Domaine Chiroulet Cotes de Gascogne IGP "Terres Blanches" 2020

This is Côtes de Gascogne blanc just as we like it: fresh, focused, tense, mineral, and priced for everyday enjoyment. To the southeast of Bordeaux, in the heart of France’s Armagnac zone, Gascony’s white wines offer incomparable value for crispness, drinkability, and pleasure. Situated on Gascony’s highest slope, the Domaine Chiroulet sports special calcareous and white clay soils known as the Terres Blanches. These soils impart to Chiroulet’s wines freshness and nerve rare for the region. Brilliant lemon-gold in the glass with beautiful green glints, the Terres Blanches – a blend of Gros Manseng (55%), Sauvignon Blanc (35%), and Ugni Blanc – whets the palate with a delicious bouquet of flinty minerals, white grapefruit, green pineapple, spearmint, and freshly cut grass. In the mouth, the wine shows impressive clarity and focus with lime juice, grapefruit, passionfruit, and guava expressions infused with Thai basil and flinty minerals. Herbal overtones of lemony sorrel and chervil mark the unusually long, clean, distinctive finish. Chill the wine well to enjoy over the coming year as a refreshing apéritif and with shellfish, light freshwater fish dishes, lightly dressed salads, and vegetable frittatas.