Spring began with very mild, even unusually warm temperatures and a rainfall deficit in April and May. An exceptionally sunny June provided perfect conditions for flowering, followed by 60 mm of rain in the middle of the month. The weather remained nice until the longed for rainfalls (without strong thunderstorms) in the middle of August. The vineyards were enjoying perfect health and despite of some rainfalls early September, the grapes ripened under best conditions.

Picking of white grapes began on September 15^th, the reds followed on September 24^th. Crops were still healthy with moderate sugar contents (13.5% vol. on an average) and gave us balanced and mineral wines, full of promises. A vintage with great potential.

Le Cedre Goes Prowein
After Millésime Bio and Vinisud, the first wine fairs of the year, we are now looking forward to meet you at Europe’s largest wine event, Pro Wein in Düsseldorf, between the 13^th and 15^th of March. As usual, at our booth in Hall 12 / B06, together with ACCENTS & TERROIRS, you may have a look at the classic wine range of the winery from the 2012 vintage, all with organic certification: Château du Cèdre, Le Cèdre, GC and Le Cèdre Malbec Vintage.

You may also discover the 2015 vintage “en primeur” and taste some more confidential wines, such as the Cahors Extra Libre 2015 without sulphites (available in September) and the Château du Cèdre blanc 2015 (available in July).

Looking forward to meet you,
Sincerely
Jean-Marc and Pascal Verhaeghe

Seven years - that’s a good moment to taste a wine, which can be stored for 10 to 15 years. Halftime. The first half of the game is up, time to make a point and to develop a strategy for the upcoming years: drink soon or continue ageing?

2009 applies as a sunny vintage, perfectly reflecting in the bouqet this blend of 90% Malbec and 5% Merlot and Tannat. Powerful and exuberant, the aroma of black cherries, mint and bay leaf seems to jump right out of the glass... Completed by hints of raspberrie marmelade and the smell of fresh pastries, I would characterize it as a “winter fragrance”,.

On the palate, sweet spices are showing up, emphasizing the gentlemanlike character of the wine: straight, fresh and smooth. The tannins seem to have been tamed by time, friendly tickling the palate. They accompany the wine on the long, fresh final, gaining in strength and depth. Mint flavors leave a fresh aftertaste. Enjoy it from 2016 to 2021.

FOOD MATCHES FOR HERBIVORES: Try a gratin of root vegetables (carrots, potatoes, parsnips) or serve the wine as an aperitif with lukewarm vegetable chips (parsnip, carrot and beetroot!).

FOOD MATCHES FOR CARNIVORES: Simple and tasty dishes, such as a calf Kottelet with red wine sauce or a steak with juniper butter. And sauté potatoes!

You’ll find us together with our friends from “La Java du Sud-Ouest”: Hall B2 in lane C number 76.

Looking forward to meet you!

The always-colourful wines, made of ideally ripe, selected grapes, have attained an infrequent level of quality and regularity. Tannins are of seductive velvetiness, and ageing of the wines is done with skills and mastery.

The Cahors 2012 has stared a nice, classic evolution, always conducted by fine tannins. Accurate extraction for the Cèdre 2012, concentrated and long, with smooth tannins. Marked with black fruit and chocolate flavours, GC 2012 asks some years of his ageing to ripen and to fully deliver its fine texture. Le Cèdre Malbec Vintage, crispy and palatable will perfectly match with blue cheese.

From the “Guide des Meilleurs Vins de France 2016” - Revue du Vin de France

Balanced and healthy soils are the basis of any healthy and sustainable agriculture. A truism that one, however, had to rediscover in a more or less painful way in the last décades. This puts an end to the false promises of the “glorious”, chemical sixties! Many have understood: We have to take care of our soils. You have to protect and cherish them, so they can live on. Because soils, these piles of stones and dirt, may even die ...

“Agriculture has literally to go back to its roots and must become aware of the importance of healthy soils ...”, writes the FAO on its website. Soils are actually very complex, vibrant ecosystems that serve to a variety of functions, bringing benefits to the cultures that we plant on them. Being a reservoir for water and minerals, it’s bares also to a large variety of organisms: bacteria, fungi, insects and even mammals. All together they form a symbiotic system with the roots, improve the soil structure and contribute to a healthy and harmonious plant production. Soils are self-sustaining, open ecosystems that basically do not need the provision of man.

From the moment on men decide to cultivate a soil, they bring the system out of balance. This is not least due to crop harvesting, taking away a part of the ecosystem. It has long been believed that this imbalance could be adjusted with the help of chemical fertilizers and a massive application of weed killers and pesticides, to clean up the fields from the “parasitic nature”. This was believed to be the right path, since chemical fertilizers achieve spectacular growth results within short time.

HOGWASH! The excessive supply of nitrogen makes plants large but weak, the soils losing their porosity and their water retention capacity. Finally, this will kill the system… This imbalance may be hardly corrected. But there is an alternative, without necessarily getting back to prehistoric wilderness. On the contrary, the alternative to chemistry usually requires much more efforts and considerations.

“We use no more weed killers since the nineties,” explains Jean-Marc Verhaeghe, vineyard manager at Château du Cèdre in Cahors.
“We control the growth of wild herbs with a plough, inter-vine hoes and mowing. This has proven to be very beneficial to our vineyards. The vines have driven their roots further down, the weeds improve soil porosity favouring the infiltration of rainwater. In addition, evaporation and erosion are reduced, and biodiversity in the soils and the vines increase.”

Yves Gras has enriched his soils with a special carbon-containing compost. Ten tons per hectare! The compost brings organic material into the soil and increases its water retention capacity. Not a luxury in the hot Mediterranean part of the Rhône Valley, where are his vineyards.

Hubert Soreau also stopped using weed killers, taking considerable risks in his Chardonnay growing Clos l’Abbé in the Champagne south of Épernay. For grasses and herbs may increase the risk of frost in spring, which may sometimes nip the entire harvest in the bud. But his vines seem to be grateful with a more natural life, giving him fully ripe grapes for already several years, a basis for its full-bodied and amazingly complex champagne.

Let’s save time on the colour of this pure Malbec. It is, of course, pitch black... What else?

On the other hand, the bouquet deserves a little more attention. Its freshness is striking, remaining autumn: forest floor, mushrooms, some dried fruit and sour cherry. Being “a true wine to age” and “wine of patience”, it takes its time to open up and would not mind a carafe, despite his advanced age. If you are without a carafe, I recommend to open the wine two to three hours before serving, so that it has time to fully develop its fragrances.

The sour cherries stay, while the forest floor and mushrooms withdraw, leaving the arena to a large variety of spices (pepper, cedar, laurel), black fruits (blackberries, cassis), dried fruits (figs, hazelnuts) and a hint of biscuit. What impressed me most about this bouquet, is not only the great diversity of flavors emerging from the glass, but its continuous change of nuances.

On the palate things are getting serious. The mouth stays quiet when facing the stunning minerality and the impressive bataillon of tannins. Don’t worry, they are very polite and courteous, behaving with delicacy and finesse. No hardness, no dryness! I must admit, that they are in very good company of a pleasant mouthfeel and enchanting flavors ...

Excellent, or rather monumental in its current constitution, the wine leaves no doubt about the fact that it still has an impressive aging potential. An enjoyable promise for the upcoming years!

FOOD MATCHES FOR CARNIVORES: This wine is a true duck hunter! With morels, with honey and thyme or why not in its far eastern “Beijing” variant with basmati rice and some sauteed eggplant and shitake mushrooms? More classical: veal with red wine sauce, mashed potatoes with truffles and red cabbage.

FOOD MATCHES FOR HERBIVORES: Keep the mashed potatoes with truffles and use them to make a vegetarian “Hachis Parmentier”. Another proposal: ravioli stuffed with Parmesan cream, fried oyster mushrooms, sweet onions and sundried tomatoes.

Dear friends,

a few days before harvest, we would like to share some thoughts about the vintage 2014, a crucial year in our wine production. During the last harvest, we fermented several tanks and even some barrels of the Cuvée GC without addition of sulphur. Approximately 70% of our grapes were transformed into wine by natural yeasts through this vinification “without safety net”. Today, almost twelve months later, the reaction of the wines is still surprising: The expressiveness of the fruit is amazing, the grapes dominate everything.

Added sulphur acts like an antibiotic, standardizing the wines. We started our experiments with sulphur-free wine making already in 2004. It’s above all a learning process, not only in the cellar, but also in the vineyard, as only healthy and balanced grapes, here from organic farming, allow making choices.

Breaking free from sulphur under appropriate precautions opens new perspectives of wine quality. One discovers an unsuspected range of aromas (sulphur covers the flavours), tannins of great delicacy and a large ageing potential, because everything has been done to give the wines a natural resistance to oxidation. In addition, the wines seem to be much more digestible.

The balance of the first decade of sulphur-free winemaking is very positive and encouraging. The vintage 2014 even gave us the possibility to produce a first, new sulphur-free wine. A Cahors “Extra Libre” (Extra free) that will be available from October. A truly charming, elegant and soft wine, made from the same vineyards as the “classic” Château du Cèdre. A wine that encourages us to continue on the path we choose over the next few years, towards ever-lower sulphur addition in all our wines.

We wish you a pleasant autumn,
Sincerely yours,

Pascal and Jean-Marc Verhaeghe