Description
Sansonnière Rosé d’un Jour 2020
Varietal: Grolleau Gris, Cabernet Frank
ONE PER CUSTOMER!
Mark Angeli, a chemistry student turned stonemason who embraced viticulture as a form of environmental protection, is a firm believer in “biodynamie” and in the wines that can be made from this method of culture. He bought his estate in 1990, with seven hectares of
Anjou, Coteaux-du-Layon and Bonnezeaux. These last two appellations, planted by law entirely in Chenin blanc, are supposed to yield richly sweet moëlleux or liquoreux wines every year. The rules do not admit any demi-sec or sec wine, as it does in Vouvray and
Montlouis. Anything below a moëlleux loses the names Coteaux-du-Layon or Bonnezeaux, has to be entirely sec and becomes an Anjou blanc, the lowliest of categories in the area and the least remunerative too. So, every year early in the picking season, winemakers have to gamble that the weather in September and October is going to concentrate the grapes’ sugar through noble rot or passerillage, and that they’ll be able to make sweet wines.
His rosé, made from the local Grolleau Gris, 20% Cabernet Franc and 20% Gamay, is the opposite of what’s expected from this usually unappealing category: the color is orangey-pink, the nose soft, ripe with red berry aromas, the mouth round, lively, fruity, and yes, there is a lot of residual sugar! Makes sense: it is made from botrytized grapes (all three varietals).
