Domaine Serol Turbullent
I am crushing HARD on this yummy bubble!! Grapes raised in granite soils then fermented in concrete —- ticking all my boxes!! Add a grape/ mutation called Gamay St. Romain and I am head-over-tea kettles!!
Amazing farmers making the best out of a horrible vintage! Jumping out of the glass with red fruits and tingly spices.... the palate is all tickles and fresh cut flowers, raspberries, cranberries and pear strudel with red apple skin and tart stone fruit. Sounds weird but the weight and body are gorgeously balanced by refreshingly high acidity.This is the perfect porch-pounder if i ever did drink one!!! plus supporting these amazing vignerons in these strange-global-warming-times does a heart real good!!
With a vivid pink in the glass, this is one crushable, joyful wine!! Dare I say - pure pleasure in a glass! PLUS BUBBLES SO YES PLEASE all day! get it before i drink it all!!
GEEK ALERT:
The AOC Côte Roannaise was granted in 1993, due mostly to the efforts of Robert Sérol and the support of his great friend and co-owner of one vineyard - Pierre Troigros of the famous local restaurant Les Frères Troigros!
Gamay St. Romain has a much-discussed history so this is definitely a geek-out for me. Read at your leisure:
According to the vignerons in the Côte Roannaise, it is named after Saint-Romain-la-Motte, an important wine-growing village from the 17th to 19th centuries.
According to the vignerons in the Côtes du Forez, it is named after the Pic de Saint-Romain-le-Puy, a small volcano on the outskirts of Montbrison.
Gamay Saint Romain tends to have smaller bunches and berries that are more prone to millerandage than Beaujolais’ more commonly planted Gamay à jus noir. This often translates to a more concentrated expression of the fruit 😀
SOOOO who knows exactly?! what we do know is that Count Odart wrote about the varietal in Traité des Cépages (various editions, 1845-1874) so we can safely draw the conclusion that Gamay St. Romain has been around for a long time.
more geeking 🙂 What is Methode Ancestrale?? As you can probably deduce - it is the ancient method of making bubbles (aka capturing Co2 created during fermentation). Also known as Petillant-Natural or Pet-Nat, it simply means that still wine is bottled BEFORE fermentation is completed so the remaining fermentation occurs under pressure which results in Co2 being trapped in the bottle creating bubbles in the wine! Now that is a GEEK ALERT for sure!! For all Methode Ancestrale / Pet-Nat’s made in the low to no intervention model (aka natural wine) the method is simply grapes are picked, pressed directly, low temperature ambient yeast fermentation starts in tank and continues in bottles. For the Turbullent, the tank is concrete! Then the resulting still wine is filtered and bottled at 7-11% ABV so let those beautiful bubbles happen.
