Tomoko and Guillaume source most of the fruit (66%) for their Bourgogne Blanc from Maranges in the Côte de Beaune. The balance is from a site at the southern tip of Beaujolais (near Lyon), Les Pierres Dorées. The soil here is comparable to that of Chassagne-Montrachet in that it contains a high content of Bajocian limestone. Negocé
All the white wines were pressed as whole bunches without any SO2 additions. Ambient fermentation and aging took place over 12 months in 228L, 350L, 400L or 600L wooden barrels. Chanterêves studied each appellation/terroir and choose the size of barrels best suited to each parcel. The lees were stirred just once during the summer, and all the barrels were blended directly afterwards into stainless steel vats to continue aging on fine lees. As Tomoko explains, “This aging method of first letting the wines mature in barrels (an oxidative environment) then in stainless steel vats (a reductive environment) is essential to our white vinifications, especially since there is very little sulphur added during aging.” Like all the wines in the cellar, the whites were neither filtered nor fined, and were bottled with minimal sulphur