Picpoul de Pinet, Domaine Font-Mars 2023

Jean-Baptiste de Clock runs this estate (much older than the wine's modern label suggests) close to Mèze and makes very fine Picpoul, a world apart from the often quite bland mass-produced versions made by the big co-operatives. Grapes are hand-picked at night when it's coolest before being kept in stainless steel and bottled the following spring. This is clean, lemony, taut and very dry but with an underlying depth and richness, crying out for oysters or fruits de mer. Fossilised dinosaur eggs turn up in the limestone and clay vineyard soils from time to time.

 Picpoul

 Languedoc, France

 12.5% ABV