Maisons Brulees
Silene 2015
Sauvignon Blanc
Touraine, France
Tracking down wines of Maisons Brulees’ original owner Michel Augé has been a point of obsession for me in the past year, having initially imbibed his nectars during two very special moments in 2023, but in a way, failing to capture the essence each time. The first time was over a Sauvignon that was blinded on me, but without the blinder knowing that the wine, out of magnum, would be fully sweet–it was too early in the evening for 1500 ml of sweet wine, so we had just a glass and moved onto the next magnum of dry red wine, and then we went back to the Augé later in the night but hardly made a dent. The other time, at Wine Bar Alpes in Toyama, Japan, Augé’s oxidative Sauvignon Blanc was presented to my friend and I as a blind as well, but there was something wrong with the bottle, the wine tasting a bit metallic and bruised. Crown cap taint was what Zack, the proprietor claimed after being very visibily defeated and disappointed by the suspect liquid. Frustrated, he opened another, and voila, the same thing happened. My obsession with Augé comes with the respect towards him from both winemakers and cavistes who I look up to—Aurelien Lefort considered Augé a master at one point, Samuel Boulay was a neighbor and mentee at another, and the reverence for Augé just generally runs deep among the top tier level of heads out there. Anyways, Paul and Corrine, current owners of the domaine have held things down in their own way since taking over the domaine, and Silene is consistently one of my favorite cuvées.
750 ml
$30
Silene 2015
Sauvignon Blanc
Touraine, France
Tracking down wines of Maisons Brulees’ original owner Michel Augé has been a point of obsession for me in the past year, having initially imbibed his nectars during two very special moments in 2023, but in a way, failing to capture the essence each time. The first time was over a Sauvignon that was blinded on me, but without the blinder knowing that the wine, out of magnum, would be fully sweet–it was too early in the evening for 1500 ml of sweet wine, so we had just a glass and moved onto the next magnum of dry red wine, and then we went back to the Augé later in the night but hardly made a dent. The other time, at Wine Bar Alpes in Toyama, Japan, Augé’s oxidative Sauvignon Blanc was presented to my friend and I as a blind as well, but there was something wrong with the bottle, the wine tasting a bit metallic and bruised. Crown cap taint was what Zack, the proprietor claimed after being very visibily defeated and disappointed by the suspect liquid. Frustrated, he opened another, and voila, the same thing happened. My obsession with Augé comes with the respect towards him from both winemakers and cavistes who I look up to—Aurelien Lefort considered Augé a master at one point, Samuel Boulay was a neighbor and mentee at another, and the reverence for Augé just generally runs deep among the top tier level of heads out there. Anyways, Paul and Corrine, current owners of the domaine have held things down in their own way since taking over the domaine, and Silene is consistently one of my favorite cuvées.
750 ml
$30
