Domaine FONT SARADE

Domaine Font Sarade - VignArtea

RHÔNE    37 ha     SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE     WINEMAKER : Claire BURLE


ESTATE HISTORY


Located on the plateau de la Ponche, north of Vacqueyras, the FONT SARADE estate began its history in 1936 in the small family house built by René Devine. He cultivated about 10 hectares of vines and sold his wine to merchants.

His son, André, took over the business in 1967, continuing to sell wine in bulk to merchants, as well as some of the grapes in the cooperative cellar. Gradually, he bought new plots in several designations: Vacqueyras, Ventoux and Côtes-du-Rhône.

It wasn't until 2002 that the first wines were bottled at the estate, thanks to André's daughter, Agnès Devine, who married Bernard Burle, himself a winemaker.

The estate then took on a new lease of life, and gained even more plots. In 2014, Claire, one of Agnès and Bernard's daughters, joined her parents and now works with them on the estate, which now covers 37 hectares spread over five designations.



TERROIR


The FONT SARADE vineyard is spread over the villages of Vacqueyras, Gigondas, Aubignan (Ventoux designation) and Violès (Côtes-du-Rhône Village Plan de Dieu designation).

The geology of the southern Rhône valley is like a sedimentary basin, alternating between open Tertiary basins and Cretaceous reliefs cut by narrow defiles. This ensemble owes its unity to the Rhône, whose alluvial deposits and those of its tributaries cover a large area.
The left bank of the Rhône offers a complex relief with, on the river's edge, a series of hills of modest altitude (Uchaux, Châteauneuf massifs, etc.).

Towards the east, the wine-growing area is framed by the powerful heights of the Baronnies, the Dentelles de Montmirail, etc. Between these reliefs, the vineyards have colonised the slopes and the wide, stony alluvial flats of the Aygues and Ouvèze rivers.
The terroirs of the different plots of the estate are located on the Miocene formations of the Helvetian (-16 to -11 Ma) and Burdigalian (-23 to -16 Ma), essentially composed of red sand cut by lenses consolidated in soft sandstone, but also on the vast alluvial terrace of the Riss, formed during the penultimate great ice age of the Quaternary period in the Alps and which is composed of blue clays, sandstone safres and calcareous pebbles.



WINEGROWING & WINEMAKING


The FONT SARADE estate practices the sustainable winegrowing, the rows of vines are grassed over and the production of each vine is controlled.
The vinification is carried out variety by variety, and in the traditional way: no exogenous yeasts are added to the juices (use of indigenous yeasts only), the musts are vinified in thermo-regulated stainless steel vats and matured in concrete vats. Some vintages are also aged in French oak barrels.

For the red grape varieties, the maceration phase is done at low temperature, with daily pumping over and sometimes some punching down. The idea is not to exceed 25°C during the intense fermentation phase.

The maceration lasts from 15 to 25 days. The red grapes are then pressed, and the musts of the different grape varieties are tasted before being blended to determine the type of ageing in terms of container and duration. This last phase will condition the profile and the aromatic power of the wine thus obtained.


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