En francais

In 2015, to celebrate the 100th post of this blog, Jeff invited me to make my own wine. Together with friends and my wife Pat we picked in Rome vineyard some Muscat but mostly a mix of Grenache Noir, Grenache Gris and Grenache Blanc. I then pressed the grapes, supervised their fermentation and, finally, put the wine into three types of container, an old barrel, a newer barrel and a large glass bottle. The idea was to see how these containers would influence the maturity of the wine.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Last October the wine was ready to bottle after three years of ageing. And, on Friday 23rd August I labelled and sealed the bottles. We had opened a few in the intervenng period for visitors to the cellar to taste and there remains 68 bottles. The seal was wax which Jeff prefers. The bottles were labelled according to their élevage, V for verre (glass), B for barrique (the old barrel) and N for neuve (the newer barrel).

• 

• 

I decided to name the wine Amicis. As the wine is the produce from my favourite vineyard, Rome, I wanted a Latin name. In previous years Jeff had made a wine called Copains from Rome, the Latin equivalent is Amicis. It also has my initials as the first two letters and a C for hundred, the blog post which began this adventure.

What about the wine? Well, happily, I like it a lot, Jeff too (well at least he tells me he does!) Version V has fresh fruit sweetness, the glass container having allowed little ageing, capturing the post fermentation wine. It is noticeably different to the barrel aged wines, the grapey Muscat more evident.

B, the older barrel is the next in terms of freshness. The staves of the barrel have become sealed over the years after soaking up some of the many wines aged in it. My wine has had some exchange with the air and has developed more tertiary notes, not just the original fruit of the V wine.

• 

• 

N is the most influenced by age, a slightly darker colour, flavours which include not just the fruit but woody influence, slightly drier in the mouth. The newer barrel certainly allowed more oxygen exchange with the wine which is clearly different to the older barrel wine.

So, there it is. I must once again thank Jeff for this fantastic opportunity and for his generosity in allowing me to use his grapes, barrels and time. He is the best of men.

Thanks too to Martin, May, Pat, Céline and Delphine for their work in picking with me, and to Julien and Michel for their work in carrying out soutirage during the three years.

Now, who would like to try it?

• 

•