Winemaking
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At Château de l'Hestrange, we develop wines with care and passion, nurturing our vines using traditional methods to create the best wines possible
Local and traditional winemaking methods
All our wines are vinified on the estate in our winery. Each grape will undergo differing winemaking processes in order to produce the best quality wines, through the careful blend of the grapes for the best balance to aging appropriately to achieve the subtle flavours which defines each vintage.
Each step of the winemaking process is carefully monitored and controlled from when the grapes are first planted to being picked and aged in our cellars, to finally the bottles being transported for our dear clients to enjoy.
If you wish to know more about the different steps of wine-making, please come along to a tour where our winemaker Laurent will be able to provide all the information you need, with some wine to go with it!
The Winemaker
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Laurent Metge-Toppin, the "flying winemaker" who was known in South-East Asia as "the one who introduced the wine industry to the Kingdom of Thailand". (Bangkok Post 23/06/2000), supervises the work on the estate and in particular the winemaking process.
Winemaking
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Red wine
Only whole and healthy grapes are placed in tanks where selected yeasts have been added. The traditional semi-carbonic maceration of Beaujolais lasts 8 to 14 days at a strictly controlled temperature of 23 to 27°C, to extract the best aromatic elements from the grapes. After pressing, the wines are sent to vaulted cellars under the house where they carry out their malolactic fermentation which generally lasts 3 weeks.
After racking, the wines age a few months in old traditional barrels from 25 to 45hl. They will be bottled after Easter and put on the market several months later. Only part of the production will be bottled under the label "Château de l'Hestrange". This specially selected cuvée will be chosen to be the most representative of the estate, thus preserving the unique qualities of the Gamay grape variety.
White wine
The Chardonnay is harvested early in the morning. The grapes are pressed whole and the juices are clarified before fermentation. There is rigorous temperature control from 12 to 15°C. The wines are aged in barrels during the 6 winter months.
Sparkling Wine
The Crémant de Bourgogne is made using the Champagne method, sometimes called the traditional method, which mainly consists of double fermentation of the must, first in vats at low temperature and a second time in the bottle itself. The dosage of the shipping liquor is set to a minimum of 10 g/litre.
The harvest is done by hand. Only the Chardonnay Blanc is used for the Crémant and comes from a single plot and a single vintage. This makes it possible to present a wine of exceptional and unique quality.
Rosé wines
Depending on the vintage, bleeding or direct pressing methods are applied. Fermentation lasts from 15 to 18 days with rigorous temperature control (from 13 to 16 °C).
