Visit to my Wine Teacher's Vineyard and Winery

Every week on my wine course down here in the South of France, we have a visit to a vineyard to learn a little more about how things work and to get involved ourselves. This week we visited my wine teacher, Aymeric's, vineyard and winery in his home village of Montblanc, which is in the 

Languedoc-Roussillon region of France, close to my school. 

We spent the first part of the day picking Cabernet Franc grapes, which are a red variety with a white centre and they tend to make light red wines. We worked in pairs and then worked our way down the vines collecting grapes in crates ready to pack in to the back of their pick-up truck and take straight to their winery. Quite a few of the grapes were overripe and had noble rot (a little of which can be good as it gives a different taste to the wine, but too much is bad), so we had to select the bunches carefully. 

Here we are being taught about how to select the bunches of grapes and to see which types of rot are good and bad.

The grapes ready to go in to the back of the pick-up truck and then on to the winery.

Below is the wine picking team!

Once we had picked our rows we then went back to their winery which is in the centre of their little village of Montblanc. Their winery is in their old garage which they converted 3 years ago, and is underneath their house. Aymeric told us that his family has lived in Montblanc since the 15th Century, and 3 generations of his family currently all live in the house above the winery - amazing! 

Aymeric's house and winery, inside and out! 

Aymeric showed us how the grape press worked and his brother jumped in to start squashing down the grapes to allow for them all to fit in. The press is then turned on and the ends of the press come in to the centre whilst it is rotating. This then leaves all of the skins, pips and stalks in the middle. The process then starts again and the remaining grape pulp is then pressed for a second time, but the juice is much stronger and contains more tannins, as it is in the skin, pips and stalk that they lie, so it is not pressed for as long as the first press.

During this time the wine is being pumped from the press in to a tank where it will begin fermenting. 

Aymeric and his brother above are putting the grapes in to the press, and below are some of us who helped! 

We then saw the de-stemmer in action, which is a machine that removes the major part of the stem from the bunch. The de-stemmer is used when the grapes have been harvested by machine and therefore more stalk is removed as it is less accurate than harvesting by hand as you can be more selective. 
The de-stemmer works by 2 pieces of metal rotating around each other which pull off the stalks and releases the grapes underneath.

After the hard work we then went on to do some tasting! We tasted some 4 of their fermenting wines at different stages. We tried a white, rose and red wine about 3 weeks in to fermentation and then a merlot which was further along. 

Above Aymeric is giving me some of the fermenting white wine to try. 

Below is a close up of the fermenting white. It had a strong yeast flavour as it was early in the fermenting process, this also meant that it was quite sweet. As you can see it is very cloudy and the clarity will come as it ages.

Below is a rose wine, also about 3 weeks in to fermentation. As you can see the typical rose colour is there, but has a strong orange tinge. This was also quite sweet and yeasty.

Below is a fermenting red wine, also 3 weeks in to fermentation. The colour was almost luminous when held up to the light, with another strong sweetness to it. 

Below was a merlot that we tasted which was much further along in the fermentation process. As you can see, it has a much deeper red colour to it and you could really taste the flavours starting to develop. There was less sweetness and more acidity and tannins.

We then had a chance to try their finished product, which we enjoyed with some Comte cheese and some fresh baguette. Below you can see their label of wine, which is of Aymeric and his brother- a very fun idea! It was the perfect end to a very interesting day! 

xXx