Southold Farm & Cellars "Rouge Clair" Vin de France 2024

This is Southold's first vintage of wine since they moved from Fredericksburg to Bordeaux, and they're off to a great start. "Rouge Clair" is a Clairet, a traditional French style that's lighter than red but deeper than rosé. With a bright ruby color, it offers fresh red fruit (strawberry, raspberry, cherry) aromas, floral notes and a refreshing, balanced palate with light acidity, perfect slightly chilled for summer sipping. It's the wine you want when it’s not time for a red wine but rosé feels too light.

Clairet used to be a popular style made all over Bordeaux, then it vanished. Southold's first vintage of grapes, cool and tense, brought them 100% Merlot from 40-year-old vines that tastes like rocks and herbs instead of plums. Mineral, nervy, racy but ripe. So they made a Clairet. It tastes clear and precise and alive. Not trying to be anything other than what it is. Drink it cool but not cold.

Fermented 48 hours in concrete tanks, aged nine months in neutral French oak. 2,740 bottles produced.

Regan and Carey Meador started Southold Farm + Cellar on Long Island's North Fork in 2012 and quickly built a following, but a zoning decision in 2016 forced them to cease operations. In 2017, they moved everything - name, inventory, family - to the Texas Hill Country. Texas gave them room to experiment, but the climate required constant intervention just to keep the vines alive. The agricultural landscape made organic farming literally impossible. In 2023, they moved to Bordeaux, not because of its prestige, but because it finally gave them the ability to make precise, elegant wines without fighting the environment. Continental climate, limestone soils, the freedom to farm organically.