CHARDONNAY ROSE MASSALE 2019 White Wine (Stéphane TISSOT)

TERROIR

CHARDONNAY ROSE MASSALE is a white wine made from an old Chardonnay variety whose berries are entirely pink. Born from a mutation of the Burgundy's white Chardonnay, this grape variety is old and its genetic identity has been carefully preserved by mass selection, that is to say by mother plant cutting.

The Jura is one of the rare wine regions to have such a great Chardonnay genetic diversity linked to a genetic material mutation that occurs naturally on the vine plants : some branches of a vine can thus have characteristics other than those of the rest of the plant. The Chardonnay Rose is strictly identical to its mother plant except for the berries color which become dark pink when they are ripe.

CHARDONNAY ROSE MASSALE comes from a blend of three plots and three main terroirs constituting the Jura vineyard:

• La Mailloche, which soil consists of a thick layer of silts and decalcifying clays (clay resulting from the limestone rock dissolution by water) which covers a base of gryphite limestones dating from -201 to -174 million years and rich in fossil oyster shells, the gryphites, reflect of periods of shallow seas greater agitation with a better environment oxygenation leading to carbonates precipitation,

• Corvées sous Curon, Curon and Valière, with soil consisting of a rocky scree thick layer coming from the limestone cornices dating from the Bajocian, Middle Jurassic period (-174 to -145 million years) characterized by the presence of a shallow warm sea dotted with islands. In depth, under the limestone scree layer, we find the Lias marls, widespread in the Jura vineyards, and which date from the Lower Jurassic (-201 to -174 million years) when the region was covered with a shallow, oxygen-poor sea.

• Les Bruyères and Sauvagny, with a thick layer of wash silt (between 10 and 30cm), which covers the Rhetian schist marls formed in the shallow lagoons that occupied the Jura between -252 and -201 million years ago (Triassic geological period).

WINEGROWING & WINEMAKING

The vines are cultivated according to the Biodynamic winegrowing principles for more than 15 years. No phytosanitary products are used for the vineyard care.

The harvested Chardonnay rose grapes coming from the calcareous soils of La Mailloche, Corvées sous Curon, Curon and Valière represent 60% of the cuvée, and those from the clay soils of Les Bruyères and Sauvagny constitute the remaining 40%.
Once picked, the grapes are immediately pressed by pneumatic pressing and put for fermentation into 228-liter oak barrels. The alcoholic fermentation starts spontaneously with the native yeasts, followed by the malolactic fermentation. The must is then matured for 12 months.
After the ageing phase, the must is racked and bottled without any fining or filtration.

A slight dose of sulphits is added during the winemaking process.