DOMAINE LES ARICOQUES SAVOIE

Romain Dupont and Guillaume Bellon's label, which only started with the 2021 vintage, has undoubtedly sparked a great deal of interest among wine enthusiasts. The excitement behind PAN! comes from the high school friends who took over the growing of a roughly 5-hectare vineyard in Frangy, Haute-Savoie (locals are known as "Frangypans"). When aspiring winemakers spend their formative years in well-known wine-producing regions, like the Rhône and New Zealand in the case of Romain and Guillaume, and then return home and put what they've learned into practice, it certainly catches our attention. The underlying message here is the producer's great desire to elevate the wines from their home appellations and, by doing so, increase the quality and consequently the notoriety as well!

They are currently undergoing an extensive conversion of their new family vineyard to biodynamic viticulture, which they believe is essential for producing the best wines, especially considering the poor soils that significantly lower yields. As previously mentioned, the new release re-introduces the PAN! range of wines: The Savoie-native grape Altesse is light and naturally low-yielding, with nuanced and exotic aromas. This rendition of Altesse has a lovely, velvety texture akin to Roussanne thanks to the guidance of the team, 50-year-old grapes, and six months in concrete eggs (but with acid for days!).

Le Rouze is made completely with Gamay, with an emphasis on the fruit's freshness. However, the grapes receive very little extraction before going into egg-shaped vats to ferment. Despite coming from the same inferior soils, the Gamay grapes here already take on a wonderfully, compact, nuanced flavor of red fruit and spice. There are some complete clusters that have been preserved, and they offer that elevated, delicate spice aroma. Don't let the color fool you into thinking it's anything other than genuinely excellent. It may look more like rosé than anything else.