Château Pavie: Wines
As from 2013, the wines are made in the new and expansive cellars, built midway up the slope. Once harvested by hand, at a remarkably low yield of 30 hl/ha (almost half that achieved under Jean-Paul Valette, and a major driver of the style over the past two decades) the fruit is sorted and transported to the top of the vat-room by conveyor belt, before being emptied into one of 20 temperature-controlled 80-hectolitre oak vats which replaced the previous cement cuves. Dry ice is used to give a pre-fermentation cold soak lasting up to eight days, after which fermentation proceeds. The number of vats, of moderate size, allows for a plot-by-plot vinification.
Extraction is enhanced by both pigeage and remontage, and the concentration may also be bolstered with a little saignée. Thereafter the wine is left to macerate, the skins and other solids soaking for up to eighteen days. Both fermentation and maceration are held to a temperature of 28-30ºC.
The free-run wine, already at this point assembled with the best of the press wines, then goes into barrel where the malolactic fermentations get underway, encouraged by warming the environment. This is commonplace in the region, although it has only been possible here in recent vintages, as until the remodelling work was carried out the barrel cellar was simply to large to heat. Now, with a smaller heated barrel cellar at their disposal, the second fermentation gets underway much more efficiently.
