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Château Rouquette

July 2006 : The 2004 Vintage Bottled

On 7 June we bottled the 2004 Rouquette. Normally we bottle in the winter but we delayed the bottling this year because the entrepot where we store our wine (at a constant 14 degrees) was moving, and we didn't want the wine moved twice. We bottled without filtering the wine. We prefer not too filter but in some years (2000 and 2003) the turbity has been too high. We did a blind tasting using 8 different finings for the wine and used egg yolk.

We have just tasted the wine and it has not suffered any "bottle shock". It is lighter and more elegant than our 2002 or 2003. Unfortunately the 2004 vintage is likely to be over shadowed by the 2005, but will be a delicious wine to drink, especially with food.

The key to this harvest was work in the vineyard to restrict quantity. For Bordeaux as a whole it was one of the most prolific vintages this century. Our yield for Rouquette was 54 hectolitres a hectare, the highest since 1999. This gives us a 5 year average yield of 45 hectolitres a hectare - exactly in line with our target. We dropped about 30% of the Merlot bunches (green harvest or vendanges vertes) in the summer, to improve concentration. We bled off 20% the juice (saigné) before fermentation began, to further increase concentration by reducing the ratio of juice to skins.

We decided to move entirely to French barrels for the 2004 and stop using American oak. We had found that the American barrels left a slightly dry taste on the finish.

We picked the Merlot and Cabernet Franc in clear weather but the problem was the Cabernet Sauvignon, as it rained from the 11th until the 20th October. We took the nerve racking decision not to pick and were rewarded with 3 days of sun from the 20th and picked the Cabernet for the Rouquette on the afternoon of Sunday 24 October, managing to find enough people to harvest on a Sunday. This was 10 days later than our previous record in 2001. The result was a super-mature Cabernet, which still retained good fruit.

In August 2005 we tasted the 2004 from barrels with our oenologue and Conal Gregory, Master of Wine, to decide the blend. The final mix we agreed was 51% Cabernet Sauvgnon, 39% Merlot and 9% Cabernet Franc. As usual we made 500 cases of Cuvée Merigot from 85% Merlot.

We are now focusing on the 2006 vintage, having just ordered barrels and surveyed the size of the harvest. We expect a slighly larger crop than last year and will start dropping about a third of the bunches next week. This will be our 10th harvest!

Michael Banton

26 July 2006