2021 La Grave

“It is a vintage of men and women,” Edouard Moueix began when we repaired to his office for a discussion about the growing season. What did he mean? Did the women make better wines? “No, I mean that there was no right or wrong. You had to change strategy. At every step, there were two elements, those we could fight and those we could not. It was a complicated year. We saw the importance of people that live on the vineyard and can react when vital to do so. We did quite a lot of green harvesting so that vines could concentrate on fewer clusters. We had to take quite a few risks during the harvest as the forecast was always forecasting tremendous rain, rain that never came. When you are a team, you take risks compared to if you work on your own. We were supposed to have 80-100mm but we got just 2mm as the storms passed north, more towards Cognac. We conducted a gentle extraction as we were looking for elegance. You had to be very careful to obtain the right tannins otherwise they could be harsh and green. So we drained the vats after 18 days of cuvaison, with fewer pump-overs to obtain the minimum needed for colour, tannins, polyphenols etc. since the seeds were not ripe. We have not chaptalised and we have 13.2-13.8% alcohol with no vin de presse, which is quite unusual. We usually blend this before malolactic, before we found that the addition did not work. We did saignée for lots that had larger berries but nothing more than usual. It is a heterogenous vintage. We were trying to win battles against the conditions.”