If you spend anytime drinking wine you’ll hear the term “terroir” thrown around. For those who are not familiar, terroir is a French word that doesn’t have a great translation to English. Terroir is used to encapsulate the time and place of where grapes are grown. Soil, weather, farming practices, aspect of the hillside, etc. These factors shape a wine’s terroir, and that terroir has a significant impact on what shows up in the glass. 

This week (our first of many!) we’re highlighting a wine from Michel Guignier. Guignier has been a winegrower in Vauxrenard in the Beaujolais since the 70s. He has four generations of vignerons behind him. Today, he works a few small hectares near a protected forest, over a mountain pass. His farm doesn’t grow grapes alone though. He raises meat cows (he uses his Charolais cows to fertilize his soil), dairy cows, sheep, and contends with wild boars.  

By shedding the trappings of conventional winemaking (*thermovinification ,* SO2, *fining/filtration, etc etc) he is able to better capture the terroir. Michel has recently gone further here though. He has scaled back his acreage when most are scaling up. This extra time is re-invested back into the process. Focusing on the smallest details. Letting the wine sit in bottles until truly ready. So when you do open up one of the precious few bottles that make it to the states (let alone Montana!) you get something truly personal. Michel Guignier’s deep connection to the land has allowed him to make wines that genuinely reflect his little plot in Vauxrenard. 

The Beaujolais is the region where many of the pioneers of the contemporary natural wine movement come from, think the “Gang of Four”, a group of winemakers including Marcel Lapierre, Jean Foillard, Jean-Paul Thévenet and Guy Breton. Michel Guignier is on the most radical side of the spectrum, seeing himself mostly as a farmer. For his style of winemaking he considers the term "pur jus" more accurate than "natural wine".

So let’s look at La Bonne Pioche (the good pickaxe). Made with Gamay grapes (very typical of Beaujolais). It is vibrant,  juicy, and easy to drink. Structured but not overpowering. For those that want to go deeper into natural wine and need a starting point, look no further.

Winemaker: Michel Guignier
Country/Region: Vauxrenard, Beaujolais, France
Grape: Gamay
Making of: Grapes are hand-picked. Undergo semi-carbonic maceration, aged in old beer fourdres 
Notes: Blackberries, hay, citrus like acidity
Food: Will be good company for most foods. Pair with a well roasted chicken, pork chops or a roasted root vegetable winter salad.

Serve with a slight chill.

* Thermovinification: Grapes are heated to 185 °F to 203 °F for a short period of time before fermentation

* S02: Sulfite addition which often occurs at several stages between harvest and bottling

* Fining/Filtration: Filtration strips wine of flavor, fining agents can either be animal (gelatin, isinglass, casein, and egg albumen, dried bulls blood), carbon, or clay based