Château d’Epiré: Wines
The harvest is manual, and generally involves three tries on each of the vineyards, not an uncommon practise for the Savennières appellation. The last of these three pickings often trails in three or more weeks after the beginning of the harvest to ensure maximum ripeness in the fruit. The hand-picked fruit is transported to the cellars in small-volume crates. Here it is pressed using pneumatic equipment, followed by a 24-hour débourbage (cold settling). It then goes into a mix of stainless steel cuves and also wooden barriques, the exact details obviously depending on the cuvée, for the fermentations.
The cellars are overseen by winemaker Christophe Onillon. Some cuvées will undergo malolactic fermentation, a relatively new aspect to the winemaking here, introduced in 2002, and afterwards the wines will remain on their lees with some bâtonnage. This continues until the following June, when they will be bottled and moved into storage. This, says Luc, is to protect the wines from the high temperatures reached within the cellars, which are not underground, during the summer months.
Please log in to continue reading: