Domaine des Roches - Alain and Jérome Lenoir 2011
Domaine des Roches is located in Beaumont-en-Veron in the Chinon appellation. Alain and Jérome Lenoir (father and son) inherited the 3.5 hectares from Jérome's great-grandfather. The Cabernet Franc vine is about sixty years old and the soil only offers the vine 20cm of earth, the roots seek nutrients in the very hard bedrock for which Chinonais is famous. The Chenin Blanc plot was purchased in the late 1950s. Customs recently assessed the vines as pre-1900 and probably pre-phylloxeratic. Surrounded by woods and unplanted land, this plot could have escaped the insect.
The harvest is manual and the grapes are destemmed before even returning to the cellar, which is then done very quickly to minimize the risk of oxidation. The Cabernet Franc is transferred to very old (about 40 years old) and large wooden barrels where the berries undergo a punching down with a pestle. Fermentation is carried out with indigenous yeasts and then aging lasts from 3 to 6 years in barrels . The level of added sulfur is 10 times below the current standard for so-called natural red wines.
The bottles of this producer are delivered to us directly from the estate, from the stocks present in their underground cellar. The condition of the labels is not always perfect. There are sometimes red marks on them due to the friction of the labels in the racks and in the boxes. The levels of the bottles are sometimes slightly low. This natural wine cannot be replaced or refunded in the event of organoleptic defects. A photo can be sent to you on simple request.
Grape variety: 100% Cabernet Franc