Hairy Grenache 2018

This is grenache but not as you know it! 

It's here - the long awaited new vintage of Hairy Grenache 2018.  This is our second vintage of 100% Lledoner Pelut aka hairy grenache and it's every bit as hairy as last years!  

We love it - it has delicious raspberry and strawberry fruit on the nose and such a delightful smoothness in the mouth.  It is perfect for summer barbecues and when you prefer a slightly lighter glass of red.  The other day we enjoyed a glass with the local dish - Boules de Picolat - which are meatballs in a tomato sauce and it went perfectly - we also tried it with a young local goat's cheese and it was so good we carried on drinking it with our fresh strawberry dessert.  That wasn't quite as good but I bet it's great with a dark chocolate dessert. 

Our little secret for this wine is to only leave the skins in the juice for 4 days before pressing and leaving the fermentation to finish without the skins.  This way you get all the fruit flavour but without the dryness of the tannins.  It took us a while to understand this grape but now we know how to treat it it is rapidly turning into my favourite grape.  You could say we've found the perfect hairstyle for our Lledoner Pelut.

Grenache - but not as we know it!

At Domaine Jones, we’re not afraid to do things differently and we don’t mind standing out from the crowd.  We do not follow trends, we start them, and I know we have raised an eyebrow or two in the village by turning something of an underdog grape into a Crufts champion!

You may remember that a couple of years ago I bought a vineyard planted with Lledoner Pelut - aka Hairy Grenache - so called because of the soft down on its leaves.  In 2015 we tried making the wine - you can read about it here:

A short back and sides for the hairy grenache
A history of the Lledoner Pelut in Tuchan

but after the harvest, I went rather quiet as we were disappointed with the results.  Last year we thought we'd have another go but we did it differently.

We have also let our imagination run wild and created a unique label with a quirky cartoon style that wraps around the bottle and really does tell a story.

So, what does it taste like then? Well, as you might imagine, it is close in style and flavour profile to its more mainstream cousin, but in general makes for a paler coloured red wine, but still with plenty of fruit and a lighter structure. Some say as it ages (we are yet to see)  there is a hint of Burgundian Pinot Noir about it. 

There is not much Lledoner Pelut around at all and my 1000 bottles were snapped up as quickly as you can say Hairy Grenache.  I do have a couple of cases put to one side for members of the Domaine Jones Wine Club and visitors to the Domaine.  But I'm getting back out into that vineyard to start combing those leaves for next years vintage.

A history of Lledoner Pelut in Tuchan

The Lledoner Pelut is a very old grape variety dating back to the middle ages and was probably imported from Spain by pilgrims on their way to Saint Jacques de Compostelle.  

It is a very rare grape variety in Tuchan but there was a peak in the 70's and 80's when planting Grenache Noir was restricted in favour of the Lledoner Pelut!  This was an attempt to limit the production of a wine called Rivesaltes.

Rivesaltes is a very sweet, mainly red dessert wine made from Grenache Noir.   The name comes from a village in the Roussillon but Rivesaltes can also be made in Tuchan. In fact in all villages that produce Fitou.

Growers in Tuchan planted Grenache Noir to produce Rivesaltes but also Fitou, their traditional red wine.  Sales of Rivesaltes slumped so to try to stabilise the market the Union of Rivesaltes Producers and the INAO in Paris limited planting rights of Grenache Noir but were more generous with planting rights for Lledoner Pelut.  Lledoner Pelut – the poor cousin of Grenache Noir - couldn’t be used for the production of Rivesaltes, only Fitou.

Lledoner Pelut didn’t really take off with the growers in Tuchan.  It was from the same family as the Grenache Noir but it had hairy leaves which made it particularly attractive to tiny red spiders. It easily became infested causing the leaves to dry out.  It was later ripening than the Grenache so needed to be left on the vine longer to ripen but was also more susceptible to grey rot - not a great combination!  The potential alcohol is also less  - meaning if you are in a Cooperative you get paid less.   So all in all not a storming success!!  

The name hairy Grenache comes from these hairs
on the back of the leaves which spiders absolutely love

The Union of Rivesaltes Producers soon realised that this small measure of replacing Grenache with Lledoner wasn’t enough to regulate the over supply of Rivesaltes so it was abandoned a couple of years later – much to the delight of growers in Tuchan who consequently ripped most of it up!

We wait with great anticipation (and a little fear) to see what our first harvest of low yielding Lledoner Pelut will bring!!