The Story
Mainbey is the stony one. This Aligote comes off a valley slope beside the Hautes Cotes village of Fussey at around 470 meters, where the soil is littered with big blocks of limestone - the kind of rocky, low-vigor site that concentrates flavor and drives minerality. The vines were planted in 1980, adding depth to the equation. Mainbey is the largest holding Chantereves farms, mostly Chardonnay with a single Aligote parcel carved out here. Tomoko Kuriyama and Guillaume Bott work it organically and vinify gently - whole-bunch pressing, wild yeast, long aging in barrel and on the lees, minimal sulfur. Among their four Aligotes, this is the most stony and mineral-driven.
Description
Mainbey is the stony one. This Aligote comes off a valley slope beside the Hautes Cotes village of Fussey at around 470 meters, where the soil is littered with big blocks of limestone - the kind of rocky, low-vigor site that concentrates flavor and drives minerality. The vines were planted in 1980, adding depth to the equation. Mainbey is the largest holding Chantereves farms, mostly Chardonnay with a single Aligote parcel carved out here. Tomoko Kuriyama and Guillaume Bott work it organically and vinify gently - whole-bunch pressing, wild yeast, long aging in barrel and on the lees, minimal sulfur. Among their four Aligotes, this is the most stony and mineral-driven.
