The Domaine Drouin
Grape growing:
Very manual labor: 3 people full time; 3 seasonal workers during the 2 months of summer and around thirty harvesters.
- Guyot arcure pruning, leaving 8 to 10 buds maximum on the cane.
- Plowing is done in winter, spring and summer to generate deep roots to get down to the richness of the subsoil to facilitate the Terroir expression.
- Disbudding is done in the spring to eliminate excess grapes and to keep low yields.
- Vine leafing is done in the summer to aerate the vine stock and allow for optimum sun lighting, taking care not to touch the main leaves to aid photosynthesis. (less leafing is done during especially dry or hot summers to avoid burns).
- No insecticides and no herbicides.
- Moderate treatments, only if the health of the Vines require.
Harvests:
Hand picking after checking the ideal maturity, acidity and pH of grapes from each parcel.
Harvesting takes about 10 days.
Winemaking and maturing:
- Grapes are pressed softly and slowly.
- Wine is racked for 12 to 18 hours in vats.
- Oak barrels are filled by gravity.
- Alcoholic and malolactic fermentation in casks.
- Wine is matured on fine fermentation lees for 8 to 14 months depending on the cuvees.
- Wine is stirred regularly (about once a week until December, then once every two weeks).
- Each cuvee is blended one month before bottling, done at the estate.
