2024 Alphonse Mellot La Moussiere Sancerre Loire, France

Tasting notes: Lively like the look in your eyes, sweet like a kiss. Very fine gold colour with a green sheen. Its nose has a flowery fruity bouquet. Being pure and honest it is seducer from the outset. Flowers flit around, trees bend down to give their most beautiful fruits to us and the air we breathe is so sweet in this garden full of sweetness that it is intoxicating. Lively, supple and welcoming taste. Predominantly honest in a welcoming balance, it reflects a pretty grape, a fine harvest in the singing and laughter of the men and women pickers. It tells us of work well done in the divine order and Nature's kindness. It is fair, and all one expected and to cap it all there is happiness there.

Harvesting: La Moussièreis produced from vines between 4 and about 40 years old. Average yield: 53 hl/ha

It is picked in small 25 Kg boxes. All the grapes have been sorted by a sorting table and transported into the press by conveyor belt (whole grape pressing).

Area: 34 ha

Grape variety: Sauvignon blanc

Exposure: South - Southwest

Geology:

Soil: Saint-Doulchard marls (solids lumps).

Subsoil: Upper Lusitanian to Portlandian period cretaceous.

Planting density: 8000 to 10 000 vinestocks per ha (at present about 14 ha with 10 000 vinestocks/ha. All new plantations have 9000 to 10 000 vinestocks given that the Sancerre vineyard is generally planted in accordance with the appellation order with 6,666 vinestocks per hectare.

Viticulture: The vines are pruned by the simple Guyot method or Royat Cordon pruning. The vineyard is trained in organic and biodynamic vine growing.

Winemaking: Sequential pneumatic pressing. Static settling at temperatures below 10°C for about 48 hours. Fermentation takes place in vats for 50% and the rest in new casks at temperature between 18° and 23°C. Ageing on fine lees over 7 to 8 month;

About 240,000 bottles of the La Moussière Vintage are produced and it is bottled by us on the estate.