From: Loire Valley, France
Varietal: Pinot Noir
Taste: Immediately aromatically impressive, this wine shows off a bouquet of berries: bing cherries, wild sour cherries, just-ripe strawberry, pomegranate, and red currant. Crushed rose petal, grapefruit oil, candied ginger, kumquats, brown sugar, and allspice encircle all those lifted berry notes. On the palate, crisp, crunchy red fruits lead before opening up into that bundle of berries accompanied by flavors of ginger and baking spice. Elegantly structured with a lilting, lingering finish, this charming rouge will knock your socks off.
Pairing: Effortlessly versatile, this chic Pinot Noir from the Loire Valley is drinking well! You’ll not need food to make this a complete wine experience, but like all French wines, this will fit excellently alongside a ton of dishes. Here’s a couple of ideas to mull over: chicken salad, jambon buerre, Chinese roast pork, roasted or fried chicken, pork chops or duck confit with a cherry reduction and whipped foie mousse, creamy chicken liver mousse or pâté (we’re also sharing a classic chicken liver salad recipe below), stuffed mushrooms, Korean or Swedish meatballs, Mushroom Bourguignon, Cacio e Pepe (there’s a vegan version below that’s excellent), Mushroom Potpie’s, you get the idea.
Vegan Cacio e Pepe
By Alexa Weibel
French Chicken Liver and Green Bean Salad With Garam Masala
By David Tanis
About. The Prieurs come from a long line of wine growers. The newest member of the family to take charge of the winemaking is the youthful and enthusiastic Luc Prieur, who completed his studies at Lycée Viticole in Beaune. The Burgundian philosophy is felt in their wines, with a respect for individual vineyard plots, producing cuvées based on their terroirs.
We are delighted to list the following single vineyard cuvées: Monts Damnés alongside their gorgeous Sancerre Rouge. The Prieur’s try to intervene as little as possible in the vinification process. The wines are neither fined nor filtered.
The legendary Monts Damnés terroir was the first hill in Sancerre to have been planted with vines. The grapes growing here reach excellent maturity and are always the last to be harvested. The wines produced are endowed with amazing substance and express all the mineral richness of their terroir. The precision applied in the racking operations and in the length of aging preserves the wine’s potential. One third of the wines is aged in 600L barrels between 2 to 4 years old with the rest in tank.
The 5 hectares of Sancerre Rouge are grown in a local spot known as “Les Pichons” below the Monts Damnés hill. The soils are limestoneclay (limestone subsoil). They are deep enough to enable the vines to root well and draw out all the richness of the terroir.
Half of the wine is aged in 228 barrels of which 7% is new, the other half is in large oak vats. The wine is then racked and blended. The mainly de-stemmed grapes go into open vats. After a few days’ cold, pre-fermentation maceration, fermentation takes place with indigenous yeasts and the performance of cap punching (pigeage) and gentle pumping over operations. Long aging lasting 14 months in 228 barrels of which 15% are in new oak. The precision applied in the racking operations and in the length of aging means that the wines do not have to undergo filtering or fining, thereby preserving their full potential.
