Domaine la Remejeanne Cotes du Rhone Les Chevrefeuilles Rouge 2016

Description

“No one… ever paid much attention to the wines of the out-of-the-way village of Sabran – until a careful, thoughtful winemaker like Rémy Klein came along.” Andrew Jefford, The New France

“Proprietor Rémy Klein is one of the most consistently top-flight winemakers among the Côtes du Rhone producers.” Robert Parker, The erobertparker.com

Rémy Klein (makes wines that proudly speak of their place, Sabran) high up in the hills with soils comprised of sand and limestone. He picks his fruit a bit earlier than most resulting in a range of fresh, highly refined Côtes du Rhône wines brimming with fruit and character. There is a purity and freshness (cooler temperature/more natural acid resulting altitude) in his wines quite distinct from many of the Côtes du Rhones produced at lower altitudes and on alluvial soils.

Certified organic. This blend comes from hillside vines with an average altitude of 250 metres, loess/limestone soil, and both south and east expositions. A blend of Syrah, Grenache, Mourvèdre, Carignan, as well as some Marselan (from some old vines of a rarely seen cross between Cabernet and Grenache that Olivier Klein likes for the acidity it brings to the blend), this is perhaps the spiciest of the Réméjeanne wines we ship. The lion’s share of the grapes are sorted and destemmed before a natural ferment in concrete tank. The Carignan grapes are fermented carbonically. There is no sulphur used during the vinifcation, and the wine then spends a year in tank prior to bottling (unfined). It’s a lovely wine of great finesse with vivid, complex aromas and flavours of mulberry and raspberry spiked with musk along with hints of liquorice, violets, thyme, bay leaf and white pepper. The finish is bright, refreshing and perfumed with a flood of juicy fruit shrouded in fine powdery tannins (typical of the limestone-rich soils of Sabran). As always, this handcrafted wine is very different from your generic, mass-volume Côtes du Rhône. By the way, Chèvrefeuille [pronounced: shev-ruh-foy] is French for ‘honeysuckle’, the perfume of which you cannot escape during springtime in the southern Ardèche.

RRP $41 SPECIAL DOZEN Buy $29.99 ..