Barbichette - Poc à Poc 2023

Barbichette Wines is the brainchild of César Vega and Louisiane Remy. Based in Brooklyn, NY, the couple have built one of the most successful direct trade coffee businesses in New York over the past decade, Café Integral, an importer and roaster of high-end Nicaraguan beans. Through their work in coffee, César and Louisiane have become mainstays in the New York natural wine and restaurant scene and gained a deep appreciation for the interconnectedness of food, wine, and hospitality. In recent years they’ve partnered with Forthave Spirits to provide the coffee for their beloved coffee liquor.

In 2019, César and Louisiane were offered a small allotment of grapes from Seneca Lake in New York’s Finger Lakes. They took the leap and produced a pet-nat to share with friends, and the Barbichette label was born. 2021, things shifted from a side project to something far more ambitious. After coming into some new grapes, they decided to grow production from a miniscule 25 to 1300 cases, and from one cuvée to seven. Grapes are sourced from a handful of organic and sustainably farmed vineyards, all on Seneca Lake. The wines, with a single exception in 2021, are all made without SO2, and none of them are fined, filtered, or manipulated with any chemical agents or other additives. 

Although their wines hail from a region not especially known for natural wine, we were immediately drawn to Barbichette because the wines share a kindred spirit with many of our favorite European producers. There is a certain bon vivant in these wines, an energy and lack of pretension which we adore. Even though they are relatively new to winemaking, it’s clear that César and Louisiane bring a dedication to craftsmanship, detail, and passion we look for in every producer we choose to work with. 

Spending about two weeks macerating and a subsequent eight months aging in a large foudre.

Producer: Barbichette

Country: USA

Region: New York

Varietal: Valvin Muscat

Appellation: Seneca Lake

Vintage: 2023

Size: 750ml