2022 Clos de Tue-Boeuf Vin Rouge

WINEMAKER: Thierry, Louise & Zoé Puzelat
REGION: Loire Valley, FR
VARIETY: Gamay
VITICULTURE: Organic

As for their entry-level white Vin Blanc, the Vin Rouge is made with sourced, organically farmed fruit from friends in the Cher Valley (the Puzelats' home turt in the Touraine). The bunches are kept whole and fermented spontaneously and carbonically with a short maceration and no sulfur. The wine is aged in stainless steel tanks and bottled with 20 mg/l of SO2. In 2022, this is a light juicy fresh wine, showing lovely round raspberry and cherry fruit, supple, sapid and refreshing, really a perfect thirst-quenching Gamay. There is never enough of this beautiful wine to go around, so don't delay. As always the glass is hard to put down as it should be and is a benchmark of which there are now many imitators.

In the early-nineties, Jean-Marie and Thierry Puzelat took over their family domaine in Cheverny, converted the farming to organic, and began making wines with native yeast and low or no sulphur additions. Three decades later and Clos du Tue-Boeuf is the definitive natural wine estate in the Loire Valley, if not all of France.