Cosima Bassouls is a young, charismatic leader of the bucolic Beaujolais-Lantignié region. Cosima has a vision for Lantignié, and it involves combining the strengths of the region’s long viticultural tradition with her progressive and innovative environmental plan. She began the conversion of all 6ha of family vineyards to organic farming in 2019, utilizing agroforestry and cover crops to create an integrated landscape that brings nature into the vineyards. She utilizes 15 different cover crops, rotating and adapting each to suit the needs of the parcel, creating natural biodiversity and a true polyculture with healthy, living soil, which also counteracts erosion. 

Located at 350m elevation, Aux Saules is the northernmost of Cosima’s single parcels. The area around Aux Saules is very diverse, with creeks, trees, bushes, and lots of small hills and valleys, where grapes coexist with the natural environment. Over 60-year-old goblet-trained gamay vines are planted on decomposed pink granite soils. Aux Saules gives bright wines with a striking magenta color, aromatic, savory wines with lively red fruits, tangy pomegranate, red beets, earthy minerality, and excellent acidity. Aux Saules is the most accessible red wine from Vergers due to the pink granite soils; however, don’t be fooled by the easy-going nature of this. All of Cosima’s wines are built to age.

Vinification – Whole bunches are handpicked in small crates and selected in the vineyard. 12 days of whole-cluster, semi-carbonic maceration is followed by a very gentle and slow pressing using the château’s centuries-old vertical press, according to the cycle of the moon. The press requires an entire team to turn each hour, with the full pressing taking 24 hours to complete, following the moon cycle. The ancient press yields a naturally clear must that does not need to be filtered or clarified. The must is transferred into traditional cement tanks, where fermentation continues with native yeasts. After racking, the wine spends eight months in concrete tanks before being bottled unfined and unfiltered. Sulfur is not used in the vinification process; a small amount is added at bottling.

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