Il Fait Soif takes its name from a 1950s French philosopher's phrase, roughly "it's thirsty out there", the sort of excuse the French have never needed much help finding. Maxime-François Laurent farms these 15 to 30-year-old Grenache vines organically on clay and limestone in the Southern Rhône, and the clay gives the fruit its flesh while the limestone keeps the mid-palate lifted rather than heavy. Some wines are built to be pondered; this one is built to be drunk.
Tasting Notes
Il fait soif roughly translates to something like “It’s thirsty weather” or “It’s thirsty out there.” The term was coined in the 1950s by a French philosopher musing about how his countrymen viewed wine as a thirst-quenching beverage, of which one could always find a reasonable excuse to indulge. Maxime-François Laurent has made quite the homage to that reasoning, a thirst-quenching breuvage of Grenache with a dollop of Syrah, vinified whole-cluster carbonic style, for maximum refreshment of all sorts. Maxime, whose mother, Michèle Aubéry, runs Domaine Gramenon, logically adopted the Gramenon philosophy for his own project. Having grown up around the domaine’s organically and biodynamically maintained vineyards, giving the fruit destined for his own bottlings the same attentive care was an obvious choice. Maxime’s idyllic vineyards sit in the northern reaches of the southern Rhône Valley. There are gently rolling hills, beautifully forested where not planted in vines, and the views are sublime. This land produces fantastic Grenache, cooler and fresher than that of the flatlands, and the vinification style here fits the terroir like a glove. Inspired by the wines of Marcel Lapierre, Maxime’s “Il Fait Soif” is made for immediate, easy-drinking pleasure. Serve it now, serve it cool. This may be our most quaffable Southern Rhône red.
