Clos du Temple Rosé 2018
Clos du Temple Rosé is the result of many years searching for the perfect site to create an iconic rosé style wine. Gérard Bertrand was able to acquire two plots in Cabrières, Domaine du Temple and Château des Deux Rocs. For the Clos du Temple Rosé, he singled out a clos that clings to the hillside 240 metres above sea level, cloistered by the terrain and wild vegetation. The eight-hectare plot was subdivided into several parcels, which are farmed biodynamically, and would provide the grapes used to make the wine: Grenache, Cinsault, Syrah, Mourvèdre and Viognier.
Each parcel’s grapes are picked by hand at sunrise, and the small bunches pressed at low temperatures to preserve the freshness, flavour and aromas, and prevent too much colouration of the juice, before being vinified separately. Before fermentation, the must is racked and clarified via gravity for 24 hours, without the addition of sulphur. The wines are subsequently aged in new French oak barrels for six to eight months, with bâtonnage (stirring of the lees) and the final blend was assembled on a fruit day.
The blend of four red grape varieties and one white has been designed to mirror a temple, with each variety playing a role. The Grenache Noir acts as the foundations, with old vine Cinsault and Syrah adding columns and walls, along with a “sublime” touch of Mourvèdre, and Viognier offering a wonderful aromatic complexity and typicity to the wine as the dome. The result is a perfectly balanced wine, with great length and extraordinary aromatic freshness. It is also a Rosé that will happily cellar, allowing more complex flavours to develop with age.
The temple theme has also inspired the elegant bottle design, with its square base and pyramidical punt rising to a circular shoulder that symbolise the cosmos and the principles of biodynamics. Meanwhile, the terroir is evoked by an elegant band of gold showing the undulating hills that surround Clos du Temple.
The Clos du Temple shows that rosé can be as fine as red wine and also proves to be a suitable match to the complex flavours of modern cuisine.
Wine File
The Producer Gerard Bertrand | Languedoc Roussillon
Former French Rugby Union player Gérard Bertrand is one of the most outstanding winemakers in the South of France. A biodynamic pioneer he owns numerous estates among the most prestigious crus of Languedoc-Roussillon. Named in 2012 as the International Wine Challenge...
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The Languedoc - Roussillon wine region in the south of France is one of the largest areas planted to vines in the world and accounts for almost a third of the total French wine production. As...
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