Wines

The rosé at Gour de Chaulé is made from the direct press method. The juice is quickly drawn off the skins (6 to 9 hours of contact), then fermented. A cold stabilization follows. The wine does not undergo malolactic fermentation and is bottled in the early spring of the year following harvest. The Rosé is composed of Cinsault (50%), Grenache, and mourvèdre. This is a brilliantly colored wine with hues of pink and rose accompanied by flavors and a bouquet dominated by the impression of freshly crushed strawberries. Again, a limited amount of this wine is produced annually, only enough for us to have 1,200 bottles per year for the US market.

A small amount of Côtes du Rhône is produced from the vineyards owned by the estate in the communes of Vacqueyras and Violes. As with the more noble Gigondas, this cuvée is based almost exclusively on the Grenache grape (approximately 90% of the blend annually). It is vinified in a fashion similar to the Gigondas except that the élevage is less long. This is to say that there is an extended cuvaison with stems included, malolactic is done in cuve and the wine sees a brief stay in large foudres before being bottled eighteen months after harvest without fining or filtration. We purchase the overwhelming majority of this wine for sale in the USA (approximately 2,400 bottles per annum).

Several important vineyard sites form this Gigondas, including Gour de Chaulé, Les Blaches, and Les Bousquets. The Grenache vines average well over a half century in age, with low yields of 30-32 hl/ha. The grapes are never destemmed and there is a 3 week cuvaison with a small amount of press juice added back to the cuvée. The wine is racked into large oak “foudres” after malo where it stays for approximately 18 months, being bottled—unfined and unfiltered—three years after harvest. The resulting wine is sturdy, braced with sweet, dusty tannins, and is intensely aromatic with notes of crushed white pepper, oriental spices and game.

Beginning in 2018, Stephanie Fumoso entrusted her son Paul to create two new cuvées based on plantings in some of the domaine’s most prized sites. “La Numero Huit” is pure Grenache from one of Gour de Chaulé’s oldest parcels: 100-year-old vines, a portion of which are ungrafted, planted in sandy limestone soil just across the street from the winery itself. Fermented spontaneously with 60-to-100% whole clusters depending on the vintage, “La Numero Huit” emphasizes elegance over power; to that end, Paul favors a gentle but long extraction and ages the wine in cement egg for 12 months with minimal sulfur additions. The result is a testament to Grenache’s capacity for finesse: an energetic, mineral-drenched wine that puts one in the mind of the sand-grown Grenache of the legendary Château Rayas—an estate Paul holds in the highest esteem. As for the name of the cuvée, 8 is Paul’s favorite number—one that crops up regularly in this numerologically attuned young man’s life.

The sibling of “La Numero Huit” above, “Le Gour” employs similar methods—a long and gentle extraction, a high proportion of whole clusters, a year’s worth of aging in cement egg with minimal sulfur—with vines from a notably different terroir: 80-year-old Grenache planted in the Le Gour vineyard’s limestone-rich clay. “Le Gour” offers a minerality simultaneously refined and punchy, with lip-smacking tannins and a remarkable sense of acid-driven focus. Here again one feels Grenache’s capacity for finesse and precision; it is a wine of beautifully executed intentionality from young Paul Fumoso.