Beaujolais Villages 2021

Marine Descombe runs her family winery and bottling business at Vins Descombe in Brouilly. Started in 1905 by her grandfather, Marine now heads up all aspects, still facing headwinds from the local patriarchy. She recently purchased the dilapidated 17th c. Chateau Pougelon in St. Etiennedes-Oullières, expanding her vineyards in Brouilly and has made remarkable progress with the domaine’s 30 hectares under vine with HVE sustainable farming

Harvest is done only by hand, and grapes are sorted and partially destemmed (40%). The vinification is in the Burgundy style, i.e. slow and soft grape pressing, and vatting for 10 days. Fermentation lasts one month and then the wine ages in large cement tanks.

Varieties: 100% Gamay Appellation: Beaujolais-Villages Soil Type: Granite and sand - Mary Taylor website

Taylor launched her eponymous importing company in 2013, following a career in the early 2000s as a cheesemonger in Massachusetts, where she quickly decoded regionality and the secret language of appellations. Her first wines from satellite regions in France were uncomplicated monovarietal bottlings, wines considered “too normal” by colleagues. While others came upon the same wines in storied tasting fairs like the one held annually in Angers, Taylor would discover her favorite wines from crates of samples, vet the vignerons and viticulteurs by tasting with them, evaluate their sustainability records and negotiate imports directly. While not unlike the way in which many importers make new discoveries, her mission sets her apart.

Taylor wants to make noise in the industry’s “boys clubs,” right down to the labels, which stand intently opposed to the natural wine scene’s obsession with surreal, abstract label art—a genre I call “My Kid’s Drawings That Should Have Stayed on the Fridge”—and its tendency to focus on atypical varieties and emergent regions. Her labels are meant to evoke steadfast tradition and an easygoing classicism, and the wines themselves impart an attitude of “you should know this.” - PUNCH, Natural Wine, But Make It Normcore