André Clouet

The Clouet family is a family of winegrowers whose origins, as they themselves say, "are lost in the mists of time". Its founder was a printer at the Versailles court of Louis XV, and his descendants have continued this work for several generations. The peculiar "Ancien Régime" style of its labels is a tribute to the founder of the house.

It took more than two centuries and several generations of Clouet to obtain the vineyard plots in the Bouzy terroir, which are still in the hands of the founder's family. Bouzy is located in the southern part of the Montagne de Reims.

Pierre and François Santz-Clouet have 9 hectares of vineyard, in a fabulous mosaic of plots in the village of Bouzy. "Les Petites Brousses", "Les Hautes Brousses", "Les Vaudayants", "Les Ramoniers", "Les Ronsures", "Les Cercets", "Les Gouttes d'Or", "La Croix", "Les Varnets" and "Le Village" are the most outstanding.

All 9 hectares are classified as 100% Grand Cru. Only 17 villages out of 300 benefit from Grand Cru status, Bouzy being one of them. The vines are carefully tended to allow the Bouzy pinot noir, one of the most complex grape varieties in the world, to ripen perfectly. They have 8,000 feet per hectare, and the soils are cool and clay-limestone.

Severe pruning, light mineral fertilisation and moderate treatments mean that yields are short. The grapes are harvested by hand, and an important selection of clusters is made to eliminate those that have not ripened properly. Vinification is carried out in a traditional, almost archaic winery. An old, high, vertical press produces fine, balanced musts. The musts are transferred to small vats where they undergo alcoholic fermentation, between 16ºC and 18ºC, and malolactic fermentation, at 18ºC. The ageing is carried out in the family's cellars at a depth of 10 metres, with manual stirring and disgorging.