Revealing the potential of the terroir

Ongoing efforts since 1962 have brought the wines of Château La Tour Carnet to a point of perfect expression of the qualities of its unique terroir. This drive for quality has accelerated since April 2000 thanks to the new owner, Bernard Magrez.
The cohesion of a team dedicated to perfectionism, plot-by-plot management, and respect for tradition associated with the most advanced techniques, are the guarantee of a new objective: to reveal the full potential of the terroir.

Cultivation

From planting to harvest
Achieving good wine quality begins with producing good grapes. From the planting stage, a thorough approach is essential not only for choosing a grape variety and a rootstock but also for maintenance, and a young plantation must be cared for like a garden. Then, throughout its whole life, the vine stock requires attention at all times.
Pruning, ploughing and actions undertaken on the vegetation (particularly leaf thinning and cluster thinning) obey the same concern for perfection.
Experienced winemakers practice the very strict “double Guyot” pruning method (two canes, called "astes" are kept). Only 3 buds per “aste” remain to reduce yields and increase quality.

Mastery of yields
Great wine can be produced only from vineyards with low yields. At Chateau La Tour Carnet, mastery of yields is paramount. Rigorous maintenance, adequate pruning and cluster thinning lead to small amounts of exceptionally concentrated grapes. Moreover, cluster thinning, which consists in removing the excess clusters, is performed in two phases so that the whole operation is extremely precise.
Leaf thinning (also performed in two stages) as well as increasing the height of the trellis help guarantee a harvest of good quality grapes. The production thus obtained is around 40 to 45 hectolitres on average per hectare.

The harvest
The grapes are harvested by hand at optimal maturity. Sometimes, only part of a row can be harvested while the remainder is picked a few days later, when the grapes reach perfect ripeness. This plot-by-plot management of the crop is specific to Château La Tour Carnet and requires great knowledge of the vineyard and an infallible organisation. The speed at which the numerous harvesters are able to intervene allows grape ripening to be optimised.

Once sorted by the pickers, the grapes are placed in small crates to minimise the risk of crushing the berries.

Vinification

The contents of the crates are carefully placed onto a sorting table. Undesirable debris (petioles, fragments of leaves, etc) and green or spoiled clusters are then removed. The grapes are then destemmed to separate the berries from the stems. Pressing is not performed systematically. They undergo another selection process on a new sorting table and are then placed in oak fermentation vats. Most of the vegetal material likely to induce "herbaceous" aromas is eliminated so as to produce the roundness characteristic of a Château La Tour Carnet wine.

From next year onwards, 50% of the Great Wine will be vinified in 18 wooden vats that will be replaced every four years. The rest will be placed in stainless steel vats.

The customary technique known as pumping-over will give way to hand-plunging (the action of pushing the “cap” into the juice to softly extract the desired elements (tannins, anthocyanes, polyphenols, etc...). The flow of the grapes by gravity, the use of wooden vats and hand-plunging are a return to the traditional methods used in the Medoc in days gone by. The purpose of these techniques is to obtain a complex silky wine, with powerful yet balanced tannins, and great aromatic persistence.

Fermentation temperatures never exceed 30 to 32 ° so as to facilitate the development of delicate aromas. Alcoholic fermentation takes place over 8-9 days. Maceration lasts three weeks. Free-run wines are separated from press wines. Malolactic fermentation takes place in in new oak barrels.

Aging

1500 new barrels are bought every year!
They receive the new vintage and are grouped together in the impressive amphitheatre-shaped cellars of Château La Tour Carnet.
The Great Wine stays in barrels for 18 months, 50% of which are new barrels. Vinified according to the same method as the first wine, Les Douves De Carnet, the second wine of Château La Tour Carnet has a round, pleasant and fruity structure, but is less intense than its illustrious partner and may also be tasted earlier.
"Les Douves De Carnet" is aged for about 15 months in barrels.
Racking is done very carefully, without pumping.
We use the traditional method of egg white fining.
A month before bottling, the wine is placed in vats again to ensure its homogeneity and then is blended, the final step that will reveal the vintage of Château La Tour Carnet.