FRÉDÉRIC COSSARD
Chiroubles 2021
Burgundy, France
Gamay from a hundred year old plot, planted over granite some four hundred metres above sea level on the steep slopes of Chiroubles. Fermented as whole bunches for a fortnight, the wine spent nine months resting in concrete eggs. In this cooler vintage, the parcel’s elevation has a profound effect on the wine, lending a luminous, almost ethereal character to the fruit. Pretty and perfumed, the palate displays great tension and a pronounced minerality. A wine of real elegance and charm.
Gamay
ABOUT THE PRODUCER
Frédéric Cossard is a larger-than-life character. 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.
He founded the Domaine de Chassorney in 1996, which began with a few hectares of vines rented in Saint-Romain and Auxey-Duresses and grew organically over several decades. Fred has recently passed the domaine onto his right-hand-man to focus on his négociant project, sourcing grapes from some of the greatest vineyards in Burgundy. These wines are bottled eponymously, under ‘Frédéric Cossard’.
Fred has been a champion of organic farming from the outset, making him something of a pioneer in a region where this has only recently become commonplace. He establishes long-term relationships with growers, who are given a guide for looking after the vines to ensure that work is carried out to his lofty standards. In doing so, he ensures that only the most pristine fruit makes it to the family’s cellars tucked away in the hills of Saint-Romain.
Such scrutiny is necessary to make great wine with no additions, and in recent years Fred has continued to break convention by eschewing the use of oak barrels for élevage in favour of concrete eggs, earthenware jars and Georgian qvevris in a quest to further refine his wines. The result is Burgundy of rare liveliness, purity and detail.