Mushmouth meow

Coste 2005 Coteaux du Giennois “Biau!” (Loire) – 80% gamay, 20% pinot noir. Best well-chilled. Crisp, light, fresh. Tiny wild berries, barely red, offering more of a suggestion of fruit rather than fruit itself. There’s some bone and tooth to the finish, which is quite airy. And yes, I like the pun (the wine’s organic). (6/11)

Pastry

Balland “Les Beaux Jours” 2007 Coteaux du Giennois (Loire) – Dried fruit (the candy, I mean, but not sweet in quite that way…though there’s a certain fruit-sweetness to the wine, and maybe even a micro-touch of residual sugar) and dusty, light-washed minerality. Enjoyable. (4/09)

Still Ormousseaux

Veneau “Domaine des Ormousseaux” 2005 Coteaux du Giennois (Loire) – 80% pinot noir, 20% gamay. There’s a delicate, yearning sweetness (not the sugary kind) to the red fruit here, which is then lifted by a spikier, crisper take on the same general palette of berries; I’m attributing this to the grapes, because it would seem to fit their personalities. Flaky and brittle when the minerality shows, but shyly pretty otherwise. I am enormously fond of this wine…and “fond” is the perfect word here. (3/08)