Wines

Mickael’s Crémant Blanc is pure Chardonnay from Arbois-Pupillin with thirty months of lees contact and a mere 0.5 grams per liter dosage. Although the vintage is not indicated on the label, Crinquand’s Crémant is vintage specific, all the juice being from a single harvest. It offers textural plushness and breadth balanced by iron-tinged minerality and a gently honeyed character.

Crinquand uses fruit from the younger vines of Ploussard to make his sparkling wine. Although the vintage is not indicated on the label, Crinquand’s Crémant is vintage specific, all the juice being from a single harvest. The Crémant from this estate is bone-dry “brut zero” (no dosage). On the palate one senses a hint of tannin, a strong underlying earthiness … its “terroir” and an ebullient raspberry fruit in both flavor and on the nose.

Arbois-Pupillin Chardonnay La Bidode is fermented in wood where the malolactic fermenatation also occurs; the “élevage” is in “demi-muid” (500 – 600 liter barrels); the wine spends a minimum of two years in barrel before being bottled; there is a virtually no SO2 used during the aging process; although the wine is not purposely aged “sous voile”, it is never topped up during its time before bottling and there is only a single racking during the “élevage”. The wine displays excellent, firm acidity, is rather full in the mouth, quite honeyed in its nose and flavor, fine with a persistent, mineral-dominated finish.

This cuvée of Chardonnay is harvested from 60-year old vines; in this instance, élevage occurs in smaller barrels (“piece”) and is bottled after three years … a wine of remarkable concentration with classic notes of hazelnut and honey.

The best Savagnin is produced from poor soils underlain with “marne grise” and the Crinquand Savagnin is planted in a singular one hectare parcel of this compact grey marl. Vinified in large, old oak barrels and left there to age about four years before bottling, Crinquand’s Savagnin is a profound wine marked by notes of beeswax, cacao and walnut with a penetrating, long, almost tannic finish.

Pupillin is recognized as the “home” of the Ploussard grape, the lime-clay soils of the vineyards, heavily laden with stones, surrounding the village providing the perfect setting to express the curious and compelling character of this grape variety. The light color of this wine reflects the grey-rose blush to the skin of the grape which then leads to a surprisingly tannic texture; a rough, “sauvage”, lively wine with a big personality. Drawn from the oldest Ploussard vines of the domaine.

Crinquand’s version of Trousseau from Pupillin is vinified in barrel in similar manner to his Ploussard, and is more fine and elegant than the other Trousseaux in our portfolio and is less rustic than Crinquand’s Ploussard. The Trousseau plantings are isolated in vineyards the composition of which is a classic mix of clay and limestone dominated by small pebbles and stones.