CONDRIEU LES CHAILLETS 2021 (Yves CUILLERON)

DESCRIPTION

Les Chaillets is the local term used to describe the stony terraces that support the vineyards and shape the northern landscape of the Rhone Valley.

This 100% Viognier wine is a blend of the best plots of the Condrieu designation on which the oldest vines of the estate are planted.

TERROIR

The old Viognier vines that give birth to the "Les Chaillets" wine are planted on a granite with biotite soil, an iron-rich granite that contains a high proportion of black mica. The presence of dark anatexite with cordierites all around suggests that the granite with biotite was formed by remelting of a pre-existing granite formed by a magma cooling, a phenomenon that occured between -360 and -295 millions years.

This crystalline rock, very hard at the time of its formation, cracked over time under the effect of the plates tectonic movements and the rainwater which seeped into it caused the rock to burst when it freezes in winter.
It is in these crevices that the vine spreads its roots in order to find the water and the nutrients necessary for its survival.

WINEGROWING & WINEMAKING

The grapes are picked only when they are perfectly ripe, they are manually harvested and then delicately pressed. The must obtained is settled, then poured into barrels and casks where it will carry out its alcoholic and malolactic fermentations in the presence of native yeasts and bacteria.
The must is then matured on fine lees in barrels and in casks for 9 months, with regular stirring to put the lees back in suspension in the must and give more roundness to the wine.

Each plot is vinified separately, blending is done at the last moment, before bottling.

Les Chaillets can be drunk in its youth (after 3 - 4 years rest in bottle), it will then offer primary aromas of flowers and fruits, but its ten years ageing potential allows it to develop complex tertiary aromas in the cellar.

The bottle is sealed with a DIAM30® cork stopper which guarantees the absence of TCA contamination of the wine (or cork taste)