2015 Saint Veran Lieu (Inter)dit

“It was a great vintage for those who harvested before September 3,” asserted Verget winemaker Julien Desplans. “We began on August 27 and there was a lot of concentration of the grapes during the last five days of August,” he went on. “We gained two degrees of potential alcohol over that period but there was also a gain in acidity owing to the evaporation of water. But the later pickers had a slight dilution of acidity as the temperatures cooled and they lost the positive effects of the concentrating wind from the south at the end of August.” Moreover, Desplans and co-owner Jean-Marie Guffens did not want to make wines with 15% alcohol; their highest, after the assemblages, is 14.2%. “There are a lot of high-alcohol, oaky wines in the region that taste like Cognac,” noted Desplans. “Undrinkable.”

Yields were mostly low but not too low in 2015, with the big parcels averaging between 45 and 50 hectoliters per hectare, according to Desplans, "but more like 35 in Saint-Véran and 40 in the best Pouilly vines.” The Verget team did not acidify in 2015, did not use press wine, and did not stir the lees, Desplans added. “It was a year for a tranquil vinification,” he explained, adding that the 2015s finished "quite dry."