Vouette et Sorbée NV Fidèle Extra Brut

Fidèle is a blanc de noirs (100% Pinot Noir) grown on Kimmeridgian limestone soils.
The Fonnet vineyard, located in a small, enclosed valley, provides the heart of this cuvée. Sorbée provides much of the balance, topped off by Châtel—a very rocky and limestone-rich vineyard with 20-plus-year-old Pinot Noir vines. Overall, the vine age for this wine averages 30 years. Following pressing in a traditional, vertical Coquard press, Fidèle was vinified entirely without added yeast or chaptalisation, in used Burgundian barrels for 10 months (these barriques came from Domaine Arnaud Ente in Meursault). The wine then spent 15 to 20 months on lees in bottle after secondary fermentation and was disgorged with zero dosage. Gautherot describes this as “a dangerous wine” - the bottle disappears so quickly. This is just a brilliant release of this wine, loaded with wonderfully juicy red fruit notes, intense, chalky minerality, and a complex earthy lick from the reserve wine. Impossible to stop drinking.