Jean-Luc Colombo Picpoul de Pinet Les Girelles

Description

Jean-Luc Colombo Picpoul de Pinet Les Girelles is made from 100% Piquepoul Blanc sourced from the Languedoc-Roussillon wine-growing region of Southern France. 

Jean-Luc Colombo and his wife, Anne, moved to Cornas from Marseille in 1982 to set up a pharmacy and oenology lab. Four years later, in 1986, Jean-Luc bought his first vineyard and celebrated the production of his first vintage in 1987. That very first vintage of Cornas Les Ruchets was a great success, taking the French wine world by storm and laying the foundations for Colombo’s future reputation as one of the foremost producers of Cornas.

Today, Colombo owns 20 hectares of vineyards in the northern Rhône, where the company has its headquarters, primarily in the appellations of Cornas and St-Péray. He is also a pioneer in the Côte Bleue (Blue Coast) region near Marseille, where the company has another 40 hectares of vineyards. The company remains a family business: wife Anne is the vineyard manager and winemaker, as is their daughter Laure, who joined the family business in 2010. Laure also has her own estate with her partner Dmitri called “Le Domaine de Lorient.”

The grapes for Jean-Luc Colombo Picpoul de Pinet Les Girelles come from vineyards planted on light, stony limestone soils on a plateau surrounded by pine forests and overlooking the Étang de Thau. The climate is Mediterranean (as is the local vegetation – thyme, lavender, live oaks, pine trees) with maritime influences. The wine is traditionally vinified with a long fermentation at low temperatures to preserve freshness and fruit.

Each of the wines in the range features imagery created by a friend of the Colombo family and painter, Marie-Annick Dutreil. The label for this wine depicts two fish – Les Girelles. Le Girelle, singular, is a rockfish also known as the Mediterranean Rainbow Wrasse, commonly used to make the famous Bouillabaisse fish soup of the region.

What is Picpoul de Pinet?

Picpoul de Pinet is the name of the appellation situated on the Mediterranean coast between Montpellier and Béziers, overlooking the Étang de Thau. The grapes come from the communes of Pinet, Mèze, Florensac, Castelnau-de-Guers, Montagnac and Pomerols (not that one!). The wine is produced from the Picquepoul Blanc grape and is characterized by flavours and aromas of lemon and lime, green apple and white flowers with hints of salinity due to the proximity of the Mediterranean Sea. It is often called the “Muscadet of the South”. Picpoul means “lip stinger”, a name derived from the wine’s high acidity.