St-Saphorin Grand Cru

In the vine

The terroir of the St-Saphorin appellation includes a succession of balconies wrapped around Mont-Pèlerin. The orientation of the vines is very favorable: south, southwest and, on the wings, southeast. Sloping, the hill can reach in some places up to 50% slope. Mostly from moraine soil, our old vines are on light and very limestone soils, thus highlighting the saline note typical of this very particular terroir.

During the harvest

The year 2018 is characterized by a very favorable climate throughout the wine season with less rain than in 2017. After a scorching summer period, autumn was relatively cool but dry. These favorable conditions led to very early harvests which started at the beginning of September for certain specialties and in mid-September for the classic wines, that is to say about two weeks ahead of the average. The very healthy and concentrated grapes could be picked with high sugar contents, good acidity and excellent phenolic maturity. This year produced wines of excellent quality, rich and aromatic with a beautiful expression of fruity / floral freshness supported by a positive acidity. The minerality of our different terroirs is well highlighted by the vintage. These are wines that will evolve well over time.

In the cellar

This wine makes its two fermentations, alcoholic and malolactic, then remains on its yeast lees until bottling. They decompose and finally melt into the wine, thus increasing the structure and texture of the latter. This is followed by bottling which takes place in June of the following year for a single bottling run of 1,500 bottles.