THE ESTATE

The Winery

Wine production has essentially four stages.

  1. Harvesting & destemming
  2. Fermenting in temperature controlled vats
  3. Aging for 22 months in new French oak barrels
  4. Bottling, storing, labelling and crating

Taking these steps into consideration, we designed a temperature controlled underground structure with four levels. The wine flows by gravity from one step to the next, suitably leaving little need for pumps.

State of the art destemmers and sorters prevent injury to the stems, while keeping the berries intact, allowing for an extended, three to four week-long ‘skin contact (Maceration). Since 2012 La Tour Melas has been using open top 225 Litre barrels to ferment the wine. Fermentation in the barrel adds intense aromas to the must and berries. This helps integrate the wood and creates a round wine with extended finish.

The wine flows directly from the vats into the barrels, and then to the bottles. We do not use filters (fining). The gravity flow is gentle and causes no bubbles. Oak barrels for aging are supplied by Seguin Moreau, Saury, Darnajou, and Taransaud. La Tour Melas has 90% new barrels every year.

Bottling is done by hand, and correct corking requires repeated inspection of each cork during the process. The bottles rest thereafter in our underground cellars for at least 6 months prior to shipping.