2025 Rhône Blanc

The wine

The frame is small, and that is the pour. The bottle is Marsanne from Lodi, and the glass does not try to outrun that quiet. Pear, light florals, and citrus are all present, and none of them presses. The nose is a quiet white: identifiable pear, a light floral line, citrus beside it. You can name the glass from the smell. The aroma is not large. It is clear.

In the mouth it is crisp and light-bodied. Stone fruit shows up subdued, a suggestion rather than a mouthful. A faint honeyed note sits with that fruit and does not turn the sip sweet. The pear from the nose remains the pear you taste. It does not fill out into the richer fruit a Rhône Blanc usually carries, and the wine does not pretend to. Crispness gives the light body a clean edge. That honesty is the quality.

The finish is clean, and it is restrained. Florals stay light. Honey stays faint. What remains is a composed white you would pour again cold: fruit you can name, a body that stays light on purpose, a close that does not smear. Eighty-five is that composition, not a claim of intensity. Drink it cold. The second sip stays in the same frame.