2016 Francois Pinon Vouvray Cuvee ‘Le 16’ Loire, France

100% Chenin Blanc. Pinon selects 0.6 hectare’s worth of its flatter, more clay-forward parcels for its sec bottling (their flintier silex soils would render the dry wine too aggressively austere). The wine is grown and made identically to the other still white Vouvrays. The vines average 40 years old and have been certified organic since 2007. The fruit is harvested by hand, rigorously sorted and whole-cluster pressed. The juice flows by gravity into tank for a spontaneous native-yeast fermentation that lasts 2-3 months; it stops naturally in Pinon’s cold cellar carved into the tuffeau hillside. The wine is aged on its fine lees for 4-5 months in a variety of used oak ranging from 500-liter demi-muids to 20-hectoliter foudres.