Domaine Eric Forest, Saint Veran Terre Noire 2020

The fruit for this specific bottling is sourced from a prized, south-facing amphitheatre in Davayé, where old vines—some up to 100 years of age—are deeply anchored into 60 centimetres of dark, mineral-rich clay resting directly over a fractured bedrock of white Jurassic limestone.

• Champagne-Style Pressing: Grapes are entirely hand-harvested at optimum maturity, thoroughly sorted, and gently pressed in precise, slow stages to extract only the purest, most stable juice fractions. [1, 2]
• Wild Yeast & Barrel Elevage: The unrefined must is transferred directly into French oak barrels (including barriques and larger demi-muids, with roughly 20% being brand-new wood) where it undergoes fermentation driven purely by native wild yeasts.
• Fine Lees Resting: The wine is aged on its fine lees for 10 to 15 months without stirring, allowing the texture to naturally build complexity before being bottled using gentle gravity, completely unfiltered to preserve its brilliant, crystalline energy.

Eric Forest is a highly acclaimed, eighth-generation star vigneron based in the high-altitude village of Vergisson. After honing his craft under the tutelage of local Mâconnais winemaking legend Jean-Marie Guffens, Eric returned to his family's boutique estate in 2000 to forge his own path. Managing just over 5 hectares of highly prized plots, Eric heavily relies on ancestral knowledge inherited from his grandfather, who was among the very first growers in the area to champion biodynamic viticulture. He is internationally revered for creating tiny, highly precise quantities of white Burgundy that capture the singular soul of their ancient limestone cliffs