Domaine Henri Prudhon et Fils Saint-Aubin 1er Cru 'Sur Gamay'

'A nicely complex combination offers up notes of apple and pear compote that is laced with hints of grapefruit and spiced tea. The middle weight flavors possess even better mid-palate concentration if not the same minerality or complexity on the fleshy, very dry and focused finale.' - Burghound - 90 Points

'As the name implies, this parcel of approximately ¾ of an hectare sits on a hillside overlooking the neighboring hamlet of Gamay (directly east of Saint Aubin and a neighbor to Puligny). The vineyard is a mix of 20 year old and 60 year old vines. The soils are classic clay and limestone and the vineyards face southwest. As with the other 1er Cru whites, this wine ages in barrel (20% new oak) for 12 months before bottling. The “Sur Gamay” yields a complex wine that often requires several years to express its full character marked by notes of honey and minerals.

The domain encompasses 14.5 hectares of vineyards and produces on the order of 90,000 bottles of wine annually, eighty-five percent of which is exported outside of France. The vineyards are managed with the objective of intervening as little as possible in the natural vegetative cycle. The vines are planted to a density of 10,000 per hectare; the Chardonnay is pruned in the Guyot fashion and the Pinot Noir follows the Cordon de Royat method. Harvest is manual and the objective of the domaine is to collect grapes when they achieve a balance, as perfect as possible, between sugar and acidity. At harvest, the white grapes are pressed in a pneumatic pressoir and then are racked into barrel to undergo both fermentations: alcoholic and malolactic. The cellars at the Prudhon domaine are quite cool and the fermentations usually extend for a long period of time. The reds are destemmed and experience a cold maceration of just a day or two; then, the alcoholic fermentation proceeds for an additional ten to twelve days with pigeage and remontage occurring throughout, although the Prudhons purposely do not seek to achieve a “super-extraction” preferring to express the finesse and complexity of their particular terroir. Very little new oak is used when aging the red wines; the percentage of new oak on the white wines depends on the particular cuvée with specific reference to the structure of the wine and the quantity produced; as little as 10% new oak may be used but no more than one-third is ever utilized.' - Importer's Notes