LIGHT & ELEGANT
Sumptuous fruit with berries and forest floor, medium fullness and good long taste.
Lovely wine from a small domain near Tours.
LET & ELEGANT
Overdådig frugt med bær og skovbund, middel fylde og god lang smag.
Herlig vin fra lille domæne nær Tours.
FACTS
Country: France
Region: Loire
Winery: Rousseau Frères
Year: 2019
Type: Red
Grapes: Pinot Noir
Alcohol: 12,5%
Aging: Oak barrels
Closure: Cork
Winemaking: Traditional
ABOUT THE WINERY
ROUSSEAU FRÈRES
The Rousseau family has owned the domain since the late 1800s and today has a 17-acre domain on slopes by the river Loire near Tours south of Vouvray. Bernard and Michael Rousseau lead the domain today, which specializes in the pinot grape. The domain is managed sustainably with deliberately low yield and attention to detail. They have two scooters for the green harvest during the summer. The scooter is lighter than a tractor and therefore better for the ground. Pinot gets a long, cold maceration (2-4 days) before fermentation and then storage "sour lie" until taping.
Familien Rousseau har ejet domænet siden sidst i 1800-tallet og har i dag et domæne på 17 hektar på skråninger ved Indre, biflod til Loire nær Tours syd for Vouvray. Bernard og Michael Rousseau leder domænet i dag, som er specialiseret i pinot druen. Domænet drives bæredygtigt med bevidst lavt udbytte og omhu i detaljen. Således har man to scootere til den grønne høst i løbet af sommeren. Scooteren er lettere end en traktor og derfor bedre for jorden. Pinot får en lang, kold maceration (2-4 dage) før gæring og siden lagring "sur lie" indtil tapning.
Pinot Noir
The fashionable red burgundy grape is capable of producing divinely scented, gorgeously fruity expressions of place but often unwilling or unable to do so. Pinot Noir is sensitive to the size of crop it is expected to produce, and many vapid examples exemplify an over-demanding yield. It ripens relatively early so is not suitable for very warm regions where there would be no time to develop interesting flavours before acid levels plummet. On the other hand, many of the cooler regions in which it thrives suffer autumn rains which can rot Pinot's thin-skinned berries, resulting in pale, tainted wines. The Pinot Noir grower's lot is not an easy one.
This ancient eastern French vine is, with Gouais Blanc, parent of a host of other varieties including Chardonnay, Gamay and the Muscadet grape Melon de Bourgogne. Because it is so old, there are many well-established mutations such as Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc and Pinot Meunier and there is enormous variation in wine quality between different clones. Planting the wrong clone in the wrong place is one of many reasons for the wide variation in quality between different red burgundies and different varietal Pinot Noirs from elsewhere.
The positive side of all this is that Pinot Noir is a very transparent grape. It really can communicate the difference in terroir, or grape-growing environment, between adjacent plots of vineyard.
Copyright © All Rights Reserved
