Jérôme Lambert L'Air de Rien Rosé 2020

JEROME LAMBERT L'AIR DE RIEN ROSÉ 2020
Anjou / Loire // France

An elegant sparkling Rosé made from a direct press of Gamay and Grolleau.

A very pretty blush in the glass, pure and zippy and yet soft and rounded. Its fine bubbles making for an invigorating, moreish sparkling wine that makes just as much sense at the beginning or end of a meal.
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Jérôme Lambert is a true farmer-winemaker tending a couple of hectares of vines near Rablay-sur-Layon in a part of Anjou that is undoubtedly one of the Loire’s great terroirs.

A true Angevin, Jérôme was born in the area but not to a family of vignerons and so his love of wine grew naturally. As a teenager he would pick leftover grapes, stomp on them and wait to see what would become of the fermenting juice. For over a decade he farmed small parcels that totalled less than a hectare of vines, making wine guided by nothing but instinct and the occasional advice from locals such as Richard Leroy.

He now farms a total of 4ha of mainly Chenin Blanc as well as a little Grolleau and Gamay dotted around the countryside. He has worked organically from the outset and has been making wine without any additions for several decades. He is best known for producing achingly pure Chenin Blanc from two parcels of old vines planted over sand and schist. These tense, focused expressions of Chenin Blanc provide a wonderful expression of the terroir.

His attentive and demanding love for his vines and animals translates into cuvées where the word “nature” takes on its full meaning, its true meaning. The refusal of any input in the vineyard as in the cellar, and the scrupulous requirement that this implies, yield wines with raw energy, pure expressions of the terroir and finesse.