Mikaël Bouges ‘La Bulle’ Pétillant Rosé 2020

Location: France, Loire

Winemaker: Mikaël Bouges

Grapes: Gamay, Côt

Soil: Gravelly limestone

Winemaking: Pétillant naturel

From us at M&L: Our fondness for the Cher valley wines is no secret, and it’s great to discover new talent in that area. Mikaël Bouges works an 8ha estate in the village of Faverolles-sur-Cher that he acquired with the help of Catherine and Didier Barouillet of the iconic domaine Clos Roche Blanche. Mikaël worked for his winemaker father, who had an organic estate, for years but decided to carve out his own project. The Cher valley is a lattice work of river-affected, alluvial soils, and Mikaël aims to produce varietal wines from specific plots (soon arriving).

We are stoked to get our hands on two electric pet’ nats - these are perfectly timed arrivals for the imminent Spring (it will come!). Serious and fun, the ‘Clic Clac’ is a wonderful and quite serious expression of the region’s reemerging predominant white grape, Menu Pineau, and ‘La Bulle’ is classic Loire party pet; fuzzy and refreshing.

From the Importer MFW: Mikaël Bouges works a small, 8ha estate in the village of Faverolles-sur-Cher in Touraine. For years, he labored on his father's estate in a neighboring village, but after his father retired, Mikaël could not afford to buy his father's share and was forced to look for new vineyard sites to establish his own domaine. With the help of Catherine and Didier Barouillet of Clos Roche Blanche, Mikaël managed to acquire his current parcels of Côt, Sauvignon Blanc, Menu Pineau, and Chenin. Mikaël's father worked organically as far back as the early ‘90s, so a thoughtful approach in the vineyard and the cellar has always been essential. Today, the vines are farmed organically, and Mikaël seeks to express the varied alluvial soil types of the Cher valley by making single varietal wines from each of his individual parcels. In the cellar, the wines ferment spontaneously and are not filtered or fined with a small amount of sulfur used only at bottling. The resulting wines are profoundly mineral and represent a real sense of place, classical in their expression with incredible purity and plenty of age-worthiness.