Château Sociando-Mallet: Wines
The harvest is manual, and goes over twin sorting tables, each one having a vibrating section and then conveyor belt on which the fruit is hand-sorted. The fruit is then mechanically destemmed and pressed before going into the fermentation vessels. When Jean Gautreau started out in 1969 the fermentations were carried out in the concrete vats that came with the estate, although much larger stainless steel vats were added when the facilities were extended first in 1998 and again more recently in 2008. There is temperature control, naturally, although the temperatures are allowed to climb as high as 33°C to encourage the extraction of tannins. The wine is macerated for several weeks before going into oak.
There are two blendings, one after fermentation when the varieties are blended together, then another after the aging in oak in order to create the final assemblage. During the élevage, the wines are racked every six months. None of the free-run wines are filtered, although the press wines, if they are used, are lightly filtered.
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