Winemaker Notes
Pink color, very pale and limpid. The nose has great finesse. Pink grapefruit and linden blossom notes reveal this wine’s very rich mineral quality in a poetic evocation of the sun rising over the Provence Garrigue on a summer day. On the palate, the wine is ample and balanced around sensations of freshness, delicacy and sweetness. It is bursting with small fresh fruits such as the arbutus berries on the wooded hillsides of the schist terroir of the Château la Gordonne. The long, pleasant finale expresses the finesse and flavor of a wild strawberry sorbet.
Critical Acclaim
All Vintages
The story of Château la Gordonne begins around the 1st century BC, the Romans set up on the site of La Gordonne to take advantage of its vines and its wines. In 1652, La Gordonne was definitively established as the name of the Château. In 1850, the Château and outlying buildings were completely renovated, and the Château has been selling wines ever since. The Château La Gordonne estate is also home to one of the 174 bells of the Var, dating back to the French Revolution. The bell was cast in 1654 and originates from a former chapel located on the grounds of La Gordonne. The Château La Gordonne is now one of the flagships of Vranken Estates.
Château La Gordonne is established in Pierrefeu-du-Var, in the heart of the Golden Triangle of Provence. It is a unique property in Provence, covering a contiguous area of 816 acres of vineyards planted on seaward-facing terraces of shale, which enjoy a special microclimate. This allows the vineyards to grow in the best conditions to produce high-quality grapes. In 2021, the vineyards of Château La Gordonne will be certified organic according to the specifications of the EU after 3 years of conversion.
Château La Gordonne produces excellent still rosés thanks to its new high-performance wine-producing facilities equipped with the same pneumatic presses historically used in Champagne and modern thermo-regulated stainless-steel tanks. These assets allow the winemaking team to extract the best juices, a fraction called Tête de cuvée. The winemaker Bruno Mailliard enjoys making wines that reflect the land on which they are grown, fruit-forwarded and sun-drenched. La Gordonne rosés typify the Côtes de Provence region, unique in the world, and capturing the most subtle fragrances of the Mediterranean.
Cotes de Provence is an extensive but valuable appellation that includes vineyards bordering the main Provencal appellations. Its sites vary from subalpine hills, which receive the cooling effects of the mountains to the north, to the coastal St-Tropez, a region mainly influenced by the warm Mediterranean sunshine.
Here the focus is on quality rosé, as it defines four fifths of the region’s wines. Following in the rosé footsteps, a lot of new effort is going into the region’s red production as well. A new generation has turned its focus on high quality Grenache, Syrah, Cinsault and Carignan. Cotes de Provence white wines, which represent a miniscule part of the region as far as volume, are nonetheless worthy of consideration and can include any combination of Clairette, Semillon, Ugni Blanc and Vermentino.
Whether it’s playful and fun or savory and serious, most rosé today is not your grandmother’s White Zinfandel, though that category remains strong. Pink wine has recently become quite trendy, and this time around it’s commonly quite dry. Since the pigment in red wines comes from keeping fermenting juice in contact with the grape skins for an extended period, it follows that a pink wine can be made using just a brief period of skin contact—usually just a couple of days. The resulting color depends on grape variety and winemaking style, ranging from pale salmon to deep magenta.