Last week we experienced the biggest downfall of snow in 25 years !  40cm of snow fell last Friday and a week later, patches still remain.  Needless to say that we had to interrupt all our activities mainly the pruning for the whole week.
Snow is actually beneficial for the vineyard as when it melts it penetrates slowly into the soil and helps break it up. Furthermore with the cold temperatures as low as -11°C  all parasites were destroyed. Today the sunshine is back and the forecast is for warmer temperatures in the next few days.

 

Since the end of harvest, we have been very busy out in the vineyard at Beaucastel. We have prepared the holes for the plantation of new vines in the spring, we have spread the compost  and we have hand ploughed a few plots. The autumn was mild and dry so we took advantage of these weather conditions to get a lot done outside.  Since Christmas there has been a change and it is now cold and quite humid.

In November we harvested our olives in Beaucastel and Vinsobres. It is a good year for olives and we will be producing some good olive oil for our kitchens!

The start of the new year is also a start to a new viticultural. Since the beginning of the week the entire team is dedicated to pruning at Beaucastel but also in Cairanne, Gigondas and Vinsobres.

In the cellars, the last malolactic fermentations of the 2009 are ending and we are very happy with this vintage which has a great structure with soft tannins.

We would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy New Year.


A bientôt !

       

Beaucastel 2005 was one of wine spectator's top 10 wines of 2008. A few weeks ago, at the New York Wine Experience, Marc Perrin commented a tasting of this wine and explained the Family's organic viticulture practices. The video from WineSpectator is here

In this video, Fabrice Langlois explains the characteristics of each grape variety we use in Beaucastel and what each of them bring to the final blend.

Chateauneuf-du-pape : 13 grapes variety

The good rain we had last week was great for the vineyard, especially given that it is followed by an indian-summer kind of weather this week (today like yesterday is 30°C+ with great sun) and the weather forecast says it will remain like that for the week and maybe next week also. 

As a consequence, we really take our time in all our vineyards.

In Beaucastel, we are now harvesting quietly our oldest parcels of Grenache and the grapes look and taste great, with a very good balance. We will continue harvesting the Grenache slowly all this week and also the first days of next week. Then will come the Mourvèdre and Counoise.

At Domaine des Tourelles in Gigondas, we have not started yet. We should start the syrah this friday.

In Vinsobres, same thing, we should start the syrah at the end of the week.

In Cairanne, the syrah were harvested before the rain and we are doing the Grenache this week.

Most of our other vineyards including most of the 'regular' CDR are harvested and the first wines finish their fermentation.

At this stage we are very happy of the quality of the vintage.

  

The ground at Beaucastel is marked by the violence wrought by the Rhone river. It consists of a layer of marine molasses (sandstone) of the Miocene period, covered by alpine alluvium. The presence in this topsoil of a great number of rounded stones, known as "galets", bears evidence of the time when the Rhone, then a torrent, tore fragments of rock from the Alps and deposited them along its course.

This is the story of the typical soil of Beaucastel. These "galets" make a significant contribution to the quality of the wines: they retain the heat of the day and radiate it to the vines during the night...

 

 

 

Harvest is progressing and most of our appellations have now been harvested: Cairanne, Vacqueyras, Gigondas, Châteauneuf du Pape...

Only Vinsobres which is 20 km north of Châteauneuf du Pape is left to be harvested. As the vineyard is situated at 300 metres altitude, the maturity of the grapes is much later in this terroir. Also Syrah, a northern varietal, does really well growing at this altitude.

In Gigondas we finished harvest last week with the Grenache from le "Clos" at the Domaine des Tourelles, our new property. Although it is too early to say, this plot seems to produce some Grenache with extreme finesse - keep an eye out for this one!

Once again, the Mistral has played an important role this year especially at the beginning of the month of September when it dried out the crop after the storms.

Cool nights and sunny days have allowed us to pick good quality grapes in 2008 although yields remain low.

And now the work in the cellar can begin where we shall put all our efforts to ensure each wine expresses the best of the terroir.

Technorati Tags: beaucastel, rhône, terroir, vinification

Pick up your secateurs, harvest has started!

As every year, we started harvest with some whites. A small team of harvesters have been picking the Viognier from Coudoulet since Wednesday.

It rained a bit last night so we had to stop harvesting today.

Thankfully the Mistral has been blowing strong since this morning, as is it often does after rain and has blown all the clouds away and is drying out the grapes.

This weekend we shall be resting!

See you Monday!

Well, i think we can start saying that this year we are very lucky.
The weather is still outstanding, very sunny and very windy.
We had about 20 mm of rain last tuesday, and then the mistral started again and the sun came back.
The weather forecast for the next days is the same and we feel really lucky especially when we look at the forecast for tomorrow which shows once again that south-east of France has unique weather conditions this year.

We will finish harvesting the Grenache in Chateauneuf du Pape by the end of this week. Next week we will start harvesting the Mourvedre and Counoise.
In Gigondas, Vacqueyras and Cotes du Rhône, we just finished.
In Vinsobres, we started harvesting the Syrah yesterday.
People start saying that 2007 will be in line with 89 or 90. Great colour, great concentration... we will see but for sure it will be at least a very good vintage.

Technorati Tags: 2007, beaucastel, chateauneuf, rhone