Chateau Tour des Grendes Cuvee des Conti Bergerac Blanc 2016

Description

Chateau Tour des Grendes Cuvee des Conti Bergerac Blanc

Chateau Tour des Grendes Cuvee des Conti Bergerac Blanc is a creamy Sémillon-dominated effort spending eight months on the lees and a month in barriques for the Muscadelle.

Imagine waxy peaches and sweet cashews with a dash of ginger, cumin and white pepper.

Chateau Tour des Grendes Cuvee des Conti Bergerac Blanc is made by Luc de Conti, a wonderful character and a fine wine-maker, his exuberant wines reflect his personality.

Luc is a true Vinarchiste, looking for purity and intensity, the maximum expression of the potential of the grapes. In the vineyard the soil is nourished with seaweed and silica treatments to encourage microbial activity.

According to him the soil is lifeless (― a cadaver) and it is a fifteen year process to rid the ground of pollutants.

Manual picking and selection of ripe grapes is essential for the Chateau Tour des Grendes Cuvee des Conti Bergerac Blanc; on the top cuvées there are several tries in the vineyard, and the wine will only be released if it reaches the highest of standards.

The blends will also change according to the physiological ripeness of the grapes,  this vigneron even riddles the grapes on the vine, giving them a quarter turn (at least that’s what he tells us – difficult to know when you’ve been hoaxed by Luc). Madness or pertinence or the countenance of sublime perfection?

Bergerac is a wine region in south-west France, covering an area along the Dordogne river. Despite the region’s long, varied history, Bergerac wines often play second fiddle to the famous cuvees of Bordeaux, just to the west.

Indeed, the wines of Bergerac are made in the image of Bordeaux.

The climate here can be described broadly as maritime, although Bergerac’s inland location means that winters are colder and summers hotter than those of Bordeaux, closer to the Atlantic coast.
This also means that there is less rainfall, and so vineyards are often planted on sites where the soil retains sufficient water to see vines through the drier growing seasons.

Certain parts of the area (particularly in the narrower parts of the Dordogne river valley) are humid enough to support the development of Botrytis cinerea, leading to sweet, luscious styles of wine.

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