Couly-Dutheil: Wines
The majority of the harvest here is Cabernet Franc, which is of course true for the appellation as a whole.
The fruit is largely picked by hand; Arnaud will occasionally pick a parcel by machine if there is great urgency, but it is not the norm, something he has done only twice in last decade. The freshly picked bunches are transported the short distance to the winery on the Rue Diderot in trailers which can be driven up a ramp to one side of the facility. Here the bunches are taken from the trailer, sorted and destemmed, before being lifted to the every top level of the winery by elevating conveyor belt. The fruit and subsequently the wine is then transported down through the winery by gravity flow. The fermentations take place entirely in temperature-controlled stainless steel vats, and once finished the length of time of maceration depends on the cuvée. For the entry-level early-drinking cuvées it may be just a few days, while for the more serious single-vineyard wines it may be a few weeks. The extraction may be aided with a little pigeage.
The length of time each wine spends in élevage obviously also depends on the cuvée in question, but one thing almost all of the wines have in common is that both vinification and élevage take place in inert vessels, the wines avoiding any contact with wood. The fermentations take place in stainless steel, as described above, while the élevage may be in the same vessels, or in cement vats. The only exception to this rule is the Clos de l’Echo Crescendo cuvée.
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