Les Bois Perdus, "Elle Tremble" 2021

Ardèche, France. A delicate expression of Merlot from vines rooted in schist. Half of the grapes are destemmed, half direct-pressed, followed by fermentation with wild yeasts in stainless steel. Unfined, unfiltered, no SO2. 

In the Ardèche, the corridor of rocky hill-faces and alternating patches of Mediterranean scrub and rugged woodlands descending from the Massif Central and into the Rhône Valley eastward, a new winemaking light has emerged in the natural wine world's broad sky. Léna Perdu and Alexis Robin work in the town of Aubignas, not far at all from their friend Sylvain Bock and the rest of the Ardèche crowd in Alba-la-Romaine and Valvignères, where for the past several years they've turned 3 hectares of organic vineyard land into their own kind of dream. Many years of work in the film industry eventually led to, how their importer Super Glou phrased it, "leave(ing) it all behind and respond(ing) to the call of the wild... the Ardèche, with its sprawling collection of cliffs and gorges and enchanted forests." With the help of their likeminded neighbors -- whose wines were often the inspiration for the couple w/r/t anything vinous -- "Les Bois Perdus" (tr.: "The Lost Woods," an extended play on their names) produce fascinating expressions of grapes like Merlot, Gamay, Syrah, Grenache, and Carignan that mix and match the variety of terroir/aspect with likewise multivarious vinification technique, as is often the case with our favorites from this area like Anders Fredrik Steen, the Oustrics, and Bock. First time stateside - certainly these are wines to watch!