Domaine Simon Gaudet Santenay Les Bras 2023

This red Santenay comes from the Les Bras climat, a one-hectare plot located just below the emblematic Trois Croix of Santenay, the village that closes off the Côte de Beaune to the south. Facing south-south-east, the vine enjoys ideal sunshine, favouring fine ripeness of the grapes. The terroir expresses the finesse and elegance typical of Santenay, between the Montagne des Trois Croix and the Dheune plain.

Traditional winemaking highlights the authentic character of this wine. A three-day cold pre-fermentation precedes gentle punching down and daily pumping over, for a precise extraction of aromas and tannins. Alcoholic fermentation follows, then the wine is aged for 12 months in French oak barrels, to gain structure and complexity.

This wine reveals notes of violet, raspberry, black cherry, blackcurrant, gingerbread, cinnamon, liquorice, forest floor and vanilla. The colour is deep and the nose elegant. On the palate, the attack is full and generous, the structure perfectly balanced, and the silky, round tannins underline an elegant, harmonious finish.

The cradle of wine culture in Western Europe, France owes its first vines to the Greeks of Phocaea, who settled around Marseille some twenty-six centuries ago, before the Romans spread viticulture along the Rhône and the Garonne and as far as Champagne. In the Middle Ages, Cistercian and Benedictine monks cleared the slopes of Burgundy and patiently mapped out the climats, laying the foundations of the notion of terroir. The 19th century brought the glory of the classifications, then the disaster of phylloxera, which wiped out the vineyards before they were rebuilt on American rootstocks; the creation of the appellations d'origine contrôlée in the 1930s then set the rules that would inspire the whole world. Today, France vies every year with Italy and Spain for first place in world production by volume and remains the ultimate benchmark of the Old World, as much for its age-worthy wines as for its winemaking models. Vineyards cover almost the entire country, from the cool north of Champagne and Alsace to the Mediterranean shores of Languedoc and Provence, by way of the oceanic climates of Bordeaux, the Loire and the South-West, continental Burgundy, the steep slopes of the northern Rhône and the high-altitude valleys of Savoie and the Jura. This mosaic of soils – limestone, schist, gravel or rounded pebbles – explains the extraordinary diversity of styles. As for grape varieties, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot dominate Bordeaux and produce structured reds, Pinot Noir is the signature of Burgundian finesse, Syrah of the depth of the Rhône, while Grenache, Gamay, Cabernet Franc and Mourvèdre cover every register, from easy-drinking wines to wines for long ageing. Among the whites, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin, Riesling and Viognier offer expressions ranging from lively and mineral to unctuous, all the way to great sweet wines. A land of benchmarks and constant discoveries, France remains the compass for wine lovers the world over.