Cabernet Sauvignon, Loire Valley, France 

Returning to centre stage, Patrick’s ‘other red’, occasionally made with a dollop of cab franc, this year we are looking at a 100% cab sauv worth dying a beautifully tragic death for. Winemaker Patrick Desplats self identifies as a plant, breathing sunshine & eating air. Co-founder of the well known Domaine Des Griottes (2000-2010) with Babass, now Patrick does everything according to his intuition and his wines seem to be in conversation with his own version of the world. Working alongside nature in the Loire valley, surrounded by his ever growing wine forest™ – yes, he is training vines up trees to give them a better chance at surviving the ever changing climate and weather systems (a technique invented in ancient Georgia). Two months of maceration before being pressed to quevri, this wine is light and lifted to the nose, as if on a pedestal in Mount Olympus. Tying cherry stems with your tongue, poblano skins, chalkboard dust, but sapid and dark, like a fox den inside a thicket of overripe blackberries. Pour when the pig flies, the moon sets fire & the clock strikes the 25th hour.