Vignobles Levet

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Country of Origin: France
Location: Ampuis
People: Agnes Levet, Owner & Winemaker

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Nicole Levet’s grandfather first purchased vineyards in Ampuis in 1936 and began making wine immediately thereafter. Initially, he delivered his Côte-Rôtie in barrels to the city of St. Etienne where he sold it to bistros and cafes for consumption. In 1966, Nicole’s father, Marius Chambeyron, began to bottle a small portion of the production of the estate. Marius Chambeyron was a proud and somewhat brazen man who, despite the tiny size of his estate, proudly painted his name on the rocks that fronted the terraces of his small swath of vineyards as in the manner of the seigneurs of the appellation like Guigal, Delas and Vidal-Fleury. As Rosenthal Wine Merchant prepared to begin their commercial relationship in the 1980s, Monsieur Chambeyron took ill. Fortunately, his daughter Nicole and her husband, Bernard Levet, were prepared to continue Chambeyron’s life’s work.

It was with the formidable 1983 vintage that Bernard Levet took over the wine production as well as the management of the vineyard with Nicole. This exceptional couple has now been responsible for the development of the domaine, increasing the vineyard holdings and expanding the cellar capacity, so that they can now bottle their entire production. Nicole and Bernard have now been joined by their daughter, Agnes, who has inherited the love for vineyard work and obsession with detail that are essential parts of her parents’ character.

The Domaine’s current total production is 12,000 to 15,000 bottles annually and is exclusively of the appellation of Côte-Rôtie. The domaine consists of 3.5 hectares of vineyards, all of which are located within the boundaries of the town of Ampuis and are entitled to the Côte-Rôtie appellation. The vines are dispersed among six separate parcels. The vineyards are all steeply terraced and must be worked and harvested manually.
- Chavaroche: (Côte Brune/southwest exposure/average age 40 years/1.2 hectare)
- Landonne: (Côte Brune/one-third hectare/entirely old vines)
- Font Jean: (Côte Brune/young vines/.15 hectare)
- Les Craies: (Côte Blonde/southwest exposure/entirely old vines/half hectare)
- Mollard: (Côte Blonde/southeast exposure/old vines/one-third hectare)
- Moulin: (situated just below La Turque/young vines/.4 hectare)

The grapes are generally not destemmed before passing through a pneumatic press. The primary fermentation takes place in epoxy lined tanks. There is a long maceration that lasts three weeks. The fermentation temperatures reach 30 degrees Celsius. The malolactic fermentation normally finishes by the end of the year. The wine is then racked into large oak barrels where it spends the remainder of its first year. At the beginning of the second year, the wines are racked into medium-sized barrels (or demi-muids), 10-15% of which are new. In the third year, the wines are racked again and left to complete the barrel aging in a mixture of demi-muid and small barrels. The wines are bottled after three years of barrel aging with a light fining and no filtration.