Hello! Had this amazing bottle with dinner last night and it was very atypical to what I am used to. 

I am based in NYC ordered this at Chez Ma Tante in Williamsburg, great food and great extensive natural wine list as well. This one caught my eye on the list, 100% Monduse grapes, from the alpine region Bugey. To my understanding it’s aged 6 months in fiber glass and then 6 months in neutral oak barrels. Ended up going with this one as I was so unfamiliar with the style, region, and grape. 

COLOR:  
I did not take a proper photo of the glass and color but you can see a little bit from the photo I took, a bright colorful see through red that reminded me of some Oregon natural wines and other natural red field blends. 

NOSE:   
Immediately hit with floral and almost amaro like scent, alpine flowers and violets everywhere, this would be followed by red ripe fruit notes. As the night wore on the wine went from medicinal/herbal to a more balanced floral with fruit and berries, really lovely nose to pair with food. 

PALATE:   
This was such a fun wine to drink, at 10% ABV it reminded me a bit of a IPA and hops with their floral element, but this was absolutely it’s own beast, similar to the nose it still carried florals but particularly darker florals on the tongue, the red fruit note would clarify itself to be tart blueberry and cranberry and cherry notes, to finish it off and wrap it up there was light savory pepper note. Lovely journey in the mouth from start to finish. As it sat open the tart cherry notes would also evolve to more generous ripe red berry notes, and in my opinion played nicer with the floral elements. 

Overall, really fun experience, it went delicious with both oysters and pork shoulder, and I love wines that don’t leave me too inebriated after splitting a bottle. The only comparison I can make with this wine is some red wines from Valtellina, a handful of those have reminded me of the amaro like floral element, and I imagine considering the same mountain range, proximity of terroir and a shared style in wine making practices amongst the mountain vineyards, this one is probably not too far off stylistically. Will definitely be on the lookout for more French alp reds. 

Paid $92 for this at the table and seems to retail for $48-55, not an awful QPR table side I felt at all. 

Yummy French Alp Red