This is a picture of a happy winemaker*, from last week. He's dressed in waterproofs and busy hosing out his pneumatic press. All the chenin blanc from his flint soil has been picked and the yield of juice is high and good quality. Most of his neighbours are saying their yields are low. The juice will be fermented in stainless steel vats to make the base wine for vintage sparkling Vouvray.
New oak barrels waiting for the juice that will make a distinctive dry wine with a nose like a sweet wine.
Diatomaceous earth being used in the filtering process. Unusually, Chateau Gaudrelle filters the juice prior to fermenting. The juice is allowed to sit for 24 hours to allow large particulates to drop to the bottom. Then to make sure fine particles of skin, seeds, stems and leaves that might lead to bad tastes in the wine are removed, the juice is forced through a pad and plate filter until it runs clear.
Eole the Belgian Shepherd helps himself to the grape juice that drips from the filter pads.
*It's Alexandre Monmousseau from
Chateau Gaudrelle.
4 comments:
Yay! Good news for them after a couple of tough seasons?
Liselle: yes indeed. But very bad news for some of the young producers who've had a 3rd bad harvest.
Last year, we had quite a lot of edible gamay grapes but this year most of them have shrivelled up. We saw some good-looking vouvray vineyards a week ago though. I''m glad your friends had a good harvest.
LDP: we picked our remaining table grapes today -- good quality, and we've been picking for a fortnight, but I figured this weather would be the end of them so picked them and will make jelly with the ones we can't eat in the next couple of days.
The Gaudrelle harvest hasn't been all they hoped for. The sparkling will be good, and regular still Vouvray, but they had hoped to produce a sweet as well, but I think the rain hasn't held off long enough.
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