2020 Clos de la Roilette Fleurie Cuvee Christie Beaujolais, France

2020 Clos de la Roilette Fleurie Cuvee Christie Beaujolais, France

$23.99

100% Gamay. Being on the border of the Moulin-à-Vent cru, the core of Roilette’s Fleurie terroir is atypical of most of Fleurie, rich in clay and manganese; that said, there are two parcels (named Champagne and Deduets) composed of more-typical granite soils. These 30-to-40-year-old vines are the source of the Cuvée Christie bottling, which vigneron Alain Coudert initiated in the 1999 vintage.

As on the rest of the estate, the Christie vines are farmed sustainably by lutte raisonnée and the soils worked by hand, only twice a year and very carefully in order to not do damage to the older plants’ roots. The fruit is manually harvested and fermented in whole clusters with native yeasts in open-top, neutral vats with the cap kept submerged; the maceration for Christie is the shortest of Roilette’s wines at approximately 10 days. Aging takes places in old foudres until bottling the summer after harvest.

The story behind two name changes to this wine: through the 2016 vintage, this wine was named “Christal” as a combination of the names of Coudert’s children, Christie and Alexis. However, a well-known Champagne house pursued legal action recently to challenge the use of this personalized name, so the wine has been re-christened “Christie” to mitigate the situation. And because these vines are not located in Coudert's historical Clos de la Roilette lieu-dit, Alain Coudert decided to bottle it as "Domaine Coudert" with a stylistically different label and no mention of Clos de la Roilette.

–
+

Specs