I recently visited a wine co-operative in Corbieres, down in the Langudeoc-Roussilon region of France. It was tucked away in the mountains, only accessible by winding mountain roads, weaving down in to valleys around vineyards - very beautiful! Co-operatives are very popular in France, they buy local grapes from various nearby vineyards and then make their own collection wines from it. At this particular co-op they buy the grapes by the vine rather than the quantity, this ensures that the quality is high and it is fair.
We had a tour around the co-op and saw the vast fermenting tanks, oak ageing on a large scale and various other elements, such as the pressing of the grapes.
As you can see the Co-op was situated in a beautiful location, up in the mountains but not far from the sea.
Above, these are some of the fermentation tanks where the grapes are put in to. Below you can see the inside of an already emptied tank, whats left are the 'lees', a combination of the fermented skins and stalks. It is just like a very thick purple paint!
Below you can see the huge operation that this co-op carries out, even though it is a small co-op with only 64 Hectares of vines to harvest, it still produces a vast amount of wine.
Below you can see some of the stainless steel fermentation tanks, which are also very large!
When I saw this ahead of me I was very intrigued! I had never seen oak ageing like this before, as I usually see little caves with a few barrels in, but this was 10 times the scale!
The oak barrels are stacked one on top of another. Some of the wines that the co-op produces are oak aged for a year in new oak, after a few years they replace the barrels to keep the oak scent strong in the wine.
We then had a tasting in the co-ops own little bar. They had a fantastic type of 'wine vending machine', which was very fun! I wonder how long it will be before we start seeing them in our kitchens?! The open wines last for 15 days, and to access the wine you press a button and it comes out of a little spout - great!
Below you can see how the machine works. The wines we tasted were really great, and inexpensive. We tasted a selection of red wines, the exact same wine, but half went in to oak barrels to be aged for a year, and the other half went straight in to bottle to age. The flavours were so different, the oak gave the wine smooth and spicy flavour, where as the bottled reds were less exciting.
A very interesting trip!
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