Baka, Blanc No.1

100% Mauzac from Arriège that was directly pressed into cuve for an 8 month rest. This is more direct than the pet nat and shows a more saline and floral side to the grape. Like walking through a botanical garden while eating salty crisps. 

Grapes: Mauzac

Place: Jura, France

ABV: 11%

Colour: White

Vintage: 2019

PRODUCER PROFILE

Baka is the collaborative project between longtime friends Sébastien Morin, Jean-Marc Brignot, Stéphane Planche and Charles Dagand. As anyone already familiar with Seb’s journey will know, he met Jean-Marc when living in Paris and was more or less the reason he now makes wine, having spent much of the early 2000s travelling between the city and Jura to help in his cellar. The collaboration includes another two familiar faces to us — we met Stéphane Planche a few years ago when travelling through Arbois. His hospitality in his iconic wine shop, Les Jardins de St Vincent, is legendary, and if you catch him on a good day, there is no telling what treasures he will unearth from his magnificent cellar. Charles Dagand, is the ex-partner in life and work of Alice Bouvot of Domaine de L’Octavin and much of the impetus for this project seems to have come from him due to a few terrible vintages where he lost all his grapes to disease and frost. Charles and Stephane are embarking on another project together called Karnage Vin, the results of which we are very excited to taste. 

The group harvested the majority of the grapes from different vineyards around Languedoc, sourced with the help of Anthony Tortul of La Sorga. There is also a small addition of a little of Seb’s Gamay from Beaujolais and all the wines were vinified in Seb’s cellar in Saint-Étienne-Des-Ouillières. 

The results bear the elements of experience each has brought to the project as well as a combined hallmark style that shines through — pure and vibrant wines that are just a little wild, all with endless character.