CRBR 2016 - OISEAU REBELLE

OISEAU REBELLE

"We founded OISEAU REBELLE in 2014, moving from Germany to France within a couple of weeks only. Found the vineyards, fell in love with'em, took the decision and off we went. Literally like that. Melanie and I with our three little kids. Most fundamental decision was to work organic in the vineyards as well as in winemaking. We opted for conversion in 2015 only - being too busy getting started in 2014. 2018 was our first harvest of approved organic wines ('ecocert'-certified). We really care about certification in organic farming for political reasons and of course to contribute to lobbying activities. Literally any work here is done by hand and in respect of natural rhythms: No matter if we bring back up tons of soil to our vineyards which have been washed down by erosion before we arrived, if we pick up stones from the riverbed once dried out in summer to re-build our vineyard-terraces’ dry-walls, or if we just go to pull out undesired herbs which are growing next to the vines - we do it all with our bare hands. The only chemical we use is elementary sulfur to protect our vines from Oidium. No copper at all is used in our vineyards - the little mildew we have I just cut out; that's it. Grapes are only picked during cooler morning hours for a maximum of 3 hours. Than they are refrigerated and brought to our cellar where we spend the day selecting them berry by berry (!) to finally mash them with bare feet. We use a peristaltic pump to transport slurry into stainless steel vats where necessary and allow indigenous fermentation as well as maceration for many months - for some wines even up to several years without any racking... Wines are only moved by gravity and NOTHING ever is added (no sulfur at any time!!!) until bottling by gravity. We chose a packaging which appears rather fancy but is strictly functional for us: bottles are coated black-matt to protect wines from UV-rays; corks are natural but guaranteed TCA-free after being analyzed one by one with gas-chromatography (OISEAU REBELLE quality level) and labels are made to be remembered as unique. Wines are outstanding and very unique - even in the cozy little niche of natural wines. For us they are the liquid extract of what surrounds us here: one hell of a terroir. For more details and to really get the point - sorry folks, you'll have to TASTE!" Guido & Melanie Hube