Appellation: Vin de France
Cuvée: Les Chibanettes
Colour: Red
Grapes: Grenache Noir 100%
About: the Cuvée name comes from the colloquial and charming word for old folk in the Magreb of North Africa. Badea’s own name has Romanian roots and also means old folk, coincidentally. The old school character of the wine is driven by the selection of old vines planted in 1945.
Vines
Location: just west of Tulette.
Size: from 1 hectare.
Age: vines planted in 1945.
Soils: well draining stony soils, with red and black rocks.
Exposition: basically flat.
Altitude: 100 to 150m.
Training: although everything was planted in gobelet, much was re-trained to cordon de royat on wire in the 1980’s for the “convenience” of the worker, rather than the health of vine and fruit.
Farming: organic, as above.
Average yield hl/ha: 30.
Winemaking
The fruit, whole bunches, was foot-trodden in the cases into which they were picked, and manually put into fibreglass tank to ferment, using natural yeasts and no other entrants, except a tiny dose of sulfites after the malo and before bottling. No temperature control, but ambient 31 to 32ºC. Five to seven delestages (rack and return, all the wine is drained off the marc, the skins, then put back in, thus thoroughly aerating the wine and soaking the skins) were carried out during a total cuvaison or time on skins of 21 days.
After pressing the wine was put back in tank to age for six months. It was bottled under cork without fining or filtration.
Vintage notes 2016
Yield hl/ha: 20 hl/ha
Harvested: September 25.
Bottles produced: 3,000.
Date bottled: 2017-07.
Alcohol: 15 %
SO2 Total: 30
Tasting: a complex, deep and well-structured wine, with exotic aromas of licorice, violets, mineral, garrigue and black pepper. The richness is perfectly balanced by abundant freshness and the firm, rich tannins balanced by the sweet fat of the fruit.
Vintage notes 2017
Hot, dry and sunny year punctured by coulure, and hail, leading to a low yield and super-concentrated wines. Some crazy numbers, with no sulfites added despite high pH and alcohol, yet it all works to produce a great wine. 25 days on skins.
Yield hl/ha: 15 hl/ha
Harvested: September 20
Bottles produced: 1,200.
Date bottled: 2018-07.
Alcohol: 15.71 %
SO2 Total: 0
Tasting: a great nose of spicy forest fruits and cacao and iron, garrigue, bacon, olive, warm, full bodied and punchy, grippy tannins, enough freshness to make compelling.
Vintage notes 2018
Much of the Southern Rhône was hit by mildew as a result of a wet spring, yet many producers managed it and even benefited from the water. All the Badea 2018s show concentration as well as juicy, attractively vegetal fruit.
Yield hl/ha: 25 hl/ha
Harvested: September 25.
Bottles produced: 3,000.
Date bottled: 2019-07.
Alcohol: 15.5 %
SO2 Total: 15
Tasting: tasted 2019-07-31 reminds me of 2015, but not ready. Excellent potential. More vegetal than the 2017 not surprisingly, same sweet black spice, cacao and iron, more stinging nettle on nose.
Vintage notes 2019
Not made. Wine was blended into Zinzin and Libre. Because of difficulties with stuck fermentations due to blocked maturities due to heatwaves coming on the back of the year when Philippe let all the grasses grow free and didn’t plough. Tasted pretty good to us, nonetheless, in January after the harvest.