Latest news with #Clémence
San Francisco Chronicle
10-06-2025
- Business
- San Francisco Chronicle
The Bay Area can't get enough of this Champagne
Lelarge-Pugeot Tradition has become the Bay Area's Champagne of the moment. It's irresistible in that way that only Champagne can be, smelling like toasted hazelnuts and tasting like honey-drizzled apricots, with tiny bubbles that electrify the tongue. The Tradition seems, all of a sudden, to be everywhere, from fine dining restaurants to casual wine bars. 'Tradition has become our house Champagne,' said Emma Drew, general manager at San Francisco's Biondivino wine shop. In the last two years, she said, the Lelarge-Pugeot Champagnes 'have really grown in scope and presence.' This rising profile has a lot to do with the fact that one of the winery's family members, Clémence Lelarge, is a Bay Area local. From her home in Petaluma, Lelarge oversees U.S. sales for Champagne Lelarge-Pugeot, and she has become a fixture of the local wine scene. She hosts regular dinners and events at restaurants, collaborates on labels with a San Francisco artist and even picks up the occasional shift waiting tables at Valley in Sonoma. 'It's really cool to have an eight-generation Champagne producer in our community,' said Dennis Cantwell, owner of San Francisco's Palm City Wines and Bar Jabroni. 'It's such a unique thing.' Even from across the world, Lelarge exerts a strong influence over her family's business, having pushed for a lower-intervention approach to winemaking, experimental techniques and a greater focus on the overlooked grape variety Pinot Meunier. She's become a vocal advocate of biodynamic and organic farming in Champagne, a region that's been reluctant to move away from synthetic herbicides. 'When I started working with my parents, some of our wines weren't necessarily the types of wines I enjoyed,' Lelarge said. 'I want to make wines that are so vibrant, fruity, flavorful, but have a sense of acidity that makes you want to keep drinking.' With her parents and brother, she has elevated Lelarge-Pugeot to one of the most revered grower-producers in Champagne — revered especially in California, which is now the largest market for the family's wines. Two centuries in Champagne The Lelarge family's winegrowing history begins in 1799, when Pierre-Henri Lelarge bought land in the village of Vrigny, in northern Champagne. The family sold grapes to other wineries and did not make any of its own wine. World War I devastated Champagne, where over three years of trench warfare killed many of the region's vines. But when Clémence's great-grandfather Raymond Lelarge returned from the war, he was one of the lucky ones: One hectare of his were still standing. Raymond saw that many wineries' presses — the key equipment in Champagne production — had been destroyed, and he set to work building his own. In 1930, he bottled his first wine. Like many winegrowers at the time, Raymond farmed organically. By the time his son took over the winery in 1950, synthetic chemicals had become de rigeur. It wasn't until the early 1990s that Clémence's parents, Dominique Lelarge and Dominique Pugeot, began reducing their herbicide and pesticide use. They achieved organic certification in 2014 and biodynamic certification in 2017. Going fully organic 'came with a lot of decisions, like not selling grapes anymore,' said Lelarge. Her parents had previously sold half their crop to larger Champagne houses, which weren't willing to pay a premium for organic grapes. (That's changed now.) It meant that they would be growing their own wine production significantly, and so the parents sat down with their children to see if they wanted to be involved with the family business. Lelarge was all in. First, though, she wanted to see the world. She spent six months in New York as part of a business school program, then searched for winery internships in California. She ended up working for Dominic Foppoli, the former mayor of Windsor who was accused by several women of sexual assault. The job was 'terrible,' she said, but she loved California. She later worked for the now-closed Sheldon Wines in Santa Rosa, which had 'a really cool winemaking approach,' Lelarge said. While here, Lelarge fell in love with a Petaluma native. In 2015, after a stint back in France — her student visa had run out — she moved back, got married and settled into a country life surrounded by dairy farms. Her parents had never exported any wine until 2012, and they weren't exporting much. But they needed to, since they were now making more. She applied for an importer's license and began developing a sales strategy. Now, Lelarge-Pugeot exports 80% of what it makes. 'I really wanted to do it myself,' she said. 'I could see the potential of how much wine we could sell here.' A lot of wine, it turned out. A love for Meunier The Tradition, Lelarge-Pugeot's entry-level bottling, became one of the go-to Champagnes for by-the-glass selections because of its relative affordability. At $55 a bottle retail, it's half the price of comparable Champagnes. 'It's almost impossible to find something that's the same quality for the price of that wine,' said Lauren Feldman, co-owner of Valley, where she estimated Tradition has been available as a glass pour 90% of the time since the restaurant opened. 'We probably could find by-the-glass Champagne for a little bit cheaper than Tradition, but not farmed the way we want.' The estate's large concentration of Pinot Meunier — a red grape that was historically considered less complex than Champagne's two flagship varieties, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay — also sets it apart. Now, thanks to producers like Lelarge-Pugeot with its Meunier-based Tradition, 'Meunier is hitting its stride,' said Josh Shapiro, partner at Flatiron Wines & Spirits in San Francisco. 'The wines highlight Meunier in a really pretty way.' Because Meunier is Lelarge's favorite grape, she convinced her family to bottle a new cuvee, Les Meuniers de Clémence. It draws from four distinct vineyard parcels and is vintage dated, 'so that people can really see the evolution of this grape,' she said. The 2016 is reminiscent of wildflowers, quince and yellow plums. It's so rich and mouth-filling that you'd never guess there was no dosage — the sugar solution often added to Champagne to balance its searing acidity. That richness in spite of no dosage is a common thread across the Lelarge-Pugeot lineup. The wines are moderately oxidative — not as intensely as was the fashion among grower-producers in Champagne in recent years, when 'the oxidation would really take over the character of the wine,' as Shapiro put it — and ripe. Warming temperatures, at least in the short term, have benefited the wines, Lelarge believes, and have enabled the winery to forgo sulfur additions in many of its cuvees, since the heat has diminished rot and mildew pressure. Lelarge-Pugeot has also gained a following for its still wines, known as Coteaux Champenois. Cantwell of Bar Jabroni is one of the most prolific buyers. 'They're super delicious, and there's not a lot to compare them to,' he said. 'How often do you find Coteaux Champenois with age on it that's 100% blanc de Meunier?' The answer: rarely. Among the most intriguing of Lelarge-Pugeot's 25 wines are its experimental Luna series. The current release, Luna Vol. 3, is a rosé, 85% Chardonnay and 15% Pinot Noir from the 2018 vintage. But it looks and tastes nothing like the prototypical rosé Champagne. Rusty-brick in color, it explodes with herbal and red-fruit flavors — sage, raspberry, pomegranate — and has a lightly bitter, tannic hit, with a frothy, moussey texture. Neither sulfur nor dosage were added. Artist Ayca Kilicoglu, whose husband owns Kitchen Istanbul restaurant in San Francisco, designed the label, which is 'chaotic but vibrant, just like how we work at the winery,' Lelarge said. Lelarge is disappointed by the slow uptake of organic farming in Champagne. In 2018, the regional association announced an initiative to phase out herbicide use by 2025, then abandoned it. 'People think Champagne is a luxury product, so people don't really think about the way it's farmed,' Lelarge said. 'The region still has a lot of work to do in terms of farming.' The Bay Area, in any case, is drinking it up. 'I hope people in San Francisco can appreciate that not many people get to meet Champagne makers on the regular,' said Biondivino's Drew. 'It's a beautiful blending of worlds, to have Champagne and the Bay Area come together in Clémence and in these wines.'
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Love Me Tender' Review: Vicky Krieps Anchors a Hard-Hitting Chronicle of Motherhood and Sexual Freedom That Overstays Its Welcome
If there are two things you can say about art house ingenue Vicky Krieps, it's that she's the most internationally famous actor to ever emerge from the tiny European nation of Luxembourg, and that she rarely takes on roles that could be considered easy or light. After breaking out in Phantom Thread, starring as a model who turns the tables on her abusive boss/boyfriend, she's been drawn towards characters who are either living on the edge or going through hell. In the past three years alone, she's played a woman stricken with a rare debilitating illness (More Than Ever); a renown Austrian poet whose life was tragically cut short (Ingeborg Bachmann — Journey into the Desert); a tight-lipped U.S. border cop who kills a migrant and tries to get away with it (The Wall); and a frontier wife who's brutally raped, then winds up dying of syphilis (The Dead Don't Hurt). More from The Hollywood Reporter 'Splitsville' Review: Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona in a Winning Indie Comedy That Puts Two Divorcing Couples Through the Wringer 'Eagles of the Republic' Review: Movies Collide With Political Might in Tarik Saleh's Dark and Clever Conspiracy Thriller Julia Ducournau Stuns Cannes With 'Alpha' What's fascinating about Krieps is how she seems to nonchalantly plunge headfirst into such parts, never resting on her laurels and always digging deep to find emotion in tough places. If the movies she stars in aren't all memorable, Krieps is usually memorable in all of them. That's certainly the case with Love Me Tender, a hard-hitting French chronicle of motherhood and independence based on lawyer-turned-author Constance Debré's 2020 book. Adapted and directed by Anna Cazenave Cambet (Gold for Dogs), the Cannes entry is both moody and intermittently moving, revealing the many hurdles a woman faces when her former husband tries to get full custody of their son. But the drama, which starts off powerfully, fizzles in the second half. While it works its way toward an intriguing conclusion, it takes its time to get there (running 134 minutes) tends to lose focus. Thankfully, Krieps anchors things with her typically committed performance, portraying a mother torn apart by the French legal system and an extremely vindictive ex, all the while trying to find herself sexually and intellectually. Love Me Tender certainly doesn't shy away from the frank eroticism of its heroine, Clémence (Krieps), whom we first see randomly hooking up with a woman in the changing room of a Paris swimming pool. A voiceover, taken verbatim from Debré's 'autofictional' book, reveals that Clémence has been separated for three years from her longtime husband, Laurent (Antoine Reinartz), with whom she's been splitting care of their 8-year-old son, Paul (Viggo Ferreira-Redier). When she tells Laurent she's begun to see women romantically, he takes the news so badly that he cuts off all communication and hires a lawyer to get full custody. From there, things only get worse. The movie's strongest moments revolve around Clémence's many efforts to see Paul again — a quest that becomes increasingly Kafkaesque as Laurent doubles down on his attempts to block her. There are only a handful of scenes between the separated spouses, yet they are loaded with tension and resentment. Reinartz portrays Laurent as a guy whose manhood has clearly been offended by Clémence's turn towards lesbianism, and who uses their son to punish her. We never cut to Laurent's point of view, but it seems likely he spends his off hours surfing the manosphere. Despite her ex's many efforts to thwart her, Clémence does finally get to see Paul again, although only under the supervision of a court-appointed social worker (Aurélia Petit). The first time that happens, about an hour into the action, is definitely the film's emotional high point. Krieps appears both tender and tragic in that long sequence, her character unable to speak because she's so overcome by the presence of her son. A parallel storyline details Clémence's rocky romantic life as she seeks out partners in bars, restaurants and nightclubs, hoping to meet someone who's more than just a one-night stand. Cambet juxtaposes those scenes, some of which are sensual and explicit, with all the turmoil Clémence faces in her long and painful battle to get Paul back. The more she seems to liberate herself from the past — seeking new sexual experiences, writing novels instead of working as a lawyer, sleeping in garrets instead of fancy bourgeois apartments — the more Clémence is entrapped by the life she left behind. She loves Paul and wants to care for him, but the vengeful Laurent, along with a few lawyers and judges, seem to believe she can't be both a great mom and a freethinking lesbian. Clémence's predicament at times recalls that of the mother played by Virginie Efira in the 2023 French drama All to Play For, which also premiered in Cannes' Un Certain Regard. But whereas that film's rhythm and intensity never let up, Love Me Tender meanders too much in its second half, especially when Clémence sparks up a serious relationship with a journalist (Monia Chokri) she meets in a café. Another plotline involving Clémence's ailing father (Féodor Atkine) doesn't lead anywhere special, and the movie becomes more of a wavering chronicle. Cambet coaxes strong turns from Krieps and the rest of the actors, including newcomer Ferrera-Redier as the moody if lovable Paul. But she's probably too faithful to Debré's book, failing to shape the film into a gripping narrative and relying on a constant voiceover filled with the writer's musings, some of which comes across as platitudes ('Love is brutal,' etc.). The closing scenes nonetheless lead to a denouement that you seldom see in movies about mothers fighting to get their kids back. Rather than finishing with the usual triumph over adversity moment, Love Me Tender takes a detour towards something darker and perhaps more honest. For all her struggles to deflect the judgement of other people (her ex, social workers, the courts), Clémence finally learns that you can't please everyone, nor hope to have it both ways. But you can, perhaps, manage to please yourself. 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