Vine
The vine designer evolves his technique from one plant to the next, and stigmatizes with a notch the astes (vine shoots) indicating the future cut and the length…
Vine
The vine designer evolves his technique from one plant to the next, and stigmatizes with a notch the astes (vine shoots) indicating the future cut and the length that he wishes to keep as the structure. Then the winegrower has a look, makes their cut and shapes the vine-stock according to visual instructions.
Both of them would rather work in the cold than the rain and pruning is individualised work that has to be carried out from one vine-stock to the next. The winegrower spends his day on his own surrounded by an ocean of scaly, leafless and scrubby vine-stocks.
The pruned vine-stocks are reduced to their smallest size, thickly T-shaped and barely protracted with two short and dry astes, thus giving them the appearance of a riparian creature with widespread arms.
The vine-stock appears moribund, but the bud is already hammering to come out from under its woody bark. Indeed, the plant does not restrict itself to the constraints imposed by the winegrower – It’s energy spills out and many buds come through without respecting the vine-stock’s shape, distracting it from its original mission. As a result the disbudding process starts. New buds that stick out have to be removed: the winegrower goes past again and after examining the vine-stock, cuts the emerging buds with his pruning knife.
Cellar
The start of the descent to the barrels for the last grape harvest: one barrel contains 2.25 hectolitres while our vats contain 180 hectolitres each. This is accurate…
Cellar
The start of the descent to the barrels for the last grape harvest: one barrel contains 2.25 hectolitres while our vats contain 180 hectolitres each. This is accurate work, performed slowly and under stress. This process, which has to be done by Christmas, is initiated quite early so as to benefit from the wood-wine interaction, so as to include this organoleptic range in the latest vintage presentations to the press and to the importers, next March.
At the start of February, the blending is done in the presence of the technical director, the cellar master, the consulting oenologist and the owner.
Each vat is sampled within a bottle. For hours on end, we make up our great wine, blending the representative sample from such and such a vat with the one from another vat. We know accurately which batch the wine comes from in each vat. We know its soil, its subsoil, its vegetable material, its age and the answers to the vintage meteorological data. And each year, we have to produce the best Chasse-Spleen from all this.
The blending remains virtual for a few more months: the wine stays within the barrels so as to complete its ageing through contact with wood.
The wine « maintenance » operations (racking and topping), take place on a quarterly basis.
RP
In November, the travel season kicks off with a visit to the Orient : China, then Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Singapore, Malaysia, The Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and Cambodia….
RP
In November, the travel season kicks off with a visit to the Orient : China, then Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Singapore, Malaysia, The Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and Cambodia. Gratifying but gruelling, we hardly get a wink of sleep for two weeks.
Then follows a series of wine tastings in Belgium, England, Switzerland and Italy. In France, it coincides with the start of the season of Parisian shows for the general public.
Back in the Bordeaux area, a few lunches welcome the merchants in charge of distributing our wine all over the world. One-to-one, under crystal chandeliers and sitting on old Voltaire chairs, we collect some strategic pieces of information about the morale of the money market, so as to have a better knowledge of where we stand, in resonance with reality and the latest trends.
January sees the promotion launches in the Americas, the United-States and Canada, and every other year, Brazil and the West Indies, destinations for which the lucky participant draws lots for. A few hundred purchasing advisors gather in the huge ballrooms of prestigious hotels to taste wine from the Grands Crus Union. Chasse-Spleen is one of them.