Domaine GALLETY

The GALLETY estate is located in the medieval village of Saint-Montan, in the north of Bourg-Saint-Andéol ; it is one of the most beautiful villages of Ardèche whose name comes from a saint hermit who lived on this territory in the fifth century AD. The Roman occupation has left many vestiges of varied nature, including sanctuaries. The vineyard was cultivated there for a very long time but only to cover the local population needs. It is from the middle of the twentieth century that it grows with the creation of the Saint-Montan cooperative cellar and the arrival of some independent winemakers, including the family GALLETY who bought his estate in 1974 at the foot of the "Bois des Baraques".

The vineyard occupies an 30 hectares area, almost in one piece, spread over 14 parcels. The vines are based on a soil mainly shaped during the Cretaceous period of the secondary era (-145 to -65 million years). This period is characterized by transgressive marine oscillations favoring marl-limestone deposits with cephalopods. These marine transgressions reach their peak during the Middle Cretaceous with the appearance of shoals which culminates in the construction of the "Urgonian platform of Ardèche" (which formed the base of the Bois des Baraques). The end of the Cretaceous period marked the beginning of a long marine regression favoring marine and lacustrine deposits such as sand, marl, lignite, etc. The Quaternary period of the tertiary era, characterized by strong climatic hazards (warm periods then cold periods), will lead to the construction of alluvial terraces on which are the low plots of the GALLETY estate.

The vine population in red is half Syrah and half Grenache. In white, it is composed of Grenache Blanc (50%), Marsanne (40%) and Roussanne (10%). The vines are grown according to the principle of organic farming but the estate is not certified, so we will not classify it in the category of organic wines. However, a little look at the plant covering the vines feet is enough to understand that the estate protects its vineyard to the maximum but does not wish to be constrained by a certification.

In the cellar, there are as many vats as plots, and winemaking is carried out by grape varietal, parcel by parcel, which allows to detect the subtle expression's variation related to the soil, the exposure, and the vine itself. The fermentations are made with indigenous yeasts, they take place in concrete vats for red wines and in stainless vats for white wines. The ageing takes place in old oak barrels for the reds and in stainless steel tanks for the whites. There is no filtration or fining for red wines, the white wines are however filtered.

A little detail that is however important : the corks used to fill the bottles of all the wines are all of the DIAM brand ; the DIAM corks are indeed produced from the most noble part of the cork bark, called cork flower, which is treated to extract the compounds responsible for the cork taste or TriChloroAnisol (TCA) ; a guarantee against the corked bottles which will allow you to preserve the wines in all serenity.