Vignerons des Terres Secrètes Saint-Véran Les Préludes 2023

This Saint-Véran Les Préludes comes from Vignerons des Terres Secrètes, a cooperative winery in the southern Mâconnais. The vines of the Saint-Véran appellation spread out at the foot of the famous Roche de Solutré, in Saône-et-Loire, on the borders of Burgundy and Beaujolais. The clay-limestone soils retain sufficient moisture and nourish the vine deeply, while the semi-continental climate, with its hot summers, favours fine ripeness of the Chardonnay.

The harvest is sorted, then the heart-of-the-press juices are carefully vinified and blended with other juices to gain balance. Fermentation and ageing take place in temperature-controlled tanks. The wine is then aged on the lees for 12 months, which brings richness and smoothness while preserving its freshness.

This wine reveals notes of peach, pear, apricot, lemon, acacia, honeysuckle, honey and brioche. The golden colour, intense and delicate, precedes a nose blending fruit and white flowers. On the palate, richness and smoothness are balanced by elegant freshness, through to a clean 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.