Hands-off wine making
Although our attitude to producing grapes is definitely hands-on, we adopt a completely hands-off approach to the wine making. Having worked hard all year to obtain high quality grapes, there seems to be no point in using all sorts of modern wine-making jiggery-pokery. We just keep it simple and straight forward.
No chaptalisation
Have you ever noticed that, year in year out, wines always have the same alcohol content on the label? This is simply due to a regulating method called chaptalisation. Named after the Minister of Agriculture Jean Chaptal in 1801 this involves adjusting the level of alcohol in wine by adding sugar during the fermentation.
Most gamay producers add sugar every year to increase the alcohol content of their wine.
By measuring the specific density of the grape juice at harvest time as in this photo, it is possible to determine the natural sugar level. At Domaine du Fontenay, the aim is to achieve a high level of NATURAL SUGAR in the grapes and avoid adding any sugar at all. This is extremely difficult to achieve on a regular basis as it involves keeping yields low and careful vineyard management to maintain rot-free grapes in order to pick as late as possible.
In a nutshell, the wine maker must decide to go:
*EITHER for high yields and pick not perfectly ripe grapes early and add sugar,
*OR to limit yields , pick late, and produce wine with a naturally satisfactory alcohol level.
For obvious reasons, the latter is more natural but is also much more tricky to achieve. It is the option that we prefer at Domaine du Fontenay.
Most gamay producers add sugar every year to increase the alcohol content of their wine.
By measuring the specific density of the grape juice at harvest time as in this photo, it is possible to determine the natural sugar level. At Domaine du Fontenay, the aim is to achieve a high level of NATURAL SUGAR in the grapes and avoid adding any sugar at all. This is extremely difficult to achieve on a regular basis as it involves keeping yields low and careful vineyard management to maintain rot-free grapes in order to pick as late as possible.
In a nutshell, the wine maker must decide to go:
*EITHER for high yields and pick not perfectly ripe grapes early and add sugar,
*OR to limit yields , pick late, and produce wine with a naturally satisfactory alcohol level.
For obvious reasons, the latter is more natural but is also much more tricky to achieve. It is the option that we prefer at Domaine du Fontenay.
Minimum or no additives
No additives of any sort are used in our "Expression" wine. It is therefore simply 100% fermented grape juice. Sounds obvious but this is very much an exception in the world of wine.
In our other red wines, the only additives used are sulfites. We do not fine our red wines nor add the usual cocktail recommended by the wine laboratory: arabic gum, ascorbic acid, metatrique acid, copper sulfate et al. For our white wines, there are no enzymes used during the clarification prior to fermentation. Before bottling, the usual practise for white wines is to fine them with bentonite (a natural clay like substance which stabilises the proteins present in the wine). Strictly speaking, this is not really an additive as it simply passes through the wine to deposit itself at the bottom of the tank and is therefore left behind when the wine is drawn off. However, we avoid using it if possible and always test the wine to see if it is neccessary. For example, our 2008 Viognier did not need fining as the tannins in the barrels had done the same job. On the other hand, the 2009 Chardonnay did need fining. The aim is to avoid any un-neccessary intervention wherever possible.
Wine is the odd man out in the food industry. For all other food products, all additives have to been mentioned on the label. For wine, the only obligation is to state that the wine contains sulfites. However, there are dozens of additives commonly used by wine makers which do not appear on the label as there is no requirement to do so.
Read more about the use of additives in wine
Harvest
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The grapes are transported from the vines to the winery with great care to avoid oxydation. Here, the Chardonnay grapes are picked directly into 20 kg bins and are tipped into the wine press by hand without any further manipulation. Given the high quality grapes we obtain in the vines, and the care with which they are brought to the press, we do not use enzymes to clarify the white grape juice before fermentation. |
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If the weather is warm during the harvest, the grapes are refrigerated before pressing. Here they are stored overnight in a refridgerated warehouse at a fruit and vegetable wholesalers. This avoids oxydising the juice and reduces the amount of sulfites we need to use.
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In exceptional circumstances, we may need to sort the grapes. In 2011, the abnormally warm weather during the grape picking resulted in wasps attacking the Chardonnay grapes. Each individual bunch was checked and damaged grapes removed.
A major job!
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A membrane press: the most gentle method available.
The winery
The winery is equiped with tanks of various capacities to enable each parcel of vines to be fermented separately.