La Ferme de la Sansonnière: Wines
As you would expect the harvest of the fruit at La Ferme de la Sansonnière is by hand, with several tries as required, in order to potentiate quality. After pressing the juice is fermented, usually in older double barriques, although it depends to some extent on the wine in question. Speaking in general terms, the wines also undergo malolactic fermentation before undergoing élevage in the same vessels, resting on the fine lees until they are filtered and bottled. The wine may be treated with a small dose of sulphites; Mark’s source is an ‘organic’ form of volcanic sulphur, taken from the slopes of Mount Etna; using this product allows him ‘organic’ peace of mind, but he also feels he gets away with adding less sulphites than he would if it were from an industrial source.
The cuvées are as follows.
Surely Mark Angeli’s best known wine is La Lune, which is a blend from multiple parcels of Chenin Blanc vines, indeed all such vines in Mark’s possession, excluding the old vines at Blanderies and those at Les Fouchardes. This means it reflects the harvest from about 3 hectares, not quite half the domaine. The soils on which the vines are planted are clay and limestone, and while some parcels are planted with vines aged over 75 years, the average age across all the parcels is closer to 20 years.
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