The month of June is often the one for blending new vintages
Today, all our cellar wines are vinified and aged in barrel to develop both complexity and structure.
After 10 months of ageing on fine lees, we are tasting each barrel to assess them and decide the final blend.
Augustine 2023 – AOC Crozes-Hermitage blanc
The profile of the wine is similar to that of the previous vintage. Our 2023 is a sunny vintage!
The weather was conducive to a fine crop of grapes, but the heatwave at the end of August brought the harvest to a halt for the Roussanne, a grape variety that is particularly sensitive to heat, which, as their name suggests, took on a lovely intense colour with maturity.
The wines are rich and complex, with fine aromas of white flowers and acacia honey thanks to their perfect maturity.
Marsanne, on the other hand, are lighter and more delicate, with aromatic aniseed notes.
The blend of 50% Marsanne and 50% Roussanne balances the wine and combines richness, roundness and freshness. This is also a highly aromatic vintage, with notes of white flowers, honey and mint.
This year, we decided to vinify and age all of our white cellar wines in barrels and choose to work with wood from the Vosges, rather than the Allier as we have done in the past. These barrels are medium toast to give the wine a more subtle, well integrated wood notes and give it more tension.
Nous sommes très contents du résultat : les chênes pédonculés des Vosges ont un bois plus tannique très adapté à l’élevage de millésimes solaires comme 2023.
At the time of writing, the wine has been racked, blended and are now resting in tanks for bottling at the end of July.
Thomas 2023 – AOC Vacqueyras blanc
Climatic conditions were similar in the Northern and Southern Rhône. Here too, the vintage will be a sunny one due to the same week of heatwave at the end of August.
The wine will be a blend of 2 different plots :
- One parcel co-planted with white Grenache, Roussanne and a few Viogniers. Its exposure, shallower soils and earlier grape varieties meant that the very ripe grapes were harvested at the end of August.
- One plot of Clairette, a later grape variety, planted on deeper soils and slightly higher up, which has been harvested later, benefiting from the rain at the beginning of September.
2023 will be a very good vintage, combining the rich structure and aromas of the Roussannes and Grenache Blancs with the aromatic freshness and lightness of the Clairettes.
17 hL of wine have been produced this year, corresponding to a blend of 50% Clairette - 23% Grenache blanc 23% Roussanne and a touch of Viognier with 4%.
What stands out about this 2023 vintage is that despite the heatwave at the end of August, which accelerated ripening and harvesting and altered the balance of certain grape varieties, the wines are highly aromatic and of excellent quality.
After the stress of an intense harvest, we were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the grapes and the result of the magic of the blends, which tempered the excesses of certain grape varieties, particularly Roussanne, which are more sensitive to heat, while adding richness and aromatic complexity.
The wines will then remain in the cellar to continue their ageing, this time in the bottle! We look forward to introducing you to them early next year.
In the meantime, you can enjoy the 2022 vintages, which are available now.
