Olives?

The seeds of another small product diversification project were sown today as we planted 50 young olive trees next to the new Chardonnay plantation.  Watch out for limited edition Sainte Rose olive oil in the years to come!  We do not have the equipment, (or the time!) to make our own oil, but have a local cooperative press that will take our olives and process them for us.  We’re looking forward to tasting it already even though it may be two years before the trees start producing!

Sainte Rose Sparkling?

IGP fizz from the plains of the Languedoc?  Wine snobs will laugh at the prospect but at Sainte Rose we don’t much care about that!  We have a reputation for doing things a little differently, of championing lesser known grape varieties and of putting together unusual wine blends that work!  Thus, never happy to rest on our laurels, this vintage we’re going to experiment on a very small scale, with making sparkling chardonnay!

The rules within the IGP system changed as of 2011 to allow production of sparkling wine.  So as lovers of well made bubbly from many different parts of the world this is just too good an opportunity to miss!  Let’s face it, given we have just planted 4 hectares of Chardonnay, we have to think creatively and keep all options open!  Anyway we’re very excited at the prospect and if you watch this space, there may be news of cooler climate fizz plans yet to come .....

Planting Rights and Wrongs!

In our veg patch we plant tomatoes and chillis, and in our orchard we have peaches and figs.  We don’t have to ask permission to plant, nor pay for the privilege.  Transferring this to a larger scale, you would have thought that owning a wine Domaine with viticultural land meant that you could plant whatever vines you wanted on it, whenever you wanted?  In the new world wine producing countries, you would be right.  But in France this is your first planting wrong!  In order to have the privilege of planting vines in your vineyards, you require planting rights, and if you do not own any (though pulling up existing vineyards), then you have to purchase them.

Planting rights are created by the Ministry of Agriculture, distributed by France AgriMer (another government body) and managed by the French Customs’ Viticulture department (Douanes).  Once you have your planting rights, (which will set you back a cool €1000 Euros per hectare and must be used within the following 7 years or else they expire), you then need permission from the aforementioned Douanes department to plant vines using these rights.  Permission is only given if you are planting the varieties that are ‘allowed’ by the IGP or AOP system that you adhere to, i.e. how you classify your wines once produced.  Only when you have all this can you actually get on with the work itself!

So why do planting rights exist?  Essentially it is another means (along with the restrictions on yield) of controlling wine production.  This one could understand in the days of the European wine lake when over-production and over-cropping caused a massive oversupply of wine.  But those days are gone, there have been hundreds of hectares of vines pulled up and those who still want to produce are being encouraged to restructure (i.e. Replant) their vineyards with better quality varieties.  Times have changed so much so that the EC Council ruled that the system of planting rights should be abolished by 2015, with the possibility of keeping them at a national level until 2018.

Great, we think, only a few more years and then this bureaucratic process will disappear!  Not so!  Nicolas Sarkozy, under pressure from a multitude of protectionist wine bodies, most notably the INAO, has opposed the suppression of planting rights claiming it will lead to disaster!

Hence we grin and bear it and put it down as another one of those challenges of running a wine business in France!  Planting those Chardonnay vines a few weeks ago was a breeze compared to the bureaucratic hoops we jumped through to earn the right to plant!

Minus 4 and Planting Chardonnay!

On a bitterly cold Sunday morning, the planting team arrives at Sainte Rose, ready to plant 4 hectares of Chardonnay.  It is the coldest day of the winter so far, at minus 4 degrees Centigrade and no one looks very enthusiastic!  The sun is out however and once moving, the team makes excellent progress using their GPS-guided tractor to plant perfectly straight rows of young vines.  Happily it has not been cold enough over a sufficiently long period of time to freeze the soil.  The planting machine is also capable of giving the young plant 3 litres of water and to administer a small amount of herbicide around the foot of the vine to avoid early competition from weeds.  Given the temperature however, neither of the above was possible as the water would just freeze!  And as the temperature keeps dropping here, there are unlikely to be many weeds in the vineyards for quite a while!

We are planting more Chardonnay because it is such a useful and flexible grape variety.  Picked early and vinified in tanks it can be fresh, fruity and vivacious.  Picked later and barrel fermented or barrel aged and it will be expansive and luxuriant.  Chardonnay is a key ingredient in our very successful ‘Coquille d’Oc’ white wine, providing the structure and backbone in what is quite an unusual blend of Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Viognier and Muscat.  Chardonnay is also an important variety in ‘Le Vent du Nord’ providing vivacity and aromatics that lift the Roussanne with which it has been blended.  Finally in the very best years, we have made Le Pinacle, a barrel fermented and barrel aged Chardonnay, which in blind tasting has been mistaken for a wine from Chassagne Montrachet and other much more expensive and well-known Burgundian appellations.

Our established Chardonnay vineyard has a very different aspect to this new plantation, so we are looking forward to seeing what this new vineyard can produce.  Watch this space .....

Vinsud 2012!

Show Time!

Every two years, the eyes of the wine industry turn to the Languedoc for the Vinisud wine show (dates are 20-22 February 2012).  This growing event is a fixed piece in the Sainte Rose diary and this year you will find us conveniently located (very close to the main entrance!) in Hall 1 on stand A8, which is in the IGP Cotes de Thongue producers’ area.  We are excited that we will be able to show a few wines from the very latest vintage at this event, with Le Marin Blanc  2011 and our 2011 Coquille d’Oc white and rosé already in bottle.  Do come and taste new wines and old favourites, plus catch up with news on all the latest developments at the Domaine.

As well as showing our wines on our stand, Sainte Rose will be participating in a very novel, ‘alternative’ tasting as part of the group, ‘Outsiders Rocking the Languedoc’.  Here are the facts you need to know.  In our opinion it is a tasting not to be missed!

WHAT: an interactive, alternative tasting of 12 wines, using photos, images and sounds. As Bones might have said to Captain James T. Kirk: “It’s wine tasting, Jim, but not as we know it.”

WHEN: Monday February 20th, 4pm and Tuesday February 21st, 10am

WHERE: Vinisud, in the Pavillon 2.0 (dedicated web space), Hall 6

WHO: the Outsiders - a group of 12 Languedoc-Roussillon wine producers with a common vision, who like to do things differently.

WHY: Because coming from “outside” means having an alternative perspective, which can translate into doing things differently. And because it's good to think outside the box.

Waitrose Kitchen Article

Along with the other BritPack members, Domaine Sainte Rose features in the December issue of Waitrose Kitchen.  Pick up your copy today!  

See the full article below

End of vintage 2011!

The excitement of the first few nights of the harvest seem like a long time ago!  It is now two months later and the team at Sainte Rose is feeling tired, but pleased with quite literally the fruits of our labour!  We have picked 12 different grape varieties from our 33 hectares of vines.  Most of the early white varieties (Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Viognier and Muscat) have finished fermentation, they have been racked and are essentially ‘finished’ wine.  The later varieties (Marsanne and Roussanne) are finishing their fermentation in oak barrels where they will remain to age gently!  Likewise for the reds, the Merlot and Grenache are finished and the Syrah is finishing and aging in oak barrels.  The last red varieties (Mourvedre and Petit Verdot) came off their skins today and that really signals the end of the heavy harvest work.  The winemaking continues and when all is said and done we will have around 1300 hectolitres of wine in our winery.

We have had a good harvest.  The weather has been extremely kind, with warm, dry, clear days and cooler nights.  The grapes have therefore had ideal maturing conditions and came into the winery clean, ripe and juicy!  Yields as always have varied by variety but the quality throughout has been marvellous!

Ten years on and there are always lessons to be learned during the harvest and new techniques to try.  We have high hopes for the 2011 vintage, the first of which will be bottled during the month of November.  Hope you enjoy sampling it!

Our Grenache, Syrah and Mourvedre Harvest!

The three red grape varieties indigenous to the south of France are Grenache, Syrah and Mourvedre.  As you would imagine therefore a blend using these varieties (that has been baptised GSM by the Australians, who also produce them), is very common throughout our area.  And rightly so, these grapes thrive in warm, dry growing conditions and if well-maintained and carefully vinified, can produce concentrated, characterful wines that evoke images of sun-drenched vineyards surrounded by the garrigue.  The garrigue is essentially the low-lying plants and shrubs that cover the hillsides of southern France; small Holm oak trees, wild thyme, rosemary and olive.  It is a wonderfully scented and hugely characteristic symbol of the south, hence why at Sainte Rose we named our GSM blend La Garrigue!  It is our most iconic and popular red wine!

We also use Syrah to produce an oak aged single varietal wine called Le Pinacle, which is the top of our range.  This is a powerfully coloured and structured wine that is given time in the most expensive oak barrels to mature and is designed to age even longer in bottle, if you can avoid the temptation to drink it early!

And a final mention must go to some of our Mourvedre, which is part of the most unusual blend we produce at Sainte Rose.  Les Derniers Cepages (the last varieties) is a blend of Petit Verdot and Mourvedre.  More on that when we bring in the Petit Verdot, which is always the last variety to be picked ..... !

At Sainte Rose we sample these berries continuously in order to harvest them at their optimum maturity.  Grenache usually matures around the same time as the Syrah and Mourvedre a little later.  Pick too early and the juice will taste ‘green’, too late and it will be too high in sugar and end up too alcoholic and overpowering.  We think each variety is unique so we vinify each separately according to styles we want for our final products.  As the basis of so many of our red wines, these varieties are extremely important.

The Last Whites

Marsanne and Roussanne are the last two white grape varieties that we havest at Sainte Rose.  They originate from the Rhone valley, which has a similar climate to the Languedoc, thus they thrive in the warm, dry growing conditions that prevail in our area.  We choose to let these two varieties mature a bit longer so that sugar levels are a little higher.   The reason for this is that these are not fresh, light varieties, they are rich and luxurious, very well-suited to fermentation and aging in oak barrels.  This is the style of juice that we are looking for for our Barrel Selection/La Nuit Blanche Roussanne and Le Marin Blanc Marsanne/Roussanne blend.

These two varieties are very often blended because of their similar styles along with the other white Rhone variety Viognier.  At Sainte Rose as with all our other varieties, we vinify each variety separately, only embarking on final blends when the wines are finished.

This was the last of the overnight picking of whites.  There remains only two red varieties left to harvest before vintage 2011 comes to an end.

Merlot ripens early but can be delicate and needs to be treated carefully!  It is usually the first red grape variety that we bring into the winery and this year was no exception.  As with most varieties this year the flavours developed earlier with lower sugar levels and good acidity – perfect maturity!  

This clean, healthy fruit was the ideal candidate with which to trial a system of co-inoculation in partnership with our good friends at Oenobrands!  This new product, NT202, co-inoculates yeast (for primary, alcoholic fermentation) and bacteria (for secondary, malolactic fermentation) at the same time.  The goal with this product is to complete both fermentations much earlier and to keep levels of Volatile Acidity (VA) low.  So far it has proved to be very effective.  The Merlot juice has now been taken off the skins and the skins pressed.  Primary fermentation has finished and malolactic fermentation is 80% complete, which is extraordinary as in some years secondary fermentation has not completed until November!  

What this means for us is that as the external temperatures drop we will use less electricity to maintain the red wines at a warm enough temperature to finish their fermentation.  Less energy consumption during the vinification process and less manipulation in the winery makes our Merlot a very PC product!