Domaine Mosse Chenin Blanc 2023
Location: France, Anjou
Winemaker: Agnès, René, Sylvestre and Joseph Mosse
Grapes: Chenin Blanc
Soil: clay, gravel, schist
Winemaking: The fruit is slowly pressed and vinified in stainless steel with full malolactic and a scant addition of sulfur at bottling.
From us at M&L: The family’s magnum bottling of Chenin Blanc comes from four parcels of vines planted in 2000. Orange blossom, bruised apricot, clotted cream, bracingly stiff with ripe minerality. Pop this and shuck oysters in the snow.
From the Importer Louis/Dressner: Agnès and René Mosse, along with their sons Joseph and Sylvestre, live and work in the village of St-Lambert-du-Lattay, a village in the Coteaux-du-Layon area of Anjou. Layon is a small tributary to the Loire that lazily digs its way through well exposed and drained hills of schist and sandstone. Its micro-climate allows for a long hang-time, and when the mornings are foggy in the fall, with no rain, botrytis develops easily on the Chenin grapes.
Before becoming vignerons, the Mosse had owned a wine-bar/retail shop hybrid in Tours. They credit the great vignerons they met there, among them Jo Pithon and François Chidaine, as the impetus to become winemakers. The couple studied viticulture and oenology at the agricultural lycée in Amboise where two of their teachers were Thierry Puzelat and Christian Chaussard.
After graduating, the Mosse spent two years working in Côte-de Beaune before buying their estate in St-Lambert in 1999. They work 17 hectares of vines, most of them planted with Chenin Blanc and Cabernet Franc, the rest planted with Gamay, Chardonnay, Grolleau Gris and Noir.
They adopted organic viticulture techniques from the start, plowing between and under the rows, and use biodynamic preparations to treat the vines and soil. In their area of ‘Anjou Noir’ (Black Anjou, so called because of the dark color of the soils of slate and volcanic rocks), the soils are shallow, with subsoils of schist and sandstone, and varying amounts of clay on the surface.
Since 2014, Sylvestre and Joseph have been making the wines; René is technically retired and Agnès still works. The only major changes in production of the historic estate wines have been to rip out most of the Cabernet Sauvignon to focus exclusively on Cabernet Franc and the decision in 2016 to pass the entirety of the Anjou production into Vin de France. Otherwise, the brothers have been having fun creating new cuvées from their own estate fruit as well as with purchased grapes through the family's négociant license.
It has always been equally important to the family to vinify in a natural fashion, and they are particularly attentive to minimizing manipulations and the use of sulfur. All the wines are barrel-fermented and aged. The whites usually go through their malolactic fermentation. The barrels are renewed as needed, but are always older as to not impart oak flavors.
Location: France, Anjou
Winemaker: Agnès, René, Sylvestre and Joseph Mosse
Grapes: Chenin Blanc
Soil: clay, gravel, schist
Winemaking: The fruit is slowly pressed and vinified in stainless steel with full malolactic and a scant addition of sulfur at bottling.
From us at M&L: The family’s magnum bottling of Chenin Blanc comes from four parcels of vines planted in 2000. Orange blossom, bruised apricot, clotted cream, bracingly stiff with ripe minerality. Pop this and shuck oysters in the snow.
From the Importer Louis/Dressner: Agnès and René Mosse, along with their sons Joseph and Sylvestre, live and work in the village of St-Lambert-du-Lattay, a village in the Coteaux-du-Layon area of Anjou. Layon is a small tributary to the Loire that lazily digs its way through well exposed and drained hills of schist and sandstone. Its micro-climate allows for a long hang-time, and when the mornings are foggy in the fall, with no rain, botrytis develops easily on the Chenin grapes.
Before becoming vignerons, the Mosse had owned a wine-bar/retail shop hybrid in Tours. They credit the great vignerons they met there, among them Jo Pithon and François Chidaine, as the impetus to become winemakers. The couple studied viticulture and oenology at the agricultural lycée in Amboise where two of their teachers were Thierry Puzelat and Christian Chaussard.
After graduating, the Mosse spent two years working in Côte-de Beaune before buying their estate in St-Lambert in 1999. They work 17 hectares of vines, most of them planted with Chenin Blanc and Cabernet Franc, the rest planted with Gamay, Chardonnay, Grolleau Gris and Noir.
They adopted organic viticulture techniques from the start, plowing between and under the rows, and use biodynamic preparations to treat the vines and soil. In their area of ‘Anjou Noir’ (Black Anjou, so called because of the dark color of the soils of slate and volcanic rocks), the soils are shallow, with subsoils of schist and sandstone, and varying amounts of clay on the surface.
Since 2014, Sylvestre and Joseph have been making the wines; René is technically retired and Agnès still works. The only major changes in production of the historic estate wines have been to rip out most of the Cabernet Sauvignon to focus exclusively on Cabernet Franc and the decision in 2016 to pass the entirety of the Anjou production into Vin de France. Otherwise, the brothers have been having fun creating new cuvées from their own estate fruit as well as with purchased grapes through the family's négociant license.
It has always been equally important to the family to vinify in a natural fashion, and they are particularly attentive to minimizing manipulations and the use of sulfur. All the wines are barrel-fermented and aged. The whites usually go through their malolactic fermentation. The barrels are renewed as needed, but are always older as to not impart oak flavors.
Location: France, Anjou
Winemaker: Agnès, René, Sylvestre and Joseph Mosse
Grapes: Chenin Blanc
Soil: clay, gravel, schist
Winemaking: The fruit is slowly pressed and vinified in stainless steel with full malolactic and a scant addition of sulfur at bottling.
From us at M&L: The family’s magnum bottling of Chenin Blanc comes from four parcels of vines planted in 2000. Orange blossom, bruised apricot, clotted cream, bracingly stiff with ripe minerality. Pop this and shuck oysters in the snow.
From the Importer Louis/Dressner: Agnès and René Mosse, along with their sons Joseph and Sylvestre, live and work in the village of St-Lambert-du-Lattay, a village in the Coteaux-du-Layon area of Anjou. Layon is a small tributary to the Loire that lazily digs its way through well exposed and drained hills of schist and sandstone. Its micro-climate allows for a long hang-time, and when the mornings are foggy in the fall, with no rain, botrytis develops easily on the Chenin grapes.
Before becoming vignerons, the Mosse had owned a wine-bar/retail shop hybrid in Tours. They credit the great vignerons they met there, among them Jo Pithon and François Chidaine, as the impetus to become winemakers. The couple studied viticulture and oenology at the agricultural lycée in Amboise where two of their teachers were Thierry Puzelat and Christian Chaussard.
After graduating, the Mosse spent two years working in Côte-de Beaune before buying their estate in St-Lambert in 1999. They work 17 hectares of vines, most of them planted with Chenin Blanc and Cabernet Franc, the rest planted with Gamay, Chardonnay, Grolleau Gris and Noir.
They adopted organic viticulture techniques from the start, plowing between and under the rows, and use biodynamic preparations to treat the vines and soil. In their area of ‘Anjou Noir’ (Black Anjou, so called because of the dark color of the soils of slate and volcanic rocks), the soils are shallow, with subsoils of schist and sandstone, and varying amounts of clay on the surface.
Since 2014, Sylvestre and Joseph have been making the wines; René is technically retired and Agnès still works. The only major changes in production of the historic estate wines have been to rip out most of the Cabernet Sauvignon to focus exclusively on Cabernet Franc and the decision in 2016 to pass the entirety of the Anjou production into Vin de France. Otherwise, the brothers have been having fun creating new cuvées from their own estate fruit as well as with purchased grapes through the family's négociant license.
It has always been equally important to the family to vinify in a natural fashion, and they are particularly attentive to minimizing manipulations and the use of sulfur. All the wines are barrel-fermented and aged. The whites usually go through their malolactic fermentation. The barrels are renewed as needed, but are always older as to not impart oak flavors.