Monday, October 14, 2013

La Gramiere! Why La Gramiere.


Amy Lillard and Matt Kling

When we visited London in May to attend the Raw Wine Fair we met up again with Amy from La Gramiere who was showing her wines. We have always admired what she and her husband Matt did. 

Matt and Amy met at the Kermit Lynch retail shop in Berkeley. Amy worked at the store and Matt was a customer. In 2005 they left the Bay Area and moved to a small town in the Southern Rhone 20 minutes outside of Avignon, where they bought 3.75 hectares of vineyards in the Cotes du Rhone, and a small house, and started making wine. 

Well not exactly. Long story short they did make the wine, but not without a lot of sacrifice and a lot of determination. They do almost all of the work themselves, with occasional help from their friends and family at harvest. The grapes are hand-picked, without anything added or taken away. They cultivate without herbicides or pesticides and vinify in concrete vats with naturally occurring yeasts. The result: a true wine of place made mostly of Grenache with a little Syrah and Mourvedre. 

It's lively and fresh, peppery, with supple tannins. Originally imported by Kermit Lynch, Amy told us her wines were currently unavailable in New York. So we wondered how we could do the situation justice and decided to bring them in ourselves! Hence our first Thirst Merchants Selection is born. The La Gramiere Green Label 2011 is just $15/bottle and $13.50/bottle when you buy a case (in store only). 


Going forward we will share some of our other finds with you. We will soon have an e-commerce site up and running. As you may know by dropping by our little store in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, we love those wines that are made in such tiny quantities that essentially if you're not aware that they're currently available you might miss out!

THIRST TOTE BAGS ARE BACK!
For a limited time, get one of our classic totes FREE when you purchase 6 or more bottles.
WE DELIVER.