Yannick Amirault 'Cote 50' Bourgueil 2020
The Wine
Cote 50 is a new cuvée from Yannick Amirault, expanding on what was La Coudraye, by including fruit from three extra lieu-sits: Les Sables, Les Pins and Les Perrières. The common link is that all these lieu-dits sit at 50m elevation above the Loire, hence the name.
The fruit is all hand-picked into small baskets, double sorted and then de-stemmed but not crushed and fermented in small open vats. Gentle maceration over 3-4 weeks, followed by maturation in old oak foudres and sandstone amphorae for 7-12 months. Bottled un-fined and unfiltered.
On the 2019:
91 points, Stephan Reinhardt, The Wine Advocate "Amirault's 2019 Bourgueil Cote 50 blends the fruit of 35-year-old vines cultivated in four lieux-dits located on the gravel terrace just 50 meters above the Loire. The wine is dark in color and exhibits an intense, wonderfully aromatic yet fine, fresh and elegant bouquet of perfectly ripe dark fruit and even some red berries intertwined with tobacco and graphite notes as well as spicy-stony gravelly tones. Concentrated but fresh, with silky tannins and lovely tart kumquat bitters on the finish, this is an aromatic, fruit-intense and characterful, very elegant and accessible Cabernet Franc for any lunch and dinner based on roasted dark meat. Very charming in its fragrant fruit and ripeness."
Organic, Vegan
The Details
Variety - Cabernet Franc
Country - France
Region - Loire
Sub Region - Bourgueil
Extra - Cork
Year - 2020
Volume - 750ml
About the Wine Maker 
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.
