Château de Cesseras in the Minervois
Château de Cesseras
won the Rhône varietal trophy in
Decanter magazine’s world wine awards for 2014. So I was curious to go and visit. Pierre-Andre Ournac and his nephew Guillaume
gave us a friendly welcome. Their oenologist
was just finishing checking the first wines of the vintage, Pinot Noir and
Chardonnay, and they were looking good.
This is an old family
estate. Pierre-André is the 7th
generation at Cesseras, but no wine was put in bottle until 1989. Pierre André studied law, leaving his brother
to run the property, and when he returned to Cesseras in 1989, they decided to
take their vines, mainly Aramon and Carignan out of the coop at Azilanet. 80 hectares of vineyards have been replanted,
with eighteen different cépages. They
have 18 hectares of Minervois la Livinière, planted with Carignan, Grenache,
Mourvèdre and Syrah, but no Cinsaut, as they find it very sensitive to
eutypiose. And for vins de pays, they
have some eight different varieties, with apologies for a list, but it
illustrates the diversity of the Languedoc – Alicante Bouschet, Merlot, Cabernet
Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Sangiovese, Petit Verdot, Marselan, Pinot Noir,
Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Viognier, Marsanne, Muscat à petits grain and Durif –
phew! Pierre-André had a bit of trouble
remembering them all – I’m not surprised.
He uses Pays d’Oc rather than a more individual and localised vin de pays, for
marketing reasons. Viognier is particularly
important, and he also talked about the commercial significance of Pinot
Noir.
We had a look at the
cellar – there are stainless steel vats and barrels from the Tonnelerie de
Mercurey. The vins de pays are sold
under the name of Domaine Coudoulet and the Minervois under the Château de Cesseras
label, as he uses the old cellars of the château for his barrels. Coudoulet means galets roulées in
Occitan. Apparently the Perrin brothers of
Château Beaucastel were not very happy about the name Coudoulet, but since its use in the region dates back to 1400, there was nothing they could do about it.
Pierre-André's son, Olric, is doing
a stage with Avignonesi in Montepulciano – this seems appropriate, seeing that
they have Sangiovese. 'Il faut prévoir
la suite' observed Pierre-André.
2013 Viognier – 6.00€
Light colour. Lightly
peachy, soft and rounded on he nose, with peachy fruit on the palate, but not
much acidity. Quite fresh. A simple
vinification, with a little skin contact.
And they have a new system for clearing the juice; Once the juice is pressed they inject a
gelatine fining into the must and stir up some
nitrogen under pressure for two or three hours, so that the bourbes
float to the surface and can be run off,
leaving clear juice. It has the
advantage that it is very quick and also economises on energy as you do not
need to cool the juice to so low a temperature, and you lose less juice. With classic débourbage you would have 10
hectolitres of bourbes to filter from a 100 hls of juice, but with this system
it is only 2 or 3 hls.
2013 Pinot Gris. –
6.00€
Who else has Pinot
Gris in the Languedoc, I wondered. Light
colour and lightly mushroomy on the nose, and softly spicy. Some varietal character. Medium weight with nice texture. They wanted something different, rather than just another Chardonnay, and it
complements the Pinot Noir nicely.
2013 Sangiovese. –
6.00€
Élevage in wood. this is
their second harvest of this variety.
They were inspired by a Sangiovese that they had tasted at the Seigneurie
de Peyrat outside Pézenas. I remember that
Sangiovese from a couple of years ago, and delicious it was too. Sangiovese
is not officially authorised in the Languedoc, so they needed permission to
plant it, which they did in 2006, without any planting subsidies, and then it
was authorised the following year. I
really enjoyed the wine. It had the
classic ripe sour cherries of Sangiovese, some lovely fresh fruit, with supple
tannins. No great depth, or complexity,
but would be delicious with a plate of pasta.
Pierre André observed that it was quite a productive variety.
2013 Pinot Noir –
6.00€
Quite a light colour.
Quite a firm nose. A touch of liquorice.
A bit of tannin. Quite fresh. You could drink it chilled. Simple vinification. Pierre André observed
that there is a big demand for Pinot Nor en vrac. The négoce pay twice the price of Syrah for
it. Obviously something to do with
Gallo’s Red Bicyclette cuvée.
2013 Syrah – 6.00€
Élevage in vat. Good colour.
Tapenade and black olives on the nose. Ripe rounded spicy fruit on the
palate. Medium weight, with supple
tannins. Classic Midi
And then onto
Minervois :
2011 Minervois, Cuvée
Olric – 7.00€
40% Mourvèdre, 40%
Carignan vinified by carbonic maceration and 20% Syrah.
All in vat. For about twelve months.
Deep colour. Quite firm spice and tapenade on the nose. Firm tannins and a sturdy tannic
backbone. A ripe mouthful.. Youthful with ageing potential. 14.5˚
2011 Minervois la Livinière
– 15.00€
The trophy
winner. 70% Syrah, with 10% each of
Carignan, Grenache and Mourvèdre which were vinified by carbonic maceration, while
the Syrah was given a classic vinification. Pierre-André, on his oenologist’s advice,
feels that carbonic maceration rounds
out the flavour. Élevage in barrels for
60-70% of the blend for 12 months, and then blended with the vat component. The wine then spends another 12 months in vat
before bottling.
Medium colour. Quite
fresh and peppery on the nose, with some black fruit. And on the palate, rounded, rich and with
ripe tannins and a firm backbone. A lot
of weight and body, with depth and complexity and lots of nuances of flavour. Supple and drinking well now, but with some
ageing potential. Rich and rounded. 1998 was the first vintage of this cuvée.
We talked about the
future. Guillaume is wondering about other grape varieties, but is not sure
what. And maybe he would like another Minervois
cuvée. His uncle observed, je suis vigneron avant tout. I do my best with both vins de pays and Minervois. The problem is the two separate syndicats who se tirent dans les pattes, or shoot
themselves in the foot. For Pierre André it is the vins de pays that
allowed them to develop Minervois. ‘And Minervois is a produit phare, a
flagship, of which we are very proud’.
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