The Karwig Wines's Blog

Wine in all its variety has been a shared passion for us as long as we care to remember. After spending more than half our lives traipsing the wine regions of Europe exploring this variety, we finally decided to try our own hand at contributing to it. 

pat neville of domaine aonghusa

 

In 2001 we bought 8ha of vines, a cellar/house and some garrigue (limestone scrubland) in the tiny village of Fontjoncouse in the Haut Corbieres area of southern France. We immediately set about re-equipping the cellar, pulling out the least interesting grape varieties / least suitable locations and replanting with quality orientated clones of Syrah and Grenache on low vigour rootstocks. More vines and land have since been bought, the house made habitable and the cellar workable. From 2006 there are around 11 Ha in production: 3.7Ha Carignan (45-103 year old vines) 3.4Ha Grenache (2.4Ha of 20-50 year old vines, the rest young vines), 3.7Ha Syrah ( 0.7 Ha are 20 year old vines, the rest young vines). 

Apart from seasonal work such as harvesting, we carry out all work in the vineyards, cellar and marketplace, making us a family run business in the true sense of the expression. Our aim is to produce high quality wines that reflect their origins – soils, grape varieties, exposure, climate and owners’ passion – in a given year. We try to produce our wines in the most natural way possible, with minimal interventions in the vineyards and cellar to ensure the quality of our products, but our approach is rational, not quasi-mystical nor ideologically driven. 

Fontjoncouse (‘Source of the rushes’) is a small picturesque/dilapidated (take your pick) village set in a ruggedly beautiful, unspoiled chunk of garrigue in the Haut Corbieres. Despite it’s relative isolation, the area has long been settled, and Celts Romans, Visigoths and Cathars have left visible traces here. Not far from the village there is a dolmen, in the same area there are the remains of a Roman villa and Visigothic church, and it is not unknown for tombs and ancient artifacts to be uncovered when vignerons deep plough for planting. 

The vines are planted on fossil strewn slopes at between 200 and 250 metres altitude. Soils and textures are varied: clay limestone, shale, scree are most common and sometimes occur in the same vineyard. In places the vines are planted almost directly into the mother rock, and struggle to gain a foothold. 

The climate in Fontjoncouse is hot, dry mediterranean modified by altitude. The altitude and water retaining capacity of the soils mean a longer growing season with important day night temperature differences as the fruit reaches maturity. The grape varieties planted here are typically Mediterranean: Grenache, Carignan, Syrah, Cinsaut and Lledonner Pelut. Some of the vines were planted as early as 1903, some 100 hundred years later. 

Our vineyard work is geared to producing high quality fruit in the most environmentally friendly way possible and yields can be as low as 20hl/ha. Treatments are limited to what’s necessary to avoid disease but our approach is based on common sense. In well established vines natural fauna is left to compete / cooperate with the vines and is generally is controlled by mulching and strimming. This sometimes result in ‘untidy’ looking but living vineyards. 

The grapes are harvested in small fruit baskets and are sorted in the vineyards. They are destemmed and slightly crushed and depending on the year and the sugar levels, the fermentations are carried out by wild or selected yeasts. In general, we tend to use selected yeasts if the sugar levels are very high. The fermentations take place at their at their own pace in the relatively cool cellar with daily pumping over and or cap submersion. In general our wines are aged half in barrels of different ages and size, half in vat. Again the percentages depend on the year and vat. Bottling usually takes place 12 – 28 months after the harvest. Our wines are sometimes lightly fined but are not filtered. 

The local terroir tends to give wines whose structure and alcohol are tempered by a ‘fraicheur’ or acidity and whose fruit and aromatic characteristics begin to develop after two years. They are wines that can be drunk with pleasure on release but which evolve in bottle over time. They can be drunk on their own but are best in company at the table. They can be enjoyed with a wide variety of foods and benefit from a vigorous decanting or 12 -24 hours gentle airing).

 If you liked the Domaine Aonghusa Laval ’05, you can check the rest of Pat’s wonderful range here 

Thanks again everyone for taking part in #twebt and thanks also to @brianclayton and @kevatfennsquay for asking us to take part. Look forward to the next #twebt !