Vinification of red wines at the Domaine du Père Caboche

  The harvest goes through the de-stemmer and the crusher, both located directly above the fermentation tanks, and falls in with gravity.
  The alcoholic fermentation starts under the influence of the yeast and lasts an average of a couple of days up to a month, depending on the wine and the grapes. This is where the transformation of sugar into alcohol takes place. At the same time, the maceration begins: the coloring substance and tannic elements of the skin spread into the fermenting must. Depending on the desired red wine, maceration will last more or less time. For a Vin de Pays, generally a week will be enough. But the red wines destined to ageing, especially the Châteauneuf du Pape, will need a longer maceration to get a good structure and a laying down potential.

 When we judge the maceration to be long enough, we start running off the wine. The tank is emptied, the wine separated from the marc, the solid parts of the grape still full of alcohol. This drained wine is called “free-run wine”. The marc is then manually racked off, and pressed to get the wine out. This is the “press wine”, richer in color and tannins. This press wine will be at first stored away from the free-run wine. Afterwards, depending on its quality and the kind of wine we look for, they will be assembled either immediately or later on.

 Following this step, a second fermentation starts under the action of bacteria. It is this malo-lactic fermentation that gives biological stability, gustatory evolution and wine maturity. When these steps are over, we can then proceed to the first blends, and the ageing of the wines in oak tuns and concrete tanks can begin.

Vinification of white wines at the Domaine du Père Caboche

 After picking, the harvest is directly pressed to get the juice out of the berry. There is no exchange at all between the solid parts and the juice itself during the vinification. The specificity of this vinification is the absence of maceration. Then, this clear juice separated from all impurity and solid parts will ferment, cold-decanting for a few hours, also called settling of the juice. This happens at low temperature, generally around 16°C. The ageing proceeds on thin lees in order to develop the richness of the wine. Most of the time, we stop the malo-lactic fermentation. The wine we obtain will be rapidly bottled to keep its freshness and aromas.

Vinification of rosé wines at the Domaine du Père Caboche

 To obtain a maximum of freshness and aroma intensity in our Vins de Pays and table wines, we have chosen direct pressing of the grapes. The idea is to fill up the pneumatic press with the grapes coming from the vineyard, so that the maceration only lasts the filling and pressing. We use a very soft press to keep a very light pink shade, and the juice we get will then be vinified with the same principles as the white wine.