Hervé Villemade "La Bodice" Cheverny Blanc 2022

Medium greenish yellow, silver reflections. Inviting yellow tropical fruit, hints of acacia honey, fresh golden delicious apple, white berry, it is an appealing aroma. Juicy, fine pome fruit nuances, elegant, velvety texture, pleasant acidity, mineral and persistent, with a pronounced fruit finish. it is a multi-faceted food wine and reflects its Touraine provenance very well.

80% Sauvignon Blanc, 15% Chardonnay and 5% Menu Pineau. Farmed organically. Hand harvested from the lieu-dit La Bodice. After a direct-press, the wine ferments and ages in demi-muids and old oak barrels. 

Hervé Villemade has been working his family's vines in Cellettes since taking over from his father in 1995. Today, the estate represents about 22 hectares of organically farmed fruit within the Cheverny and Cour-Cheverny AOCs, along with a négociant license to supplement production with local grapes.

When Hervé first took over, everything was farmed chemically and vinified conventionally. Unaware of an alternative, he followed in his parents' footsteps but quickly found his work "uninspired and bland." Around 1997, Hervé was introduced to the wines of Marcel Lapierre and Clos du Tue-Boeuf. Both immediately struck a chord with him.

Coincidentally, at the exact same time that he was discovering these wines, Hervé started developing a very serious allergy to sulfur. He decided to eliminate it from the cellar, but his first sans souffre vinifications quickly led to the conclusion that to make wine this way, you needed the highest quality grapes. So in 2000, Hervé decided to convert the estate to organic viticulture.