2023 Renardat-Fache, Cerdon du Bugey, France, Savoie

79% Gamay/21% Poulsard. The Renardats are 7th-generation vignerons in the tiny Cerdon du Bugey village of Mrignat. They farm their 13 hectares of Gamay and Poulsard organically and biodynamically (certified as of the 2022 vintage) in these high, rolling, wooded, steep hills of rocky clay-limestone soils. The fruit is harvested by hand, gently pressed and naturally fermented at very cold temperatures in steel tanks. At around 6% alcohol, the wine is bottled and slowly continues its fermentation in the cold cellar. Each bottle is then emptied by vacuum into a pressurized tank; the wine in tank is filtered to remove most of the remaining yeasts and rebottled with a touch of sulfur. The bottles are stored standing up, ferment a touch longer, to around 7.5-8% alcohol, and are then disgorged, usually in December of the vintage. The process seems complex for a simple wine but is the only way to discourage refermentation and exploding bottles with mthode ancestrale wine with residual sugar; back in the olden days, gargantuan quantities of sulfur were the only way to try to suppress further fermentation, often not successfully, and the wine rarely got sent further than 20 km. away from the village.

Starting in the 2020 vintage, Renardat changed their program a little. They went from making only one Cerdon to making two. A non-vintage version, called Initiale, featuring mainly Gamay with less Poulsard than in their original Cerdon, is headed toward being about 2/3 of production. It is a non-vintage wine, which allows some flexibility and the ability to have a more consistent supply of wine. Then the classic, still-single-vintage Cerdon will contain a higher proportion of savory Poulsard, balanced out with the fruitier Gamay, and will be about 1/3 of production. Both wines are moving toward lower residual sugar levels as well, though their general demi-sec level of sweetness will remain (as it is a key AOC requirement for Cerdon).