Louis Latour Pinot Noir Valmoissine (375 ml)

Louis Latour's reach extends well beyond the Côte d'Or: the Valmoissine Pinot Noir is sourced from the Var département in southern France, a deliberate southward expansion by the house to produce Pinot Noir in a warmer, sun-drenched terroir far removed from the limestone hillsides of Aloxe-Corton. The Var's sandy, alluvial soils and Mediterranean-influenced microclimate yield a Pinot Noir with more immediate fruit density and softer structural tension than a village Burgundy — a conscious trade-off the house made to offer an accessible, terroir-distinct expression of the variety.

Winemaking follows the same red-wine protocol applied across the Louis Latour range: 100% hand-harvested, fully destemmed Pinot Noir, fermented in large open wooden vats with manual pigeage over approximately 14 days, with gravity-only transport throughout the cuverie. Post-fermentation, the wine undergoes the house's openly acknowledged and category-transgressive practice of flash pasteurisation at approximately 72°C for 2–3 seconds before bottling — eliminating the need for fining agents entirely, as the wine falls clear naturally over 2–3 months. No other major Burgundy-rooted négociant applies this technique uniformly across its red range. Oak aging uses 15–35% new French oak from the in-house Louis Latour cooperage, staves air-dried 24–36 months. The 375 ml format makes this the sharpest entry point into the Louis Latour red winemaking philosophy.