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Chateau Gazin - Nicolas and Christophe de Bailliencourt dit Courcol
 The
2004 harvest at Chateau Gazin -
Pomerol - is over
We just finished, at Chateau Gazin the job on October 12th, with the
Cabernet
Sauvignon. The
Merlots had been picked up from September 22nd up to October 4th. Nowadays we can talk a little bit more about the quality of the
vintage… And this quality could be outstanding, in
Pomerol !
Indeed, due to a lot of heavy rains, in August at Chateau Gazin, we feared that 2004 could have been a disaster. Not at all !! The weather conditions during the first week of September
at Chateau Gazin were splendid. And since then we have had terrific sunny and sometimes summer conditions, excepted on September 23rd and October 12th. As the wine specialists know it the quality of a
vintage not only relies on August weather conditions – even if this period is crucial – but also on September. Today it is raining cats and dogs… but we don’t care.
The Merlots look very
ripe,
sweet and
fat at Chateau Gazin. The colour, very easy to
extract,
is black. A lot of
sweet fresh fruit and gingerbread fragrances fill in the vat room as the
cellar master pumps over the vats… The Cabernets are
fruity. The tannins are
ripe. The heavy proportion of pips in the grains at
Chateau Gazin will involve a short
maceration period to avoid any
bitterness
As for Gazin, the first vats of
Merlot have
already been racked and the wine has started its
malolactic
fermentation in casks. The wine at Chateau Gazin will reach a natural 13
alcoholic degree.
The success of this 2004
vintage at Chateau Gazin which could make a splendid wine, was achieved thanks to the work we have done in the
vineyard during the July and August months. The
yield was over 100
hectolitres per
hectare
at Chateau Gazin, early July, due to a good blossom period, in June, and following two half-yield vintages, in 2003 and 2002 (respectively 25 and 28 hl). In 2004, mother nature compensated its gift.
At Chateau Gazin we loaded down the vines by 50%, and removed
the leaves to easy the air circulation and the sun exposure:
very costly operations indeed, in terms of manpower, but
decisive ones, in 2004. In 2004 our
yield should not exceed 45 hl per
hectare.
Presently at Chateau Gazin, the difficulty will be to convince the consumers that a heatwave plus a drought, in August 2003, do not necessarily mean a great wine and that some rains, in August 2004, do not necessarily involve a poor quality wine.
Further more it could be the contrary… 2003 was The
vintage of the century, the journalists said. What are they going to write in 2004?
Nicolas and Christophe de Bailliencourt dit Courcol, Chateau
Gazin
http://www.chateau-gazin.com/
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