Château Rouquette

                            Making the Wine

Most photos you see of wineries (chai in France) show immaculate, polished floors. Ours is a working winery, as you can see above during a busy time harvesting in 2004. We built this in 1999 just in time for the harvest. We have 19 stainless steel vats. This allows us to largely separate the vinification of each plot of the vineyard. These can produce very different styles of wine depending on the grape variety, position and age, as well as the vintage.

The temperature for each vat is separately controlled by computer. This allows us to maximise the extraction of colour, tannins and fruit  during the vinification process. Our belief is that the wine should reach its potential in the vineyard itself, and our aim in vinification is to ensure that the character of Rouquette's unique terroir is reflected in the final wine.

At harvest time, the grapes are usually kept at a low temperature for 3-5 days after they enter the chai ("cold maceration"). This allows us to extract colours and tannins. The temperature is then allowed to gradually increase as fermentation takes place. Usually it is not necessary to use artificial yeasts. 

The addition of sulphur dioxide is carefully monitored and added only when essential. The levels in the final wine are below those allowed for organic wines.

Since 2001 we have used micro-oxygenation after the alcoholic but before the malolactic fermentation. This softens the tannins and helps to fix the colour. Minute amounts of oxygen are injected continously into the vats for 1-4 days.

We prefer not to fine and filter the wine unless necessary. We conduct blind tests each year of the wine unfined and with different finings to ascertain the impact on the taste and aroma. We have fined the wine since 2000, except for the 2002 vintage, with egg white. We had to filter the 2000 and 2003, but the other vintages have not been filtered. Expect to find some sediment in Rouquette!

Our old chai contains 17 concrete vats. These are excellent for the storage of the wine after vinification, as they maintain a  more stable temperature than the stainless steel vats. They heat up and cool down much more slowly.