
2021 Vins de la Madone Côtes du Forez Mémoire de Madone






WINEMAKER: Gilles Bonnefoy
REGION: Loire Valley, FR
VARIETY: Gamay
VITICULTURE: Certified Biodynamic
In his excellent ‘Definitive Guide to the Wines of the Loire Valley’, Richard Kelley explains that the region’s basalt soils are “considered the best, if rarest sites, producing more concentrated and age worthy Gamays”. True to form, made from extremely low-yielding of Gamay Noir, the wine from this site manifests a deeper register and structure—if we were in Beaujolais, think Morgon.
With a buoyant mix of darkly plummy fruit and velvety texture (the wine is raised in sandstone 900-litre amphora which Gilles finds amplifies the wine’s density), this is the most compact wine in the range, yet it is still packed with the kind of sprightly, vin de soif personality guaranteed to put a smile on your face. The fruit is crunchy and vibrant, and you have freshness, but here you’re also getting depth and length. This possesses everything necessary to age well, but why wait when it’s so delicious now?
You’re not alone if you haven’t heard of the Côtes du Forez. At less than 170 hectares, the vineyard area is tiny and almost entirely unknown—even within France. It wasn’t always this way. Before phylloxera visited the region, more than 5,000 hectares were planted here, and when we first got our tour, Bonnefoy pointed out the old hillside mansions built on the fat of the land. The appellation today lies on an ancient geological fault-line near the source of the Loire River in France’s Massif Central, about a one-and-a-half-hour drive west of Beaujolais. The vineyards run north to south in a thin cordon on the slopes of the Monts du Forez, about 20 kilometres west of the Loire River. The area is known for its plethora of old volcanoes, and evidence of their activity is hard to miss.
The Gamay grape thrives on the volcanic and granite soils here and it is this potential that Gilles Bonnefoy began to exploit in the late-1990s. The Estate originated with the born-again vigneron renting a few plots of old vines and has grown to today’s cultivation of 12 hectares of hillside vineyards. These sites were converted to organic farming in 2001 and biodynamics in 2009 (Demeter certified).