20 ans de Gorges

20th anniversary of the foundation of the Association des Vignerons du Cru Gorgeois 

 

Six celebrating Gorges producers in a vineyard

 

The production criteria for Cru Gorges  

2013 Gorges La Vigneaux, Fred Laffer with a lump of gabbro
- Sèvre Nantaise in the background

On Thursday 6th September I was privileged to be invited to the celebration for the 20 years of the Association, which was officially formed in 1998. However, its origins date back to the winter of 1996/97 when five Gorges producers – Michel Brégeon, Gilles Luneau, Christophe Boucher, Damien Rineau and Thierry and Christophe Luneau got together to define the criteria for a top quality Muscadet.

After much work the INAO recognised in 2011 Gorges as one of the first three Muscadet Cru Communaux, along with Clisson and Le Pallet. The criteria for Cru Gorges include: vines planted on the type of soil called gabbro, green harvest to aim for a yield of 40 hl/ha, the wine to spend 24 months on its lees and once in bottle a jury of experts have to agree that the wine is up to scratch.
Interestingly compulsory hand picking is not in the criteria. Perhaps this will be the next step as an insistence on hand picking would really mark out this top tier of Muscadet as something qualitatively different from the rest. Furthermore given the tiny quantities of Cru Communaux currently being produced obligatory hand picking ought to be easy enough to arrange.

We tasted some 15-20 different Cru Gorges from a number of different vintages. Overall they underlined that these Cru Communaux are indeed a step up and that, although slightly more expensive they still offer great value for money – these are very fine wines.

2000 Gorges, Christophe and Brigitte Boucher
served in magnum for lunchtime apéro
when it was magnificent.
Unfortunately they tried pairing it with
the dessert which in my view didn't work at all. 

Our fine lunch was @ The Restaurant L'Atlantide

Our day started with a visit to the recently restored  

Moulin à Papier at Liveau, a hamlet of Gorges. 

Part of the water wheel in the Moulin

The process of making paper

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