Bonnet-Cotton - '100% Cotton' - Gamay - Brouilly, Beaujolais, FR - 2021

Located just next to the winery in Odenas, Cotton’s parcel of Côte de Brouilly is on a unique terroir of “corne verte” that Pierre says is found nowhere else in the Beaujolais. The Côte de Brouilly 100% Cotton was the first cuvée Pierre made and remains the emblematic wine of the domaine - a structured, powerful Gamay that magically retains the easy drinking bonhomie of the best wines of the Beaujolais. All of the red wines at Cotton are vinified with native yeasts and without SO2 in concrete tanks, then age underground in century-old foudres that were originally built for holding beer, then were repurposed in the 1950s and 1960s. Soil type: "Corne verte"; decaying blue diorite on a southern exposition Pruning: Gobelet Carbonic maceration vinification in whole bunches, spontaneous fermentation with native yeasts. Elevage: Aged in foudres and barrels for 8 months, unfiltered, unfined and no SO2 added.

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Pierre Cotton is just getting started with his domaine, but already the potential is clearly tremendous. The Sanvers family have been farming and producing wine at the same chai in Odenas since 1856. Legend has it that the large chai with its cavernous cellars was built in the 18th century to make the wines for the nearby Chateau de Pierreux, and over the years it has housed a rotating group of producers. Today, Pierre and his parents are the sole producers to make wine here. After working for a short stint as a motorcycle mechanic, Pierre spent two years in the Loire Valley before returning to the domaine. In 2014, he reclaimed 1 hectare of Côte de Brouilly for his first cuvée – 100% Cotton. In 2015, he reclaimed another 2 hectares of Brouilly from the family holdings, and in 2016, he purchased 1 hectare of Regnié, and 1 hectare of Beaujolais. Starting in 2017, he will harvest 0.3 HA of Beaujolais Blanc on a unique vein of limestone near the domaine, with the possibility to plant more Blanc in the future.