Domaine Guiberteau Brézé 2015 Magnum

Grape: Chenin Blanc
Vintage: 2015
Type: White

This white comes from 2 plots on the hill of Brézé totaling just over 1 hectare, planted in 1933 and 1952 on tuffeau over deep limestone. Across most of the site there is less than 1 meter of topsoil, which is what gives Brézé its cold, stony register. The grapes are pressed in whole clusters, malolactic conversion is blocked to keep the acidity intact, and the wine spends 15 to 18 months on its lees in demi-muids and barrels before a few months in steel. Blocking the malo is the decision the whole wine rests on.

It displays a bright straw-gold color, opening with aromas of yellow apple, quince, and chalk dust. On the palate, the medium-bodied frame is dry and tightly strung, balancing ripe orchard fruit against a hard limestone core. The lees give a waxy, lanolin texture that sits under the fruit without softening the acid. That acidity runs high and straight, exactly as the blocked malolactic intends. It finishes long and "crystalline," with the stone outlasting everything else.