Domaine de Sulauze 'Pomponette' Rosé Coteaux d'Aix-en-Provence AOC 2023

Domaine de Sulauze exemplifies what the French call Coup de Foudre (love at first sight): love between Karina and Guillaume Lefèvre, and their appreciation of and passion for nature. In 2004, a small nest egg and the assistance of a French government program designed to help young people get into farming allowed the two to purchase the 29-hectare estate in Coteaux d'Aix-en-Provence, a few stone buildings and a stone barn where a wine cooperative once operated. Immediately, they began to convert to organic, then biodynamic, viticulture and embraced polycultural farming, growing wheat for bread, barley for beer and olive trees for oil, and cultivating a large vegetable garden to feed their family and employees. Today, the estate is Demeter certified, and the Lefèvres’ top priority is preserving and translating their terroir. (Their vineyards are made up of sandy, limestone-rich soils known as “lauze,” which lends the domaine its name.) In the cellar, vinification methods are as hands off as possible, wines are fermented with indigenous yeasts, with little or no sulfur used, and no fining or filtration. Pomponette is a grenache-dominant blend with cinsault, syrah, mourvèdre and vermentino aged in stainless steel. A lovely pale salmon color, it bursts with crystalline notes of wild strawberries, red raspberry, watermelon and blood orange all backed by racy, mouthwatering acidity. Certified organic, certified biodynamic, low-intervention/natural wine.