François Pinon Vouvray Les Déronnières

Deronnières used to be blended into the Silex Noir but starting in 2015, it was bottled separately because it features limestone rather than silex (flint) soils. The Deronnières vines are around 50 years old and are the first to ripen, thanks to their hilltop exposure and limestone-rich soils. The vines have been certified organic since 2007. The fruit is harvested by hand, rigorously sorted and whole-cluster pressed. The juice flows by gravity into tank for a spontaneous native-yeast fermentation that lasts 2-3 months; it stops naturally in Pinon's cold cellar carved into the tuffeau hillside. The wine is aged on its fine lees for 4-5 months in a variety of used oak ranging from 500-liter demi-muids to 20-hectoliter foudres. Deronnières is vinified and aged just like its Silex Noir and Trois Argiles counterparts, but often emerges as a leaner, more mineral, less sweet wine than either; in 2018, it finished with a technically sec-level of 8 grams RS and 4.7 grams acidity.