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Winemakers
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Domaine Alain Chabanon, Font Caude, Montpeyroux
Alain Chabanon
Alain is based at Lagamas, and has vineyard holdings around the village of Montpeyroux in the Languedoc. (His domaine was originally entitled Domaine Font Caude, but he has now changed this to Domaine Alain Chabanon). His wines undergo long macerations, with a minimum of four to five weeks for all varieties. Yields are very low. His red wines receive two years ageing in wood. Alain has Grenache, Merlot, Syrah and Mourvèdre in red varietals, and Chenin Blanc in white.
The Tradition is a blend of Grenache, Merlot, young vine Syrah, and Mourvèdre. From 2001 there will be no more Tradition, the grapes all going into his other blends. The
Merle aux Alouettes was introduced with the 1999 vintage. Merlot vines were planted in error on AOC land, and as this variety is not in the appellation, the wine is Vin de Pays. The 1999 came third in a blind tasting at La Vigneronne, after Ausone and Cheval Blanc, but some way ahead of the rest, including Petrus.
We have now sold out of 1999, which also showed very well at our
Grand Cru Wines Blind tasting against France's finest in
September. The 2000 and 2001 are excellent wines which will age
well.
The Boissières, from old vine Grenache, with a touch of syrah, would shame many top Châteauneuf. It generally takes at least two years to show at its best, and is outstanding.
(This, again, showed well in our blind tasting, where we matched
the 2000 with Rayas). L’Esprit de Font Caude was originally 100% Syrah, but Alain has some excellent Mourvèdre coming on stream, grafted over from Cinsault, and from 2001 the wine
is 50% each of syrah and Mourvèdre. The 2000 has a small
percentage of Mourvèdre.
His White is from Chenin Blanc, planted in 1989. When the vintage is suitable, he produces a sweet, liquoreux style. This has led to difficulties with the authorities, who will not allow the term vendanges tardives, and have disputed for many years with Languedoc producers wishing to produce sweet wines. For several years the producers called these “Mout partiellement fermenté”, rather than wine. Now that legislation is in place, there was still a question whether varieties such as Chenin would be covered, the authorities preferring such “classic” Languedoc varieties as Chardonnay for sweet wine! Alain produced ultra-sticky, marvellously clean sweet wines with high residual sugar; 320 grams in 96, 290 in 97. In 1999 three passages “tries” through the vineyard provided a wine with 22 potential alcohol, and in 2000 2 tries produced a wine with 31 potential alcohol. However, now that the authorities have agreed to “legalise” the wine, it will be strictly forbidden to produce a sweet wine with over 20 degrees potential alcohol. |
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