2022 Single Barrel Carignan
- Retail
- £35.00
- Member
- £28.00
- Case
- £210.00
- Case (Member)
- £168.00
- Varieties
- Carignan
- Vintage
- 2022
- Country
- France
- Region
- Roussillon
- Alcohol
- 14%
- Bottle size
- 750 mL
- Drinking Window
- 2024 - 2030
- Description
From time to time a barrel of wine is so good that it seems a terrible shame to blend it away. So we have bottled barrel 26 as a great example of a pure Maury Carignan.
- Eyes
A deep red/black
- Nose
A complex, intriguing, earthy and autumn-fruited nose redolent of the forest floor. Subtle and incredibly more-ish.
- Mouth
Wonderfully textured tannins support a beautiful palate of plum / damson compote. Barrel no 26 is so damned lovely because all of the wine locked up in the grape-skins is released when you apply the first light pressure from the press, and this is the barrel of the first pressings. Beautiful wine with SUCH softness and length
- Body
full
- Winemaking Notes
Once in a while a barrel comes along that us so exceptional that it seems a shame to lose it in a bigger blend. This Carignan comes from one such barrel.
We harvested 3.5 Tonnes of Carignan from our 1 hectare 80-year-old vineyard at La Roque, and gently fermented the grapes in a steel tank and several open barrels. We then drained the free run directly into barrels, and then loaded the press with the skins and started pressing gently.
The first press wine is often the best. containing the wine trapped inside each grape, the wine near the skin, where much of the flavour comes from. We drained this dense, flavour-packed wine into a single 500L 2-year-old demi-muid (Barrel 26)- Growing Conditions
The Winter of 2021/22 was uncharacteristically dry, with 'normal' rain in April and May giving the vines enough moisture to commence the season's growth, and the lovely dry period during flowering in late May / June ensure the 'sortie' (successful flowering) was excellent, with LOADS of bunches. There then followed an exceptionally dry July and August which had us fearing that the vines would stop ripening, and that the grapes would just shrivel. Some relieving light rain in September kept the vines respiring, and we managed to harvest a good crop of plentiful bunches with very small grapes - with exceptional flavours.
- Food Pairing
Wild boar sausages or Venison would be ideal, but any dark, gamey meat, or spiced bean stew would be a marvellous match.
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