On the rock again 2019

On the Rock Again 2019,

Nicolas Chemarin

Deep, mineral, and hyper-complex yet highly drinkable, On The Rock Again presents a purple color with violet highlights. Its nose is floral (violet), with notes of wet rock and spices. The attack evokes ripe red fruits (raspberry, cherry). The aftertaste is long and lively with great salinity. The tannins, well-integrated and elegant, give the wine a very pleasant roundness. This Gamay Noir à jus blanc cuvée directly alludes, through its title, to the omnipresent, outcropping rock of the Marchampts terroir, directly transmitting its earthy notes to the Gamay. The minerality of this superb hillside Beaujolais red, classified as a Vin de France, should come as no surprise. We recommend tasting at 12°C and uncorking, or even decanting, half an hour to an hour before serving this wine. The harvest is vatted by gravity, in whole bunches. The vatting lasts fifteen days at a controlled temperature (from 5 to 18°C), without pumping over. After pressing, the cuvée is aged in vats on fine lees for ten months. Bottled in the waning moon, in August following the harvest, without filtration or the addition of sulfites.

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Nicolas Chemarin, nicknamed "P'tit Grobis" as a resident of Marchampt (Beaujolais), is the fourth generation of winemaker on his family vineyard in the Beaujolais-Villages appellation, on a stony land where he crafts wines of surprising depth and sincerity. In 2005, he took over two hectares of his father's vines and in 2006, he produced his first vintages. In 2008, he acquired other vines and decided to devote himself solely to his estate, whose very steep terroir consists of poor, rocky soils on gray granite rock. The vines rest on the bedrock through very thin soil, and their roots plunge deep into the rock. Depending on the configuration of the soil, the vines are pruned in goblet form or raised on stakes. Their average age is eighty years. The grape varieties, Gamay and Chardonnay, are classically Beaujolais. Nicolas also cultivates two other terroirs in the Régnié appellation: Les Bullats, with light, filtering sandy soils, and La Haute Ronze, very close to Morgon, whose deeper, clayey soils produce full-bodied wines. The wines undergo long macerations (from 18 to 30 days) with punching down and temperature control (Nicolas works cold, around 20 °C). The aging is partially done in thermoregulated concrete vats for a third, the remaining two thirds being spent in barrels of four to ten wines in order to provide oxygenation but little or no woody sensation. Nicolas Chemarin is already well known in the natural world for his sweet and fruity vintages, wines for pleasure, and for vintages from difficult and magnificent terroirs, endowed with admirable and complex mineral, aromatic and spicy notes.