Cyrille Sevin Une Histoire de Rouge and Dolly Parton's Coat of Many Colors
Thanksgiving is a lot of things. For some, it’s a lighthearted, indulgent, reflective holiday spent with loved ones. For others, the thought of hosting, preparing a dish or forced family time is stress and dread-inducing. For everyone, it’s a companion to the fall season, and I think most people can get behind sweaters, comfort food and leaves turning crisp and colorful.
Dolly Parton encompasses the range of emotions experienced with family during Thanksgiving—the joyful, beautiful, complicated and downright messy. “Coat of Many Colors” is an album that shows a complete arc of Dolly growing up, experiencing and evaluating her life the same way that holidays and the approaching year’s end causes us to confront our own.
And there’s no better wine to drink at Thanksgiving, in the fall, and during both good and bad times with family than a sparkling red. While I’m living for Lambrusco (a.k.a. Lambo) right now, Cyrille Sevin’s Une Histoire de Rouge natural sparkling gamay and cabernet sauvignon from Loire Valley is serving very strong Thanksgiving wine vibes.
Cyrille and Dolly seem to have a fair amount in common, other than both making amazing contributions to be thankful for. Like Dolly, Cyrille was a dreamer who had plans of one day becoming a winemaker even though he didn’t have the background for it or come from a family with a history in the industry. He was a math teacher in Paris and after making an investment in hopes of transitioning to winemaking, he earned enough money to purchase eight hectares to plant vines in the Cheverny village of the Loire Valley.
He specializes in making unique sparkling wines that are natural but use the traditional Champagne Method instead of the ever so trendy pet nat style. Like Dolly, a Country artist who writes about controversial topics and appeals to an extremely diverse audience beyond the typical Country music fan, Cyrille straddles the old and new approach to winemaking.
The Une Histoire de Rouge is aged 24 months in bottle on the lees before disgorgement. There is no dosage so while rich with fruit, this wine is very dry. There is no added sulphur and it is certified organic. This wine is a brooding dark purple with black cherry, blackberry, a touch of fig and lavender on the nose. It’s dry, clean, with ample juicy dark fruits, medium acid, flavorful yet delicate with a subtle minty finish. It’s got a toasted hazelnut thing going on as well which just intensifies the holiday mood.
The title track of Dolly’s exceptional 1971 record is perhaps the most Thanksgiving-like of any song, ever. It’s all about counting your blessings, being grateful for what you have and proud of what family has done for you. We could all learn something from what she tells the punks at school who make fun of the patchwork coat that was hand-sewn from scraps by her mother:
And I tried to make them see
That one is only poor
Only if they choose to be
Now I know we had no money
But I was rich as I could be
In my coat of many colors
My mama made for me
“Travelling Man” switches gears to a knee slapping Country jig. Dolly goes from a heartfelt folk song with delicate vocals to wailing about sneaking off to meet up with a traveling salesman against her mother’s wishes, later to discover he was two timing her with her mother! While this is an objectively messed up, dysfunctional story, you wouldn’t be able to tell from Dolly’s upbeat, almost joyful tone.
Even Dolly’s lamentations about a love who left her sound joyful and heavenly with her spirited vocals on “My Blue Tears”. Her voice is so dynamic, textured and simply dreamy. You can hear the Appalachian twang, with layers of softness and savageness.
Just as complex as her vocal styles are, so is her songwriting. “Mystery of the Mystery” tackles some existential dilemmas: “the more I search the less I seem to find out why/ Like where the wind goes, how does life begin/ What happens when we die.” “Early Morning Breeze” is a poetic, introspective, idyllic nature song where Dolly diverges in a kind of 60s hippie meditation.
While “My Blue Tears” is about having her heart broken by a lover, “The Way I See You” finds Dolly back in love and happy again, accented by beautiful piano, strings and steel guitar. Dolly’s evolution continues with the confident anthem “Here I Am”. Whereas earlier in the album she found comfort in her mother and her spiritual connection with nature, now it’s herself from which she draws strength.
If the world could be saved by a song, that song would be “A Better Place to Live”. This song closes the record with a galvanizing proposition: “And if we'd love one another instead of finding faults/ We could afford the price of peace/ Love is all it costs.” This is exactly the kind of song we all need right now, especially at Thanksgiving with a bottle of Cyrille Sevin’s Une Histoire de Rouge to wash it all down.
