The GG calls!

Maïtena, my eyes in the Midi, gave me a call late last night to say the GG or Grenache Gris will be harvested first thing this morning, so I was up at the crack of dawn to get to the Maury for the first vineyard. I arrived in good time and the first boxes of delicate GG grapes were arriving and being carefully unloaded on to the sorting table before making their way up the conveyor and into the press.

The elusive cellar master extraordinaire Benjamin at the Cave Maury who is always dashing around doing about 15 jobs at the same time stopped to help Maïtena and I load the tanker down below thorough the top window of the cellar by gravity!

The elusive cellar master extraordinaire Benjamin at the Cave Maury who is always dashing around doing about 15 jobs at the same time stopped to help Maïtena and I load the tanker down below thorough the top window of the cellar by gravity!

Many people do not realise that although the GG is one wine, it is made up of very differently made GG’s. Some juice is free run to be fermented crisp and cold for aroma, another batch has been mixed with skins for 6 hours and is as orange as Fanta to help tropical flavours, a third lot is lightly pressed to extract subtle tannin which will help integrate with the oak barrels. Now Petit Denis had all the fermentation, he can allocate the different batches into different vats until I get back to the Chai this evening.

We then made our way to Beziers to firstly see a new Roussanne vineyard that I managed to find. The grapes are in wonderful condition but lack a bit of acidity, but I am going to balance this with a touch of Marsanne from a neighbouring vineyard.

The Vermentino vineyard was also in great shape and the delicate lemony and herbal flavours are beginning to show. Just need to get the bunches on the inside of the leaf canopy a bit riper and I believe in 7-9 days we will harvest.

At Domaine Coussergues, the Champ d’Etoile Pinot Noir harvested earlier in the week was already safely of skins and finishing ferment without the worry over anymore tannin extraction that may leave the wine with hard to get rid of drying finish.

A quick stop off in the Minervois to check the reds which are still a couple of weeks away rounded off a good day’s tour and I sped back to Bordeaux leaving Maïtena to oversee the progress in the Midi.

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