Les vendanges Part 2: A top quality wine in the making.
The quality grapes that had travelled up the tapis and tumbled effortlessly into the cuves began, if you remember, their fermentation process almost straight away, encouraged by the addition of yeasts and sugar. The deliciously developing juices had been tasted regularly, the first, an exciting moment as we had all felt so close to this year’s production.
Mr Dory continues to visit each day, rather like a doctor tending his patients, he tastes and makes notes.
The day before the pressing we were, amazingly, encouraged to tread the grapes!
This would help break down the sort of crust that forms of fermenting fruit and there is no better tool than clean bare feet! It was a strange experience of partial sinking and the feel of the grapes between our toes, legs and feet becoming quickly stained a wonderful vibrant purple. Apparently treatment for the skin better than any spa.
Now it was time for the pressing; exactly one week after each cuve had been filled with its bounty.
For five consecutive days the special vendange pump brought the contents of each cuve to the press while we helped spread by hand the heady mixture evenly into the bowels of the machine.
The alcoholic aromas were intense and overwhelming. The pressing for each cuve took about two and a half hours of carefully programmed turning and churning, the resulting juices returned to clean cuves.
The juice is now traditionally called le paradis and restaurants all over Beaujolais offer this fruity paradise to customers before their meal.
Each evening of the five days it took to press at Maison des Bulliats, the left over dried stems and exhausted fruit, like flattened raisins, called the genes was raked from the press into the trailor and taken to a designated dumping ground from where it would be collected and made into marc a sort of eau de vie that would not belong to us!
There will also be a sludgy substance at the bottom of each cuve called the lie which will too be taken away to make an even stronger brew!
There is a regional dish which is quite delicious, pork sausage cooked in wine on a bed of genes. I made this dish before and after the vendanges many times but using bunches of whole grapes instead of dried, adding a few bay leaves, served with wonderful Mona Lisa potatoes and green beans. The sauce that results is heavenly. Chris agrees.
The fermentation continued and M. Dory and our friend from Morgon are visiting regularly. The secondary fermentation known as malolactic is more subtle and this would take another week. This is the fermentation of the acids that can also be found in milk that are not so evident by taste. We were right to delay our vendange by a few days, to wait for more sun and north winds which developed and concentrated the natural sugars in the grapes and enabled this final fermentation to take place in good time.
Now, a few weeks later we tasted the young wine from each cuve. The cool of the cuvage made it difficult for us to be critical, we drew a bottle from each cuve and left it at room temperature in the kitchen, ready to taste with experts. What a difference this made, we could begin to appreciate its qualities and the exotic blend of fruits and minerals. It seeems we have the potential to win some medals. our protegy will certainly be entered for the forthcoming competitions at Macon and in Paris.