Les Cimes

Château Clos Daviaud has a vineyard of 4 adjoining hectares located upon a clayey slope of great quality, in the Montagne Saint-Emilion appellation. The vineyard is planted with traditional grape varieties: 70% Merlot / 30% Cabernet Franc. The parcels involved in this specific “Cuvée Les Cimes” can only be found on the top of the hillside, offering an outstanding environment for complete maturity.
Given such ideal grapes, the vinification favours gentle extractions in order to make a full-bodied, balanced, powerful wine. Here again, maturation in barrel brings hints of complexity without spoiling the wine’s great expression of fruit.

Ownership : Banton & Lauret

Location : Parsac

A.O.C. : Montagne Saint-Emilion

Production : 5 000 bottles

Surface : 1 Ha selected out of 4 Ha

Geology : Clay subsoil

Orientation of rows : East - West, natural direction of slopes

Draining : Natural, thanks to slopes

Planted grape varieties : 70% Merlot / 30% Cabernet Franc

Average age of vineyard : 30 years

Pruning : Short - double Guyot

Planting density : 6 700 plants per hectare

Trellising type : High trellis to maximise the foliage surface

Operations on the ground : Grassing on 50% of rows, scraping on 50% of rows, no chemical weeding

Fertilization mode : Corrective supply of green manure after harvest

Vineyard protection : Reasoned - treatments are positioned according to vegetative stage and dosed according to the pressure of diseases

Green works : Thinning out new branches + topping and trimming + disbudding + base-disbudding + thinning out leaves on both sides of the row + 1-to-2 green harvests according to vintage

Harvests starting decision-making : Parcel analysis through tasting

Harvesting : By hand with grape bins

Operations on crop : Berry sorting table, then total destemming of grapes

Number of people at sorting : 6-8 people

Vats : Stainless steel and cement

Vathouse capacity : 75-to-150 hl + 50 hl modular vats

Vinification : Parcel-based, smooth extraction through fractionated pumping-overs + 1 délestage (gentle destructurising of the cap of solids)

Maceration : 30 days, micro-oxygenation below cap

Fermentation temperature : 26-30°C

Press wine operations : Separate ageing in one-year old barrels

Malolactic fermentation : 50% in barrels / 50% in vats

Maturing : 8-to-12 months

Ageing process : 50% in new oak barrels, micro-oxygenation, stirring of the lees, very few gentle rackings by gravity / 50% in one-year old barrels

Bottling preparation : Fining if necessary (fresh egg whites), slight sulphiting

Filtration : Loose filtration to respect the structure of the wine

Bottling : Château