" Guigniers de Centeilles"

Guigniers de Centeilles

Technical data

Vatting in old open wooden vats, treading of the cap of grape skins, immediate running -off into second - -or third-year barrels and a variable maturing period in a partially underground cellar. this is the only part play in building this marvellous grape variety, the Pinot Noir Fin, which at Centeills pratically leads itself.

About Guigniers

"Guigniers de Centeilles" is a Vin de Pays des Côtes du Brian and comes from the village of Trausse-Minervois whose life up until very recently still, literally evolved round the cultivation of "guignes" (morello cherry in "langue d'oc"); the terrible June wind, so dangerous for the fragile shoots of the young plants, is called the "wind of the guignes" because it comes at the time of full ripeness of the cherries. In fact, up until very recently, the cultivation of the guigniers was a major agricultural speculation in this commune, finding interesting outlets in supplying local confectioners. So the cherry tree is part of the physical and cultural countryside around Trausse, where several orchards still being cultivated, as well as the shoots from old plantations that still reappear everywhere, demarcate terroirs which have a natural vocation for viticulture or arboriculture.
The Pinot Noir fin, which constitues the basis of this cuvée, is a varietal which has been present in the Languedoc since the 18th and 19th centuries, proof of which is given by viticultural literature from those periods. A fact which, one might add, makes the peremptory assertions of certain so-called purists rather dangerous, in that they are trying to determine whether such and such a grape variety in a particular location is autochtonal or imported....
Ampelographical history (the history of the vine) is a difficult science!

Our first vinification of Pinot from the Minervois dates back to 1974. At the time it was harvested on the estate of our regretted master and friend, Jacques Tallavignes, to whom the Languedoc owes he very first premonitory innovations as far as the regional grape varieties is concerned, back in the early 1960's. So we have no longuer been looking for that intrinsic aromatic typicity (what typicity, in fact?) of a variety that everyone knows to be unpredictable, fickle and elusive. The aim is not form in the Haut-Minervois does not betray its varietal origins.
Therefore the "Guigniers" cuvée is not presented under the anonymous label of "varietal wine" (in the full institutional meaning that this expression now has) but its in is on the contrary the faithful expression of a terroir replanted with Pinot as early as 1977.

Personality

"(...) My favourite cuvée is the one made from Pinot Noir fin, the "Guigniers de Centeilles". Here i find the charm of well matured grapes, expressing the soil, and the fine signature of the domaine. A brillant wine now, and which could age for 4 to 5 years with no problem. I drank it with a thick tuna steak, soft and melting in the mouth like the tannins of this wine.

Serve at around 15°C ( 1 hour in the vegetable compartment of the refrigerator).

"Le tour de France des Grands Vins à Petits Prix" Eric Mancio, sommelier at the restaurant Guy Savoy.