Petite Nature 'Tombée du ciel' 2022

Paulette’s debut cuvée from her own small parcel of 50 year-old Gamay vines, planted over sandy decomposed granite and quartz at around 500 meters in the hills outside Annonay. This is in many ways her signature wine, and offers a beautiful expression of the extreme north of the Ardèche. A fitting reference to her time working with Daniel Sage, this wine is made in the infusion style, 50% of the grapes direct-pressed and the other half added to this juice in whole bunches to undergo a sort of underwater carbonic maceration over the course of 25 days. The wines is then pressed off into steel to rest for 9 months before being bottled with no additions.

At once light-footed, but with an unmistakable depth and concentration, for us this is Gamay at its best. The diurnal temperature fluctuations at this altitude really draw all the perfumed potential from the grape, and the soils keep the acidity tightly-wound. Beautifully supple and elegant in texture, the longer maceration brings a dark complexity that sits beneath the higher-register aromatics and salty minerals.