Barrique d'Or Saint Albert Priam & Dupouts 2014

We have always worked the vineyard as a family – brothers and spouses together – and we couldn’t imagine doing it any other way! And this is precisely how we worked on this parcel of Petit Manseng, planted in 1984, which is our pride and joy. We prune using the Double Guyot system leaving eight buds per cane – and when people ask if eight is not rather a lot, we answer, that once all the secondary buds have been removed (leaving only the primary buds); and that the head of the vine has been cleaned of all shoots; and that scrupulous bunch-thinning has taken place in the spring, only the very best of the vine is left. Obviously all these jobs are done by hand and end with the successive selective pickings of grapes during a manual harvest which units everyone - children, nephews, nieces. Harvest days always come to an end around long, unforgettable meals by a roaring fire – which was exactly how the late November day of a third and final exceptional picking ended.