Bret Brothers Mâcon-Chardonnay Climat Les Crays 2022 (6 Bottles) Mâcon, Burgundy

$513.00 GST Included

AUSTRALIA WIDE SHIPPING INCLUDED

The older citizens of Chardonnay near Tournus will tell you that their village provided the name for the famous Burgundy variety. What is certain is that the word “Chardonnay” comes from the Latin “cardus”, which means “thistle”—spikey plants that grow particularly well on limestone soils!

The Les Crays terroir lies in the hamlet of Champvent, and the name itself, from the French for chalk (craie), gives you a clue to the nature of the soils, where white limestone rocks lay scattered throughout the clay strata. Jean-Philippe Bret tells us it is not easy to source organic vineyards in his area; he stuck gold with this 0.4-hectare parcel of 30- to 40-year-old vines.

Vinified entirely in barrels in 2022, this cracking white Burgundy combines textural quince and Granny Smith fruit with a precise stony palate and fine, chalky close.

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Description

About La Soufrandière Wines

Our La Soufrandière estate, bought in 1947 by our paternal grandfather, is located in Vinzelles, in the Mâcon wine-producing region of South Burgundy. Here we work 4 ha of Pouilly-Vinzelles Climat “Les Quarts”, 0.55 ha of Pouilly-Vinzelles Climat “Les Longeays” and 1 ha of Mâcon-Vinzelles “Le Clos de Grand-Père”.

All our vines, between 33 and 80 years old, are magnificently located, facing East or South-East halfway up or at the top of the slopes of very red clay and “crinoidal” limestone, formed over 180 million years ago.

Since the 2016 season, we’ve been lucky enough to be able to operate around another 5 ha, already certified Organic.
Since the 2016 harvest, La Soufrandière can offer you wines from Saint-Véran “La Bonnode” (3.5 ha), Pouilly-Fuissé “Les Chatenays” (0.70 ha) in Vergisson, Pouilly-Fuissé “Les Vigneraies” (0.50 ha) on the slopes of the Roche de Solutré, and even a little Aligoté (0.30 ha).

To us, being a wine-grower today is not just being a grape producer, in the same way potatoes can be produced on an industrial basis, it’s not being a super driver of ever-heavier and ever-more polluting tractors, it’s not being an agrochemist, as a certain lobby would still like, however; nor is it being the winemaker who juggles with his magical cures to make up for some failure in growing the grape or quite simply to reassure himself, nor is it someone who thinks that drones will soon be able to replace the wine-grower among his vines.

To be in harmony with your vines and encourage practices that respect the life of the soil and the balance of the plant and the environment. Organic and biodynamic agriculture are the keys to this.

On our estate La Soufrandière, we have made the choice to work with the natural rhythms (the moon, planets), we regularly use infusions of plants to strengthen the vines against diseases, we carry out all work by hand (apart from a tractor used for tillage and treatment) to limit soil compaction.

La Soufrandière and Bret Brothers also stand for “human adventure”. This is why we favour human labour instead of using machines or pesticides (2 ha at La Soufrandière = 1 full-time job). Today, the Bret Team represents the equivalent of eight full-time people, excluding grape-pickers.

We are always very happy to be able to pass on our passion to our staff members, our trainees, or our customers who come to see us at the estate.

WINE-GROWER FOREVER

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