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Kees Terberg | all galleries >> All of this and nothing... >> Monbazillac > Autumn
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10-OCT-2008

Autumn

The "vendange a la main", or manual harvest. Proof that even in October it can be nice in France...

The white grapes in this region are harvested by hand for one simple reason. These vines bare the fruits for three different ranges of wine and the right grapes need to be picked at the right time for each type of wine. The first pick selects the ripest, freshest fruit; generally called the "green grape". These are perfect grapes that have not or hardly been affected by the noble rot. The grapes planted here are susceptible to this type of rotting process due to the morning mist banks and the sunny afternoons. This fungus is known to dehydrate grapes and convert acids into sugars. For the dry white wines the grapes with a good acidity content are picked. For the moelleux; semi sweet, extra ripe wines are selected and the noble rot will not harm the taste at all... but the noble rot leaves grapes with a very low yield... but an intensely rich flavour. The last pick of the fruits is around the middle of November, when the frost takes over from the fog and the rain replaces the sunshine. The grapes need to be dry and wrinkled like raisins and many of them are required for a single bottle of wine. This kind of explains why the cost of a Monbazillac desert wine is higher than a dry white picked from the same vines.

Canon EOS 1D Mark II
1/320s f/9.0 at 510.0mm iso400 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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