- Awards
-
Gold Medal at the Sommeliers Choice Awards 2021
- Description
- This is our rare, single-vineyard wine, which is only produced in the best years, and in 2017 only 628 bottles were produced.
- Eyes
- Les Genoux is less intensely coloured than the regular cuveé, as it contains 10-15% white and pink grapes.
- Nose
- The nose is more complex that our main wine and is more perfumed, spicy and complex. Layers of raspberry and wild strawberry, with wafts of rosemary and fennel. There's also hints of slatey minerals and even a note of iodine.
- Mouth
- Initially soft, and lush, the palate unveils an array of crushed stones, herbs, and ripe plum and damson flavours. For all its softness, there is qood tannic structure and will improve over 3 to 4 years in bottle.
- Body
- Full
- Winemaking Notes
- The source of the fruit for our 'Les Genoux' cuveé are the wonderful 100+ year-old vines in our ancient Coume de Roy vineyard. All the grapes are picked by hand, and any selection needed to eliminate less than perfect grapes is done in the vineyard. One barrel was de-stalked and lightly crushed and the second barrel was fermented with whole bunches, both in up-ended demi-muids (500 L barrels) with the ends taken out, and plunged gently by hand, twice or three times a day. Pressing after 3 weeks of post-fermentation maceration, and the free run and light pressings from each barrel were blended in a 3-year-old Demi-muid for 14 months, before being bottled with minimal filtration, and sealed with melted beeswax.
- Growing Conditions
- After a damp spring, a very hot June and July quickly ripened our grapes, and a much cooler August helped to retain acidity and freshness. Despite a slight lack of water and smaller-sized grapes, this harvest generated outstanding wines.
- Food Pairing
- Excellent on its own as a 'vino di meditazione' (best appreciated with a good friend), Les Genoux is also a wonderful match for charcuterie (especially finnochiona, or fennel salami), and the perfumed, elegant style makes it pretty versatile.
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Reviews
TAMLYN CURRIN
Jancisrobinson.com - Professional
www.jancisrobinson.com
July 8, 2019 23:00
Quiet, calm, not trying to seduce you from the moment you raise the glass to your nose. Smells of drying rose petals, tiny dark plums with wrinkled skins, earth and rust. Tannins like rusty arches wrapped in silk ribbons and through them, those same tiny plums, the earth, the roses … layers of flavour in a light cloud of raw spices that filter through like dust motes in evening sunlight. Long, elegant finish, impossibly fresh and lithe for a 14.5% wine.
17/20 points