MCF Rare Wine

That Awesome Pinot Noir is Back!
 
The first time we had today's wine, it was a huge hit.

It also gained notoriety as being the wine that introduced us all to the Côteaux du Champlitte, in the Franche-Comté region of France.

This was once a fairly renowned wine producing area, but it fell off the map following phylloxera in the late 1800s, and then was completely wiped out following  WWI.  Pascal Henriot returned home from viticultural school to the now re-emerging Champlitte and planted about six hectare of the traditional varietals of the region - Auxerrois, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Gewürztraminer, Gamay and Pinot Noir - and has been working organically and with minimal sulphur ever since.

Henriot's wines first came to our attention when my friend Mike (Pascal's importer) brought them by.

We loved the Pinot Noir so much, that I think we ended up selling a majority of what he had.  The reason was simple, it was fantastic, elegant, aromatically jubilant, high-quality/high-complexity Pinot...

...from France...

...at a fair price.

It didn't matter that it was from a part of France that nobody'd heard of.  That's one of the benefits of being a full-on hand sell kind of store...you can get people to try things they likely otherwise never would.

The added benefit to that is they come back and say 'Do you have any more of that delicious Pinot?  Where was it from again??'

It's the little things...

Anyway, after a couple of years of short availability, Henriot's Pinot Noir is back, and it brought some siblings too!

The 2022 Pinot Noir is everything it's always been - floral, light, vibrant, energetic and wonderfully complex...exactly what you love from cooler-climate Pinot Noir.

The siblings I speak of are the Pinot Noir Rosé 2022 and a very cool blend of Gamay and Pinot Noir called L'Assemblée Locale, also from the 2022 vintage.

The Rosé is just flat out delicious right now, it drinks like you've always wished a Marsannay Rosé would - it's unmistakably Pinot Noir in its high-toned, delicate aromatics, yet, on the palate, shows all manner of developed fruit and subtly nutty complexity that gets washed down with a dose of stony structure.  The extra time in bottle only makes it that much more compelling.

Raphael is extra fond of it, which means it's gonna sell quick, too!

The L'Assemblée Locale takes the lofty, soaring Pinot Noir and, with the addition of Gamay, tethers it to a darker, earthier, more pungent core.  Despite the dose of darker fruit and earth, the wine, thanks to its vibrant acidity, still moves along quite nimbly.

I'm so excited that a) these wines are back in stock and, b) are available in enough quantity for me to get them back in this newsletter.

Everybody needs to know about the Côteax du Champlitte, and you can be the one to introduce all of your friends...

PASCAL HENRIOT
Cöteaux du Champlitte Pinot Noir 2022
L'Assemblée Locale Rouge 2022
Pinot Noir Rosé L'Atypique 2022

You may order by calling 212.255.8870.

Matt Franco
MCF Rare Wine, Ltd
249 West 13th Street NYC 10011
212.255.8870

Looking for a wine you loved from a past newsletter or a favorite you can't find anywhere?  Email Raphael at raphael@mcf-rarewine.com, and we'll do our best to find it for you!