Château la Tour de l'évêque

ROUGE SAINTE ANNE

ORGANIC RED WINE 2021

TERROIR

AOP Côtes de Provence.
Produced from the Grenache plot, « Coucourde » and Syrah «Pégoulière», both planted in 1999. Grey schists are mixed with chalky-clayey soils.

GRAPE VARIETIES

72% Grenache, 28% Syrah.

VINTAGE

After a dry and relatively mild winter, the budburst was early and started on March 20th on the Grenache in Hyères. We were impacted by the frost on April 8th, including the plots located in Hyères. The rains of April and May allowed the vegetation to start again. The consequences of the frost were lower than expected : in May we had the positive surprise to see bunches of grapes recovering well ! The flowering started on May 17th, the summer was dry without any excessive heat, the ripening started on July 16th. The harvest started on August 24 and ended on September 29.

GROWING

The vineyards are worked by hand, using natural animal fertilizers. We do not use any chemical weed killers. Buds are trimmed and a green harvest is practice to purposefully limit yields. A part of the vineyard is plowed with horses. The area between the rows of vines is grassed over with cereals.

WINEMAKING

The grapes are picked and sorted by hand, according to their polyphenolic ripeness (depending on the evolution of the maturity, two to three analytical tests and berry tastings are carried out every week in order to determine the optimum harvest date). In the press room, the berries are destemmed, slightly treaded and transferred into stainless steel vats. The alcoholic fermentation is run so as to extract optimum fruit and colour, but also to produce an legant wine. Maceration lasts about 10 days. Once the malolactic fermentation is over, the wines are stored into stainless steel vats. Then the wine is bottled at the Château.

TASTING NOTES

Delicate purple colour. The nose shows an ethereal, blossomy veil with lovely savouriness, revealing blueberries, herbal notes, and pepper with a hint of liquorice. With dry and soft attack, the palate is both ripe and focused with lean texture and slightly firm tannins. The rich alcohol brings some spiciness and layers of texture without warmth, the finish is long, peppery, and savoury. Pigeon puff-pastry pastilla.

— Julia & Bruno Scavo