2020 | Domaine de Pallus | Chinon Messanges Rouge

The palate is powerful and complex. A wine of great finesse and an impressive length in the mouth.

Producer Information

Domaine de Pallus is a wine estate in the Chinon appellation of the Loire Valley. It makes a range of red wines from Cabernet Franc, and a single white from Chenin Blanc. Located in the Cravant-les-Côteaux, the estate owns 12 hectares (30 acres) out of the best 70 hectares of hillside vineyards in the commune. The vines are farmed biodynamically. The estate was leased by Jospeh Moron in 1882, then bought in 1889. From Joseph's death in 1919 it was leased out until 1950, when it taken over by Joseph's daughter. It has bottled wine since 1969. Joseph's great-great grandson, Bertrand Sourdais, took over in 2005. He has worked for prestigious estates in Bordeaux, Spain and Chile. Sourdais also makes wine in the Ribera del Duero region of Spain under the Bodegas Antidoto and Dominio de Es labels. These were founded in 2010 and 2011. Of the reds, Les Pensées de Pallus is made from half a dozen plots on the shallower mid slopes; soils are sand on chalky tuffeau. Since 2013 it has only been made from the best vines within these plots, to raise quality and communicate terroir. It is fermented in concrete wine tanks using indigenous yeasts, and aged for 12 months in barrels, then 6 months back in the wine tanks. La Croix Boissée is described as the jewel of the domaine. It is a 0.5-hectare (1.2-acre) vineyard planted in 1974 on the very best of the upper slopes at the southern end of the Cravant hill close to the village. Soils are sandy clay with more calcareous lower layers giving the wine bright red fruit and minerality. The fruit is 100 percent destemmed and fermented in 3000-liter open wood vats. It is aged for 18 months in barrel. La Rougerie is another 0.5-hectare plot located just a few blocks further from the village of Cravant-les-Côteaux, but the soils are pure clay. This results in a deep wine with velvety texture. One part of the section was planted in 1952 with a unique clone of Cabernet Franc, the second in 2007. It is made in a very similar way to La Croix Boissée, though five percent of fruit is fermented with its stems. The final red comes from Le Clos de Pallus, a monopole vineyard of just under 2 hectares (4.9 acres) next to the winery, planted in 1962 on the Cravant mid-slopes, and facing southeast. Only half of the vineyard provides fruit for the wine of the same name. Soils are silica-rich clay over calcareous rock. The wine is made in the same way as La Croix Boissée. The only non-red is a rare example of white Chinon. The Chenin Blanc grapes for Le Coq de Pallus is planted on sandy soils over clay among the estate's plots on the mid-slope. The wine is whole-bunch-pressed and barrel fermented for three months. It is bottled after nine months of ageing in barrel.

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