Solano Cellars
Friday, May 17th from 5-8pm
Flight of 6 wines for $30 ($20 for club)
In the Northern Rhône, for every traditionalist (generational winemaker adhering faithfully to the production rules of the AOC) there's a counter-culture modernist (renegade eschewing those rules and regional designations altogether). But for Pierre Jean Villa (a pioneer in sustainable, permaculture-based viticulture in Condrieu, Côte Rôtie, and Saint-Joseph), the path forward borrows the best from both in equal measure—to make wines that are clean, pure, deep, mineral, and transparently of their place.
Pierre Jean, originally from the northern Rhône town of Chavanay, cut his teeth making wine in Burgundy, and in doing so, developed a finesse and careful precision that would become the hallmark of his wines when he returned to the Rhône years later. After years making wine in a shared collective with Yves Cuilleron, Pierre Gaillard, and François Villard, he established his own domaine, largely comprised of ancient, terraced, long-abandoned vineyards around his hometown. He works organically, using a local variety of stonecrop for natural weed control and erosion prevention in his vertigo-inducing vineyards. In the cellar, it's spontaneous ferments, no fining or filtration, and racking and bottling done according to the lunar cycle. Despite those more modern practices, the focus remains on the pedigree of the vineyard sites—hardworking, often impossibly old vines from steep slopes, carefully tended and picked by hand, from Condrieu to Côte Rôtie.
On Friday, our friend and VB/SC Alum Maria Castelli from Vintage 59 Imports will be behind the bar to pour the newest of Pierre Jean's releases - highly limited, and not yet fully on the market. This is an opportunity to taste and reserve bottles of one of the most highly regarded winemakers in the Northern Rhône—don’t miss out!
*No reservations necessary