NV Charles Bove Sparkling Rose, Touraine, Loire Valley, France

The firm of Charles Bove began life in the 19th century in Montrichard, in the Loire Valley. Its base of operations was, and is, an enormous rock quarry, abandoned after it had been quarried for building the Loire Chateaux (Chenonceau is just minutes away). This old quarry is composed of over 9 miles of underground cellars on three levels, with an all but steady temperature year-round of 53 degrees Fahrenheit. The humidity inside is ideal for making and storing wines, and these days the firm keeps an average of two million bottles of sparkling wine undergoing aging at any given time. Below, at the lower entrance to the cellars, stands guard a sculpture know among the workers as The Gatekeeper.

The company specializes in sparkling wines, buying grape must or juice direct from surrounding domains. This must is vinified, blended, and bottled at Bove. The intrinsic qualities of the different wines are optimized by blending them together in one single vat. Reserve stocks allow them to offset variable weather conditions. At the end of the bottling operation, during which the wine is topped up with liqueur de tirage, the bottles, capped with metal temporary caps, are stored in the chalk cellars. They are laid on lathes, that is to say stored horizontally, with each layer separated from the previous one by a thin wooden lathe. Over a period of about 4 months, a second fermentation occurs.