History of the exploitation
A descendant of several generation of winemakers, Benoit took over a part of his parents vineyard in 1995, and then he took over his grand parents vine in 1997.
Since 2000 he has been in business with his wife. Today their estate is comprized of a dozen hectares on different type of soils (Kimmeridgian marl, siliceous claya, and Villiers limestone).
They sell 80 000 bottles a year, essentially to CHR (Cellar, Hotel, Restaurant), to individual clients and export with the contant concern of following through in term of quality and developping the well reasonned policy of using a minimum of products to treat the vines in case of disease.
The Know How
The Wines
From December to March we prune the vines by hand with the “Guyot simple” style of pruning.
Between April and June, we perform de-budding to remove the unwanted buds as well as those that might produce an over load of grapes.
The month of June is spent tying up (lifting up the vegetation on each side of the row by metal wires).
The harvest is usually performed at the end of September with the help of a harvesting machine. Besides this manual labour during the vine cycle, various work is carried out mechanically: plowing, topping and trimming (shearing a part of the leaves), and phytosanitary protection
In the Cellar
Immediately after the harvest, the grapes are pressed by a pneumatic press allowing us to obtain the highest quality juice.
We let the juice settle for 48 hours and then rack the must to obtain the clarified juice.
After this procedure, the grape juice begins alcoholic fermentation. This lasts from 10 days to 3 weeks at a regulated temperature (18-19°C maximum) in our thermo regulated stainless steel tanks. This low temperature fermentation helps conserve the aromas of the wine.
Three months following the end of fermentation, we perform the first racking to separate the clear wine from the lees. After this date, the wines are blended (the regrouping of different tanks in relation to their characteristics) and the first bottling is generally carried out in February.