Domaine de la Pirolette

3.9/5See all 137 reviews

Perched atop a hill, facing the church of the famous Beaujolais village of Saint-Amour, the Domaine de la Pirolette is writing its own remarkable story. Taken over in 2013 by Virginie Barbet, a former sales representative in the cooperage industry, and her husband Grégory, along with a group of co-owners, the estate has since become one of the appellation’s leading names. Housed in a building dating back to 1600, the Domaine de La Pirolette owes its name to a pretty white flower: the Pirole. Spanning a 15-hectare vineyard with plots across diverse terroirs—featuring stony soils of sandstone and blue stone, as well as deep, weathered clay and pink granite—the lieux-dits Le Carjot, La Poulette, and La Pirolette take center stage and form the estate’s range.

Here, the Gamay grape reigns supreme, vinified as whole clusters in the Beaujolais tradition, but also destemmed according to the Burgundian tradition. The wines of Domaine de La Pirolette are produced through gentle extraction to preserve the terroir’s character. This ancestral technique is called “chapeau grillé”: a wooden grid keeps the “cap” (solid parts of the grape) submerged, with all possible options for pumping over and racking. The winery is traditional, made of concrete, and also features oval vats for aging the La Poulette cuvée.

La Pirolette’s wines are elegant, full of energy, and are poised to evolve further, rising to the top of the Saint-Amour appellation! A winery to watch very, very closely...

For more information, visit the website at Pirolette

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