Domaine South Presents
Kermit Lynch Wine Dinner
with Importer Guest, Bickham Kelly

Wednesday, October 1st, 2025
5:30 pm
 
Salad Savoyarde - Chicory, Frisee, Conecuh Bacon Lardons, Tiny Red Potato, Toasted Pecans, Gruyere, Dijon Mustard Vinaigrette
NV Quenard Cremant de Savoie Brut Nature


Olive Oil Poached Tuna, Fennel & Blood Orange
2022 Chateau D'Epire Savennières


Wild Mushroom and Goat Cheese Tart
2023 Chanrion Cote du Brouilly


Braised Short Rib, Butternut Squash Risotto
2021 Joquet Chinon Cuvee Terroir


Almond Cake, Creme Fraiche, Citrus Zest
2021 Domaine Durban Muscat de Beaumes de Venise
 
 
$ 125per person (not inclusive of tax and gratuity)
By Reservation Only – Please Call 256.759.9952

Kermit Lynch was raised in San Luis Obispo, but his name has become synonymous with French and Italian wines. In 1972, with a $5,000 loan and maybe a bit of gumption, this writer/musician opened Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant with thirty-five cases of wine stacked on the floor. Attracted by the Old World wine cultures of Europe, Kermit became a retailer, distributor, and national importer for authentic wines that express their terroir. Much like his close friends, the late food writer Richard Olney and Chez Panisse’s Founder Alice Waters, Kermit’s influence has been enduring. 

The Wines

NV Quenard Cremant de Savoie Brut Nature, Savoie, France $32.99
Combine the Jacquère grape with a process very similar to that of Champagne, and you get a beautiful crémant filled with notes of stone fruit, citrus, and chalk. Open this the next time you’re in the mood for a graceful sparkler. —Tom Wolf


2022 Château d'Epiré Savennières, Loire Valley, France $28.99
Chenin Blanc
Paul Bizard, the new generation in charge at this historic Loire Valley property, has wasted no time in showing his youthful energy and ambition since taking over management. His very first step was to initiate an organic conversion, a monumental challenge in a place defined by a stormy oceanic climate and unforgivingly rocky soils. This latest release suggests his work is already paying off, as it stands among the most expressive young Savennières Epiré has bottled. The fleshiness on the palate reflects the Loire’s sunny 2022 summer, yet it finishes dry and chiseled as ever, with lingering notes of acacia blossom and stone. —Tom Wolf


2023 Nicole Chanrion Côte-de-Brouilly, Beaujolais, France $28.99
Gamay
You can’t miss the Mont Brouilly as you arrive in the Beaujolais, with its domed shape and steep slopes covered top to bottom on all sides by vines. What you can’t see without a careful look, however, is the small chapel that sits atop. This little old chapel, the wonderfully named “Notre Dame des Raisins,” is dedicated wholly to the adoration and worship of wine. Each year, just before harvest, the growers of the Mont Brouilly hike up to the chapel, each bringing a few bunches of grapes freshly cut from their vines, where a priest blesses the grapes and the new vintage before declaring, in classic Beaujolais fashion, that the party is on, and a large celebration ensues. Chanrion’s Côte-de-Brouilly is loads of fun—juicy, round, structured, yet always elegant and focused. A classic favorite. —Chris Santini


2021 Joquet Chinon Cuvee Terroir, Loire Valley, France $28.99
Cabernet Franc
The Cuvée Terroir is one of the great everyday reds in our portfolio, right up there with Dupeuble’s Beaujolais, Fontsainte’s Corbières, and our Côtes du Rhône. Here, the Terroir’s Cabernet Franc telltale combination of tart red fruit, herbaceousness, and graphite earthiness makes this wine the perfect accompaniment for just about any meal, and the more casual the better.
     As a testament to the quality and consistency of this wine, here’s Kermit’s endorsement from 20 years ago about the 2000 vintage:

What a rich, explosive bouquet! Can you dig it? Did Joguet throw some strawberries into the fermentation vat? And never fear, the palate sustains the incredible level of quality. It is delicious, an absolutely gorgeous, multi-dimensional wine.
     Joguet has delivered a wonderful bunch of wines over the years, but never such pure drinking pleasure. I should have ordered it in magnums, so I would not have to pull corks so often. It is a new peak, largely because it is so sumptuous. It’s a treat, and it is to drink young.

     I think that about sums it up. And despite the winemaker describing this as “Full, sensual, even voluptuous,” he also suggests that it is to be served a bit cool. Try it on for size yourself. 

—Dustin Soiseth

2022 Vieux Telegramme Chateauneuf du Pape, Rhone Valley, France $68.99
80% Grenache, 10% Syrah, 6% Mourvèdre, 4% Cinsault
If Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe’s “La Crau,” the Brunier family’s cuvée produced from the eponymous stone-covered plateau in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, has inscribed itself in wine lore over decades of superb, long-lived vintages, it’s no coincidence. It is made from ancient vines—seventy years old on average, with some sectors surpassing the century mark—firmly entrenched in the appellation’s most celebrated terroir, where the seasoned roots of gnarled Grenache, Mourvèdre, Syrah, Cinsault, and others dig through a thick layer of riverbed stones to access the coolness found deep beneath the sunbaked surface.
     The Bruniers’ La Crau holdings, however, are not all mature enough to produce the intense, concentrated fruit that defines the “La Crau” bottling. Over the years, certain parts of the vineyard have been replanted, while missing vines here and there lost to natural causes have been replaced. The fruit from these younger vines is united in the Télégramme bottling, which the Bruniers have produced since 2002, when an uncharacteristically rainy season gave what they feared would be a watered-down version of Vieux Télégraphe. To their surprise, the newborn cuvée was silky and seductive, providing so much immediate pleasure that customers begged them to make it again. Since then, it has become a mainstay of the Brunier lineup, offering a taste of the greatness of “La Crau” with less of the imposing structure that demands bottle age to reach a velvety apex. Today, the young-vine fruit is supplemented by splashes of old-vine Châteauneuf from sites a stone’s throw, so to speak, from La Crau, bolstering Télégramme’s complexity without sacrificing its plush, toothsome texture.
     If Télégramme is more about fruit than stones, it is still undeniably Châteauneuf, expressing the nobility of carefully farmed Grenache from the Rhône’s finest terroirs. This unfiltered bottling is one of the best editions to date, with sensual red fruit that is both mouth-filling and weightless, as luxurious as it is accessible. Perfect for enjoying now and over the next few years, it is an ideal match for whatever other fresh, seasonal flavors are on your plate. —Anthony Lynch