Description

Carignan Grenache

Jean-Louis Tribouley created his vineyard in the village of Latour de France in Roussillon in 2002. He produces natural wines and as such, he is of course a non-interventionist winemaker. So no added yeast and very little or no sulphite.

After working for a few months with Gérard Gauby in 2001, I bought 8 hectares of vines in Latour de France and took over the “management” of 2.5 hectares in Calce. Then in 2004, I bought 4 hectares in Maury.    We decided to use “bio-agriculture”, to live from the earth while respecting it, to never use chemical weed killers and to plough the soil and, when needed, because the vines are close together, to go back to the ancestral practice of using a mule. We decided to treat the vines to protect them from diseases using natural products to “accompany” the plant and not substitute itself to it. And finally, not use chemical fertilizers in order to allow the plant to find nutrients on its own with its roots in the depths of the terroir.   Our goal is to obtain a product of quality while respecting the soil. It is important to us to work in order to bring the vine to live long. The average yields are about 13hl/hectare. Understanding the exact moment to harvest in order to find the right maturity of the grape is crucial. This moment varies according to the varietals and the vintages. Harvesting is done only by hand and all the grapes are sorted. To avoid crushing, harvesting is done in small crates of 13Kg. We only put grapes that could easily be eaten into the cuvées.  We use little or no sulfites, no industrial yeasts, only yeasts on the grapes,  the grapes are destemmed and put into their respective cuvées by hand. The temperature during fermentation is controlled between 18 and 23 degrees, with very little “remontage” and “pigeage”, all of this in order to respect the grapes and to succeed in preserving the aroma of the fruit.    We work to produce a “sincere” wine, respecting the vintage and the terroir. I think that the extraordinary quality of a wine comes from its diversity and from our ability to understand a little bit more every year without trying to master everything.”  Written by Jean-Louis Tribouley