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Boris
Domaine de la Butte
Les Côteaux du Levant
2021
4.1
Region
France › Loire › Touraine › Bourgueil › Bourgueil AOC
Type
red · still
Grapes
Cabernet Franc
Alcohol
12.5%
Volume
750 mL
Tasting Notes(1)
4.1
Tasted blind I read this as something from southern France - the relatively low acidity pulled me that way. Beautiful fruit core, polished, with a flicker of flowers and spice and a slightly inward perfume that asks you to lean in. Round, silky, very tasty on the palate, even if it could use a bit more time to fully open. Loire Cabernet Franc in its quieter register.
About
Les Côteaux du Levant is one of Domaine de la Butte's parcellaire cuvées, drawn from a south-exposed hillside of young-vine Cabernet Franc on limestone capped with flint, farmed since 2018 and previously folded into Le Haut de la Butte. Vinification runs through wood and concrete with about a month on skins, then élevage split between 60-hectolitre foudres and two- to three-year-old barrels. 2021 was a cool, frost-bitten Loire vintage that yielded small crops at modest ripeness, with bright acids, fresh red fruit, and a leafier, more classically proportioned Cabernet Franc profile than the warmer years on either side.
