Domaine Arnaud Lambert 'Les Terres Rouges' 2021
Inside the Bottle: The vineyards that make up this charming and utterly delicious wine come from Saumur-Champigny’s most southern hill, Saint-Cyr-en-Bourg. Les Terres Rouges is composed of numerous small plots blended into one larger south-facing vineyard area, just across from the now famous hill, Brézé. The southern aspect gives the wine plenty of needed sunshine in a region that has a long, drawn out growing season that can bring several rain storms in early fall, just about the time they are getting ready to harvest. This privileged location makes for consistent ripening of the wine’s plush black and red fruits.
The fragrant dark earth notes of Cabernet Franc give the impression of black soils unearthed from a thick overlay of wet forest moss, grass and bramble. Despite this dark soil impression and its name (which translates to “the red soils”), the soil is light brown clay with alluvial sands resting on a bed of stark white limestone. The cool harvest conditions, clay and limestone soils, and a life spent in stainless steel tanks renders this wine medium bodied with a clean and refreshing finish. Indeed, the sand plays its part as well bringing the fruits and flowers in the bouquet to the ethereal realm.
Les Terres Rouges is one of our top selling wines in the restaurant arena and we have a hard time keeping it in stock because of many restaurants with longstanding loyalty to this wine.
Terroir: Continental climate with light precipitation due to the rain shadow effect of the Massif Armorican located toward the west. Winters are mild and summers can be dry and these days quite hot, depending on the year. Most of the vineyards are on tuffeau limestone bedrock with topsoil composition of sedimentary and alluvial depositions of varying levels of clay and sand, and topsoil depth.
Vinification: Vinified completely destemmed in concrete tanks with 2/3 of short maceration for 8-10 days (first 3-4 days, twice per day, then once per day), 1/3 with three weeks with infusion extraction (after first 3 days no more extractions). Maximum of 24°C fermentation temperature. Sulfites added only at bottling.
Aging: Aged in concrete with sometimes 2-3 rackings.