2020 Patrick Noel Sancerre Rouge AC

Offers a mix of red & black fruit flavors – berries, cherries & a little bit of plum, sweet baking spices, dusty cocoa powder, hints of leather & tons of minerality.  The unique mineral & stone based soils of Sancerre in contrast to the clay of Burgundy really shine through in this wine. It has bright acidity & soft, chewy tannins making this wine as classic as they come!  Drink now or stash some in the cellar and let the fruit blossom in the bottle.  Red burgundy lovers, especially those who don’t want to pay the hefty price tag, should definitely give this a try!
Noël Sancerre Rouge is a limited cuvée made from .5ha (1 acre) of pinot noir parcels located near the villages of Sancerre and Chavignol. It is an exceptionally graceful and delicious example of Sancerre Rouge. 200 cs produced – very limited

Vigneronne Julie Noël is making some of the most structured, soulful wines in Sancerre. In contrast to many estates in an appellation not presently known for complexity, the Noël family maintains an incredibly passionate following in France from their reputation for making wines of intensity and grace. They are also known for their faith in indigenous yeasts for fermentation and clear communication of terroir. 

Their Sancerre is made from estate vineyards located primarily in the villages of Chavignol and Sancerre, with a small amount of fruit from Saint-Satur. The blend includes grapes from vines planted in all three soil types of the region: Silex (flinty clay) in Sancerre, Terre Blanche (Kimmeridgian clay-limestone) in Chavignol and Saint-Satur, and Caillottes (stony calcareous limestone) in Chavignol.

The cellar was built within the 14th-century monastery vineyards of the Abbey of Saint-Satur, buried in the hillside where they work exclusively by gravity, overlooking the entire Loire Valley with breathtaking views of Sancerre.  These bottlings are from 100% Estate grown vineyards and 80% are from the famed Chavignol.

The domaine was created in 1988 by Patrick Noël in his native village of Saint-Satur, at the base of the Sancerre hill. Patrick is descended from more than three centuries of vignerons, all from the village of Chavignol. Historically, in the Noël family, the vines have always been transmitted from mothers to daughters. Patrick is an exception to this rule, but his daughter Julie, by choosing to take over the wine heritage in her turn, is part of a long matriarchal line.

After a decade spent outside the Sancerrois as a research engineer at the National Institute of Agronomic Research, Patrick returned to his ancestral home and started his namesake project in Sancerre. Today the domain farms over fifty plots totaling 18 ha in the appellations of Sancerre, Menetou-Salon, and Pouilly-Fumé. 
In Sancerre, their parcels are on three terroirs, Les Bouffants, la Côte Des Monts Damnés, and l’Orme au Loup. In Pouilly-Fumé, their vines are planted on silex soil in the village of Tracy-sur-Loire.

Domaine Patrick Noël bottles only estate fruit, fermented exclusively with native, indigenous yeasts and they have also implemented the certification of their plots through a new ecological farming certification program in France known as Haute Valeur Environnementale (HVE). HVE is an approach that focuses on the ecology and balance of the vineyards with the surrounding ecosystems.