Presentation of the Estate

« It's always difficult to begin a new life, especially in some age not to say certain age. My academic years prepared me neither to work the grapevine, nor to make wine, even less to sell it. Despite everything that, I want to express all happiness which I feel to survey my grapevines and to satisfy me in the cellar of the smell of grape harvests. This feeling of fullness and pride, largely exceeds simple technical satisfaction. It returns me to my ancestors who cultivated this ground, transmitted it to me, so that in my turn, I leave it to what follow me. Here is in which spirit I got involved and my feeling at the end of two years of wine existence.»

Charles Janbon

Field
Saint Michel
Archange

The birth of the estate was the fruit of a meeting between a doctor passionate in vine-growing and a farmer esperienced and eager to promote a quality production.


Charles JANBON The estate is a family good put in working in particular cellar by the will of the owner. Charles JANBON was during 35 years professor at Medical College of Montpellier. Its orientation in vascular pathology enabled him to arrest the effects of wine and of Mediterranean mode on health in general and vascular pathology especilly.

His ties in Aude come by far, since the maternal branch of its family arrived at Bize around 1680. It's therefore a return to sources, to earth mother and also a valorization of family heritage in the objective of a transmission to future generations.

in the middle of
the cathare area

The whole of the field is located in Aude, between the borders of the Narbonese plain and the first escarpments of the Black Mountain.

We are here in full cathare area, hard and wild. Grapevines benefit from a dry climate, swept by Cers, powerful northerly wind, attenuated by the wet air of the Mediterranean.

For the majority, they are on a argilo calcareous ground and rolled pebbles. Some are in terrace on the slopes exposed to the South. The cultivated grape varieties remain traditional for the area : a majority of old carignan (old grapevines 40 years old of age) a plot of Grenache and Syrah planted on stones of the slope. The whole estate includes 15 hectares among which more than 5 are vinified on particular cellar. Culture preserves environment and output is voluntarily limited to 35 hectolitre by hectare thanks to an adequate size.

Grape Harvest

Grape harvest is made in a traditional way, at the hand, for these plots. Wine production is made in an old redeveloped cellar.

Les caves We chose vats deliberately in concrete for to ba able to practice the carbonic maceration. Aging in new oak barrels is performed forone year for the special reserve : Joséphine. The grape varieties of ols carignan, grenache and syrah are put together in a variable way for different productions.