Length/Type of Fermentation: Grapes are hand picked very ripe. They are destemmed and crushed. A long fermentation adding pure alcohol on the grape berries which ensure a good extraction of the aromas and tannins.
Length/Type of Aging: In oak casks and steel vats from 18 to 36 months depending on vintages.
Spread out on narrow and steep terraces, the Banyuls appellation overhangs the Meditteranean Sea. More than two thousand years old, the vineyards are still hand-worked, and are rooted in a stony schist soil. M Chapoutier Banyuls is a “vin doux naturels”, fortified wine that is exceptional and age-worthy.It is naturally sweet, shows full fruit and wonderful character and is universally perfect with fruit and/or chocolate desserts.
Vintage: 2007
Type: Côte-Rôtie La Mordorée
Grape Variety Used: 100% Syrah
Alcohol Level: 13.5%
Length/Type of Fermentation: Hand harvesting at peak maturity. The grapes ferment in open wooden vats after total destemming. A cap puching and pumping over ensure a good extraction of the color and tannins.
Length/Type of Aging: In oak casks (225 Liters), of which a third is new.
This cuvée’s primary source is a very steep, terraced vineyard in the Côte Brune above Ampuis. The soil here is notably more limestone schistous, whereas the old-vine source in the Côte Blonde, more acidic and sandy, provides wine of less dense color. Together these wines create a seamless whole in one of the most exciting appellations in the Northern Rhône. Pure Syrah, grown at minuscule yields from 70 year old vines, gives this wine power and spiciness, and perhaps less outright mass than any of Ermitage selections. Yet its sensual thrills resonate long after the taste has been consumed, and its gain in time of the more earthy and smoky notes so typical of great Côte Rôtie make it one of the world’s unique wine wonders.
