May and June are very busy months in the vineyard. Everything grows
very quickly, and it’s a daily battle to keep on top of things. To
better understand first hand, we spent a day with the winemaker at
Château Coutet for a Discovery Experience Day. These hands-on wine
experience days are designed to get involved in the work at the winery,
and learn about all the work in the vineyard by the winemaker to produce
the best grapes possible come harvest time.
Adrien, one of the owners and winemakers at the winery, welcomed us with a coffee and croissant. Benoît, the Gourmet Odyssey win expert, introduced us to the programme of this great day that we would spend together in this beautiful Bordeaux winery.
We listened attentively as Adrien presented the history of his family’s tenure of the vineyards and winery at Château Coutet, which goes back over 400 years. He is a very passionate winemaker, full of unusual and interesting stories regarding the region and his winery.
We headed out for a walk through the different terroir of the winery to better understand this prestigious wine appellation and the different grape varietals grown at Château Coutet, each with their own distinctive leaf.
For example, cabernet franc leaves close at the top to create a hole, whereas the malbec leaves are open with a u-shape at the top.
At the top of the hill, we admired the magnificent view over the Dordogne valley, and started to learn about the work in the vineyard from pruning through to the work currently being carried out. It’s a complicated job!
The Gourmet Odyssey adopted vines are located close to where we were, also on Saint-Emilion’s limestone plateau, one of the best vineyards of the appellation. We each found our adopted vines thanks to a slate nameplate that had been put in front. We took a few minutes to take some photographs of our vines and the surrounding rolling vineyards.
We then passed by the vineyard where the grapes are grown for the wonderful Demoiselle wine that we had the chance to taste at lunchtime. It was then time to get down to some work, and see what being a winemaker is really like! At the moment, the vines need to be de-budded to keep just the branches that are best positioned on the vines and those that will produce the fruit for the coming harvest. It’s a long and difficult job, but one that is very important.
Back on the lawn in front of the château, we enjoyed a well earned aperitif of a lovely white wine made by Adrien’s cousin in the Entre-Deux-Mers wine-growing region, the Vertige wine from Château Le Grand Verdus. We then sat down for lunch and continued the tasting with wines from the winery. The 2020 Château Coutet was paired with the foie-gras starter, followed by the 2018 Demoiselles with the duck main course. There is a complexity and length to this wine that admirably represents some of the mythical Saint-Emilion wines, and it’s one that will only get better with time.
After lunch, Adrien talked about the benefits and difficulties in nurturing the vines organically. He also explained the work left to do in the vineyard between and now and the harvest, of which we’ll learn more about during the Gourmet Odyssey Harvest Experience Days.
The day finished with a visit of the fermentation hall, which is one of the most rustic in Saint-Emilion, and the family cellar where the old vintage wines are stored, the oldest dating back to 1945!
Many thanks to Adrien for his passionate recounting of life at the winery and giving us a really interesting insight into his job as a winemaker.
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