Vintage Elsewhere

With harvest over in the Roussillon, I took a trip with the family up to the Aveyron to see a friend who has some vines. An obscure Appellation - Entraygues le Fel - with only 20 hectares of vines to its name, it is a hidden gem. As you can see, the vines are on steep terraces which plunge from 500m up down to the Lot river at the bottom of the Gorge.
The Massif Central is the high plateau that covers central France, and it was already -5C at night in October, so the harvest is somewhat later than in Banyuls. The varieties are Fer Servadou and Cabernet Franc for the reds and Chenin Blanc for the white.
Our friend Laurent has built a great winery, and there is no shortage of pickers for vintage...around 30 people (all volunteers) turned up on the day we were there to help out.
The wines are really characterful and individual...another example of the huge variety in French viticulture.
The region is also famous for wonderful cheese, beef (Aubrac) and vegetables. We ate non-stop whilst we were there, and Laurent's wines were the perfect accompaniment. Every corner you turn in France, it seems there is another culture of wine, food and friendship, and we were very happy to discover le Fel , its people and its delicious wines.

VIntage Update II

So now to the red wines, most picked 3 weeks earlier than last year.
Our parcels of Grenache near the sea are generally picked first, then some Syrah and Mourvedre, then our older vines of Grenache and Mourvedre, and finally the Carignan. Each grape variety is vinified separately, and some parcels are even vinified apart where space allows.
Of course, there is a lot more work to be done with reds than whites during ferment. We spend our days treading, punching down, pumping over, racking or delestaging (all very dynamic names - and with good reason!). Below Rich is foot-treading some old-vine Mourvedre that we fermented in an open-top new oak barrel. The wine has just about finished ferment now, and has an awesome tannin profile already.



When the reds arrive in the winery, we sort the grapes to ensure only the very best make it into the vats. We do this using a vibrating table and a system called 'Mistrale' which separates out unripe fruit and stalks using a jet of air. It's expensive, but works superbly well.



The reds remain in tank with the skins for at least a month, where we work hard to extract the right flavours and tannins to create some serious wines. Then they are pressed and go into barrel...we only have some Carignan left to press off and then most of the work is done.
Quantity wise we have done better with the reds - only around 20% down on last year, but we had to sacrifice any thoughts of making rosé in order to get this volume.
So now a calmer period, where we've got time to check the ageing wines are performing well, and assemble the 08s for bottling next month. Then we have to go and sell the stuff...

Vintage Update

Vintage is officially over! So first of all, news of the white wines.
We wholebunch press the whites, and have to take care with the Grenache Gris (our main varietal) as this can easily take colour from the pinkish skins. So we use wholebunch to help juice flow and keep the pressure low, sending the last of the pressings to be kept apart.
We picked very early this year, but we have fantastic ripeness of fruit. All the barrels have fermented with no nutrition problems, and many are dry already. Because we rely 100% on wild yeast, stuck ferments and nutrient deficiency can somestimes be a problem, but with this year's super-healthy fruit things have gone very well.
Quantity wise we have around 30% less white than last year, but what we have looks excellent. The Roussanne and Vermentino which go into our other micro cuvée (C'est Pas du Pipo) were also picked at perfect ripeness. Unfortunately, with the lack of fruit for reds too, there will be no Farniente Rosé 2009.



Above is our international winemaking team! On the left, Rich Bray from the USA via Scotland, centre Philippe Gard (owner and winemaker) and on the right, Johnny Gibson, from the fine region of Waipara in New Zealand. With such staff, it was virtually guaranteed we'd make amazing wine this year. Here they're enjoying a break in processing with a glass of Bordeaux and some pigs' head sauasage....delicious!
So the whites are now in our temperature-controlled barrel room, where we batonnage occasionnally (stir the lees in the bottom of the barrel). We don't do this routinely to add flavour (especially in a good year where the wine already has plenty of texture) but more to help the ferment finish dry. We don't want any residual sugar in these wines - or no more than 3g/L - and wild yeasts aren't as ruthless as industrial, so we have to do all we can to help the ferments on their way.
News on the reds to follow....