The Priorat

It really was long overdue. The Priorat is not far away (one hour south of Barcelona), has much in common with the vineyards of Collioure, and makes some stunning wines. Also, fellow MW student and general bon viveur Stefan Lismond is based there, marketing some of the region's best wines. So just before Christmas, I hopped in the car and dropped in to meet him.

The weather was more reminiscent of the Scottish Highlands than sunny Spain, but highlighted the geography of this special place. Surrounded almost completelt by mountains, and it 400-800m altitude, Priorat is much cooler at night than our Collioure Appellation, and can have very different weather to the Spanish coast only 40 miles away.
This helps the wines to retain good acidity (pH3.2-3.4 as opposed to the Roussillon 3.6-4.0) and a sense of freshness. I was lucky to visit some of the finest wineries in the region. Clos Mogador - the hippy originators of the Appellation - was fascinaing and frank. Ferrer and Bobet was a masterclass in modern, polished winemaking with no expense spared. Their amazing gravity-fed winery is pictured above, and their new Syrah plantings...planted downhill rather than along the terraces...this would never be allowed in Collioure!
Best of all was El Givot, with its tiny cellar space barely allowing us room to taste. Amazing to think that super-scoring wines are produced here, wines with such depth and character. And the place is up for sale...if I had the money, I'd snap it up!
The region is still relatively undeveloped (1500 hectares, with room for 10 times that), but high production costs, low yields and the big style make it something of a hard sell. I really felt we'd got a lot in common. However, in Priorat, irrigation is permitted, and more varietals are permitted every year it seems. And the points keep rolling in, and prices keep rising. However, as in the Roussillon the 'bread and butter' wines are suffering, with volume wines from co-operatives just not getting to market. Grape growers were paid 4.50€ a kilo 10 years ago, now it is half of that.
I hope to visit again and spend more time talking to producers. The problems there are very similar to our own, and I'm sure we could use each others' help to find a way out of these tough times. Both regions have so much to offer....they just need to make it pay.

The Aftermath

So vintage is now well and truly behind us here in the Roussillon, and the cold winter is closing in (yes - it does get cold down here). There is still a lot to be done in the winery to keep things running smoothly.
Firstly we need to keep an eye on our ferments. Several reasons for this. Firstly the whites must be sulphured when ferment is finished to prevent them from oxidation and tp stop malolactic kicking in. Those in barrel must be topped up, and some battonage (lees stirring) will be undertaken depending on the varietals.
For the reds, we need to keep a careful eye on the residual sugars at the end of ferment. Most of our reds continue to ferment after pressing, as pressing releases more sugard for the yeasts to consume. This means some tanks finish very slowly, and in some cases we might have to launch a 'pied de cuve' to finish the ferment dry. This is time consuming, as we need to start the yeasts with a small amount of wine, and gradually double up until the whole tank (usually 5000litres for us) is bubbling away.
We never have enough tanks (show me a winery that does) so we need to blend finished wines together, and of course look at blends for the 09s that are not yet bottled.
Cleaning is vital for all the machinery that will not be used for another year - picking bins, destemmers, press, must pumps etc all need a thorough clean which takes days to do properly.
In the vineyard, the team have started hand weeding, rebuilding walls and generally tidying up. Pruning will start in a month's time, and that is a 3 month job for us.
On the logistics side, I need to order up dry goods for our bottling runs over the next two months. Labels, capsules, corks, bottles and boxes all need to be just right, and different markets have different requirements.
So never a quiet moment, and the annual cycle continues apace....

Vintage Photos

 A few photos courtesy of Richard Bray, whose help over vintage is invaluable.

Making Red Wine

When all the picking is done and the grapes have been processed, it's time to really concentrate on the winemaking. With the white wines all safely racked and bubbling away in tank or barrel, our attention turns to the red wines.
Because red wines are fermented with the skins, seeds and all (and pressed after fermentation, unlike white which is pressed as soon as it arrives in the winery) there is a lot more work to be done on the wines. Controlling the extraction process is great fun and something of an art form.
Once fermentation begins, the solid matter (the 'cap') rises above the juice thanks to the CO2 bubbles in the tank. This is where it gets interesting, as much of the tannin, colour and other phenolic compounds are in that cap. So we need the juice to be in contact with the cap to give good red wine.
How we go about this is a never-ending discussion amongst winemakers, and depends on the grape variety, ripeness, healthiness and style of wine required. It is a time-consuming process which may involve foot-treading, pumping over, rack and return, heating, plungeing and more. Having the time do to it all properly and seeing the tanks of red progress is wonderfully fulfilling. One of the most important decisions is knowing when to stop. Are the tannins still supple? Can we get more structure without any harshness? Do we in fact want any more structure? As soon as the balance is right (and this may be several weeks after ferment has finished), it's time to run off the free-run juice and press the rest of the must.
This morning we are pressing some Grenache and Carignan. Here is our Carignan tank when ferment started - sometimes the cap rising takes you by surprise....we had to empty a couple of hundred kilos out of this tank by hand!

And relax....

Harvest time is tough, but there's sometimes a moment to relax and take stock.
Several restaurateurs in the area wanted to come and harvest some grapes with us, so we made sure they helped us out with some lunch! Amazing homemade patés, seaweed butter, veal from the Auvergne, Catalan sausages and sea urchins magically appeared at our table. Great fun, although it was hard to get back to work afterwards...
Below Julien's mum with some good old charcuterie, and the team from the amazing l'Atelier restaurant in St. Cyprien, giving a lesson in how to open sea urchins...

Vintage Update 2

At Mas Cristine the Cotes du Roussillon wines are taking shape very nicely.
All our whites are now picked, pressed and racked. Some tanks haven't started to ferment yet but we're not in a hurry. I realised we have over 50 different ferment vessels to keep track of...a full-time job in itself!

Some of the reds we picked early have been pressed already, to keep freshness and fruit in them. This meant a total maceration time of only 10 days or so, but this way we avoid any green notes from the skins. The later  picked reds are coming in with superb colour (the Grenache juice is the colour of Syrah!) and really superb ripeness. Above picture is Olivier and I emptying a 2 tonne tank into the press.

Mas Cristine

We've had a superb crop at Mas Cristine this year, in the Cotes du Roussillon.
All the whites are now in. Roussanne, Grenache Gris and Carignan Blanc looking absolutely superb.
Over 40,000 litres of white now bubbling away.
The first reds have shown incredibly vivid colour - the Grenache looks like Syrah. Another one of those mysteries that is hard to put your finger on, but the 2010 vintage will certainly produce v concentrated colour, without us having to extract a great deal.

Here's how we fill the press  - by hand of course. Around 50 tonnes of white grapes in total have been hand harvested and put into our shiny new press. Also a picture of my son Theo, who loves drinking freshly-pressed the juice of the Muscat grapes (not the wine I hasten to add)....