The Belgian cuvées of Ruffus have won several awards over the years, including ‘best sparkling wine in the world’ and ‘best Belgian wine in 2017’. To find out how the vineyard, Vignoble des Agaises, came to be and the craftsmanship with which these wines are produced, we had a candid conversation with the owner Arnaud Leroy.
The story of this Belgian “Champagne” begins with the dream of wine lover Raymond Leroy, who planted vines in a place where there had never been a plantation before. What seemed an inaccessible idea at first became a great success. Indeed, the land on which these cuvées are created is a place formerly known as the White Countries. These lands have the peculiarity of containing a large proportion of limestone, thus ensuring that the vine never suffers from drought.
The secret behind Ruffus is the traditional method by which the various cuvées are created. This is characterised by a second fermentation in the bottle, which makes it possible to obtain sparkling wines with a refined taste. The vineyard also chooses to work with advanced technologies such as thermally regulated storage in order to obtain quality products. The team harvests mechanically while maintaining manual supervision to ensure that the product is impeccable. Arnaud Leroy is completely satisfied “when he goes for the first bottle of a new vintage, and it is as good as expected”.
The quality of Ruffus is recognised by the biggest international competitions and is undisputed by their presence on the biggest Belgian tables. The family who first established their vineyard in Wallonia to produce sparkling wine are pioneers in their sector. They dared the adventure when there was no big vineyard in Belgium.
Ruffus can be purchased through one of the sales outlets or by buying on site. It should be borne in mind that there may be insufficient stock. It is therefore advisable to reserve the number of bottles you require by sending an e-mail to info@ruffus.be with your address, mobile number and an indication of how many bottles you wish to reserve, with a maximum of 12. These could then be collected around December 2021.
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Discover Ruffus here: http://www.ruffus.be
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