Ch‚àö¬¢teau de Minière, Bulles de Minière (NV)

Producer Profile: The Bourgeuil territory on the right bank of the Loire River, located across the water from Chinon and halfway between Angers & Tours, has historically cultivated some bracing, beautiful Cabernet Franc. With young vines (10yo) and old (100+ yo) spread both across the lower slopes closer to the river with gravelly soils and higher upland, overlooking the valley with limestone/silica dominant soils, the 15 hectares of Château de Minière stands out among the producers we tend to carry as it is, literally, a ‘castle;’ vin natur in all shapes and forms. Kathleen Mareels-Van den Berghe & Sigurd Mareels-Van den Berghe have owned the estate since 2010 at which point they began immediate conversion to organics while also employing manual hand-harvesting and low-intervention in the cellar, breaking out with experiments previously unseen at the Château such as their pét-nat of Cab Franc (heresy to a rigid old guard of Bourgeuil for whom Cab Franc was the prodigal son, in still-serious-form), which you’ll find here in your shares. Really lovely creativity inspiring a once-tired old estate from the inside-out into a new future where theirs is a bastion in ‘traditional’ wine land of both organic vineyard-work & additive-free wines.

Vinification & Tasting: The perfect Turkey wine... This is a bright, buoyant pet nat made from 100% Cabernet Franc, from vines grown on limestone soil in the Loire commune of Bourgueil. Grapes are hand-harvested and fermented in whole clusters in stainless steel. Fermentation completes in bottle to create a natural effervescence. Unfined, unfiltered, with no SO2.