Tuesday, 10 December 2002
Château du Cêdre (Cahors), Château Lagrezette à Mercues
Journalists: Kerem Baki and Dennis Horton

Château du Cêdre (Review 1 of 2)

Pascal Verhaeghe: Owner/winemaker and a consultant for other wineries around the region.

Vineyard

The main vineyard is 25 hectare with a smaller vineyard 15 hectare in the south and both are a mix of flat-calcium-plains and hillsides. There are two soils he works with:

Soil 1: Stone, calcium, poor soil, located in the flat areas and produces a soft wine.
Soil 2: Stones from the river, produces a more powerful wine.

Their planting strategy is: more vines give you smaller clusters and berries as time goes on. They plant 90% Malbec, 5% Tannat, 5% Merlot. They do blend and make three types of wine. Wine #1 is the best quality and most expensive. They also make Viognier, Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc, and Muscatel and sell as “vin de table”. Each row has grass planted. There are no chemicals added to the grass but they do add fertilizer (cow manure or compost). “It is difficult to be organic here”. It is wet in June/July causing mildew and the use of fungicides. In the past five years they did not see fungus, but it does occur. They do have a Botrytis problem. May/June they trim to one cluster per shoot. End of June they leaf pull on east side in front of the grapes and remove the grapes that intersect each other. The wine quality dictates how many clusters stay on the vine. Wine #1 has 5 per vine, wine #2 has 6 and wine #3 has 7 clusters per vine.

Rain and cold weather occur in December and January. Yearly average rainfall is 600-800 mm per year: July 60mm, August 30-100mm, September 40mm. They sometimes get frost but not often. Summer temperature averages 30°C; hot in August, at night in July it cools to 15-20°C. They harvest in mid-end September. If it was not a good summer they will leaf pull the other side.

Harvest is based on the skin and seed composition. Merlot is not good for this region, difficult with phenolic maturity. Tannat is good with the poor and dry soil.

Winery

They do not like stainless steel especially with Malbec, so concrete tanks are used. They’ve found reduction problems when using stainless steel tanks. They also vinify in 500 L barrels. New barrels are used every year; wine #3 is composed of one-third new barrels and the rest one and two years old. Wine #3 is composed of Malbec, Tannat, and Merlot spending 18 months in the barrel and is blended before vinification giving better balance at the beginning. Commercial bacteria are used and started in the concrete vat then barreled down… they have problems to start ML but not to finish.

They changed their fermentation protocol from five years ago. Now they ferment at 38°C, before 30-32°C. They punch down on the second or third day after crush twice a day for seven days. They tried cold maceration but didn’t like it so they stopped: there is risk of Brettanomyces, and there is no problem with color development here. Wine goes through four to six weeks of fermentation-maceration. Fermentation starts on its own 7-10 days after crush. Extended maceration is kept at 25°C where the cap is wet each day for 1-2 minutes. They do not have a problem with Brettanomyces.

Potential alcohol of Malbec at harvest is 13-15%.

They have used microoxygenation after primary fermentation but before secondary. Also used in the barrels is a quick 10-30 second burst of oxygen if needed during aging. There is no AOC regulation for microoxygenation. Fine lees is kept in the barrel after ML until April but maybe removed based on taste, even for wines that have had microoxygenation. Barrels are tasted each week. FAN is not measured in the grapes before fermentation. The wines are not filtered before bottling. Bottles are aged for 1-3 months before being released because all the wine is presold. 90% of the wine is exported to 35 countries. 45-50 thousand cases are produced per year.

Wines

Château du Cêdre: Cahors 2000

Young vines 12-20 years old, 7 clusters per vine…1/3 new oak, 1/3 one year old, 1/3 two-year-old, aged for 18 months in the barrel…50,000 bottles were produced…90% Malbec and 10% Tannat, 7-12 year aging potential…11 Euro.

Le Cêdre: Charte de Qualité AOC Cahor 2000

100% Malbec…20-40 year old vines…lots are blended before fermentation...best quality of grapes and maturity…longer vinification…100% new oak…5-6 clusters per vine…25 Euro.

GC 2000

20-40 year old vines… blended 6-8 months after aging then returned to the barrel.
Quality is 10% from vines 90% from winemaking…24 month barrel aged…100% new oak…100% Malbec…5 clusters per vine…14% alcohol…10,000 bottles produced…61 Euro.

Château du Cêdre (Review 2 of 2)

We were met by the owner of the winery – Paschel Verhaeghe. He has 25 hectares at this location along the Lot River. Ten people are employed year round for the vineyard and winery. He also has 15 hectares SW of this location. The varieties of grapes are: Malbec, Tannat, and Merlot for reds, and Viognier, Sauvignon Blanc, Semillion, and Muscatel for white wine.

They make three kinds of wine according to soil type:

1. Soil with gravely stone is considered very pour soil and makes lighter wine.
2. Round stone from the river makes a more powerful wine.
3. Then there are areas where both types of these soils are found together and they make another type of wine from this region.

The only compost they use is organic (composted cow manure). They till up every other row each year and work the soil about 12” deep. This keeps the soils from becoming too rich. They believe rich soils don’t make good wine. They have grass between the rows (every other row) where the vines are too vigorous. They believe this will reduce the growth of the berries: it will make the berries smaller, and yield fewer clusters.

Viticulture

• May & June – Most labor is needed to take off green clusters.
• Late June & July – Take off leaves on the east side only.
• Also in July – They take off individual berries that are inside the cluster to have better aeration of the cluster.
• At Veraison they want 5 clusters per plant for #1 wine, 6 clusters per plant for #2 wine, and 7 clusters per plant for the #3 wine.
• 15-year-old vines make a good wine, anything younger than this can’t make a good wine.
• The summer temperatures range from 30 to 40°C and generally dry.
• July – 15°C at night
• Harvest – 15 to 20°C (September)
• Rainfall average is 600 – 700 mm/year.
• July = 60mm
• September = 40mm
• Half the rainfall here as compared to Bordeaux.
• The diseases they worry about are Powdery Mildew and Downy Mildew.
• Before Phylloxera (late 1800’s) there were 65,000 hectares in this region. Now there are 4,300 hectares. The replanting of Cahors region only started about 20 years ago.
• The main grape it is noted for is Malbec or Cot or Auxerrois.

Winemaking

• Malbec is picked at 14 – 15% potential alcohol when harvesting. Ferment all wines in oak barrels.
• Wine #3 – Young vines 12-20 years old is fermented 18 months in barrels. Blended after 6 months in barrel.
• Wine #2 – 20 to 40 year old vines – new oak and blended in the beginning of fermentation.
• Malolactic done in barrels.
• Paschel prefers cement tanks to stainless steel – he sees a problem in reduction with stainless steel.
• They do punch downs and it takes 4-6 weeks for maceration – 24-25°C during maceration. Pump quickly for 1-2 minutes just to wet the cap. This is done daily.
• They do microoxidation on Tannat during maceration. Introduce O2 to big tanks by a machine. The method has been approved by the French government and has been used for the last 6 years.
• After 18-24 months they bottle the wine. The wine is in the bottle 1-3 months before it is sold. They produce 150,000 bottles and 80% of their wine is exported to:
  1. Germany
  2. Belgium
  3. Japan
  4. Quebec

Château Lagrezette (Review 1 of 2)

Vineyard
They operate 65 hectares of vines with many different soil types: rock soil, soil with little water, and one with the best balance. The vineyards are split up into 60 different parts. Fifteen hectares of young vines are harvested mechanically. After harvest the fruit is brought in on to a sorting table where 6-8 people pick out the unqualified fruit. On a good year 3-5% are thrown out, on a bad year 13-30%. After destemming the fruit is placed on another sorting table where people pick out MOG before the fruit hits the crusher. There is an intricate pump-gravity-water system that directs the fruit to the appropriate tank one and two levels below the indoor crush pad. Stainless steal tanks are used for the ease of temperature control, which is done by a water system with a temperature range of 5-50°C and is controlled by a central computer console.

Winery
Vineyard parcels are segregated by quality. AOC regulations require 70% Malbec on property and in wine. They blend with Tannat and Merlot. Light fruity wines are fermented at 23-24°C. Other wines at 25-27°C to help increase body. Best wines are fermented at 31°C. All fermentation runs 7-10 days with pump-over irrigators. Cold maceration 10-13 days at 10-13°C. 95% of fermentation is by native yeasts. Yeast is added if ethanol gets too high and fermentation stops. Extended maceration based on wine type; light body wine for 8 days, medium body for 11-12 days, and full body for 4-5 weeks. Pump-over is done through maceration. Microoxygenation is only done in barrels for a quick burst of oxygen. They would prefer to change all of their tanks to the oak tanks, and they have planned to do so. The wooden tanks do receive punch-downs and are temperature controlled. The wines in barrel are composed of free run 80% and press run 20% and are separated at pressing. Wine is blended after 18 months of aging. The barrel room was built underneath the vines in front of the winery and contains 700-900 barrels. They make their own wood selection for the barrels and use only one copper: Saury. Lees is removed from the barrels once every 4-5 months. Barrels are treated with bisulfate before each use. They are experimenting with the Oxo barrel racks; instead of racking off lees the barrels are rotated once a week. Cost = 150 Euro per barrel. [Editor’s note: This system is in place at Pearmund Cellars.] The best wines are treated with egg whites.

Sales: 50% to particular clients, 20% exported, 30% to restaurants.

Wines
Chevalicrs Lagrezette 1998

70% Malbec…18 months barrel aged…50% new oak, 50% 1 year oak…200,000 bottles produced…8-10 year aging potential…9.30 Euro.

Chevalicrs Lagrezette 2000

87% Malbec, 9% Merlot, 4% Tannat…20 year aging potential…20-22 month barrel aged…50% new oak, 50% 1 year oak…15 Euro

Le Pigeonnier 1998

45 hectoliter per hectare…blend of all three grapes…28 months barrel aged in new oak…6000 bottles produced…40-year aging potential.

Château Lagrezette à Mercues (Review 2 of 2)

Owner: Jean Dominique Perrin

Viticulture

• 148 acres of vines - 70% Malbec, the rest is Merlot and Tannat
• Production: 400,000 bottles per year
• This is a very old winery restored with a large new addition.
• Malbec is planted in deep soils, 2-3 meters is the depth of the soil.
  It is pruned on the GREO and grafted on 3309.
• 95% of acreage is on the river; 5% is east of the river.
• The grapes planted on the plain (where the soil is too rich and the juice lacks concentration).
• 50 hectares are hand picked into lugs.
• They have about 60 different soil types in their total acreage.

Winemaking

• The grapes come into the winery and are put on a sorting table. During a good year 3-5% of the harvest is thrown away. During a bad year, 30% is thrown away.
• Destemmer and then destemming table – people take out the stems that pass through the destemmer.
• Crusher – this is done naturally – not with compressed air. From the crusher to the tank by gravity. They have different sizes of tanks for the different vineyard sizes. Each vineyard is kept separately. Sometimes there can be 2 different types of grapes in the same tank – it just has to be from the same vineyard. If the grapes are special – they get their own tank.
• Reasons for using stainless steel tanks.
  1. Clean up good (like new)
  2. Easy to control the temperature – 21-32°C
  3. Easy to drink wine
  4. Yeast works every time – all the time.
• They don’t do pump-overs, only punch down. No microoxygenation. 95% natural yeast. When they harvest with a high Brix they have to add yeast.
• 18 months after harvest they do their blending. The scientific part of making wine takes 2 months. The rest of the process takes 28 months.
• They select the wood from the forests in France & have the trees cut & the wood brought to the winery for drying & cooperage.
• They can loose as mush as 3-5 liters per barrel each year in new oak – they are not in the habit of topping off & they pump over in barrels every 4-5 months. They fine their wine with egg whites.
• They don’t use American oak – it gives too much of an oaky taste to the wine for long terms in the barrel.

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