Allo Allo - An Absolute Gem from Marius Long

Stop what you're doing! We just received one of the best wines we have tasted this year, courtesy of Sense Pressa, aka Marius Long...

(Marius pressing Macabeo grapes in in Padern cellar, October 2024)

Whilst visiting Marius last year in the Southern French village of Padern, he was working in his cellar with new white grape varieties he had purchased from an organic grower in nearby Latour-de-France. After training in the Loire and falling in love with Sauvignon Blanc, this was an exciting opportunity make some white wine himself as his own vines only produce red fruit. He bottles these under his Joli Raisin label to show the wine is made with negotiant grapes.

(Skins of Macabeo that went into Allo Allo 2024)

We were there to capture this moment which makes it even more thrilling to see the finished wine now arrive in the UK. A couple of other white cuvées, Waf 2024 and Zibibbo 2024, turned up earlier the year and both were beautiful. But this new wine is really something special. 

(Joanna foot stomping Macabeo grapes in Marius' cellar)

Allo Allo 2024 is made from Macabeo grapes that were foot stomped (by Joanna!) and saw 5 days of skin contact before fermentation and ageing in fibreglass tanks. I opened a bottle over the weekend whilst with friends and wow, everyone was blown away! Offering incredible balance and an array of fruit, flowers and herbs, there is something very unique about this wine.

Despite the white Macabeo grapes, you feel flavours of blueberry and blackcurrant leaf. For me, it was reminiscent of the much celebrated Romorantin cuvée from Les Cailloux du Paradis. Maybe this shouldn't come as such a surprise as Marius crafted his winemaking skills in the Loire and is particularly fond of flavour compounds known as thiols. Commonly associated with grape varieties grown in this part of France such as Sauvignon Blanc, they seem to be abundant in most of the wines Marius produces even if the grapes are not grown by him. They express flavours of passion fruit, blackcurrant, grapefruit as well as evergreen shrubs and these can be amplified with skin contact. Allo Allo has all of these notes. Whether they come from the yeast present in the cellar, or through the winemaking techniques that Marius acquired in the Loire, we might never know. But either way, the resulting wines are unique and beautiful!

Grab a bottle today and see for yourself, this is a wine not to be missed!

Happy drinking!