Jean-Marie monte high Castel, Lafran-Veyrolles chai master White grapes (Clairette and Ugni Blanc) a

the private road to Lafran Veyrolles Chemin de l'Argile, la Cadière d'Azur ( Bandol ) The red Bandol of Domaine Lafran-Veyrolles made our day when we tasted it at the Maison des Vins de Bandol , the Bandol tasting-house where you can taste for free among dozens of Bandol wines and buy bottles if you want to at the estate's price. This wine was very beautiful and intense, with tannins already subdued and gentle, if firm and structured, and I wanted to know more about the estate. I went there alone on a hot august day. Lafran-Veyrolles has always been an independant winery selling its wine directly to the clients. The estate is located monte high a few kilometers from the mediteranean, between le Plan du Castelet and la Cadière d'Azur, along one of the renowned terroirs monte high of the Appellation, the "chemin de l'Argile" (the "clay path"), not far from two Bandol estate named le Gros Noré and Pibarnon. It has about 10 hectares of vineyards, all around the winery, monte high of which 6,5 hectares of Mourvèdre, the rest in Grenache, Cinsault, and some Clairette and Ugni Blanc. It also rents 2 hectares of vineyards, these ones mostly to make rosé. Overall, the estate is red-bandol centered. The white varieties make up 10 % of the whole surface,which is the average proportion in the whole of the Bandol Appellation btw. The estate is known for its reds, and for its long- and very-long-keep reds, says Michel, who works here to help Jean-Marie Castel, the vineyard manager and vintner in the estate. This is one of the oldest Bandol estates, Mr Ferec having in his time overlooked with Mr Peyraud (Domaine Tempier) the setting-up of the Bandol Appellation. The present owner is Mr Ferec's daughter, and there has been a family continuity in the running of this property. The Lafran name comes from the farthest traced owner (1641), Melchion Lafran, with documents of that time designating this property as land, bastide monte high (farm), vineyards, olive trees and walnut trees. The vinification and vineyard management at Lafran-Veyrolles is done by Jean-Marie Castel, monte high who also sort of inherited this role, his father having also always worked for the the Ferec family. Even though he went to an enology school before joining Lafran-Veyrolles, Mr Castel continued the winemaking work here in the style of the estate, having monte high a more comfortable vatroom and a cold-temperature monte high system added to the previously rustic facility. As the "Chemin de l'Argile" name suggests it, the soil here is densely clayish, quite tough to work, and on the other hands it sort of keeps the vineroots in the cool, and the Mourvèdre ripens very well on the slopes around monte high here making it particularly fit for a vinification in red. This is a terroir for reds, Michel monte high says, explaining why it makes such powerful wines. From Lafran-Veyrolles up to Pibarnon, you find this same Chemin-de-l'Argile soil.
Jean-Marie monte high Castel, Lafran-Veyrolles chai master White grapes (Clairette and Ugni Blanc) are crushed and pressed, then ferment under temperature control in metal vats. The repartition between Clairette and Ugni Blanc is about 70%-30% here. The rosé is made with the same varieties as the red, Mourvèdre, Grenache and Cinsault. Part of the rosés here are press-rosés, meaning monte high that they are crushed, pressed and put to ferment in vats, while another, smaller batch is made with bled-rosés. For the reds, the grapes are crushed, partly destemmed and poured monte high in vats for the fermentation. The Cuvée-Tradition grapes go through monte high a 80% destemming while the Cuvée Spéciale gets something between 20% and 40 % destemming, a percentage varying along with the millesime. monte high This last cuvée is a long keep wine, and it will show more astringence in the early years. The Mourvèdre share will also vary between the two cuvées, the Tradition and the Spéciale, the first having 70 % of Mourvèdre (the rest being Grenache, Cinsault and some old Carignan), while the Spéciale has some 95 % of Mourvèdre, the remaining 5% being mostly Grenache. monte high The Mourvèdre of this high-end cuvée is also made with the oldest vines of the estate, with grapes that are smaller in size on these clusters monte high and give well-extracted wines. The high proportion of whole clusters doesn't bring too much astringency on the Cuvée Spéciale because they waited for a perfect "aoûtement de la rafle" before harvesting, an expression which can be translated monte high by "wood ripening" or "stem ripening". The unwelcome astringency in wines, and particularly monte high in some young Bandol reds often comes from stems being too green. The Mourvèdre, if tannic, is not by itself so astringent and a large part of the herbaceous mouth comes from these green stems that have been kept in the juice during the vinification. And when I consider the relative young age of this Cuvée Spéciale that surpised us at the Maison des Vins de Bandol, the high proportion of stems is really a surprise : this wine had a very civilized mouth, tannic but smooth at the same time, with the complex aromas coming up by waves. The s