Product Description
92 points John Gilman, View From the Cellar
"The vineyard of Les Perruches has a very stony signature to it, as the clay and flint soils are peppered with stones. The Lamberts do not have particularly old vines here, as the oldest are twenty-five years of age, and the wine is fermented and raised in cement vats prior to bottling. The 2015 Les Perruches is just starting to blossom at five years of age, offering up a fine nose of cassis, black cherries, cigar wrapper, stony soil tones, espresso and cigar ash. On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied, focused and sappy at the core, with good soil signature and grip, ripe, softening tannins and excellent length and grip on the complex and very well-balanced finish. As this wine is aged in cement during its elevage, it is slower to unfold than a comparable wine would be raised in oak, as it has not seen the same micro-oxygenation prior to bottling. Consequently, the wine is still on the young side today, but it is impressively precise and deep at the core and is aging very gracefully and is already starting to show its potential quite vividly. It is approachable today, albeit, still a bit chewy. 2020-2050+."
Vinous Reverie Notes
Beatrice & Pascal Lambert believe that crafting the finest, richest Chinon possible begins with respect for the soil and the vine. Their 14 ha domaine, Les Chesnaies, sits in Cravant-les-Côteaux, just east of the center of Chinon, and is home to some of the finest terroirs for production of artisanal Cabernet Franc and Chenin Blanc in the region. Gravelly, alluvial soils with plentiful silica produce wines of richness, while calcareous clay (which includes deposits of chalky tuffeau) and silex impart regional distinction and finesse. Beatrice and Pascal seek to channel this ‘geological trilogy’ through their wines. Each cuvée is assembled to express the top features of the particular parcel of soils in which it grows. The end result is succulent Chinons of exceptional grace, structure and elegance. They are deeply colored, soft, and fruity – an ideal alternative to Burgundy for food pairings. Perruches soil are very stony, flinty clays combined with silica. Wine grown in this soil tend to show stony and flinty characteristics. The wine offers a lot of freshness, with a full finish and very fine tannins.
