Terroir & Cultivars
Le Lude’s range of Cap Classique wines are only made from the three classic grape cultivars known to produce the world’s most exclusive bottle-fermented MCC.

Chardonnay
The noblest white wine grape of them all, Chardonnay brings a refined elegance, commanding mid-palate structure and verve and life to the blend. A bracing, life-affirming acidity allows the wine’s ability to age on the lees for extended periods furthering texture and complexity.

Pinot Noir
This is known as the great black grape, and a soft pressing gives a clear juice that when fermented brims with fresh red fruits flavours and floral aromas. This cultivar adds a supple muscularity to the final wine, as well as complementing the Chardonnay’s brisk acidic freshness. Each block of Pinot Noir is specially chosen to bring the desired dimension to the final blend.

Pinot Meunier
Often the bridesmaid but never the bride, this cultivar is not given as much credit for the final Cap Classique as the other two noble grape cultivars. Yet its role is an integral part in the final product, providing a richness and volume to the mid-palate as well as tantalising red fruit characters.
Terroir
A taste and a sense of place, the wine’s indistinguishable and unique fingerprint. This is terroir. It signifies a combination of climate, soil, aspect as well as the totality of the environment and history of that special spot of earth where the vineyard lives.
Therefore in the making of our wines, the origins of the various grapes’ terroir is used as the starting point with which to direct the extensive winemaking process, and it is terroir that determines the true quality of the final product.