1st issue of Terre de Vins (Land of Wine - in French), a general public magazine from Le Midi Libre and discovered by our regional newspaper Sud Ouest (written by Christian Seguin).
A magazine which was already of high quality with a simple objective: the south - Languedoc Roussillon.
With the arrival of 2 editorial advisers Thierry Desseauve and Michel Bettane, their goal is clear!
The first issue broaches, a bit too quickly - but it's probably voluntary because it targets readers who are pressed for time - Petrus, Foires Aux Vins – wine promotions (with a special selection for Château Clément Pichon 2007), wines from the South with an column on the region Fenouillèdes in the Roussillon (Maury), etc. ...
Nice magazine for 5 Euros. Though with not enough text to my taste but nice pictures.
Today, we received Tomoko Ebisawa, journalist for the Japanese magazine Vinothèque. She arrived just before the harvest to see and comment on the progress made with our techniques and sorting of the harvest.
After being one of the initiators of manual sorting and de-stemming since the 1st vintage of Valandraud, in 1991, the whole wine world considered that the purity of red grapes was equally important as sorting the harvest of white botrytised grapes used for our great Sauternes. Since then, many inventions arrived in our cellars, often coming and already being used in the food industry: prunes, peas, coffee, etc. ... must also be sorted.
After sorting tables, vibrating tables, double sorting tables, sorting by hand, we have 3 systems that compete with each other: one that sends an ultra strong blast of air (Mistral?), another that sorts by optical (Visio?) and the last one by densitometry (Tribaie) that I bought after having seen the progress made by a colleague and friend, Guy Meslin from Chateau Laroze, an incredible value for those who always complain about expensive wines !
In our place, in addition to all the attention given in the cellar to the harvest, we add - and this is not very common - sorting by the pickers where each cluster for our top red wines (Valandraud, Virginie, Clos Badon) and the whites, are sorted and cleaned before being put in their crates. This, of course, comes after all the prep work in the vineyards, starting with pruning, where the goal is to get a reasonable quantity of grapes to maturity.
The video of our harvest is here. (in French) says more than a thousand words.
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