Must.Be.Wine. - Day 5
A bold statement of fact is all it is: Must. Be. Wine. A business identity that is inseparable from the people who breathe it to life. This is I think, the way happiness works…you do the thing you were meant to do and it becomes such a part of you that there is no darkness in the cracks between one and the other because there are no cracks.
I made a post on Instagram a few months ago about our trip to Saumur, and a young winemaker, Ana Gimeno, invited us to taste her and her girlfriend, Candela Rodriguez’s first vintage of Vin de France Cabernet Franc. We were honored to be the first official visitors to Must Be Wine in their cave just above their house in the small town of Parnay.
The rain came down in torrents for a time, and the candles lighting the barrels guttered as they burned down. The scene was at once as atavistic as it could be while also being as great a hospitality experience as I have had in the business.
Tuffeau caves dot the hillsides along the Loire and Vienne rivers, and though some of them were carved out thousands of years ago by the Troglodytes, the more recent caves were, in effect, the negative space left over after the limestone was quarried away to build Saumur and Chinon. These spaces now house wineries and wine storage depots; Must Be Wine’s cave does the same.
On the day we met, we walked up a wet, grassy hill to the entrance to the cave. We tasted Chenin Blanc and Cabernet Franc from barrel, ate delicious charcuterie, talked much about the challenges of winemaking, played with the women’s two dogs, and passed the several hours there very contented. The rain came down in torrents for a time, and the candles lighting the barrels inside the cave guttered as they burned down. The scene was at once as atavistic as it could be while also being as great a hospitality experience as I have had in the business.
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