NADA ‘Golden Imperial’ Pétillant Rosé NV (2022)

Location: France, Côtes Catalanes, Calce

Winemakers: Raph Baissas de Chastenet and Oscar Mancillas

Grapes: Syrah

Soil: Schist, granite

Winemaking: Indigenous yeasts. A dry wine from direct-pressed Syrah is made and then bottled with unfermented juice from the same vintage, which slowly ferments in the bottle over the course of a year. Aged in bottle, undisgorged. No fining or filtering. No sulfur added

NOTE: this is Frizzante-esque, more effervescent than “bubbly”

From the Importer Super Glou: ‘Golden Imperial’ is a tale of star-crossed stories, a whimsical experiment to rewrite family history. For Oscar, this cuvée is named after his father’s cherished (yet ill-fated) notion to start a company rebranding mis-packaged toilet paper in Mexico, named—you guessed it, Golden Imperial. For Raph, this cuvée is an homage to his grandfather’s thwarted attempts to make sparkling rosé in the 80s. By their powers combined, this wine represents a turn-of-fate: expressly beautiful, lush and fruity, with lengthy acidity and endlessly enjoyability.

NADA is a collaboration between Raph Baissas de Chastenet and Oscar Mancillas, two friends who, through a chance encounter, decided they had something important to say about Calce. It is a project dreamed up over several bottles at their local watering hole, Native in Perpignan—the same bar where they met. It is an endeavor born of the idea to collaborate on 1,000L of wine, which immediately turned into 10,000L of wine since they got along so well. It is the evolution of Raph and Oscar’s friendship—an unlikely connection between a Calce native and an itinerant winemaker from Ensenada, Mexico.

Their wines are incredibly generous and soulful, inspiring the same thirst they promise to quench. They are a delight hiding in plain sight.

Calce itself, in many ways, is the third dimension to their relationship. It’s a diorama of a place: a village so quiet you can hear the wind bouncing off creaky wooden windowsills. Yet it is also of natural winemaking lore. Within this sleepy still-life lies a vibrant culture of organic viticulture and native yeasts. You’d be hard-pressed to find a single drop of conventional wine in Le Presbytère, the restaurant dedicated entirely to local wines nestled in the center of the village. When you roamed the surrounding streets, you’d find door after door of garage wineries, painted in alternating playful and somber colors. Sandwiched somewhere between the likes of Jean-Philippe Padié and Severin Barioz, you’d find Raph and Oscar.

You would enter an arched blue door and an atmosphere of controlled anarchy: IBC tanks, stainless steel vats and large barrels, a black and white flag reading “NADA” draped from the ceiling, a couch smack dab in the middle of the winery, for resting after a hard day’s harvest. You’d find two young guys, one in a black shirt and one in cream stained with grapes, one clean-cut and one wild-eyed, the yin to the other’s yang. They’d be going back and forth, in perfect tandem, explaining how their styles are in sync; Oscar bringing his classic winemaking background to bear, eschewing extraction and de-stemming in favor of Raph’s whole cluster maceration; Raph describing his eternal pursuit of freshness and length, refined by Oscar’s fondness of foudres.

They’d both express their satisfaction with their luck of the draw: having found each other, having access to their own grapes (Grenache Noir, Grenache blanc, Carignan noir, Macabeu, Syrah) as well as a variety of neighbors’ grapes (Roussanne, Muscat d’Alexandrie, Mourvèdre), having a prime position at the crossroads of two distinct terroirs: ancient limestone with clay and river stones from the Corbières and younger, nervier schist from the Pyrénées. Raph would tell you he prefers the schist, since it results in a more elegant, “fine dining” wine, but it depends on what you’re trying to do. When you remarked a wine can have two personalities, Raph would respond, “maybe three or four, depending on the weekend.” Oscar would laugh in agreement. It’s an embarrassment of riches, really.

They’d hand you a glass and pour you a taste and you’d see what they mean. You’d take a sip and ask for another, and another, and another.