hard to produce wines that best express quality of their region of origin.

Benjamin Roffet prepares for Japan

Our VinoVino team member, Benjamin Roffet, Best Sommelier of France 2010, MOF 2011, has got a busy period ahead of him as he prepares for the World Best Sommelier Contest that will take place in Tokyo, Japan in March 2013.The World's Best Sommelier Competition has been in existance since 1969 and takes place every three years in one of the ASI ( The Association de la Sommellerie Internationale) member countries. To have the honor of representing France in Japan, however, Benjamin needs to win the competition between best french sommeliers that is going to be held in Paris on the 24 of September.

All the best of luck!

Condrieu "Les Grandes Chaillées" Domaine du Monteillet

Condrieu, world's most powerfully scented white wine, is the perfect companion to summer light dishes and can equally be enjoyed on it's own. Rich, luscious, aromatic...This exceptional viognier based wine can only reach it's fullness when grown on steep tarraces of northen Rhone Valley.

Condrieu "Les Grandes Chaillées" 2010 from Domaine du Monteillet has been revarded by La Revue du Vin de France for high maturity and strong caracter.

Enjoy!

Bird's nest in the vineyard of Domaine de la Soufrandière

Jérôme's tasting of the 2002 Burgundy...

Probably one of the best wines I tasted today: complex,elegant with an amazing ageing potential.

2002 vintage at Domaine Alain Burguet (see above) has been my first winemaking experience, so it has been great to try it today. 

Some of my favorite wines today: Domaine Romanée Conti, Michel Lafarge, Georges Roumier and

 Jean Marc Boillot.

Cow horn silica preparation sprayed in Beaujolais

Today (17th of May) we have a leaf day in biodynamic calendar and so the vineyard workers started their work very early today, before 6 a.m.,spraying a cow horn silica preparation in Beaujolais. They used 2 to 3 grams of silica in 35 litres of water per hectare. This preparation is always applied in the very early morning as a fine mist that drifts over plants. This spray enhances the photosynthesis of the leaf.

Domaine Albert Mann awarded Winemakers of the year 2012

Albert Mann Estate received the award "Winemakers of the year 2012" by the leading french wine 

publication "Revue du Vin de France".

It is the collaborative and complementary dynamic between two familie that has paid off here.  Jacky and Maurice Barthelmé, with their wives, Marie-Thérèse and Marie-Claire, have run the winery, Domaine Albert Mann in Alsace since 1989 with rigour and conviction without fault. On the 21 hectare estate, every year, Maurice, in charges of the vineyards, delivers Jacky, the winemaker, the grapes which express the nuances of their terroir with the exactness of a goldsmith. The result of Riesling Schlossberg is crystalline minerality: of Gewurztraminer Furstentum, intense, exotique flavours; of the late harvest and noble rote, or the complex Pinot Noirs, each of the estate's wine are impeccably defined in their expression. And as behind every great winegrower, there is often a great women, one must acknowledge the work of Marie-Claire, who manages the estate, and Marie-Thérèse, who, with finesse, oversees the global marketing of the winery. In a region which is comparatively unrecognised for the greatness of its best wines, Domaine Albert Mann is more than the benchmark, it's the epitome.