Les Déplaude de Tartaras ‘l’Écume des Jours’ Blanc 2020

Location: France, Rhône

Winemaker: Pierre-Andre & Anne Deplaude

Grapes: Marsanne, Roussanne

Soil: schist, micaschist, clay

Winemaking: elevage for 10 months in egg and barrique

From us at M&L: Like art, some of the best wines come from the margins; the liminal, interstitial spaces; the edge.

Not quite Rhônish, or Beaujoish, or Savoish(!), but not really “Lyonnaise” either (more provincial, paysan), the wines from our stalwart farmers, Deplaudes, show flashes from all of these regions, yet exist wholly as their own “genre”. These are polished, classically delineated wines in structure, but their earnest amalgam of grape/terroir/mood sets them squarely outside conventional context. We love them. If you have been in the shop over the past few years you may have noticed an outsized portion of shelving dedicated to these in-between wines.

Beyond the beauty of the shimmery, spicy whites or fresh-but-polished reds within each bottle, there is an even deeper reveal: these are wines that disburden the drinker. They are pure, elemental, and complex, and they require no preconception, knowledge, or expertise. They are for you and whomever is sitting at your table.

‘L’Écume des Jours’: like fresh quince, pear, and ripe pineapple suspended in the purest dust. Fruited but rich, perfect with richer chicken dishes.

From the importer Selection Massale: “We were farmers before we were vignerons,” Pierre-Andre and Anne Deplaude like to say with no small measure of pride.It’s often said that wines are made in the vineyard, not in the winery. This is of course a simplification but we’ve always liked working with those vignerons with big callused hands from the field, not cravats and suits, so imagine how happy when we stumbled on wines being made by people in love with the idea of polyculture, that wine was just a part of their farm. When Pierre-Andre and Anne started to farm in the out of the way Coteaux-Du-Gier somewhere between Lyon and Clermont-Ferrand wine wasn’t a priority, instead it was grains, fruits and dairy cows, as well as a tiny production of wines. This kept going until the early 2000s when a drop in milk prices forced them to rethink a few things, and they decided to take some of their most interesting land and convert it to vineyards.​What didn’t change was the commitment to be farmers first, to work the land honestly and responsibly and have the product reflect that, be it wine or milk. When Guilhaume, Michael and I first tasted these wines we were amazed to be drinking such pure terroir driven wines from a region we hadn’t even heard of days before.