Olivier Lemasson Les Vins Contés Gama Sutra 2019

Country: France

Region: Loire

Grape: Gamay

Les Vins Contés started as a grape buying endeavor, but in 2016 Olivier was able to purchase the vineyards he’d been sourcing from—9 hectares that he'd been working organically and by hand (no machines, ever). Because of the care Olivier takes in the vineyard, the winemaking is simple: Whites are direct-pressed and don’t see any oak, and the reds are, for the most part, short macerations and meant to be drunk young. All the wines are bottled unfiltered, mostly un-sulfured, or hit with a miniscule amount at bottling.

The grapes for this wine are hand-harvested from 80-100 year old ungrafted vines grown in clay-silex soils. The grapes undergo a spontaneous short, whole-cluster carbonic maceration with only the help of native yeasts. Bottled unfined, unfiltered, with no additional sulfur. Despite the ageability of this wine, it is fresh and ready to drink young.