JÉRÔME LAMBERT
De L’Air 2020
Loire, France
This remarkable pétillant of Chenin Blanc comes from forty year old vines planted over schist and was aged on the lees in bottle for just over a year before disgorgement. Jérôme harvests the fruit for this wine at the same time as Coule de Source, resulting in an incredibly vinous take on the genre, that unlike many, is true to both variety and terroir. A brilliant gold in the glass, it is wonderfully delicate, mineral and fine.
Chenin Blanc
ABOUT THE PRODUCER
Jérôme Lambert tends just a few hectares of vines near Rablay-sur-Layon, in a remote part of the Loire south of Angers.
Jérôme farms Chenin Blanc organically from a single plot of low-yielding vines up to fifty years old planted over schist. He’ll often make several harvests at various stages of ripeness, offering a fascinating insight into this great terroir. These are tense, focused expressions of Chenin that possess a wonderful ability to age.
Jérôme also farms a little Grolleau and Cabernet Franc. The fruit here is planted over sandy soils and the wines reflect these. They are juicy, joyful and perfumed. In short, everything we look for in the vibrant reds of the Loire.
From a makeshift cellar that some might scoff at, Jérôme uses nothing but grapes to make wines which are amongst the most distinctive we have tried. We could not be happier to be receiving a small allocation of his tiny production each year.