Domaine de l'Aigle Limoux Chardonnay 2019
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Parker
Robert
Product Details
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Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
This wine is a golden green color with silver-grey reflections. Expressive nose with fruity notes of white peach, opening up to notes of marzipan and pastry. The palate is fresh, mineral, light, and supple with a mentholated finish.
This wine is best serves alongside roasted poultry or seafood in sauce, mushrooms in a creamy sauce and cheese or goat's cheese tarts.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
From another of Bertrand's Languedoc estates, this one at 450 meters above sea level, the 2019 Limoux Domaine de l'Aigle Chardonnay includes both tank and barrel-matured components. It's ripe and fairly full-bodied, with tropical notes (guava and pineapple), hints of toasty oak and bright lemon-lime flavors. Custard-textured and plump on the palate, it finishes with hints of silk and grilled citrus.
Other Vintages
2021-
Enthusiast
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Enthusiast
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The Domaine de l'Aigle is located at the foot of the Roquetaillade cliff, where Bonelli's eagles nest, a protected species that gave its name to the estate. It occupies the top of the Limoux terroir, whose cool Pyrenean foothills climate made it possible to produce the first sparkling wines in France as early as 1531 at the Saint-Hilaire Abbey. Champenois and Burgundians have taken an interest in this part of the Languedoc where Chardonnay and Pinot Noir reach their perfect maturity without losing their freshness.
The Domaine de l'Aigle was born out of this ambition to plant the grape varieties of the northern vineyards on this exceptionally cool terroir of the Languedoc to explore their quality potential. Gérard Bertrand acquired the estate and its thirty-one hectares in 2007 with the desire to carry out a real quest for excellence. The grapes come from sustainable agriculture, in accordance with the Terra Vitis approach, which guarantees the traceability of cultivation practices verified by an independent body.
One of the most popular and versatile white wine grapes, Chardonnay offers a wide range of flavors and styles depending on where it is grown and how it is made. While it tends to flourish in most environments, Chardonnay from its Burgundian homeland produces some of the most remarkable and longest lived examples. California produces both oaky, buttery styles and leaner, European-inspired wines. Somm Secret—The Burgundian subregion of Chablis, while typically using older oak barrels, produces a bright style similar to the unoaked style. Anyone who doesn't like oaky Chardonnay would likely enjoy Chablis.
While Limoux also produces both white and red wines, it is ultimately recognized as a sparkling wine zone. Blanquette de Limoux is the region’s original sparkler, which is based on Mauzac with small amounts of Chardonnay and/or Chenin Blanc. The more rustic and traditional version, Blanquette Méthode Ancestrale, is an often cloudy and sweeter sparkling wine made exclusively from Mauzac.
In the 1990s, the region created the more modern, Crémant de Limoux, for international markets.