Dear all,
What a delight to see the vines flourishing at the start of June! After the misfortunes of 2017, I’ve been delighted to witness nature’s wild force spring back to life over the past few weeks.
Winter was unusually wet, with roughly 600mm of rainfall between December and March (the average is 400mm). This represents more than half a regular year’s rainfall and led us to reduce activity in the vineyard to preserve the structure of our soils. It also delayed the mechanical grinding of the pruned vine-wood. Our 600,000 or so vines were pruned between December and mid-March and, except for an area that was hit particularly hard by the frost, we had no problem obtaining excellent pruned wood.
Coming out of the winter period and after a homogenous bud break between the end of March and the start of April, favourable weather conditions in the second half of April caused the vegetation to break forth with real energy. Cooler, wetter weather in May calmed the growth, offering us some respite to carry out “épamprages” (shoot-thinning) and “ébourgeonnages” (de-budding), essential for reducing surplus vegetation that would lessen the quality of future grapes.
With these two tasks completed, we are beginning the “levages” (trellising) to train the vines to grow in the right direction. This will have an impact on the richness of our fruit. Next will be the “effeuillages” (leaf-thinning) and perhaps some “décompactages” (loosening of the surface soil layer). We might also carry out some green harvesting depending on the fertilisation stage, which takes place during flowering.
We are still in the process of obtaining our Organic Agriculture certification. The 2019 harvest will be our first officially-certified one, but you should know that Fieuzal’s vineyard and environment have been managed with the greatest care and respect.
In terms of our vineyard’s sanitary state, current temperatures and dampness mean that there is constant pressure to control mildew and white rot.
Turning to our wines, today we are releasing 1000 cases of Fieuzal White 2016 to our negociants.
Incredibly pure, this Semillon-Sauvignon blend is the result of a 2016 harvest that I consider to be one of great quality for Fieuzal.
The wines that make up the blend have been aged for 18 months in traditional French oak barrels of 225L, as well as a part in 400L acacia barrels and some in stainless steel. Once the blend was completed, the wine was left to settle for a few weeks in concrete vats before bottling (16th April 2018), seeking to preserve all our previous winemaking efforts.
Pausing for a moment on this important step – the bottling: it’s always a dilemma between my teams (who guarantee safety) and myself (who guarantees quality).
I systematically oppose all chemical or physical treatments of our wines, believing strongly in a minimum of intervention at this moment in the life of our wines. We also only carry out a light filtration before bottling and corking.
The Fieuzal Red 2016 still has several months of barrel ageing ahead of it. It deserves it! With low yields, the vintage is very intense and varietal, necessitating a slightly longer barrel-ageing period than most of our previous vintages.
So, there you have it, some information that I hope will be of interest to our readers, fans and friends. We shall always try to convey to each of you the passion that drives us each day at Fieuzal.
Stephen Carrier, Winemaker