Region:
Loire, Touraine
100% Pineau d’Aunis. Pineau d’Aunis is an historical black grape of the Touraine–in the same family with Menu Pineau and its more sophisticated cousin Pineau de la Loire, aka Chenin Blanc–but is a rare bird even here in its native land. In this case, the Puzelats source tiny quantities of it from their neighbor and vigneronne Valérie Forgues, who organically tends her plot of hundred-year-old vines. Like all of the Tue-Boeuf reds, the wine goes through whole-cluster, open-top, semi-carbonic fermentation in vat; it is then pressed, aged for used Burgundy barrels and bottled unfiltered with minimal sulfur. This Pineau d’Aunis is the quintessential: light, peppery, rustic yet fresh, racy red.