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View additional photos for Le Claux Delorme. | Le Claux DelormeRegion: Loire Valley | |
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White Wine
2009 Valençay, 100% Sauvignon Blanc
Red Wine
2008 Valençay
| | We first met Bertrand Minchin in 1986, long before Beaune Imports existed, while attending wine-making school in Beaune. At the time, the Minchin family possessed farmland in and outside Menetou-Salon appellation, and Bertrand, ex-rugby player, intended to redirect more of the family's attention towards wine growing, where his grandfather had grown grapes before WWII.
Fast forward twenty years and we find Bertrand and his wife Albane, well-known winemakers in Menetou-Salon for years already, also now producing wines in Valençay, a new appellation on the banks of the Cher river from vineyards purchased in 2004. We noticed the wines in the most happening wine bars in Paris already in 2008.
Though not organic, the emphasis here is to farm with the lightest footprint possible. The planting of beneficial grasses in the rows and absolute minimal use of synthetic treatments combined with compost and deep plowing of the soil have brought life back to these vineyards with a vengeance. In leaving the natural trees surrounding the vineyards as well as large plots of orchards between parcels, Minchin has recreated the biodiversity that had been loss during the previous owner's stewardship.
The soil in this area is made up of a clay and flint base covered with 30-60cm of clay and river gravel left behind by the receding river ages ago. |
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