2020 Y. Amirault "Les Malgagnes" Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil, Loire Valley, France

ABOUT THIS WINE

If Le Grand Clos is the premier cru of Bourgueil, Les Malgagnes is its peer in Saint Nicolas de Bourgueil. The Amirault family has bottled wine from Malgagnes since 1947 (an auspicious vintage!), and they now farm 2 hectares of 50-year-old vines in this famed lieu-dit on red clay and limestone soils. Hand harvested in successive passes, destemmed, natural yeast fermentation in oak vats with a 5 week maceration. Aging is for 1-13 months in 400L French oak barrels (2/3) and sandstone amphorae (1/3).

ABOUT THIS PRODUCER

Domaine Amirault was founded in 1977 by Yannick with only 3.9 hectares of vines he inherited from his grandfather, Eugène Amirault. Since that time, he and his son Benoît, who joined the family business in 2003, have expanded their holding to 20 hectares of vineyards in Bourgueil and Saint-Nicolas de Bourgueil. An early skeptic of industrial farming practices, Yannick had gradually weaned his vineyards off synthetic inputs, completing this process in 1997. Work in the vineyard and cellar follows the lunar calendar, and the estate received organic certification in 2009. While these practices may seem fashionable, they are simply returning to the way Eugène Amirault made wine for his family.

The range of wines at Domaine Yannick Amirault starts with two village cuvées, La Source from Saint-Nicolas de Bourgueil and Côte 50 from Bourgueil. It is debatable whether the more forthright character of La Source is a hallmark of it being from St-Nicolas or its higher percentage of sandy terroirs as its “source,” or that the more rounded depth of the Côte 50 is characteristic of Bourgueil rather than the complexity of its sourcing from both ancient (sandier) and more modern (more clay) alluvial terroirs. In Bourgueil, La Mine is a 1.5-hectare parcel situated at the foot of the slope, which forms the more famous cru of Les Malgagnes. La Mine is a gravelly clay terroir with deeper soils versus Les Malgagnes’ shallower and ferrous clay soils over limestone bedrock. Moving to Bourgueil, Le Grand Clos is a 2-hectare parcel on clay and flint over limestone, Les Quartiers comes from a 1.5-hectare parcel on a very pale (Terres Blanches) and gravelly clay-limestone soil, and La Petite Cave is a 1.5-hectare parcel planted on shallow sandy clay over the same limestone that forms the roof of their troglodytic aging cellar. Rounding out their cuvées is a unique Rosé made in an age-worthy Blanc de Noirs style that was once very traditional in this region – a wine sharing more in common with Rosé de Riceys than almost any modern rosés.