Domaine de Pallus, Chinon 'La Rougerie' 2015

THE PRODUCER
Domaine de Pallus sits in Cravant-les-Coteaux, on the eastern edge of the Chinon appellation — a family estate that's belonged to the Sourdais family since the 1890s, but one that's been quietly transformed over the last two decades. Bertrand Sourdais didn't take the obvious route into the family business: he trained in Bordeaux, then spent his twenties making his name at Dominio de Atauta in Spain's Ribera del Duero, working with some of the country's oldest, ungrafted vines. He returned to Pallus in 2003 with an outsider's eye and very little patience for regional orthodoxy.
That outsider's perspective was sharpened by a close friendship closer to home. Sourdais was close with Charly Foucault of Clos Rougeard, just up the road in Saumur — arguably the single most influential figure in modern Loire winemaking, and the man behind the legendary Cabernet Franc cuvées Le Bourg and Les Poyeux, as well as the cult Chenin Blanc Brézé. It's said the two shared both a philosophy and a friendship, and that Sourdais's own plantings of Chenin Blanc at Pallus trace their lineage back to cuttings from Foucault's own Brézé vines. In an appellation not known for producing icons, that lineage matters.
The results speak for themselves: in most recent vintages, critics now score La Rougerie in the same range as Clos Rougeard's own Le Bourg — extraordinary company for a Chinon, and a clear signal that Pallus has moved from "excellent regional producer" to genuine peer of the Loire's most revered name.
 
THE WINE: La Rougerie 2015
La Rougerie is Pallus's grand vin — the plot Sourdais himself considers his finest, and the one he believes will age the longest. It's a small parcel, just half a hectare, split between vines planted in 1952 and a 2007 replanting on the same pure clay soil — unusual for Chinon, where sand and limestone are far more typical, and it's this clay that gives the wine its density and structural weight. Around 95% of the fruit is destemmed, fermented in open wooden vats, then aged around two years in barrel, part new oak and part seasoned Burgundy wood.
2015 was a strong, ripe vintage across the Loire, and it shows here: a wine of real concentration and generosity, built with enough structure to reward patience.