Greffiere Macon la Roche Vineuse “Sous le Bois” 2018

Sale $16.89 – Beats Best US Price Online
Buy six or more pay $15.99
Buy a case $14.99 per

91 pts John Gilman – View from the Cellar

Another Global Warming special…

“Sous le Bois” means “below the woods”… as this wine comes from a single, 30 year-old vineyard planted at the top of the hill behind the winery. Check out the picture. Pretty steep!

So what? So, the forest helps protect the vineyard from frost in the winter. And the high altitude, in today’s warmer climate, allows for a level of acidity and minerality not typically found in the Macon anymore. Floral notes give way to bright apple and pear flavors melded with the aforementioned acidity along with just a hint of vanilla. A superb buy… so much that I cleaned the distributor out of every last case!

“I have been enjoying this bottling of Macon La Roche Vineuse from the Greuzard family since the vintages of the mid-1980s, though there are two different cuvees of this wine, with the Sous le Bois hailing from a lieu a dit planted to thirty year-old vines that sits at the highest elevation in the appellation. The 2018 Sous le Bois really shows its limestone character in its aromatic constellation of apple, pear, complex, chalky minerality, a whisper of vanillin oak and a topnote of white flowers. On the palate the wine is deep, bright and full, with a fine core of fruit, superb mineral drive and cut, fine focus and a long, poised and complex finish that closes with fine lift. This is very, very good (and quite minerally) Macon that really shows off its higher elevation advantage in the vintage of 2018!”


Or reply. The wine is available now in Chapel Hill. Friday, as ordered, in Hillsborough.