Our Wine & Vineyards

News: We will be presenting our wines at The Food Heroes Tasting Market, which takes place on the 16th-17th of May, at the Newcastle/Gateshead Eat Festival, May 3rd-22nd.

There is a discount of 5% for the purchase of a carton of six bottles paid in advance collected at The Food Tasting Market. Our Wine These discounts can be increased to 7.5%-10% by becoming a member of the Palejay Wine Club, membership also gives you a discount of 5% off the cost of renting our apartment (gite). By purchasing a carton of our wine in advance you are entitled to a 5% discount on the apartment (gite)

We try to work our vineyards in an environmentally friendly ways as possible, limiting products used and reducing the use of the tractor. Treatments

We follow a method of treating our vineyards which the French call Lutte Raisonnée (treat if it is necessary). The two main diseases that we have to treat for are Odïum and Mildew.

Odïum

Damages the berries and can result in the loss of an entire crop, if it becomes established in a vineyard it can take several years to eradicate and can cause the vine to die. We treat this by waiting till we can see signs of the disease on the vines; we then use a product that cures, then another product that stops the disease develop. This protection is maintained till véraison, when the grape starts to change colour.

Mildew

This attacks the leaves and the berries, you can lose part of your crop or if the leaves are damaged the maturity will be delayed. The spores of this disease require moisture, so you have to maintain protection during this period. It takes several days after rainfall for spores to develop. Rainfall is monitored by agricultural technicians and information is published in our village. In 2006 because of a drought we dropped three treatments for this disease.

Insecticides

Caterpillars can cause damage to the skins of the grapes, which can develop into rot at a later stage. We monitor the flights of butterflies by using traps; scent of male and female butterflies is place in the trap to attract them. If there is a sufficient number we would use and insecticide in the areas that require it. In 2006 we did not use any insecticides.

Weed Control

We control the weeds in our vineyards by sowing grass down the centre of the row or allowing weeds to develop then controlling. If we are able to keep the area close to the vine clean when the vines become active the competition between the vines and the grass/weeds in the centre keeps this area clean. In some of our vineyards I have only to pass once with the tractor to work the centre part of the row, using traditional methods I would have to pass 6-8 times. With this method organic matter develops in the vineyard, which is of benefit to the soil and small mammals must be coming back to the vineyard because I am starting to see birds of prey, which I have not seen before in 20 years.

Our vineyards attract game birds: partridges and pheasants, it is not unusual for me to see a hen bird with her chicks. Grapes that are grown in this type (more natural) of environment ferment longer, extracting more flavours from them. We are not organic, an organic producer is only allowed to use a copper based product to control mildew, and copper is a heavy metal and builds up in the soil.

Wine Production

The fermentation process is longer with grapes from enherbed vineyards, and wine tasting panels have shown a preference.

The grapes from 90% of our vineyards are processed at the local cooperative, these are classified as Appellation Contrôllée and Named Village. The vineyards that we produce our wine from are classified as Appellation Contrôllée but to a higher specification: density of vines, tressellising systems.

Our grapes are machine harvested, by our own machine a Pellenc. Pellenc are an innovative company based in the Lubéron, and their machines are recognised has having a very sensitive picking method. If set correctly it will leave berries that are not ripe. We consider that we can obtain better results with a machine than by hand because of the speed you can harvest. The grapes can be picked in the morning enabling to control the temperature of the must more easily. And also the fruit can be picked at optimum maturity.

You can see here how the sensitive picking action leaves grapes that are damaged or under ripe.

Here the machine has been stopped, you can see the shakers and a damaged berry that is not picked. Also if you look carefully you can see picked berries that have fallen on blades that open and close as they pass a vine. As they open the berries are transferred on to conveyor belts, then to the hoppers. As they move along the belts they pass extracter fans which remove any leaves.

At the end of each working day all of the parts of the machine that come into contact with fruit are sprayed with an sanitising product. The machine is then cleaned with water.

We are responsible for the winemaking for our own wine. The style we trying to achieve at present is fresh and crisp for white and smooth and fruity for red.

Our white and rosé wines benefit from our gentle bladder press, no harsh flavours are extracted and we only have one press cycle, most wineries press the grapes several times increasing the yield but produce poorer quality wine in the process. The wine is then fermented at slowly at low temperature.

With our red wine we cold soak the grapes before the fermentation commences this extracts more fruit without harsh tannins. We also use this technique with our rosé wine. The wine is then fermented using the delestage technique, this breaks up the cap and ensure that all of the juice comes into contact with the skins. We also punch down twice a day by hand. The marc is not pressed, wine juice obtain thus is known as jus de presse. this is not the best quality juice, it has good colour and harsh tannins and is often added to wine to give good colour, the harsh tannin adds little to the wine.

Once the fermentation process is finished the wine is racked off the gross lees. We then perform a weekly battonage and micro-oxygen with the red till the end of December.

The wine is allow to clarify as naturally as possible, not bottled at least six months after the fermentation has finished, benefiting from the winter cold period. It is bottled by ourselves on our estate and corked by hand.

Recent investment in our wine making equipment are stainless steel vats from Châteaunef du Pape, Cooling snakes from imported California, a destemmer from Tuscany, wine pump and a cooling plant which was designed and manufactured by a local French company with worldwide experience in this field.

All our wine is vinified in stainless steel of fibreglass vats, this has a sanitary advantage: very easy to clean. The disadvantage is that they transfer heat easily unlike concrete were the temperature changes very slowly.

The de-stemmer is not really necessary pick by machine which shakes the berries off, but on occasions a whole bunch is removed, in the past we have removed the berries from these by hand. Stalks that come into contact with the wine just can give herbous flavours they also contain course tannin. The de-stemmer is fiitted with a must pump which enables us to process the grapes very quickly as they arrive.

The wine pump enables us to move wine quickly when we need to, but we try to make all of our wine movements by the use of gravity.

White: the style we are achieving is fresh and crisp, with citrus fruit.

The cooling system is a very large investment for us, we will only use it for about one month in the year. It is not possible to make quality white or rosé without low temperature fermentation. Even with red in our climate it is better to cool the grapes, with a picking machine you can harvest early in the morning when the grapes are cooler. But you require a cooling system to maintain the temperature or even drop the temperature further.

Red: is smooth fruity wine that is easy to drink, not harsh or dry.

We are responsible for the winemaking.

Domaine de Palejay Wine