De la vigne au chai
A Terroir
De la vigne au chai
Our Viticulture and Vinification Techniques
In the spring of 2015, a modern and ambitious technical direction was defined and taken at the Vineyards with an aim to limit the impacts of climate change on our wines and to promote the expression of our terroir. We achieve this through new viticultural techniques and by regular, incremental updates and improvements to our winemaking facilities. This is also why we work our plots individually, from pruning to blending, making a strict selection in order to adapt to their natural characteristics based using green manuring and soil works.
Another step taken to improve quality came in 2012 when work with renowned French œnologist Michel Rolland began. Originally from Château Le Bon Pasteur in Pomerol (just 400 meters from the Château Moncets vineyards), Rolland and his team were the natural choice for technical consultation.
Then, in 2018, we began working with Thomas Duclos, winemaker consultant of Laboratoire Oenoteam, and with whom we’ve been ever since.
Below you’ll find listed many of our winemaking techniques, along with our winemaking and viticultural team.
01
Earthing / Unearthing
On our young vines, the aim is to oblige the roots to go deeper in order to get the best terroir expression from the vines and also, to avoid water stress.
On our other plots, the goal is to control the grass crop in order to get more vigorous vines and in the meantime, limit the mildiou contaminations.
02
Green manuring
Using green manuring enhance naturally our soils with nutriments in order for them to be more fertile.
We are using legums as feveroles, peas and clover. Also, grasses like rye and oat.
03
Hand hardvesting
Manual harvesting is not only synonymous with tradition, but a guarantee of quality. Thanks to rigorous selecting by our team of pickers, only the best clusters are chosen from each individual plot, making for greater ease of fruit sorting upon its arrival at the winery. This is essential to the production of great wines.
04
Parcellar and gravity flow cellar
In September 2015, we installed a new 1850 hl vinification vat and constructed a 350 -barrel- capacity cellar. This refit is our prized possession, allowing us to improve our work by plot selection up until the final blend. A pure concrete, thermally regulated vat, it favours temperatures’ inertia, allowing for a significant reduction in energy consumption.
05
Unsulfured winemaking
We have decided to stop using sulfer during our winemaking process. the aim is to preserve the natural fruit flavours.
06
Integral vinification
Our best plots are vinified directly in barrel, by passing our vats altogether, with French oak positioned vertically to allow for gravity filling. Each day during fermentation, we manually press the grape must in order to extract all potential colour and flavours of the year’s harvest. It is a method used for our best plot selection that is then integrated into our Grands Vins : Château de Chambrun & Château de Chambrun “Le Bourg”.
