Bourgueil Trinch! Cabernet Franc Catherine et Pierre Breton 2020

Bourgueil Trinch! Cabernet Franc Catherine & Pierre Breton, biodynamic, crunchy, youthful, fruity Loire valley red wine. This delightful little number is classic Bourgueil, with bright red fruits, soft tannins and a touch of liquorice. Versatile and not too heavy, this is a perfect summer red, or for light lunches of charcuterie and coarse pâté. The name Trinch comes from a German expression meaning cheers, derived from the sound that glasses make when they clink together. The grapes come from younger vines vinified in stainless steel with a cold maceration to preserve the character of fruit. Fermented with indigenous yeasts and bottled with a minimum of sulphur.

Catherine and Pierre Breton have been running their biodynamic estate just north of Restigné since 1997.

In total they own around 15 hectares around the area, also in Bourgeuil and Chinon. Their wines scream the up-most respect for the land. The viticulture is scrupulously natural, avoiding all chemical fertilisers and weedkillers, restricting yields to something like 40-45 hl/ha (although some cuvées are below 35 hl/ha) and harvest by hand. In the cellars, the grapes are treated according to terroir: gravelly soils going into stainless steel, whereas grapes from clay-limestone vineyards are fermented in old oak vats. Only indigenous yeasts are used, filtration avoided, and sulphur is severely restricted with most cuvées receiving just 10 mg/l at bottling. Their Cabernet Francs are excellent, but their dry vouvray is one of our favourite expressions of Chenin in the shop.