LA VIGNE EN ROSE 2020 WHITE WINE (Vignoble du Rêveur)

TERROIR

Le vignoble du rêveur is located in Bennwihr, in the Rhine plain, a region whose current physiognomy began to emerge at the beginning of the Oligocene (-33 to 28 million years ago). Indeed, at the end of the Eocene (the era preceding the Oligocene), the region is subject to distensions caused by the North Atlantic opening and the Alpine collision, causing a slight subsidence of the Rhine rift which is gradually collapsing in stages.

A sea arm penetrates there from the south-east, causing potassium lagoons to the south of Colmar, while the Vosges mountains erosion promotes an accumulation of pebbles. In the Middle Oligocene, 5 million years later, the rift opened up towards the North Sea which entered it and remained there for another 6 million years, until the end of the Oligocene, a period where it gradually begins to withdraw.

In the Pliocene (-6 to -2 million years ago), the rift edges rise and gradually allow the Rhine to follow it towards the north, favoring an accumulation of fluvial deposits that can exceed 200 meters in places.
In the Quaternary (from -2 million years ago to the present day), the sedimentation continues under the effect of two concomitant phenomena :

• strong climatic variations, with a succession of cold periods causing a deposit of coarse debris, followed by the Holocene glaciations (10,000 years ago) favorable to a finer sedimentation,
• tectonic deformations, accentuating the Rhine rift subsidence, allowing the piling of great thicknesses of alluvium, the most recent, dating from the Würmien, covering the oldest.

It is on this thick Quaternary soil that the Vignoble du Rêveur vineyard is located.

WINEGROWING & WINEMAKING

The vines are planted and cultivated according to the Biodynamic principles. No phytosanitary treatment is applied to the vines, only herbal teas and decoctions are sprayed according to a pre-defined schedule.

The 2020 vintage of LA VIGNE EN ROSE is a blend of different Gewürztraminer and Riesling musts :

• The Riesling grapes are harvested manually, pressed and the must is vinified in stainless steel vats with the native yeasts and bacteria. Once the alcoholic and malolactic fermentations have been carried out, the must continues to age for one year on its fine lees.
  
  
• The Gewürztraminer grapes are harvested manually, then separated :
  • 10% of the harvested grapes are fermented with the stems and skins by carbonic maceration, which lasts about ten days. The must is then pressed and aged in stainless steel tanks for one year,
  • the remaining 90% of Gewürztraminer grapes are vinified normally, that is to say immediately pressed after harvest and then placed in stainless steel vats for alcoholic and malolactic fermentations which are followed by a one-year lees ageing phase.

At the time of bottling, the three musts are blended and filtered with a slight sulphits addition : the gewürztraminer maceration brings tonicity and a slightly tannic substance to the wine, the Riesling gives it freshness and acidity.

• Total SO2 at bottling : 43 mg/l
• Residual sugar : 6 g/l