Thibault Despagne
I had the opportunity to meet Thibault, his family and the folks at Despagne through CRUSHPAD Bordeaux who make their white wine blends there. Despagne is primarily known in the region for their fine white Bordeaux blends of Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc. However, it is their Girolate red wine and the techniques employed that are of particular interest to me.Just 12km south of Saint Emilion, in Naujan et Postiac, is where Despagne’s Girolate is painstakingly crafted. On a 10ha parcel of clay and limestone are densely planted, ultra-low yielding, single-cluster-per-cane spur-trained Merlot vines (Cordon de Royat or Chablis if memory serves?) yielding small, highly-concentrated berries. So, it stands to reason that, after expending much care and effort in the vineyard, it should be no surprise the lengths that Thibault and his team will go to produce an intriguing, premium wine.
Double-Barrel Filling Station
While the rest of the Merlot fruit from Bordeaux is being “pinched” and herded en masse into 25-45hl stainless steal tanks, the berries that will yield Girolate remain whole and are gently placed into 225l new oak barrels. The benefits of early oak integration during red wine barrel fermentation to produce greater complexity does have its drawbacks. It becomes more challenging to control fermentation temperatures and for cap management.
So, the chock full o’berries barrels are immediately ushered in to a nearby cold room for a brief soak and settling. Once all the barrels have been filled, they are inoculated for alcoholic fermentation and transferred to a climate controlled cellar necessary to properly manage fermentation temperatures. Caps are managed, not through offensive punch-downs, pump-overs or rack-and-returns, but a gentle turn of the barrel in the OXOline rack system.
OXOline Rack System
Top-ups are then performed from the fermenting fruit from neighboring barrels. This, of course, would indicate that it now takes two (2) oak barrels of fruit for every one (1) barrel of wine that is produced. Not accounting for the additional labor cost, this adds approximately €2 per bottle in material costs. Better results always carry an associated luxury cost.
2005 Girolate
You are most likely thinking, “This is nice and all, but what is the wine like?” and “How much does it cost?”. My tasting notes and experience are below and a quick wine-searcher.com search indicates that the 2005 Girolate can be had in the US between $75-100. It reportedly sells for several times that in Asia.
Tasting Notes:
This wine is loonnnggg. Although initially restrained to exhibiting red and black berry aromas, it eventually opened up to offer scents of white pepper, cedar and a bit of green olive. The acidity and alcohol (14.5%) were in harmony with the soft, long tannins. Besides having a long, smooth finish, it was quite full bodied as one could tell by looking at it that it was most likely unfined as well as unfiltered. I was advise by Despagne to hold this wine for a while but I couldn’t resist and wasn’t willing to risk transport back to the US. I am sure that it will continue to age nicely over the next few years, however, I believe that it is drinking quite well right now.
A special thank you to Thibault and everyone at Despagne for allowing me to witness a unique winemaking process and trying an exceptionally unique wine..
Below is a collection of photos from Despagne. Enjoy.
