Oswaldo Costa
Oswaldo Costa
fwiw, here's the m.o. of Lucien Le Moine in Burgundy (see from paragraph 8 onwards):
1. We work with the best Crus of each village; we produce one to three barrels per Cru (300 - 900 bottles). This small production per Cru is maybe our biggest technical challenge, since from selection, through aging to bottling, each barrel needs to be perfect: as there is no "blending" at the end.
2. We do the selection of our wines very early; we taste the jus-wine just after the press, buy and put them in our barrels. This allows us to age "our way" from the very beginning of a wine's life. All our wines are aged by us from press to bottling that means that each October we know exactly our production for the vintage.
3. We buy our oak "through a friend", from the Jupilles forest, we are maybe the only Winery in the world to age ALL our wines in this very fine oak. Our barrels are made "by another friend" with a slow toast on coals, personally adapted to the Crus and even to the vintage.
4. We age all the Crus on 100% of their lees: both whites and reds. We do gentle "battonages" (stirring) three to four times a month putting the lees in suspension in the wine, the wine then feeds upon the lees, gaining in balance and complexity. We keep the wines on their lees until bottling, never racking during aging. Still, since each year is different, we adapt these generalities to each vintage; so we can have some years without any stirring (2004) and some with stirring every week (2003, 2005).
5. We close our cellar in order to keep both humidity and temperatures low through spring, which allows us to push back the malolactic fermentation late into summer. The natural CO2 associated with this fermentation protects the wines during the hot summer, allowing extremely limited use of SO2 (sulphur).
6. Once malolactic is done we follow the maturity of each barrel, tasting it twice a month. Bottling takes place after a full moon (where atmospheric pressure is favorable), by gravity, Cru by Cru whenever a wine is ready.
7. All our wines, whites and reds are neither fined nor filtered.
8. As our wines are never pumped (no racking, no filtration, bottling by gravity...) the natural CO2 from the malolactic is present even in bottle. In fact we are looking for this presence as it helps protect the wine in the most natural way.
The CO2 protects the wine by closing it upon itself, that is why ALL OUR WINES MUST BE DECANTED; With decanting CO2 will leave and the wine will show itself. If one has time decanting can be for a few hours, if not a few minutes: by pouring the wine into the decanter and moving it slowly allowing the gas to leave.
1. We work with the best Crus of each village; we produce one to three barrels per Cru (300 - 900 bottles). This small production per Cru is maybe our biggest technical challenge, since from selection, through aging to bottling, each barrel needs to be perfect: as there is no "blending" at the end.
2. We do the selection of our wines very early; we taste the jus-wine just after the press, buy and put them in our barrels. This allows us to age "our way" from the very beginning of a wine's life. All our wines are aged by us from press to bottling that means that each October we know exactly our production for the vintage.
3. We buy our oak "through a friend", from the Jupilles forest, we are maybe the only Winery in the world to age ALL our wines in this very fine oak. Our barrels are made "by another friend" with a slow toast on coals, personally adapted to the Crus and even to the vintage.
4. We age all the Crus on 100% of their lees: both whites and reds. We do gentle "battonages" (stirring) three to four times a month putting the lees in suspension in the wine, the wine then feeds upon the lees, gaining in balance and complexity. We keep the wines on their lees until bottling, never racking during aging. Still, since each year is different, we adapt these generalities to each vintage; so we can have some years without any stirring (2004) and some with stirring every week (2003, 2005).
5. We close our cellar in order to keep both humidity and temperatures low through spring, which allows us to push back the malolactic fermentation late into summer. The natural CO2 associated with this fermentation protects the wines during the hot summer, allowing extremely limited use of SO2 (sulphur).
6. Once malolactic is done we follow the maturity of each barrel, tasting it twice a month. Bottling takes place after a full moon (where atmospheric pressure is favorable), by gravity, Cru by Cru whenever a wine is ready.
7. All our wines, whites and reds are neither fined nor filtered.
8. As our wines are never pumped (no racking, no filtration, bottling by gravity...) the natural CO2 from the malolactic is present even in bottle. In fact we are looking for this presence as it helps protect the wine in the most natural way.
The CO2 protects the wine by closing it upon itself, that is why ALL OUR WINES MUST BE DECANTED; With decanting CO2 will leave and the wine will show itself. If one has time decanting can be for a few hours, if not a few minutes: by pouring the wine into the decanter and moving it slowly allowing the gas to leave.