The birth of a great white wine…

I am attracted by challenges… In particular by the vinification of white wine. The development of our vineyard enables us to select the best quality of grapes for our « Coup de Foudre », retaining one specific vineyard plot which is the most appropriate for the production of an exceptional white.

Planted a little less than 10 years ago, orientated from East to West, this particular vineyard cultivates white Grenache on schist soil. According to the opinion of our renowned geographer, Gérard, there is an optimum combination of vines and soil here. The white Grenache variety is particularly well adapted to schistous soil… A fresh, mineral style in perspective.

In the midst of woodland, on the foothills of the Montagne Noire at 400m in altitude, just 10 Kms from the Pic de Nore, this vineyard is regularly visited by wild boars. In 2018 they left us 15% of the harvest… I decided to install fencing to protect the vines inspired by proved methods of animal protection used in large game parks in Africa.

I took the decision to cultivate this vineyard plot traditionally considering the risks due to the topology. The steep slopes tricked my talents as a tractor driver by turning the tractor over one night last July. The vineyard will henceforth be cultivated by horse power : Magalie and Ylang will now plough the soil perpendicularly to the slopes.

All is united to benefit from what Nature is prepared to share with us… Only Nature - and our arms and legs. We will protect the vines from time to time, equipped with a machine on our backs. We will ultimately harvest magnificent white Grenache grapes by hand, as we do for all of the vines of the domaine.

The final stage takes place in the cellar. The juice will be extracted by our new pneumatic press, then carefully vinified, once again according to our intuition.

We hope to have the pleasure of presenting this cuvée to you in 2020… Between now and then, we will have given a name to this exceptional white wine.

Emmanuel Taillez
April 21st, 2019