Domaine de l'Anglore Nizon 2022

Éric Pfifferling's path into wine began with loss. A beekeeper like his father before him, he lost his entire apiary in a flood in 2002 — and rather than start over with bees, he turned to his grandmother's seven-hectare vineyard near Tavel instead, in the Gard department of the southern Rhône. Encounters with natural wine pioneers Marcel Lapierre and Thierry Puzelat pushed him toward organic and, later, fully Ecocert-certified biodynamic farming, and today the estate — now expanded to around 20 hectares and run alongside his wife Marie and sons Thibault and Joris — produces over a dozen distinctive cuvées, nearly all released as Vin de France rather than under the Tavel AOC, since Pfifferling's boundary-blurring, whole-cluster style simply doesn't fit the appellation's rules (Tavel requires a heftier, higher-alcohol style of rosé). Nizon is one of the estate's more unusual, confidential bottlings: an unconventional field blend of five varieties, both red and white, co-fermented together — Grenache, Bourboulenc, Aramon, Cinsault, and Clairette — given a fifteen-day whole-bunch maceration before ageing ten months in demi-muids.

The result is delicate, vibrant, and almost weightless — an ode to freshness and pure drinkability rather than concentration or power. Expect crunchy cherry, wild strawberry, and red flowers lifted by a touch of black pepper, carried on a light, fluid palate with soft tannins and lively acidity that finishes long, mouthwatering, and subtly mineral.