- Description
- The Bee-Side is our second label wine, made from 100% Grenache. Much of the fruit now comes from Jean-Marc Lafage’s Grenache vines, blended with a barrel or two of our oak-aged 'pale red' from the Domaine of the Bee vines. The result is a bright, juicy, 'smashable' wine ideally served lightly chilled.
- Eyes
- A bright yet pale pinkish red.
- Nose
- Gentle, herbal, fragrant red fruit - wild strawberries and griotte cherries.
- Mouth
- Deliciously drinkable and juicy - a joyous young Grenache with a riot of succulent, crunchy cranberry fruit and a savoury freshness that immediately calls for another glass.
- Body
- medium
- Winemaking notes
- Every year, some barrels turn out lighter than others, and sometimes we bleed juice from our Grenache to concentrate the flavours. We collect the juice, now a pale red, and ferment it without the skins. Then we blend a barrel or two with some of Jean-Marc's Grenache, some of which was fermented with 'whole bunches', and the rest with some carbonic maceration, as they do in Beaujolais. The result is a delicious, gluggable red.
- Growing Conditions
- A very wet winter was extremely welcome, as it topped up the ground water, and meant that there were plenty of reserves to draw on later in the year when the drought started to bite. The flowering period was very calm, warm and dry, and as a result, our Grenache cropped well. The summer was both hot and dry, but the dry period was more extended, with very little rain in between the end of April and the middle of August. We were worried for our vines, but their deep roots found sufficient water, and enough light rain in late August and September allowed the final ripening to happen perfectly for the reds
