Clos des Mourres 'A Table!' Vin de France 2022

It all started with some salad: After foraging mourres, a wild lettuce grown locally around France’s Vaucluse region in the Southern Rhône, a young Jean-Philippe Bouchet and his grandfather would spend hours together clunking around their farm kitchen composing a homegrown meal to accompany their spoils. The experience instilled Bouchet with a “passion of the earth, vines and the respect for our Mother Earth…[and] full moments of flavors and eternal sensations” that would guide him and wife Ingrid, in 2009, to purchase five hillside hectares of vines in nearby Cairanne and take charge of an additional 10 family-owned hectares in Vaison la Romaine three years later. It would also inspire the name of their newly established domaine—Clos des Mourres—and an old-school, low-intervention approach to all their vineyard and cellar work. (“In our opinion, this is the only way the terroir can express itself to produce sincere and lively wines,” says their website.) Farming organically and biodynamically, all fruit is hand harvested; fermentations start naturally, thanks to native yeasts, after cold maceration for a few days; aging takes place in concrete for about eight months; and wines are racked just once before bottling according to the lunar calendar. Unfined, unfiltered and with no added sulfur, ‘A Table!’ is a dark and juicy syrah that’s ultra approachable, with black currant and overripe strawberry flavors kept in check by distinct minerality and accented by savory black olive tones. Perfect for sharing with friends, guzzling on its own or pairing with foods a little hardier than lettuce. Organically Grown, Biodynamically Grown, Low-Intervention/Natural Wine.