Know how
Our working methods
Ancient farming methods are faithfully reproduced in the interest of balancing longevity and yield of the vines.
Our approach to the vineyard is governed by the principles of sustainable agriculture, thus the phytosanitary protection of the vineyard is weighted by the needs of the plant, its fruit and the pressure of diseases and pests.
For more than a decade, weeding has been purely mechanical, without any chemical herbicide application.
The winemaking methods are also the simplest with plot selection at harvest time and a final sorting of the berries before vatting. Thanks to this and our thermoregulation equipment, we control the vinification period as precisely as possible.
Average annual production
More than 51 vines on 000 hectares, around 10 hectoliters, for a potential of some 450 bottles.
Winter work
Pruning and removing antlers
After the leaves fall, we prune the vines to keep only two: those which will bear the fruits of the next harvest.
Then from January, we remove the cut wood. We then prepare the plots for a new growing season, with maintenance operations such as careening, which consist of repairing trellis wires and stakes, and gossip (or complantations), which designate the replacement of dead plants with young plants (or complants).
All you have to do is wait for the vegetation to regain its rights and for the buds to bloom to reveal stems and leaves, then the clusters.
Soil and plant work
In Spring a new season begins
After abandoning all use of chemical weedkillers in 2007, by regularly reworking the Cavaillon (furrow of earth and grass between the vines) during the growing season, we decided in 2019 to use plant cover sowing.
These seedlings make it possible to fight against “weeds” called weeds, which complicate the daily work of the winemaker. Thus, sowing service plants such as vetch, clover, rye, oats and many others, it favors mechanical weeding operations.
This process uses the power ofallelopathy plants (natural phenomenon exerting a direct or indirect, positive or negative effect of one plant on another).
These controlled weeds also have other benefits: through their root system, they facilitate the decompaction and aeration of the soil, the delivery of water and nutrients to the vines, and limit the action of certain pests and plant diseases. Vine.
Then comes the work of the plants
Several manual and mechanical operations follow one another.
The suckering is the action of removing all the new shoots poorly placed on the trunk of the vine or undesirable (they do not bear fruit and exhaust the plant), to keep only the young shoots well established.
When the branches come to grow, the lifting consists of raising two iron wires between which the trellising is located, to allow machines and men to pass between the rows. A second or even third lifting is often necessary.
From a certain density, lifting is no longer enough and the trimming of the ends of the vine must be executed.
Leaf removal, thinning and green harvests are all additional operations which contribute to cleaning up the vines by reducing the density of the foliage and the load of grapes in the trellising. But today it is necessary to adapt our cultivation practices to the climatic changes experienced, including the frequency of periods of extreme heat, sometimes causing the scalding (burning) of the bunches. This is why we increasingly avoid these operations.
The phytosanitary protection of the vine is an important and determining element for the protection of the plant and its fruits. Our approach tosustainable agriculture for spray treatments is increasingly governed by a systematic and case-by-case consideration of protection needs: it is the constant search for a balance between productivity and the environment.
Of the grappe au verre
Harvest and vinification
Since 1979, the harvest has been carried out by machine (except for our rosé and the youngest plants depending on new plantings).
Providing results very similar to manual harvests on red grape varieties, the mechanization of the harvest allows us to adapt as closely as possible to the desired maturity and to be less subject to weather constraints by saving time.
Sorting is done both on the harvesting machines, then upon receipt of the harvest before vatting.
Subsequently, the lightly crushed berries are transferred to our thermoregulated concrete tanks in which they will be their alcoholic fermentation (transformation of natural sugar into alcohol) under the action of yeast, generally for seven to ten days.
At this precise moment, we extract the best from the material:
Anthocyanins, which provide the color, are mainly found in the skin of the grapes and migrate to the juice thanks to the maceration of the berries.
Tannins, the basis of the structure of the wine, are mainly housed in the skin and the seeds.
Pumping up and/or load shedding
This involves extracting tannins and anthocyanins by stirring the must from the bottom to the top of the tank to water the marc and burst the berries so that their compounds migrate towards the juice.
Deshedding, a non-systematic operation, consists of emptying the vat completely of its juice and then returning it to the dried pomace.
Flow and press
After about 4 weeks in the tank, the first juice must be emptied (drop juice) then squeeze the remaining marc which will give press juice.
These two juices will be kept at a temperature of around 20 degrees so that malolactic transformation takes place under the action of bacteria (phase during which malic acid transforms into lactic acid) and helps “stabilize” the finished wine.
Racking
This last phase completed, the wines are racked to provide them with oxygen and separate the lees, the vinification is then completed.
Aging and preparation for bottling
During this phase, the wine will evolve and age for a year in vats before all the batches from the different plots are definitively assembled.
Our Petit Mangot 100% merlot in AOC Saint Emilion and our iconic Merlot/Cabernet-Franc blend in AOC Saint Emilion Grand Cru will be raised in concrete tanks only.
Our 100% merlot vintage Miss Petit Mangot, still in AOC Saint Emilion Grand Cru, will be aged in oak barrels.
Once the aging has come to an end, it is appropriate to prepare the wine for bottling and to decide, with the support of our oenologist, on the distribution of batches and blends.
Crucial and fascinating question:
Which batch will make up the “Saint Emilion”, which others will be the “Grand Cru”?
