Pierre-Olivier Bonhomme, Le Telquel (2023)

This is Pierre-O's most available red wine. It is made with purchased fruit from two farmers working organically and some of Pierre-O's grapes. In particularly complicated vintages, he may source from other regions, particularly the southern Beaujolais. The name Telquel is, suprise suprise, a pun. It's a riff on Teckel (Dachshund hound) spun to sound like "as is". The idea here to make a simple table wine that reflects the vintage. The blend changes every year but is always Gamay dominant — the 2022 also has a bit of Cabernet Franc. The wine's "Un Poil Dur..." tag line extends the canine pun. It literally translates to "A hard hair" but is slang for "rough around the edges." Winemaking: Whole-cluster, 15 day maceration. Fermented in tronconic wooden vats and aged six months in barrels. Pierre-O tries to bottle this with without the addition of SO2 but is not averse to adding 15 mg per liter before bottling if deemed necessary. Practicing organic. Unfined and unfiltered.