Courthézon, France
Le Clos du Caillou
We are excited to work with Le Clos du Caillou, a family-owned winery in Courthézon in the heart of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. The Clos is enclosed inside a 3 km wall and is home to a deepwater well and tower designed and built by Élie Dussaud (who also help build the Suez Canal).
When the authorities came to classify the Clos within the Châteauneuf-du-Pape appellation in 1936, apparently, the estate gamekeeper chased them off with his rifle! Understandably they never returned and while the hunting reserve was eventually planted with grape vines, wines made from vineyards inside the Clos are still to this day ‘declassified’ as generic Côtes-du-Rhône.
Today the winery is run by Sylvie Vacheron and her two children, Marilou and Axel, with the winemaking team led by Bruno Gaspard. The vineyards are certified organic, with some farmed biodynamically.
Les Quartz Rouge
This is a blend of Grenache (80%) and Syrah (20%) from 21 year-old vines grown within the Clos. The soils are sand, sandstone and the famous galets roulés of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. The sandy soils give wines a remarkable delicacy. The grapes are hand-harvested and meticulously sorted before fermentation in concrete tanks. The wine is matured in large foudres, demi-muids (600 litres) and barriques (225 litres) for 14 months before being bottled with light filtration.
The grapes for this wine are grown on clay soil with round galets roulés on two vineyards that border the appellation of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. The blend is 70% Grenache with 15% Syrah and the remainder being Mourvèdre, Carignan and Counoise. The vines are around 50 years old and are bush trained.
The grapes are hand-harvested and 80% of the grapes are destemmed and fermented in concrete tanks for around 4 weeks at low temperatures. The remaining 20% of the grapes undergo whole bunch fermentation (carbonic maceration) to add a fruity, fresher dimension to the wine. The wine is then aged in used oak foudres before bottling with light filtration.