Marie Rocher La Tendresse 2023
A light ruby, as pretty a ruby as a saignée sparkling wine, with wild fresh raspberry and herbs and medium-plus tannins.
Region: Loire · Type: Red · Vintage: 2023 · Producer: Marie Rocher · Grape: Pinot Noir, Pineau d'Aunis
Tasted 2025-12-21
In the glass
The colour was a light ruby, a pretty ruby like that of a saignée sparkling wine. I picked up wild fresh raspberry and herbs. The tannins were medium-plus.
Producer
This wine comes from Marie Rocher, a négoce that owns no vineyards and buys grapes from local growers, making wine since the 2018 harvest. Her father, Jean-Paul Rocher, was a publisher who brought out several books on natural wine. After he died in 2012, Marie Rocher took over that publishing work and went around wine tastings to promote the books.
Site
The vineyard lies on the first slopes of the Cher Valley in the Loire, France. The soil is Perruche, with flint and gravel spread over a limestone subsoil.
Vinification
The blend is 70% Pinot Noir and 30% Pineau d'Aunis. The two grapes are macerated and aged separately and blended 10 days before bottling. Ageing lasts 6 months, the Pinot Noir split between 13 hL in oak barrels and 20 hL in fibre tanks. The wine is neither fined nor filtered, and SO2 is added at bottling at 2 g/hL.