Domaine Grosbois, 2017 Chinon ‘Clos du Noyer’
The history of viticulture at Domaine Grosbois can be traced back to the 15th century. Over the centuries, the domaine has thrived as a polyculture farm, with viticulture a minor component of the domaine's practices. In the 1990s, the domaine as we know it today began to take shape with Jacques and Jocelyn Grosbois who began to focus more on viticulture. Following several years of making wine abroad, Nicolas returned to the domaine in 2006 and took up reigns managing the estate. Nicolas's brother Sylvain joined the domaine full time in 2019.
Today Nicolas and Sylvain are farming 20 hectares of Cabernet Franc vines primarily in the commune of Panzoult, with a tiny parcel of newly acquired vines in the neighbouring commune of l'Ile Bouchard. The estate remains today, as it has for centuries, a polyculture farm, with biodynamics and biodiversity at the core of the domaine's philosophy. They raise cows and pigs, have a variety of fruit and nut trees planted and some truffle oaks as well, in addition to this they also beehives and a huge vegetable garden which also helps to supply vegetables for the local school.
From the family's 20 hectares of vines, the estate makes several expressions of Cabernet Franc, which include but are not limited to, the cuvée Gabare, which represents the domaine's largest volume, as well as Clos du Noyer, which is the estate's top expression. And recently, they have isolated a small 60 are parcel of vines that were planted in 1905 from pre-phylloxera vine material, which they now vinify as a separate cuvée called Clôture. These vines also serve as the source for all of their new plantings and re-plantings of Cabernet Franc at the domaine. In addition to their estate vineyards, they are working with other vigneron-friends to produce a few of cuvées as part of their négoce project, including the wine La Cuisine de Ma Mère, which has long been one of my favourite early-drinking wines from the Chinon appellation.
So, as I mentioned, the domaine's 20 hectares are located in the commune of Panzoult, which is located just down the river east of Cravant-les-Côteaux on the north side, or right bank, of the Vienne. It is the second largest commune of production in Chinon after Cravant-les-Côteaux, which accounts for about 50% of the appellations production.
There are more or less three main area for viticulture in Panzoult - we have the alluvial plain very close to the Vienne, only around 500m from the river, which is an extension of that in Cravant-les-Côteaux, this is where we find soils that are deep, and made up predominantly of sand and silt, with very little clay and gravel or gravel in the topsoil.
Secondly, there is a pocket of alluvial terroirs further east about 2km north of the Vienne in and around the hamlet of Roncé, where we find sandy-silt mix, with a higher percentage of gravel and pebbles ranging from 25% to 100% stoniness in the topsoil, which sit atop a gravelly subsoil.
Then finally, we have a small, narrow band of vineyards on the slopes set back 2-3km north of the Vienne that arc and hug the border of the forests to the north. The slopes can have either a full south, or slight south-east facing exposure. These vineyards have tuffeau-dervied soils, which can be either the Middle Turonian tuffeau or the Upper Turonian tuffeau depending on where you are on the slope. And in the case of the Upper Turonian tuffeau, we can find pockets of millarges as well, which are limestone-dervied sands, that less fertile, and have better water holding capacity that than alluvial sands closer to the Vienne.
Domaine Grosbois and its vineyards are located in the western part of Panzoult, just a few hundred metres from the eastern border of Cravant-les-Côteaux. Their vines are planted across a in a single lieu-dit, Le Pressoir, which is situated on a gentle south-facing slope, about 2km north of the Vienne River. They have 19 individual parcels which they have identified and isolated based on the composition of the soils and age of the vines, but across the board we're dealing with primarily soils derived from the Upper Turonian yellow tuffeau, with shallow topsoils that have a sandy to clayey-sand texture depending on the parcel.
Clos du Noyer is coming from a 1.2 hectare parcel of vines located towards the top of the slope, very close to the forest. The parcel was named as such by Nicolas and Sylvain's great-grandmother Thérèse because of the presence of walnut trees that were historically planted very close to this plot. The upper portion of the vineyard was planted in 1994, and then they replanted the lower portion of about 0.7 hectares in 2020 via selection massale. In this specific parcel, we are at the top of the slope on an outcropping of millarges, there is about 50 to 100cm of topsoil with a clayey-sand texture, over the Upper turonian yellow tuffeau chalk bedrock. The first bottling of Clos du Noyer was 2005.
In terms of the winemaking, the fruit is hand-harvested, hand-sorted, and destemmed. Fermentation is whole berry, in concrete with ambient yeasts. The fermentation temperature reaches a maximum of 24C. The total time on skins is 28 days, with gentle pumping over as required to homogenize the must and promote a gentle extraction. Aging is done in concrete for approximately 12 months, to preserve the freshness of the fruit.
Key wine wine facts below:
Producer: Domaine Grosbois
Appellation: Chinon
Commune: Panzoult
Lieux-Dits: Le Pressoir
Soils: 50-100cm clayey-sand topsoil over the Upper Turonian yellow tuffeau chalk (millarges)
Alcohol: 13.5%
