Tried the first bottle of a new wine from Alexandre Bain yesterday evening, 2017 Terre d'Obus, snapped above from a wine merchant whom I have yet to use. And while I paid a bit more than I usually do, I did not pay anything like 52 euros. Sauvignon Blanc, possibly a relation of Pouilly-Fumé although it doesn't say anything about that on the label.
Tasted even more of old-fashioned cider, the stuff you used to drink in cider houses in the west country, than the Pierre Précieuse that I started out at Terroirs with - the stuff that the waitress queried with a colleague because she thought that it smelt a bit odd, but came back to say that that was how it was supposed to smell.
A slightly tart taste, with more than a hint of fizz about it. A cloudy yellow - another feature of old-fashioned cider - which I used to like when I was young. Possibly to do with this puff from the grower: 'The entirety of our vineyard is certified organic and biodynamic. We plough partly by horse and we spray tea on the vines to protect against fungus. All our grapes are picked by hand and our wine is produced using only grape juice! No added enzymes, no added yeasts, no added sugar, no fining...'. From which one might reasonably infer no added apple or apple juice, cider or otherwise. I thought it was rather good, but BH didn't like it at all. All the more for me! Maybe a quarter of a bottle left to tidy up this evening.
I wondered about the curious name 'Terre d'Obus', literally shell ground. I thought perhaps shell hole, but that is usually 'trou d'obus'. Bing is much keener on turning up references to the wine than translations of the name, but he did turn up reference 2, which suggests that the phrase might mean ground in which bits of shell keep turning up, presumably mostly first world war battlefields. So still curious given that Tracy-sur-Loire is a long way south of the western front of that war.
Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/06/topped-up.html. Recent notice of Bain.
Reference 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MIN8XUs-3g.
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