| Availability: | In stock |
| Available in store: | Check availability |
At Domaine Valentin Zusslin, grapes are only hand-picked every year, to make sure sorting and selection of the best and healthier grapes are always made.
Everything is brought back to the cellar in small cases (of around 20kg in order to avoid compaction and trituration that could be sources of unwanted flavors), where they are sorted once again if needed. Pinot Noir are always sorted three times when being picked and processed.
Grapes are then pneumatically pressed as slow and gentle as we can, most of the time for over 10 hours. This type of pressing allows us to get high quality musts. Our cellar is built in half stories which make possible not to use a single pump before the beginning of fermentation. Alcoholic fermentation is spontaneous and is made only using wild yeasts already present on the grapes. We don’t use any selected yeasts or any other oenological products.
Each terroir is vinified separately and then blended, if necessary, before bottling.
At the cellar (foudres, big wooden vats made of vosgian oak), wines are aged on fine lees up to over two years depending on the balance we were looking for. Foudres are a big help to have a constant and harmonious fermentation thanks to a slow oxygenation through the porosity of the wood, a good thermic isolation. Their oval shape is also a real advantage since it helps fermentation to find its own rhythm.
In order to offer wines that are as close to their terroirs as possible, we are doing our best not to interfere and mess with the natural process of fermentations and aging: no chemicals or oenological products are used. Only a small amount of sulfur is added before bottling and only if needed. Since 2018, we propose Wines without any added sulfur (Crémant, Pinot noir and some white cuvées as well). Wines are bottled after an ageing of 12 to over 24 months, and then kept in our cellar until they offer a full aromatic expression. Some wines are in our ageing cellar during more than 20 years and proposed in limited quantities.
