Producer >
Stéphane Montez is the tenth generation of his family to be making wine in Chavanay, a village in heart of the Condrieu appellation. Since taking over in 1997, he has significantly increased the domaine’s vineyard holdings to 24 hectares with key parcels in Côte-Rôtie, Condrieu and Saint Joseph. The vertiginous nature of the granite and mica-schist based land means that almost all aspects of the vineyard work need to be undertaken by hand and represent an incredible human effort. In the winery, Stéphane likes to put his whites through skin contact before fermenting in wood whilst for his reds, he believes in de-stemming for certain cuvées and leaving a proportion of whole bunch in others. Only indigenous yeasts are used and temperatures for the reds are kept low and maceration times are extended. Ageing for the reds takes place in 228 litre barrels but increasingly so in 600 litre demi-muids.
Viticulture >
The 24 hectare estate covers 3 appellations in the Northern Rhône; St. Joseph, Condrieu and Côte-Rôtie. The grapes are grown on very steep, terraced vineyards on the right bank of the river and are protected from the prevailing westerly winds by the neighbouring Mont du Pilat. Minimum intervention is the viticultural approach and all the vineyard work has to be done manually due to the steep gradients. The Viognier for this Condrieu `Chanson` comes a 2.5 hectare single vineyard - Chanson - in the village of Saint Michel sur Rhône where the soils are a loose granite soil known locally as arzelle. Harvesting is done by hand.
Viognier
13
FRANCE
6
Cork
Domaine du Monteillet
Vegan
Vegetarian 
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