Domaine des Roches Neuves: White Wines
Looking beyond the reds to Thierry’s other wines, in 1996 he started off down the road towards the production of a white wine to complement his reds with the purchase of a plot of very old Chenin Blanc vines near Saumur. These vines were the source of his first white cuvée, L’Insolite. For a long time this was it as far as white wines went, but the range has since seen a very significant expansion, with two more cuvées added. All come under the Saumur appellation.
First to L’Insolite, the original white wine chez Roches Neuves. The soils here have a clay-limestone character interspersed with sandstone, flint and alluvial silt, and the rows of 90-year old vines are interplanted with grass. The Chenin Blanc is picked by hand, the yields often very low, 18 hl/ha not being out of the ordinary. The fruit is then transported to the cellar where it is pressed using pneumatic equipment, followed in early vintages by fermentation in a mix of 400-litre and 228-litre barriques, one-third one-year old and two-thirds two-years old. More recently the oak influence has been scaled back, and Thierry now prefers 12-hectolitre foudres instead. The subsequent élevage occurs on the lees in the same vessels, and lasts twelve months, after which the wine is finally bottled.
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