The 2023 season got off to a good start in our vineyards before taking a turn for the worse from mid-May onwards: a succession of heavy rainfalls left us little opportunity to apply organic treatments to the vines. These conditions encouraged downy mildew throughout the South-West, and we were not spared, resulting in a significant loss of harvest. Our plots on the plateau (1/4 of our surface area), which drain better and are more exposed to the winds, benefited from better sanitary conditions and were able to produce a decent harvest.
After these setbacks, a very hot August brought ripening to a standstill, meaning that the sugar content of the grapes stopped increasing or progressed very slowly. We followed this development carefully to trigger the harvest, but this situation meant that the harvesting of our different plots of vines was spread over am unusually long period of 6 weeks ! On the positive side, the work in the cellar was not too rushed.
All in all, this vintage was not very generous in terms of quantity, but of good quality, with correct but not excessive ripeness. We're very pleased with the results for both the white and rosé wines. The staggering of the harvest has enabled us to produce 2023 red wines with very different characteristics: a light, very 'red fruit' style, to be found in our Le Fruit cuvée; a style with intermediate maturity and tannins, which will become our Rouffiac Malbec cuvée; and a very ripe style with good density, which will form the basis of our Tradition cuvée, matured in barrels, and En Jarre, which will be matured in 600-litre amphorae.
The Château de Rouffiac team