February 22, 2024 | OPINION | By Theo Tannahill, Mason Foard, and Finn Russell
Welcome back to Three Bros Wine Review!
Before we begin, we would be remiss not to extend some credit to those who have inspired us in our creative mission. First and foremost, Pliny the Elder. Born in ‘23, Gaius Plinius Secundus was the first to publish what could be considered a review focused on wine. In the 37-volume “Naturalis Historia,” he discussed the various qualities of wines both within and outside the Roman Empire. He was the first to link terroir to wine quality, an idea he developed by ranking the various vineyards of Rome. In 79 C.E., Plinius perished in the fires of Mount Vesuvius in an attempt to rescue his friends stuck in the Bay of Pompeii. He managed to save his friends, but his poor health led him to succumb to toxic gases. Pliny just wanted others to succeed. Thank you for your sacrifice, Pliny. Pliny the Elder is also the name of one of the world’s first double Indian pale ales (IPA), out of Russian River Brewing in Northern California. Maybe our beer-reviewing colleagues at The Catalyst can check that one out. They sure seem desperate for ideas! Now for what you all came for. This week, we decided to level up from meme-based wines. Cautiously, we began this journey in Coaltrain Fine Wine, only one block from Colorado College campus. We’d highly recommend checking them out and are looking forward to a continued partnership. After extensively exploring their deep and vast cellars, we decided to go with what was on sale at the front of the store. Today, we will review the 2022 Mas de Boislauzon – La Chaussynette Rouge. La Chaussynette is a French (if you couldn’t tell from the name) red from the Côtes du Rhône – a storied region in Southern France that borders both the Italian and Swiss Alps. For only $13, this wine left us very thankful for economic globalization.
The first thing we noticed was its excellent aesthetic construction. This wine belongs in a tote bag next to a bouquet of spring flowers. It is juicy and subtly sweet, innocent in its joyous excitement — like a smile to oneself after a first date. It’s a 3 p.m. on a sunny day wine, juvenile and knowingly blithe. It’s refreshing yet more complex than other light reds. The 2022 La Chaussynette utilizes a balance of rich tannins and rustic fruitiness, which is underscored with a compote-like smooth mouthfeel. Finn compared the way it coats the tongue with mish-mashed buttery berry-ness to making out with a huckleberry pie at his family friend’s holiday party in 2015. Wow! The tannic kick compliments this fruit medley well yet doesn’t dry the mouth out too much. It does just enough to eliminate the overbearing sweetness without building the bitter astringency of a big California red.
We all were excited about its drinkability-to-price ratio and especially how balanced it was, perhaps not to the levels of other more expensive Côtes du Rhône, but it’s still impressive. What stands out about this wine is its originality. It’s not a big market wine, but it captures more established productions’ length of flavor and an outstanding mouthfeel. It’s not fancy or perfect, but it is an expression of a real talent from a small production; the winemaking roots of the family that produced it go back six generations. It is a great example of a sustainably produced small-scale operation. More established productions that have grown too confident should watch out – La Chaussynette (marked by its label of three brothers or friends) emphasizes quality over quantity in a big way, and the experience of drinking it is much better than that of vintages who have grown comfortable alone at the top. Grown through organic viticulture and traditional practices and both hand-picked and-bottled, La Chaussynette is a real gem. It’s something you’d be served in a small French village that was recently settled by hipsters searching for a “break from city life.”
The label is what truly drew us to this wine. Underneath the indecipherable French nonsense of a name, we saw something that struck our hearts. It seemed almost impossible but, lo and behold, we saw none other than ourselves on the label: three worldly gentlemen who aren’t exactly as cool as they think they are. The three hunky and refined young men on the face of the bottle make you feel as if you are witnessing a moment of earnest camaraderie. A moment that only could be conjured by the old-as-time ritual of distributing libations to the boys. Quentin, on the far left, has a steady clutch on the bottom of the bottle as he pours modest glasses for his two buddies, Arnaud and Joris, who sit patiently by his side. One cannot help but envy the visual bond between the three friends, but maybe that’s just a reflection of our own insecurities. As our questionable hero Pliny the Elder observed in antiquity, “envy always implies conscious inferiority wherever it resides.” Wow, this guy really gets it.
Pliny’s words of wisdom, and our extensive study of his best quotes on quotes.com got us thinking about why we began this column in the first place. Could it be something deeper than the joy of wine and our massive, out-of-check egos? As the last drops of La Chaussynette left the bottle, we stumbled upon what could only be described as a Lacanian psychoanalytic breakthrough. Maybe picking this bottle, drinking it, and writing “Three Bros” is a symbolic exercise in breaking the strict cultural constraints imposed on male friendships by the systems of machismo and misogyny that hurt us all. Hopefully that’s something we can all agree on! Similar to how no one likes a stale beer…or review. Don’t worry though, you won’t find either of those here.
In Vino Veritas,
Three Dry Bros.