Yannick Amirault Bourgueil Rosé d’Equinoxe 2025

Certified Organic (Ecocert) Variety: Cabernet Franc Country, Region: France, Loire Valley Appellation: Bourgueil Very small quantities of this outstanding Rose that we have been trying to buy for years. Made from very low yields of 25 hl/ha from mostly sandy soils with no de-stemming of the bunches. Fermented in a mixture of demi-muids (600 litre barrels) with a little lees stirring and partial malo over 6 months or so with no racking. Bone dry with zero residual sugar this is one of the most complex and textured Rose wines that we have seen. Only a few cases imported and made available to us from the Amirault family stash and we aim to drink it ourselves. So if you want a few bottles you will need to be very quick indeed! We love this wine. Review for the 2023 vintage: 'Arguably the most distinctive example of rosé from Bourgueil, this is fermented and then matured in barrel, with eight months on the lees. It has a dry and peppery style on the nose, which is followed by a supple and easy-going palate, rather textural, with delicately spiced orange and peach. It lacks fruit impact for me, although there is no shortage of texture, grip and structure. The alcohol is 13% on the label.' Chris Kissack, thewinedoctor.com, February 2025. ‘Yannick and Benoît make a simply marvellous array of wines, vibrant and perfumed yet dark and confident at the lower levels, the wines from the more sandy soils, while those from the limestone terroirs sitting up above the alluvial terrace are capable of much greater things, given ten or fifteen years in the cellar. These aren't just wines to challenge those made in Chinon. Nor are these wines about which we should enthuse solely in the context of Bourgueil and St Nicolas de Bourgueil. This domaine, I believe, turns out some of the very best red wines in the entire Loire Valley. Overlook them to your disadvantage.’ Chris Kissack, The Wine Doctor, January 2018. Bourgueil is located west of Tours in the western part of the Loire Valley. Bourgueil is situated on the northern side of the Loire, across the river from Chinon, and represents one of the northern-most appellations for growing red grape varieties in France. There are a variety of soil types here with the biggest and most cellar-worthy wines generally coming from the best vineyards on the slopes located further away from the Loire to the north and north-east of the town of Bourgueil. The vineyards on the flat gravelly river soils closer to the Loire yield wines which are usually aromatic, elegant and earlier to mature. Amirault has about 13 hectares of vineyard holdings in Bourgueil, mostly located on, or just at, the base of these slopes to the north and northeast of the village of Bourgueil. Yannicks son Benoit now runs the estate and like his father he has chosen to work organically in the vineyards and is certified organic (Ecocert). All vinifications are made with indigenous yeasts with minimal SO2 and ageing takes place in a mixture of large tronconic oak vats, larger demi-muid barrels and increasingly in clay amphora. Extraction is long (up to 6 weeks) yet very gentle. All wines are bottled unfined and unfiltered.