Chateau de Tracy Pouilly Fume

Description

Chateau de Tracy Pouilly Fume is one of the region’s most highly regarded white wines. A classic Pouilly Fume.

The wines are made at the historic Chateau de Tracy where records show that wine has been made  by the same family since 1396 when the “Les Champs de Crix” vineyard was purchased. In 1586, Françoise Stutt married Françoise de Bar who brought him as a dowry the seigneury (feudal lordship) of Tracy. The Stutt family had come from from Scotland in the fifteenth century to help the future King Charles VII of France during the Hundred Years War. Descendents of the Stutt family, the Count and Countess Alain d’Estutt d’Assay bought the estate in 1953 and together restored the vineyard. Today the estate is run their youngest daughter, Juliette d’Assay.

The estate is located some 200kms to the south of Paris and is situated on a prominent limestone outcropping in the north of the Pouilly Fume appellation, on the eastern side of the Loire River opposite Sancerre. Today the estate consists of approximately 33 hectares of vineyard. The soils are varied throughout the estate and are a mixture chalk, flint and Kimmeridgean clay imparting a distinct minerality and huge complexity of aroma and flavour to the wine. The vineyards are farmed in a gentle, environmentally sensitive, sustainable way. Ploughing of the grass between vines and the uses of insect lures are just methods they use to reduce the number of chemical treatments required. No pesticides are used in the vineyard, there is careful canopy management with green harvesting and yields are kept very low averaging some 53hl per hectare over 6 years.

The grapes for Chateau de Tracy Pouilly Fume are harvested by hand from vineyards in Tracy sur Loire overlooking the Loire river. The soils here are flint and Kimmeridgian limestone. There is careful selection, plot by plot, and they are only harvested when they reach maximum ripeness. The grapes are gentled pressed. The plots are vinified separately and the wine is fermented at low temperature in stainless steel with occasional lees stirring. The wine is usually aged for 8 months on the lees, which adds a creamy complexity to the wine,  until the following spring when the vats are blended and then bottled.

This wine is suitable for both vegetarians and vegans.