Domaine de Creve Coeur
If the crowds mobbing young Pablo Hocht to get a taste of his Cotes du Rhone and Sablet wines at the recent Jeunes Talents of 2011 event in Paris are any indication, we are extremely fortunate to introduce his wines to the US for the first time with his debut vintage. My first meeting with Pablo was with Thomas Calder in Pablo's tiny cellar located below the art studio where his his father designs the labels. I knew right away we would soon be working with Pablo. He's exactly the type of kind soul we like to represent and the wines were instantly recognizable as the type that will be the first empty bottle on the table because they are such a pleasure to drink. The only question was how much could we get?
Pablo's current day job is working in the cellar with Louis Barruol at the famed Chateau de Saint Cosme in Gigondas. Pablo grew up in Seguret where his parents own a tiny plot of old vines. He made small batches of wine on his own for the family but in 2010 he had an opportunity to purchase almost two hectares of old vines in Sablet and Seguret so he decided to produce a little wine under his own label for commercial release.
For the moment, he is fermenting his wine at a friends facility using concrete vats and tranferring the wine to neutral wood barrels in his micro-cellar for maturation before bottling. This rose gets its name from this borrowed use of space. Coucou roughly translates to a squatter. It's pretty clear upon meeting Pablo that he is at one with the earth so it's no surprise that he farms organically and is implementing some aspects of biodynamics in his vineyard work. In the cellar, it's very much a hands off, feet on approach. Hand harvested fruit, foot stomped in vats, no added yeasts or anything else to the wine except some sulfur for microbial protection.
