Louis/Dressner Selections

A Tribute to Olivier Lemasson

Another irreplaceable loss.

Words from Jules Dressner: My first memory of Olivier Lemasson dates back to a winter Loire trip in January, 2010. I was accompanying my father Joe; he was bullish and needed to participate but had started his cancer treatment a few months prior and lost mobility in his leg. I was by his side the entire time to help him get around but also to absorb what one of these “wine trips” was all about. Too much walking or standing was exhausting for Joe, so he was forced to sit a lot. Throughout the trip, this often meant the vigneron would come and serve him tastes of each wine, not unlike a sommelier at a restaurant. The whole exercise was a bit strange for everyone, and I distinctly remember Olivier pouring us his 2009’s from brut de cuve. I got the sense he really wanted Joe to like it, so I asked my father who he was and he said something very “Joe” to the likes of “Oh that’s Olivier Lemasson. He started his own project a few years ago. We weren’t sure we could sell his crazy wines, but we loved the guy so we started working with him recently.”  I don’t remember how the wines tasted that day and frankly it was a fleeting first impression. To be honest, I was meeting a dizzying amount of vignerons for the first time, tasting hundreds of wines and doting on my father. It was a lot. But in hindsight Joe’s statement crystalized something important. Olivier was part of a late 90’s/early 2000’s wave of producers, along with Tue-Boeuf, Chaussard, Villemade, Mosse, Maupertuis and the early Italians where I feel Denyse, Joe and Kevin started taking bolder risks on “fringe” wines that they weren’t sure they could sell but wanted to because of the people behind them.  And when I returned from that trip to San Francisco, increasingly geekified by working at a wine shop and later Terroir (the first “natural wine” bar in the United States), I distinctly remember discovering and seeking out the Vins Contés wines. My recent obsession with carbonic maceration and Pineau d’Aunis meant sleuthing for every bottle of Poivre et Sel I could get my hands on. I rarely talk about how a vigneron’s wines have affected me because I’ve always been more attracted to the their humanity, vision and philosophy. But I think that for a lot of people like me who really got into wine in the late aughts/early 2010’s, Olivier’s cuvées, particularly his reds, were a gateway into the quirkier, more playful side of what wine could and should be. Beyond their “naturalness”, the R, P’tit Rouquin, Gama Sutra and especially Poivre et Sel were just so fun, unpretentious and, importantly, affordable enough that getting two or three bottles didn’t seem that crazy (nor did drinking them in one sitting). The packaging was fairly out there and almost provokingly juvenile in its design and punny names, making it clear that whoever was making this wasn’t trying to follow any rules or cater to expectations. More than any other producer, I get told Lemasson were some of the first wines to get people hooked. And to this day, Les Vins Contés is the standard bearer in my “wine is meant for drinking” ethos.  By the time I was working full time with LDM in 2011, I was a big fan of Les Vins Contés but barely knew Olivier. This would change on one of his numerous visits to the United States in March with his wife Cécile. We were so much alike: warm and fiercely loyal to those we care about, full of dry humor and with a penchant for cantankerous rants. A match made in grumpy heaven! Interviewing Olivier in a Venice Beach hotel room also permitted me to understand his work philosophy, illuminating the concept of “vin de soif” as a thought out, intentional style of winemaking. It was the beginning of a real friendship, a luxury we are blessed to have with so many of the vignerons we represent.  <img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//736/2f/07/2f07276a62f4359c8caf0eff4e3b83c6.png" />Olivier and Cécile in Venice Beach, March 2011. From that point forward, the memories start to blur and lack chronology. There were the nicer, quieter moments: visiting Olivier and Cécile at their home, staying with them, drinking older vintages of Gama Sutra and Cheville de Fer, going to a 14th of July celebration to see the fireworks with their young daughters, Olivier jump starting my car after I’d let the brights on all night. Or Olivier showing his Brittany pride with his delicious fish fries. Then were the wacky hijinks of touring the USA: the insane bill we had to cover for Jorge’s hedonistic birthday meal at M.Wells diner, desperately trying to find a six pack in a deserted midtown night when they were staying at the Trump Tower, laughing our asses off that we were in the Trump Tower (no I’m not making that up, our Nevada distributor’s parents used to own an apartment there and for years let vignerons crash there), crawling the streets of NOLA late night with Loïc Roure and seeing the beginning of a budding friendship between the two, heated arguments about nothing and mutual apologies the next day… Perhaps my fondest memories with Olivier revolve around our annual “casse croute” tradition at the Dive Bouteille. Since the Dive is an all day event, Olivier and a group of neighboring vignerons would pool together an impressive array of cheeses and charcuterie behind their barrels to snack on throughout the day. Unsolicited (though probably aware and accommodating to my constant hunger), Olivier told me one year that I was always welcome to come chow down. I gladly relished this opportunity, not only to feed myself but also to get away from the stain-teethed, tannin lipped small talks these fairs force one into. This offer encapsulated Olivier’’s kindness and generosity, but also reminds me of a heartwarming moment we shared. It was the first year at the Dive’s current location in Saumur’s Caves Ackerman, and the Loire section was in a long corridor with wine bottles propped from the ceiling shining a hideous neon pink/purple hue (no one thought having vignerons spend 10 hours in what felt like the world’s worst hookah bar was a bad idea). While having my casse-croute behind Olivier’s barrel, some schmuck who I’d just overheard do the exact the same thing to Christian Venier came over and basically lied through his teeth that Dressner was doing a terrible job at importing the Vins Contés wines and that he couldn’t find them anywhere in Boston. The guy had no idea who I was, making the whole situation absurd and hilarious. After Olivier shooed him off, we burst into a long fit of laughter. I remember his trademark expressions: that big grin, rolling his eyes to the side while shaking his head in amusement followed by a warm tap on the shoulder. I realize now this was a beautiful moment: some asshole had unintentionally shined a neon light on our implicit trust and loyalty, both in friendship and in business. I couldn’t wait to see Olivier and Cécile again this summer, my first Loire summer tour since 2016. I was planning to stay with them and days away from writing about my visit when I got the news. I’ll still be going and seeing my extended vigneron family in July, but it’s not going to be the same. The paradigm has shifted and there will be an irreplaceable void in the Cher, in the Loire, in our lives and in our glasses. Au revoir Olivier, tu ne saura jamais a quel point tu va me manquer.   <img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//736/97/0c/970cae7a00ce0a5151664f0360a1a567.jpg" />

How does The New Website Work?

This is very exciting stuff!

Desktop vs Mobile: We know it's 2020 and people use their phones a lot. So we've worked hard on ensuring the site functions well on mobile (especially compared to what it once was). Having said that, desktop is the recommended way of perusing the site. Glossary: At its core, this has always been a website written for wine professionals *attempting* to glean information on the wines we import (and hopefully see a picture of the vigneron's dog). Since the language can be so technical, we've added an <glossary term="glossary" title="1427">interactive glossary</glossary> to the text for those unfamiliar with the baffllingly complex world of wine terminology. Even if you're a seasoned pro, it will frankly teach you a thing or two. And if you'd rather read the content without the glossary, simply head to the main menu bar and turn it off.   Our Wines Section:  In the new "Our Wines" section, we've offered a variety of filter categories for you to explore and discover all the cuvées we import. These filters can be combined together to narrow down results. If you hit a wall, simply erase one of the filters or clear all filters.  Actual Information About the Wines: Speaking of the wines, the number one complaint we would get from customers was the lack of technical information on the wines themselves. It's not a coincidence that we spend the vast majority of our energy focusing on the people behind the wines and their dogs; it's what we dig about what we do. Having said that, 95% of the wines we import now have EXTREMELY detailed technical information, dare I say the most technical anywhere on the internet. Please enjoy now while they are up to date, knowing that half of these will probably be totally wrong by next vintage.  Search: If you know what producer or wine you are searching for, the search should quickly autofill what you need. Go ahead, give it a whirl. Hyperlinks: Everything on the website has a hyperlink now. This means you can easily share a specific producer page, article, wine or filter combination with anyone.  Copy/Paste: If you need to copy/paste anything, the glossary needs to be turned off for the text to paste correctly. Also, if you are going to straight up use our writing verbatim, PLEASE credit us when doing so. Seems obvious but we see it happen all the time.  A Shit-Ton of Written Content: The articles themselves can often be very long, and for this reason we developed a Propriety Pop Up System™ where you can easily scroll through various articles/wines and "pop out" to efficiently look at the rest of the content. We've tried our best to pack as many dog pictures as possible in there, but the digital ink has been spilled: the cumulation of decades' worth of writings from Joe, Denyse, Kevin and Jules is here for you to read. A huge part of the work with this new website was to find better ways to condense and extract essential information you need without getting lost in all that BORING text.  We still think you should check it out. Don't worry, there are plenty of pictures. And you might even find the writing interesting. Or funny. Or both.

EXPLORE

producer profile 16.11.2021

Paraiso Natural Producer Profile

Paraiso Natural is a micro-project between New York based Brits Liz Mckiver, Richard Barnett and their Portuguese friends Miguel and Leli Viseu. High in the mountains of the <glossary term="Ponte de Lima" title="1452">Ponte di Lima</glossary> and nestled in the tiny village of Paraiso (aka "paradise"), a single vineyard of <glossary term="Loureiro" title="1423">Loureiro</glossary> grows at 300 meters <glossary term="Elevation" title="419">elevation</glossary>. Very few vines are planted at such high <glossary term="Elevation" title="419">elevation</glossary>, even less surrounded by a completely natural environment. Only 20km off the coast, the vines are constantly touched by the ocean's breeze and are grown <glossary term="Organic" title="746">organically</glossary>.  The property totals roughly 4.5 <glossary term="Hectare" title="523">hectares</glossary>, with just one <glossary term="Hectare" title="523">hectare</glossary> currently planted. The vines were planted in 2013 and acquired by Mckiver and Barnett in 2017. The goal from the beginning has been "to love and preserve the land, the soil, the vines. To allow the grapes to express themselves naturally. To grow and bottle a beautiful wine, with no intervention in the vineyard, no <glossary term="Additive" title="1192">additives</glossary> in the bottle." Miguel Viseu, in additon to working as head winemaker at the beloved Aphros <glossary term="Estate" title="427">estate</glossary> and his own project <a href="https://louisdressner.com/producers/galactic%20wines">Galactic Wines</a> with his wife Leli, is in charge of the viticulture and winemaking. A single wine is made without any <glossary term="Enology" title="422">oenological</glossary> <glossary term="Intervention" title="545">intervention</glossary>, including <glossary term="Fining" title="449">fining</glossary>, <glossary term="Filtration" title="447">filtration</glossary> or <glossary term="Sulfites" title="993">SO2</glossary> additions. There is no rushing it to market and it is <glossary term="Bottling" title="185">bottled</glossary> when deemed ready.  Some of the land is suited for planting vines, but if this does happen it will be slowly and organically when the time is right. Due to the miniscule size of the project, we get less than 200 bottles a year.

producer profile 16.11.2021

Passofonduto Producer Profile

<glossary term="Contrada" title="330">Contrada</glossary> Passofonduto is located about 25 kms from Agrigento and the south coast of central <glossary term="Sicily" title="951">Sicily</glossary> on the edge of the province of Caltanisetta. This is a landscape of steep outcrops that was once a source of salt and sulfur. The mines now lay unused as the demand for rock salt and rock sulfur has moved over to industrial sources. But the richness in these minerals is evident in the soils all around making it a very unique area to cultivate vines.  In 2015 Giuseppe Cipolla began planting vines on a <glossary term="Plot" title="1133">plot</glossary> of land that his family cultivated mainly for other crops like grains, olives, fruits and legumes. Working with two other <glossary term="Plot" title="1133">plots</glossary> of grapes that were already established in the <glossary term="Contrada" title="330">Contrade</glossary> Torre di Salto d’ Angio and San Vicenzo he began the search for his ideal expression of <glossary term="Terroir" title="1026">terroir</glossary> in the wines he started making. The majority of the vines are cultivated in <glossary term="Gobelet" title="497">alberello</glossary> and planted on a very steep hillside of rocky <glossary term="Chalk" title="266">chalk</glossary> based soils consisting of <glossary term="Gypsum" title="1453">gypsum</glossary>, <glossary term="Halite" title="1454">halite</glossary>, <glossary term="Calcareous" title="222">calcareous</glossary> sulfur and other types of salt deposits from the Messinian period about 5-6 million years ago. The work is hard but a labor of love and quality for Giuseppe. In the <glossary term="Contrada" title="330">Contrada</glossary> Passofonduto he built all the <glossary term="Terrace" title="1022">terraces</glossary> of the 1.5 <glossary term="Hectare" title="523">hectares</glossary> he has already planted and is creating more for future plantings. The total surface of the farm is 16 <glossary term="Hectare" title="523">hectares</glossary> and he plans to continue a mixed use of vines, cereals and fruits, but with more vines.  He's planted <glossary term="Nero d'Avola" title="714">Nero d’Avola</glossary> and <glossary term="Nerello Mascalese/Nerello Cappuccio" title="713">Nerello Mascalese</glossary> for reds; <glossary term="Grillo" title="511">Grillo</glossary>, <glossary term="Zibibbo" title="1131">Zibibbo</glossary> and <glossary term="Catarratto" title="249">Catarratto</glossary> for whites. The vines have all been <glossary term="Grafting" title="500">grafted</glossary> in place on <glossary term="Rootstock" title="869">American rootstock</glossary>, except for one small <glossary term="Parcel" title="760">parcel</glossary> of <glossary term="Zibibbo" title="1131">Zibibbo</glossary> that was <glossary term="Grafting" title="500">pre-grafted</glossary> at a nursery. He uses various <glossary term="Selection Massale" title="941">massale</glossary> <glossary term="Clones" title="304">clones</glossary> to increase resistance to maladies. The old <glossary term="Plot" title="1133">plots</glossary> in Torre di Salto have a number of vines planted in unknown local white <glossary term="Varietal" title="1071">varieties</glossary>.  The initial <glossary term="Fermentation" title="441">fermentations</glossary> are done in <glossary term="Fiberglass" title="445">fiberglass</glossary> <glossary term="Vat/Tank" title="1140">tanks</glossary> or in <glossary term="Wood" title="1126">wood</glossary>, then <glossary term="Racking/Soutirage" title="843">racked</glossary> to continue <glossary term="Fermentation" title="441">fermentation</glossary> in <glossary term="Barrel" title="142">barrel</glossary> and finally <glossary term="Racking/Soutirage" title="843">racked</glossary> into <glossary term="Stainless Steel" title="986">stainless steel</glossary> for assembly before <glossary term="Bottling" title="185">bottling</glossary>. Right now there are three wines of note.  "Solfare" (the name while meaning “to <glossary term="Sulfites" title="993">sulfur</glossary>” actually derives from the name a particular geologic formation of rock sulfur in the area) - a white wine from mostly <glossary term="Grillo" title="511">Grillo</glossary> and <glossary term="Catarratto" title="249">Catarratto</glossary>, <glossary term="De-stemming" title="378">destemmed</glossary>, <glossary term="Maceration" title="610">macerated</glossary> for one day in <glossary term="Fiberglass" title="445">fiberglass</glossary> then <glossary term="Fermentation" title="441">fermened</glossary> and <glossary term="Aging" title="74">aged</glossary> half in <glossary term="Stainless Steel" title="986">stainless steel</glossary> and half in French <glossary term="Oak" title="731">oak</glossary> <glossary term="Barrel" title="142">barrels</glossary>. The grapes here come from the <glossary term="Contrada" title="330">Contrada</glossary> Torre di Salto d’ Angio. The vines are over 40 years old and <glossary term="Gobelet" title="497">alberello</glossary> converted to <glossary term="Pergola" title="774">pergola</glossary>. The <glossary term="Contrada" title="330">contrada</glossary> is about 500m <glossary term="Elevation" title="419">elevation</glossary> with various <glossary term="Exposition" title="430">expositions</glossary> depending on the <glossary term="Parcel" title="760">parcel</glossary> going from north to northwest. "Le Robbe" is a red wine from <glossary term="Nero d'Avola" title="714">Nero d’Avola</glossary> with 15% <glossary term="Aromatic" title="120">aromatic</glossary> white grapes, <glossary term="De-stemming" title="378">destemmed</glossary> and <glossary term="Maceration" title="610">macerated</glossary> from one to three days then <glossary term="Fermentation" title="441">fermented</glossary> and <glossary term="Aging" title="74">aged</glossary> in <glossary term="Barrel" title="142">barrel</glossary>. The grapes here come from Torre di Salto d’ Angio (230 year old vines in <glossary term="Gobelet" title="497">alberello</glossary> and <glossary term="Pergola" title="774">pergola</glossary>) and <glossary term="Contrada" title="330">Contrada</glossary> San Vicenzo (15 year old vines <glossary term="Training System" title="1039">trained</glossary> in <glossary term="Guyot" title="518">guyot</glossary> on opaque <glossary term="Limestone" title="596">limestone</glossary> and a dark <glossary term="Clay" title="301">clay</glossary>). "Passofonduto" is another red wine from <glossary term="Nero d'Avola" title="714">Nero d'Avola</glossary> and 10% <glossary term="Nerello Mascalese/Nerello Cappuccio" title="713">Nerello Mascalese</glossary>, <glossary term="De-stemming" title="378">destemmed</glossary>, lightly crushed and <glossary term="Maceration" title="610">macerated</glossary> for six days. It comes exclusively from the <glossary term="Contrada" title="330">Contrada</glossary> Passofonduto, the vines Giuseppe has planted himself. There will be more wines in the future including a <glossary term="Rosé/Rosato" title="871">Rosato</glossary> in 2021 with grapes sourced from the <glossary term="Contrada" title="330">Contrada</glossary> Torre di Salto d’ Angio. There is absolutely no doubt that Giuseppe has the potential, passion, grapes and <glossary term="Terroir" title="1026">terroir</glossary> to continue to develop a formidable <glossary term="Estate" title="427">estate</glossary> in a remarkably unique region of <glossary term="Sicily" title="951">Sicily</glossary>. It’s pretty exciting.