ECHO 2021 (Sylvain MOREY - La Bastide Du Claux)

TERROIR

The cuvée ECHO is a white wine made from Chardonnay grapes planted in the Poudrière and La Rougetière plots:

• The Poudrière plot, facing south, is the lowest in altitude of all the parcels of the estate, and is located in a hot and dry area. However, the presence of water in the subsoil ensures the hydration of the vines. The soil is composed of Helvetian sands, more or less marly or molassic depending on the place. Its formation dates from 16 to 11 million years ago.
  This dry, hot and early terroir gives very ripe Chardonnay grapes.
  
  
• The place called La Rougetière, located at high altitude with a soil dating from the ancient Quaternary, 1 million years ago, and rests on the pebbled terraces of the Durance: it is made up of Cretaceous limestone and flint, red clayey silt, sand and fragments of molassic rocks.
  The clay soils of this plot produce juicier grapes whose acidity has been preserved by the cool temperatures associated with the altitude, and which wonderfully complement the grapes from Poudrière.

WINEGROWING & WINEMAKING

The vines are cultivated according to the principles of the Organic Farming.

The 2021 vintage is a low yielding vintage, 37 hl/ha, the vines having suffered from the spring frost. The autumn rains made up for the slow and late start to the spring and allowed the estate to obtain satisfactory yields of juice with full ripeness of the grapes and perfect health.

The grapes are harvested by hand, sorted and immediately pressed by direct pressing, then cold and statically settled in vats. The alcoholic fermentation takes place in thermo-regulated vats. Once the latter are complete, the must is racked mainly in concrete vats, and in demi-muids also, where it is aged for 14 months. Only a part of the must has undergone malolactic fermentation.
The must is then filtered by roughing filtration before bottling.

The sulphits addition is very light during the whole process (less than 2g/hl).