Claude Riffault Sancerre Rose La Noue 2022
No Score but the 2020 was a 91-92WA from a similar vintage for comparison:
(it reads pretty great!)
The intensely salmon colored wine has changed its style toward red wine, specifically Pinot Noir, and offers an intense, concentrated and highly attractive bouquet of ripe peaches, lychees and other tropical fruits along with red berry, floral and delicate earthy aromas. Vinified in oak and to be bottled in March this year, this is a mouth-filling yet vinous Pinot with nice purity and mineral freshness. The wine is a seriously structured and finely biting Sancerre with cherry and red berry aromas on the finish. It is very much on the fruity side at this early stage but balanced, vital, fresh, highly stimulating and lean rather than big. This is a pink red wine, and I wouldn't drink it too early if you don't want to waste its true talents. Try it on Christmas at the earliest, and if it isn't this year, it's fine next year or even 2023 as well.
Grape: Pinot Noir
Vine Age: 10–60
Farming: Certified organic and biodynamic
Soils: Kimmeridgian limestone (Terre Blanches)
Winemaking: Hand harvested, a combination of saignée and direct press wine, natural yeast fermentation in tank. Aged 4 months in tank.
La Noue is a 2.5 hectare plot of Pinot Noir on clay limestone and marl. Divided into seven plots and ranging in age from 10 to 60 years old it is the source for both the Noue Rosé and Rouge. The rosé is a combination of juice bled off the Sancerre Rouge after a 6-12 hour maceration combined with direct press Pinot Noir.
