Solano Cellars
Friday, April 18th
5-8pm
$25 for a flight of 6 ($15 Club)
Calce, a fairytale village within the Côtes Catalanes region of the Roussillon, is a winemaker's paradise of immense proportion. In the shadow of the looming Pyrenees, along the French/Catalan border, many millennia of geological history have made this a unique jewel of varied terroir, producing striations of limestone and marl on one side and schist on the other.
It's for that reason that Anjou-born, Bordeaux-trained Olivier Pithon settled here, just outside of the village itself—the great variety of terroir, and a community of winemakers committed to biodynamics and preservation of land.
Pithon grew up among the vines in the Loire, where his brother and family carved out a name for themselves producing elegant wines. When he completed his studies in Bordeaux, a chance encounter with Stéphane Derenoncourt - a winemaker and consultant famous for his exceptional understanding of terroir - would motivate him to seek out his own land and make a name for himself independent of his family. In Calce, he found access to a mosaic of different soil types and expositions, all dotted with old, gnarled vines typical of this slice of Southern France: Grenache Rouge, Gris, and Blanc; Carignane; Macabeu. He's a staunch believer in minimal intervention, putting full faith in the quality of his old vine material to produce wines of elegance, character, and balance. Having worked with (and loving) his wines for years, we agree wholeheartedly.
On Friday, we'll have our friend and importer Nadia Dmytriw of Floraison Selections on-hand to pour through a lineup of Pithon's latest releases, from incredibly old-vine Grenache Blanc & Carignan, to fresh and lively, bistro-tuned blends. There's a reason we count Pithon among the best (and somehow, unheralded) winemakers in all of France. Join us to taste and see for yourself!