Karim Vionnet | Sparkling Beaujolais ‘Grabuge'

Perfect for cheese and charcuterie! This wine balances salty, briny, pungent flavors so basically anything on your platter will do. Great with umami and caramelized seasonal flavors like roasted mushrooms, caramelized butternut squash, roasted beets, turnips, parsnips, or carrots. Delicious with pumpkin-anything. Perfect for holiday entertaining.

Winemaker, Karim Vionnet, is originally from Algeria and adopted by French parents in Beaujolais. In a region where many families are in the wine business, Karim’s was not and he found his own way to wine – through a somewhat rebel group of natural winemakers. Karim trained in the cellar with Guy Breton, of the ‘Gang of Four’, a group of natural winemakers in Beaujolais that rejected commercial farming and winemaking in the 80s. These winemakers called for a return to the old practices of viticulture and vinification: starting with old vines, never using synthetic herbicides or pesticides, harvesting late, and adding minimal to no sulfur. Karim then started his own project where he organically farms his 40 to 60-year-old vines and makes wines that are unpretentious, natural, and full of life.