Loire Love Letter: Matt Mollo, The Wine Bottega, Boston

In this week’s Loire Love Letter we hear from Matt Mollo of Boston’s The Wine Bottega and of the sense of community he experienced during a day with the group he calls “The Gang of Loire.”

The Gang of Loire

Brissac-Quince, Sometime in September last year—I got a late day email by way of a somewhat shifty internet connection in a farmhouse outside Brissac, the first time I had checked into reality for the past ten days. My wife and I had just finished up a rather cliché roast chicken from the local butcher and washed it down with some kind of pink-ish Loir pet’nat that I had stumbled upon in a Paris wine bar; delicious. The email couldn’t have been more serendipitous. It was actually a sting of emails between NYC and Mr. Rene Mosse talking about an open house tasting at his wine garage the next day. I had been trying to contact the Mosse’s while in Brissac but they were actually in the south of France harvesting with some friends before they came north to work their own vines. Upon closer inspection of this email I soon realized that it would be a full-on gathering of some of the Loire’s leading natural winemakers, what I call The Gang of Loire. We still had a lot of Saturday night to spend in nearby Angers, so we headed into town to check out the famed wine bar called Le Cercle Rouge (named after one of my favorite French heist movies).  We sat, ordered plates of mixed meats and pickles and managed to taste most every wine they had by the glass. It was a pretty quiet night, so we eventually ended up meeting the two young managers/co-owners of the bar, all the while sipping naturally made chenin blanc from the likes of Robinot, Briseau and others I definitely cannot remember; bons temps.  

Sunday morning arrived a little too early, but it was a lovely day for an open house tasting at Domaine Mosse.  Rene’s house and winery was only about 20 minutes away, so we took our time traveling along the Coteaux du Layon wine route.  Until now I knew only that several other vignerons would be there that day, but upon arrival I saw a familiar face, Thierry Puzelat.  Next to him was Christian (the Patapon himself) and Nathalie Chaussard of Domaine Le Briseau with Rene Mosse in the middle and Pascal Potaire huddling over a bottle of fizzy, cloudy, bottle fermented wine; his specialty.  The sun was out, the harvest was just a few days away and everyone’s spirits were high.  A small group of local wine buyers, restaurant sommeliers and low level natural wine drinkers like myself had gathered to taste some new vintages and stock up their shops.  The guys from Le Cercle Rouge show up, pile their tiny French wago-van full wine and head back to the bar.  Conviviality abounds.  In fact, it is this very kind of camaraderie that I believe makes the world of “natural wine” that much more interesting; especially here in the Loire. These guys are not competitors, they are neighbors, friends and mentors.  They drink each other’s wines and ask each other for advice. This is the Gang of Loire.

- Matt Mollo, The Wine Bottega

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