The Delalex brothers, Samuel and Benoît, fly the flag for Marin, a cru of the Savoie region located on the banks of Lake Geneva. In an outlying area of a region that is not hugely famous, they take great pride in producing a style of wine from the local chasselas grape that is distinctive and nearly extinct. The Delalex family has been making wine in Marin for generations, until recently as part of a traditional rural agricultural system. Samuel and Benoît’s father, after the war, decided to focus solely on wine, and sold their last cows in 1976. Now their holdings consist of 20 acres of vines around the village of Marin, where the brothers are constantly improving their farming techniques. They now have 5 acres under organic management. Their wines have a transparent, distinctive identity that focuses on the site. They are delicious food wines. The wines never go through malolactic fermentation or contain residual sugar, something very common with chasselas. The flavor profile is very original, and inspires a contradictory statement: the wines are feather-light yet dense at the same time. They are also unfailingly fresh and alpine; you can’t help but think of mountain rivers and meadows. There are parallels here to certain wines from Muscadet, or perhaps even to certain higher expressions of txakoli, but in the end, these wines are just expressions of Marin: the place and the history.