Famille Chermette, Beaujolais-Villages, Les Griottes, France (2022)

TASTING NOTES

Textbook Beaujolais: fruity, fresh, easy to drink, crunchy with a tangy side of fresh red fruits: morello cherry, raspberry, strawberry. Easy-drinking, juicy wine with fruit and freshness.

Made from vines less than 30 years old, this cuvée develops the freshness of red fruits. It is called Griottes because of its aromas but also because the bottom of the vines is bordered by cherry trees. 

Guyot and Cordon de Royat pruning - Density: 6000 vines / hectare.

20 south-west facing hectares on plagio dark granite soil at Vissoux in Saint Vérand.
On the photo you can see a section of soil with 40 to 50 cm of topsoil and below the block of granite through which the rootlets have to find their way. It is a poor soil which forces the vines to draw deeply through the rocks to feed themselves, hence a clear notion of terroir in Saint Vérand.

Manual harvest at full ripeness. Half-carbonic maceration with two pump-overs per day, 5 to 6 days of maceration in concrete tanks, no chaptalization neither yeasting, minimum of SO2.

The estate Famille Chermette in Saint-Vérand, in the Golden Stone area, South of Beaujolais in Rhone.

Combining tradition and innovation, Martine, Pierre-Marie and Jean-Etienne Chermette are fully involved in the production of authentic, high quality wines. White, red and Beaujolais rosé, crus such as Brouilly, Fleurie, Moulin-à-Vent, Saint-Amour, Crémants de Bourgogne as well as hand crafted fruit liqueurs, cassis and vine peach with ginger make up the range.

While the estate was established in the 1870s, as Domaine du Vissoux, it became Domaines Chermette as the estate grew beyond the plots in Vissoux.