Burgundy, France

Frédéric Cossard

Feel Good Skin-Contact 2020

£49

FRÉDÉRIC COSSARD
Feel Good Skin-Contact 2020
Burgundy, France

A unique expression of old vines Savagnin from the Jura’s south. This was fermented and aged on the skins as whole bunches for nine months before pressing, resulting in a gorgeous, hazy amber wine. This shows the grape at its most playful and perfumed, with delicate notes of exotic fruit and rose mingling with an intense, stony minerality. A wine that truly awakens the senses, making for a formidable apéritif.

Savagnin

ABOUT THE PRODUCER

Frédéric Cossard is a larger than life character. He is a man with an infectious joie de vivre and a love of wine that runs deep. Fred wasn’t born into a family of vignerons and instead had to start from scratch, no mean feat in Burgundy.

His Domaine de Chassorney was born in 1996 with a few hectares of vines rented in Saint-Romain and Auxey-Duresses and now comprises ten hectares of vines across several villages. He and his wife Laure also act as a négociants, which gives them access to grapes from some of the greatest vineyards in Burgundy. These wines are bottled eponymously, as ‘Frédéric Cossard’.

The Cossards have worked organically from the outset and now focus on homeopathic treatments and remedies tailored to the needs of each site. When fruit is bought, they give the growers a guide for looking after the vines and ensure that work is carried out to their own lofty standards. In doing so they ensure that only the most pristine fruit makes it to their cellars tucked away in the hills of Saint-Romain.

Such scrutiny is necessary to make great wine with no additions. In recent years Fred has continued to pave the way by eschewing the use of oak barrels in favour of concrete eggs, earthenware jars and Georgian qvevris in a quest to further refine his wines. Whites are pressed directly, while reds infuse as whole bunches before being pressed off to these vessels for élevage. The result is Burgundy of rare liveliness, purity and detail.