L’Ironda AOP Blaye Côtes de Bordeaux Red 2021 Organic – Merlot

This wine is made from Merlot. It has an attractive ruby-red colour with aromas of ripe fruit, licorice, pepper and spices. Smooth and well-balanced, it displays fine, elegant tannins. A delicious wine! GEOGRAPHICAL ORIGIN Commune of Braud-et-Saint-Louis, on the banks of the Gironde estuary. SOIL Deep, coarse-textured calcosol with pebbles under gravel topsoil. This soil retains warmth and is conducive to early ripening. It also overlays a 2-metre deep hard, slightly fragmented, limestone bedrock. This physical barrier limits the depth of the roots, promoting the gradual onset of moderate water stress from véraison (colour change) throughout ripening. This restricts the size of the grapes, boosting the synthesis of phenolic compounds and concentration of anthocyanins. The thick, deeply-coloured skins are highly tannic and aromatic. VITICULTURE Sustainable pruning, bud pruning, leaf thinning, green harvesting. The high leaf canopy rapidly consumes the soil’s water reserves by evapotranspiration and ensures an adequate leaf-to-fruit ratio, propitious to good concentration and extraction. The grapes are picked early in the morning at optimum ripeness (slightly overripe), to preserve their intrinsic fruitiness and full aromatic expression. FERMENTATION AND AGEING In stainless-steel vats. Fermentation with indigenous yeast at 24°C, vatting for 22 days. FOOD & WINE PAIRINGS With grilled or roasted red meat, blue cheese, matured cheese or ashcoated goat’s cheese…