French Wine Regions featured at Club Vino,
primarily in conjunction with Maison Vauron:

Alsace (2010)
Alsace (2012)
Beaujolais (2013)
Bordeaux (2011)
Burgundy (2012)
Burgundy - Red (2010)
Burgundy - White (2010)
Champagne (2010)
Champagne (2011)
Champagne (2012)
Languedoc - Roussillon (2011)
Languedoc - Roussillon (2012)
Loire Valley (2010)
Rhône - Northern (2011)
Rhône - Southern (2011)
Rhône (2013)

Domaine Puig Parahy
(Roussillon, nr Perpignan)

The Puig-Parahy family

Georges Puig's estate in Passa, ten hilly miles southeast of Perpignan, is like a time capsule, filled with ancient documents, ancient paraphernalia, and most importantly, ancient fortified wines some in bottle, most still in tanks and casks. Ranks of long-since abandoned terraces receding toward the Pyrenees testify to a time when the world had an enormous appetite for this areas oxidized Grenache-based wines, and if you taste through a significant subset of the 46 extant vintages in Puig's cellar, you begin to understand why.

In 1446, Etienne Parahy became the first owner of vineyards in the Aspres area between the Canigou mountain and the Mediterranean, and 18 generations later in 1980 Georges Puig inherited the family domaine. The vineyards were completely destroyed by phylloxera in 1878. It took an amazing amount of courage and backbreaking effort by Georges grandfather to replant . Across the 140ha there is great diversity of terroirs: with the argilo-limestones of Saint-Pierre, the stonier Sant Luc, and the solid schist around the farmhouse of Miserys. Added to the complexity of the soil have been the diversity of vine varieties planted: Syrah, Carignan, black, gray, and white Grenache, Muscatel of Alexandria, Macabeu, Mourvdre and Muscatel small grains.

Monmousseau
(Touraine, Loire Valley)

In 1886, Monmousseau was founded in one of Touraine's largest abandoned limestone quarries, providing the finest cellars for wine making - with 15km of underground tunnels, a constant temperature of 12°C & constant 90% humidity. The tunnels themselves were carved into the soft limestone cliffs over the centuries & greatly enlarged in the Renaissance, when big blocks of limestone were quarried as building material for the monumental royal chateaux of the Loire Valley.

In the early 1900's, Justin-Marcel Monmousseau studied the Dom Perignon 'méthode traditionnelle' process, and began making sparkling wine, predominantly with Chenin Blanc grapes grown in the Vouvray appellation. Internationally known for their sparkling wines, Monmousseau also distribute Loire Valley still wines that it has sourced from other winemakers, aged in their cellars & then blended to their own style.