split personalities: twin peaks & st. véran

My friends here in Paris are mostly all aware by now that I've finally just this year twenty years too late begun watching Twin Peaks. I won't shut up about how great it is. I feel almost guilty for having raced through several episodes at the Native Companion's place the other night, since I'm well aware there are only two seasons and it famously falls off hard in the second. The fun with these sorts of supercompelling TV series - of which we seem to have an overwhelming deluge these days - is very much in the ritual.*

Image swiped from some other nameless blog.

Since when I last mentioned Twin Peaks it was in reference to a middling Chablis I drank while watching the pilot, I figured I'd continue the Chardonnay thing this week, and start another ritual. Chardonnay & Twin Peaks. Chardonnay - the Every-Grape, much-maligned, too often innocuous - seems a good match for the series' fictional town. In both, you can dig up some fascinating personalities, far-removed from the innocent dull stereotypes, with just the barest bit of research.

So with Episodes 1, 2, and 3, the NC and I shared a real dream sequence of a St. Véran by the Beaujolais-based Isabelle et Bruno Perraud.


Not normally associated with anything resembling cult devotion, St. Véran is a subregion of the Mâcon, in lower Burgundy. The appellation was created in just 1971; previously much of its output would have been classified as Beaujolais Blanc, which, like a lot of Mâconnais that is not Pouilly-Fuissé, is known for pleasant honey / apple / lemon tones and not much else.

However, the Perrauds' 2009 St. Véran is perhaps a tie with last week's oxidative Vergé Vin de Table (also a Chardonnay, incidentally) for the most intensely hypnotic wine I've had all year. Subtitled "Vin Naturel," it's a a frankly sensuous white, with scents of lime-blossom and pie crust yielding to electric peach and mineral flavors. It's sort of like watching Sherilyn Fenn do one of those little shoegazer dances:

The (astoundingly great) wine - a limited production of only 1300 bottles - is currently available at:

Au Nouveau Nez
114, rue Saint Maur
75011 PARIS
Metro: Parmentier or Saint Maur
Tel: 01 43 55 02 30
Map

*The episodic TV show is one of a diminishing number of contemporary forms that reward patience; until the season DVD gets released patience is sort of the mandate.