bellivière

five bottles; five days

• 2022 Domaine de Bellivière Bille en Bulle 91 Points

  France, Vin de France

  (4/1/2025)

  Clear glass; natural cork; light red color, barely a haze. NOSE: yeasty, black grape mince, salted and sticky, leaking plumes of eucalypt and baked, cinnamon-bean candy shell. The aromatic event composes itself with dispatch, moving from a churning of elements to a statuesque, raspberry-stained perfume. Remarkable savory muscle keeps pace. MOUTH: raw, shweet tannins, strictly rigid, setting up an almost exaggerated contest between scented berry fat and desiccant. Jammy acidity drives the event. Gas opens it up. SUM: exotic, richly scented grapes, contained in their own bitter without spoiling. Who will think of aging this? I bet it keeps well for ten years in proper climate, and it will be interesting how such primal and confident nature evolves over 2+ years anyway. Maybe 92+; i gotta think about it. Would i even recognize a 100 point red sparking wine if i met one? Tests with a properly aerated wedge of Comté, and sally fallon style crispy almonds, are very very encouraging.
  
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  "95% Grenache/5% Pineau d'Aunis. The Grenache vines are in Ventoux in the southern Rhône on sandy, gravelly soils. They range from 10 to 30 years old and are farmed biodynamically. The Bellivière team harvests them by hand and trucks the fruit back to the home cellar in the Loire. Here, the bunches are destemmed and the must fermented spontaneously in vat with regular punchdowns over 3 weeks. When the wine is dry, it is bottled and dosed with a small amount of estate Pineau d'Aunis must to initiate a second fermentation to full dryness. The wine ages for 7 months sur lattes and is then disgorged by hand." —Bowler

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• 2023 Domaine de Bellivière Les Arches de Bellivière Pollux 92 Points

  France, Vin de France

  (4/1/2025)

  This is a very scented nervous immersion. Sappy thin twigs, pulsing with pruneau, raspberry, strawberries on the edge of expiring. The drink is raw grape, tonic/medicinal skins masticated, aerosol darwinian insecticide common to lemons and mint. Outgoing fruit and conifer. Churned broken gravel and slate. Sweet natured. Dry. Salt and skeleton gather on the lower periphery. Why does this bring to mind Südtirol? 91-92.
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  48 hours, the last 4 oz. left one overnight in the fridge in a covered cup, illuminates the seriousness of this wine. Less raw grape juice, more dry tannins, stone, sodium, and sap. The finish provides an intriguing burst of charred violet perfume. I am encouraged to learn what this tastes like in 2028 and 2033.
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  people may polarize on whether it's amusing or not that three open pages report three different varietal proportions here: one claims 100% gamay (importer, nv); another, 80/20 gamay and pineau d'aunis (back label); a third, 50/50 (Bowler). Why it should matter is a leaky question. Lhomme, Chahaignes and Marçon are potential sources.

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• 2022 Domaine de Bellivière Jasnières Les Rosiers 93 Points

  France, Loire Valley, Jasnières

  (4/1/2025)

  Tastes dry, and also typical jasnières chenin oily. Listed 7g RS ('22 l'Effraie is 16g; '22 Prémices is, supposedly, 10g)—sensational. meaty almond, zinc, rose pear, satin transparent drape, marine flooded gravel, bellivière/jasnières-typical chasing a kite in bloom, heavy with information, weightless in stature. bogged in magnolia and piñon. black cherry blossom. seething acidity. tip top flavone transparent. 92
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  48 hours resealed in the fridge, the last eight ounces haven't budged. to think it's the cold service temp that causes me to wonder "what if this had bubbles?" Not saying it would be better. nor worse. The acid, salt, and fat are now in tighter embrace. On the other side, so are the aromas and sugar. Can green strawberries be so ripe that they fall of their own weight, easily bruised? Maybe i'm thinking of yellow strawberries. 93

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• 2019 Domaine de Bellivière Grenache Les Arches de Bellivière Raisins Migrateurs 94 Points

  France, Vin de France

  (4/3/2025)

  This, my first 2019, caused a review of other vintages. 2017 may have evoked memories of rayas and charvin at one time. 2019 does not. This is rather like a child of des tours and chaume-arnaud, sweet and solar. SCENT: intoxicating; dripping with iron; oozing ridiculous concentrations of berry perfume. Proud, elegant, endlessly layered, obviously pretty. TEXTURE: raw silk; scrupulous tannin orogeny; drenched in berry saccharide, crystal clear, yet opaque with color density. Its piece-by-piece destruction in every drink is something to behold, the way it decomposes in lettered eloquence. Motor oil, i mean. It's a very young wine still. I don't expect it to accomplish its purpose until 2030, and then who knows.
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  3 hours in, with charred strip steak: the drink confesses mint cream and dark chocolate; it pairs better than i could have guessed.

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• NV Domaine de Bellivière Les P'Tits Vélos 93 Points

  France, Vin de France

  (4/5/2025)

  After 48 hours resealed in the fridge the glossy sensation of fruit sugar is eclipsed by tense acidity; I'm glad I waited. Green plum and orchard blossom flavors are intensified in sepia calendar time. Notice vertical stone structures, coursed through with ionone, preserved lemon, balsam, blueberry, and steeped lime. The penetrating, almost timeless finish reveals saline ligaments, scented wax, and coarse gravel.
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  I drank the version of this cuvée circulating in 2019. It was very dry and odd tasting, and I managed to like it. This batch is different, marked with natural sugar, not challenging to any taste for mature cru chenin. The base wine in this instance is 2021, bottled 12/2022, disgorged 11/2023. Up to 30% is reserve from solera started in 2015. The color is fairly dark, silicon bronze colored. Buy a case; drink once a year avg.

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two chenin, two reds that typify le loir (though one of them is based on grenache, 5% PdA holds the baton,) and one classic rhône grenache.
fantastic. All of them. all will improve/develop over at least a few years.
The least expected among them, in terms of drinking sensation, is les p'tits velos. it's not like the version we saw in 2019. it can age. not sure how long; wager ten years.