Villa Volubilia - Epicuria Chardonnay 2023

Near Volubilis, a Chardonnay from stony clay-limestone soils that embraces full ripeness.

This Chardonnay is picked at full ripeness, and the wine owns it. The vines grow on stony, clay-limestone soils at 812 metres in the Guerrouane AOG. The grapes rest for 24 hours in a cold room, are sorted by hand on a table, then pressed directly. Twelve months in barrel with lees stirring do the rest. The nose brings white flowers, pear and jammy fruit. The palate is plush, honeyed and lightly vanilla and toasty, and the finish brings ripe fruit back. A white built on abundance, to open now or to forget for more than five years.

Twenty kilometres from Meknès, at the foot of Mount Zerhoun, Domaine de la Zouina (Villa Volubilia) farms 85 hectares of vines in the heart of the Guerrouane AOG. Its name nods to Volubilis, the city founded by the Berbers in the 3rd century BC and later taken over by Rome, around which the region’s winegrowing once centred. Taken over in 2002 by two Bordelais, Gérard Gribelin (formerly of Fieuzal) and Philippe Gervoson (Larrivet Haut-Brion), the estate brought Pessac-Léognan know-how to clay-limestone soils. The climate is Mediterranean: dry summers swept by the chergui, the Saharan east wind that dries grapes fast, stormy autumns, wet winters. Farming is raisonnée. A wide range of grapes, from Viognier to Caladoc, feeds the Epicuria, Volubilia and Zouina lines.