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zeus: loire_valley

Charles Bove, Montrichard

Charles Bove, Montrichard

Domaine Charles Bove buys juice after tasting vintages at each property. The wines are then put into their cellars, an underground quarry abandoned after they were used to build the Loire châteaux, where they are vinified, blended and then bottled.

Domaine Charles Bove optimizes the intrinsic qualities of the different wines by blending them together in one single vat. Reserve stocks allow them to maintain a constant quality level. At the end of the bottling operation during which the wine is topped up with liqueur de tirage, the bottles, capped with metal temporary caps, are stored in the cave-like cellars. They are "laid" on "lathes", that is to say stored horizontally, with each layer separated from the previous one by a thin wooden lathe. Over a period of about 4 months, a second fermentation occurs.

Two processes are used in the cellars to lower the sediment in the neck of the bottle, formed during the second fermentation, and to eject it during the disgorging stage: the ancestral method of putting the bottles on rotating racks installed on a concrete free floor, consisting of chalky rock dust (stone) providing a real anchorage to the floor and eliminating the possibility of vibration. The capped bottles are placed head downwards with the neck in a solution refrigerated to minus 25°C.

The Wines