Pouilly-Fumé – Cuvée Kiméride

This cuvée is only made in top vintages. Produced for the first time in 1983, Pabiot released this wine in only 18 of the last 32 vintages. Cuvée Kiméride is winemaker Alain Pabiot’s selection of the best young wines made from his estate’s oldest vines – 43 to 67 year old. It comes from several vineyard parcels around the village of Les Loges, which has an ideal soil – a mix of limestone and clay covered with small white stones – and is the warmest part of the estate’s holdings. The Sauvignon Blanc fruit is hand-picked at optimal maturity (but not in an over-ripe state) to give a Pouilly-Fumé of exceptional depth and structure.

The grapes are given partial skin maceration and are gently pressed. Fermentation begins with the native yeasts in stainless steel tanks at controlled, low temperature. The young wine is aged on its lees for 4 months, with regular stirring in the first half of the sur lie aging period, then racked in March. Alain Pabiot then makes a final selection on the basis of taste alone. The richest old-vines batches are assembled and matured in tanks for two years before bottling. (Those not selected became part of Pabiot’s “normal” Pouilly-Fumé Les Fines Caillottes.)