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Domaine Belema Imago, IGP Vin des Allobroges, Savoie, France 2023 (from £34.75, terrawines.co.uk (lescaves.co.uk) The story behind the delicately delightful Alpine dry white wine that is Domaine Belema Imago is unusually moving. It’s a tale that begins in the hillside vines of Domaine Belluard in the village of Ayse in the Haute-Savoie region of the French Alps, where Domaine Belema’s Yann Pernuit, originally from Normandy, learned his trade as a vigneron alongside his friend and mentor, Dominique Belluard. A believer in biodynamic viticulture and the immense potential of the extremely rare local white grape gringet, Belluard’s refined and evocative wines had become cult favourites in the global sommelier community by the time of his tragic death, by suicide, in 2021. Imago is Pernuit’s tribute to the memory of the much-missed Belluard, a pristine representation of the gringet variety that meant so much to Belluard and which Pernuit is committed to preserving, and a wine in which a swell of fresh apple combines with graceful surging mineral acidity.
Domaine Dupraz En Route Pour L’Apero, Apremeont, Savoie, France 2023 (from £19.50, gnarlyvines.co.uk; lescaves.co.uk; highburylibrary.co.uk) Pernuit was very far from being the only winemaker moved by the death of Belluard. Indeed, some of the biggest names in natural wine (including Jean-Claude Lapalu from Beaujolais, Théo Dancer in Burgundy, and Franck Balthazar in the Rhône) made a series of tribute bottles in their own styles from grapes sent to them by the Belluard family harvested in the vintage after he died. Those fascinating (and very hard to find) wines, each of which show a subtly different side to gringet, were among various fine Savoyard wines on show at a tasting hosted by UK importer Les Caves de Pyrene earlier this month. Other highlights at the tasting included the wines made from Belluard’s vines – in a beguilingly bright but resonant style not dissimilar to “the master of ginget” – by a young winemaker, Vincent Ruiz, at Domaine du Gringet; and Domaine Dupraz’s effortlessly pear-scented, Alpine stream-racy En Route Pour L’Apero dry white, made from another local hero Savoie variety, jacquère.
Grace Wine Kayagatake Koshu, Yamanashi, Japan 2023 (£30.99, Selfridges) Tasting through Les Caves’ range of Savoie whites, the words that kept cropping up in my notes were “graceful” and “subtle”. These are vinous virtues that don’t always get a fair hearing (or tasting): served alongside bigger, more loudly fruity or aromatic wines, the more understated but no less complex and rewarding qualities can be overwhelmed and come across as insipid. But just as there are times when I’d rather be soothed and slowly charmed by a solo piano rather than energised by the immediate obvious sensual thrill of a rock or jazz band, so the quiet wines are often the most stimulating and pleasurable – not to mention being the best accompaniment to quieter, more subtle food, such as silken tofu or sushi. Such thoughts were also at the forefront as I tasted a range of wines made from the discreetly charming Japanese grape koshu by Grace Winery, 100km west of Tokyo in Yamanashi recently. Wines such as the Kayagatake have a sinuous, serenely insistent quality that is, like the best jacquère and gringet, quietly beautiful.
