Les Terres d’Ocre is a small family domaine located in Chatel-de-Neuvre in the Allier region of France. It’s a long way from the main vineyard regions of the Loire valley and many of you will not will not be even aware of its existence!
Valerie and Eric Nessen own the vineyard and their nephew Florent Barichard makes the wines having spent 10 years travelling all over the world discovering other viticultural regions.
We first discovered their wines a few years ago but tasted this wine for the first time this past weekend at Tania & Vincent Carême’s open day.
Les Cailloux 2017 is a 100% Pinot Noir grown on sandy clay soils, picked by hand and fermented in concrete tanks using wild indigenous yeast. It’s an IGP wine, the local appellation that you may or may not be familiar with is Saint Pourçain.
It’s delicious and would be a perfect match for your turkey dinner on Christmas Day.
We are big fans of Pinot Noir as a grape but not hugely keen on the very fruit forward, wild strawberry type expressions that you often find at the affordable end of Pinot. This is different. It has classic Pinot notes together with lovely ripe fruit. A delight.
The cellar door price is 12.50€. A great price for a great wine if you can find it!
