In the late 19th century, and much of the 20th, Cinsault was the workhorse red variety that played an undeclared role in some great red blends. It was an obvious candidate for inclusion in any historical edition of wine, although it poses many challenges in the vineyard as well as in the cellar, including the difficulty of keeping yields down and attaining perfect ripeness, plus its very oxidative character. Simply put: one has to tread very carefully with all aspects of the cultivation and the production of Cinsaut but it does come with great reward if all is in check. We basically fill the concrete tanks whole cluster to about 50% and then destem 50% to get some juice in the tank to have the initiation of fermentation. The fermentation is for about 30 days on the skins and then we press the grapes in an old basket press.
After pressing the wine is transferred into some 28 year old conical wooden casks that do not impart any wooden flavours and the age and the saturation of the wooden staves also make for a very slow reaction of the resultant wine with oxygen. The wine is left on the lees for 11 months and then racked to another concrete tank for an additional month to settle clean. Two weeks prior to bottling we add 60mg/Litre of sulphur and bottle the wine from the fine lees.
