It is pruning time at the moment. I thought it would be interesting to talk to two of our talented Technical Directors, Marielle Cazaux at Château Petit-Village and Cédric Loiseau at Mas Belles Eaux about the type of pruning at their respective properties: Guyot Simple at Château Petit-Village and the Cordon de Royat at Mas Belles Eaux.

Marielle Cazaux. Château Petit-Village. Guyot Simple.

Christian Seely (CS.) “Since when have people been pruning vines?”

Marielle Cazaux (MC.) “We do not know exactly. According to the legend, the first creature that pruned a vine was a donkey. One winter the donkey ate some of the shoots of the vines, and the vinegrower was surprised after the harvest to taste the grapes from these vines and find they were sweeter and of better quality. After that he decided to prune himself each year.”

CS. (I like this idea but hope that some human in ancient times might just have had the idea for themselves without the donkey, but it is a good story.)

“How do you go about the pruning process?”

MC. ‘We prune the branches which bore fruit the previous year, so that the buds which develop will produce fruit this year.’

CS. “So the aim of pruning is to improve the quality?”

MC. “Pruning has several aims: to control grape production in order to improve quality, and to limit the growth of the vines. In Bordeaux we use the “Palisse” the vines are next to each other. Pruning enables us to keep the vine as straight as possible and to stop the vines invading each other’s space. It is also a way of making the harvest easier.”

CS. “Can you explain the system we use at Château Petit-Village?”

MC. “We prune using the Guyot Simple method. Guyot, from the name of a professor of medicine who invented this type of pruning, which consists of leaving one long spur with 6 buds, and one short spur with 2 buds on fruit bearing wood. One prunes in this way in the first year, and the one does it the other way around the second year. Because on a long spur, far from the old wood, the buds develop in priority. It is all a question of technique.”

Cédric Loiseau. Mas Belles Eaux. Cordon de Royat

Pruning time at Mas Belles Eaux

CS. “When does pruning take place here at Mas Belles Eaux?”

CL. “ From December to March, six pruners work full time pruning the vines of the property, beginning with the later ripening cepages.

CS. “There are two main types of pruning here. Quite different. Can you explain?”

CL. “The Gobelet and the Cordon de Royat are the only two types of pruning authorized for the Languedoc appellation. The Guyot method isn’t really suitable, notably because we have a lower plantation density and the competition between the vines is less marked. The gobelet method is used when the variety has an erect stature and doesn’t adapt to palissage, like the Carignan. Visually, a vine pruned in the gobelet method is open in three dimension, taking thus the form of a goblet.

However, when the vine tends to trail downwards, like the Syrah, we prune in Cordon de Royat, and this is what we illustrate here today. In the first year we prune as if for a Double Guyot. However, the next year we leave the trunk and the canes that have developed. We prune these canes in order to ensure three short spurs with one or two eyes on each arm on either side of the trunk. These short spurs are then renewed each year. This method of pruning enables a better repartition of the grapes, unlike with the Guyot method where the tendency is to have more bunches at the extremities of the plant. Our pruning method involves more work per vine, but we have fewer vines per hectares than in Bordeaux.”

Today we will visit Château Petit-Village where I tasted all the lots of Château Petit-Village 2012 with Daniel LLose, and then Château Pichon-Longueville where I will be tasting with Jean-René Matignon. We left the camera running in both cases and have edited it down to a few interesting tasting moments.

The wines at this stage have finished their fermentation, some have finished maceration, and the rest will do so soon. Malolactic fermentation is beginning both at Château Petit-Village and at Château Pichon-Longueville.

My impression of the overall quality is that it is extremely good. I am of course aware that certain opinions have already been formed about this vintage, particularly by people from Northern Europe who had a very disappointing summer and assume that therefore the wines are unlikely to be good in Bordeaux this year. However, that is why we grow the grapes here and not in Northern Europe. Although we did indeed have a fairly cool start to the summer, with a lot of rain in the period May-June-July, August was in fact very sunny and warm here, in fact one of the best Augusts we have had for a while, and September weather was also very good. Overall yields are low, principally because of conditions in the early summer, so we had the combination of fine weather in August and September, low potential yields in the vineyard, and good reserves of water in the soil. All these factors were important in determining the final quality.

The Merlots are spectacularly good this year both at Château Petit-Village and at Château Pichon-Longueville. Our feeling is that there are several parcels at both properties that produced their best Merlots ever this year. August was actually quite hot here, which can occasionally cause problems for Merlot, but because of the good reserves of water in the soil, the grapes did not suffer from any hydric stress, and the result is a wine with lovely balance and freshness, great depth and in some cases a delicious spicy quality. At Château Petit-Village, where of course Merlot makes up the majority of the blend, I think we have some of the best wines we have ever had, and at Château Pichon-Longueville where Merlot plays a supporting, but important role, they are also unusually good.

Cabernets were always likely to be the most challenging this year. Even though we had a very good August and September, the early part of summer was cool, and it is probably fair to say that we might have liked to be able to wait just a few more days to harvest the Cabernets in order to give them their full plenitude of ripeness. If that had been possible we would have had a wine of the calibre of 2010 on our hands. However, threatening weather obliged us to harvest just a little bit earlier. Nevertheless the result is very good indeed. Yields were very low in the old vine grand terroir of Château Pichon-Longueville (between 20 and 30 hectolitres per hectare), and this enabled us to achieve maximum possible ripeness from the sunshine we did get in August and September. I love the style of these Cabernets: although they have strong tannins, there is a lovely delicate fresh and fine quality to them.

I think we will have a lot of fun during blending, and the en-primeurs tastings could be very agreeably surprising for anyone who has a preconceived idea of what this lovely vintage is going to be like.

If you have trouble watching this video, view the web version here

If you have trouble watching this video, view the web version here

As I wrote here, I was in New York a couple of weeks ago for a vertical tasting of Quinta do Noval Vintage Nacional with Michael Quinttus.

It was a wonderful day, and the wines showed very well. For me, the most satisfying aspect was to observe the similarities of personality between the great wines of the Sixties and those of more recent years. This is a terroir with a very strong and unique identity and it was a moving experience to be able to taste this across the decades.

You can see on the attached film that the distinguished tasters who turned up that day enjoyed the wines: it was a memorable experience for me, and I am glad that the people who were there shared and appreciated it also.

If you have trouble watching this video, view the web version here