Brendan Stater-West from Oregon, US was not born into a winemaking family, just a family that “loves and drinks wine every day” and never thought that he would end up working in the industry. Brendan began his new career by joining the team at Domaine Guiberteau, whilst continuing to study viticulture and oenology in his spare time. At the beginning of 2015, Brendan leased 1ha plot of young Chenin vines in Bizay, next to the Clos de Guichaux, to begin producing his own wines. Brendan’s vineyard work has been strictly organic. In the cellar, he lets the natural yeasts conduct a rapid fermentation in order to retain as many primary aromas as possible. Brendan seeks the same purity and precision in his wines as Domaine Guiberteau, with a ‘transparent’ reflection of the specific terroir.
This is a lean, acid driven style of Chenin: packed with flavours of tart green apples, peach skin, crushed rocks, and honey, the fruit is vinified entirely in steel tanks and the wine ages on a portion of its fine lees for six months. Thus wine is elegant, pure, vertical, with salinity from the limestone and a wine Brendan is crazy for.