At Château Le Bon Pasteur, we sometimes have to fill fermentation vats, even small ones, with grapes that we know have different potentials. So, for the past several years, we have been fermenting grapes in barrel – a truly artisanal technique – which showed us that we could produce wines with different characteristics even with grapes from the same plot, and then ferment them according to their exact profile.

We needed two things to do this: the right equipment and the right people

We made sure to have both at Château Le Bon Pasteur in 2008.

We focused on separately fermenting wines from each specific part of the vineyard to obtain the best from each one in order to fine tune the final blend.

Fermentation in barrel means that once the grapes have been sorted by hand, approximately 250 kg are put into barrel. This enables us to precisely adjust winemaking, to adapt to “plots within plots”, and to harvest even very small quantities of grapes – the top quality on a given day.

Whole grape fermentation and extraction are enhanced by turning the barrels manually. We carry out this, and all other winery operations, meticulously in order to achieve the results we are looking for.

The wine is usually left on the skins for a long time: 25-30 days without moving the barrel whatsoever, and 40-60 days altogether.

Fermentation takes place exclusively with indigenous yeast.

The advantage of vinification intégrale is that fermentation is extremely well-focused and the fruit is handled in a gentle, totally non-mechanical way.

The disadvantage is that one ends up with a multitude of small lots. However, the challenge in blending is well worth the gain in quality.