Dard et Ribo, hotdogs, and 96% pharmacy ethanol
Six Dard et Ribo bottles from Maksym's France trips, a blind Ulysse Collin and a Pierre Gonon thrown in for contrast, plus a portable mangal that taught us pharmacy ethanol works fine as charcoal starter.
By Boris · Hosted by Maksym Demchenko
Maksym brought back a haul from Dard et Ribo - the famously reserved Northern Rhône estate that René-Jean Dard and François Ribo have run together since 1984 - and we duly assembled around eight bottles on a warm Kyiv evening at Lo. Saint-Joseph, Crozes-Hermitage, and the Hermitage hill itself: the estate's full range, rouges and blancs and one of their flagships. Maksym, never one to make things simple, also dropped in a bottle of Ulysse Collin Les Maillons (served blind, no one guessed) and a Pierre Gonon Saint-Joseph as a deliberate contrast point. The Gonon ended up showing the natural-vs-conventional wine-making difference better than any direct discussion would have.
I wanted hotdogs to go with all of this, so I brought a portable mangal. Plot twist: no charcoal starter. I tried home-made calvados - not enough fuel for a proper fire. Everything was already closed by the time we needed more, but a quick pharmacy run produced a few bottles of 96% ethanol, which worked beautifully. Glorious hotdogs, Dard et Ribo bottles, plenty of extras, and the kind of evening that turns a pharmacy emergency into part of the story.
Ulysse Collin Les Maillons 48 months (2019)
Ulysse Collin is one of grower Champagne's most allocated houses - Olivier Collin reclaimed his family's Congy vineyards in 2003, after a generation of leasing them out and an apprenticeship under Anselme Selosse. The domaine works on a Burgundian template: single-parcel, single-variety, single-vintage cuvées with no blending across sites or years, fermentation in used Burgundy barrels, malolactic completed, near-zero dosage. Les Maillons is the Blanc de Noirs - a Pinot Noir cuvée from a Chardonnay-country house, first bottled in 2006. This 48-month release is the longer-aged version of the 2019 base, disgorged February 2024, Extra Brut.
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Join to read it and the restRené-Jean Dard et François Ribo Saint-Joseph Pitrou 2022
Pitrou (also marked L'Echirol on cadastral maps) is a 0.55-hectare single parcel of sandy granite just north of St-Jean-de-Muzols, planted in the 1940s-50s. 67% whole-cluster Syrah, two to three weeks of vinification, ten to twelve months in used 600-litre demi-muids. The estate's lightest-bodied Northern Rhône red - peppery, taut, transparent, more about lift than weight. Low ABV at 12.5% - the Dard et Ribo signature.
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A Saint-Joseph from another house entirely - Maksym threw it into the lineup as a deliberate contrast to the Dard et Ribo bottles around it. 2023 vintage, single Syrah, 12.5% ABV, dry, from the same granite-slope appellation as the Dard et Ribo Saint-Joseph rouges and blancs. The point was the comparison itself: same place, same grape, different cellar philosophy - and the result was clear in the glass.
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The estate's flagship Crozes rouge, sourced from plots in Larnage - red clay, gravel and alluvial stones with some granite. Whole-cluster Syrah fermented in large wooden vats, aged in old 600-litre demi-muids, bottled without filtration. 2019 was a hot Northern Rhône year but more structured and tannic than 2018 - the denser, more layered expression of the cuvée, built for longer ageing while keeping the estate's freshness signature.
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Join to read it and the restRené-Jean Dard et François Ribo Crozes-Hermitage Pé de Loup 2018
Same cuvée as the 2019, same Larnage source - red clay, gravel and alluvial stones, with some granite. Whole-cluster Syrah, large wooden vats, old 600-litre demi-muids, no filtration. 2018 was a hot, generous Northern Rhône year - plush, fruit-forward Syrah with a softer acidic frame than the more structured 2019.
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The estate's most exclusive bottling: Syrah from a tiny holding on the Hill of Hermitage itself - Dard et Ribo own roughly half a hectare across the lieu-dit Varogne (very old vines, some from around 1910) and a small slice of Les Murets. Unlike the Crozes and Saint-Joseph rouges, the Hermitage bunches are mostly destemmed (around 90%), with the small whole-cluster remainder kicking off the spontaneous fermentation. Over a year in 500-litre barrels, no filtration, effectively no added SO2. Production is tiny - on the order of a thousand bottles in a normal year. The 2019 vintage's heat and structure should carry this for decades.
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100% Roussanne - an exception in the appellation, where Marsanne is normally the dominant or sole grape. The fruit comes from granite slopes on the northern side of the AOC. Direct press, native ferment, neutral wood ageing, no fining or filtration, effectively no SO2 - the house template applied to a precise, taut white. 2022 was a warm Northern Rhône vintage; expect ripe orchard fruit pulled into shape by Roussanne's natural saline drive.
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Marsanne-Roussanne blend - the proportions vary vintage to vintage, with Roussanne sometimes leading and sometimes the junior partner. Direct press, native ferment, ageing in old demi-muids or used barrels (no new oak), bottled without filtration or added sulphur. Crozes Blanc tends to show more orchard fruit and honey weight than the Saint-Joseph Blanc - a richer, broader expression of the same Marsanne-Roussanne idiom in the same low-intervention frame.
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