2020, the mirror year, is also the golden number of this rare vintage -one of perfect proportion and ideal harmony. It evokes at the same time the cyclical time of the vine and its work, an ideal of balance and that duality, undergone, overcome and sublimated, which characterises it.
Angélus takes you through the different stages of the vine cycle via a series of photos of a single Cabernet Franc vine. This series, entitled “A Cabernet Franc Story”, will be sent out on a monthly basis until the end of the year.
After 7 months of sur lie aging our teams carry out Château Angélus 2019 vintage first soutirage or racking.
Naturally antioxidant, the lees from the malolactic fermentation have played their protective role and are no longer needed.
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“This 2019 vintage turned out to be easier to manage than the 2018, which was a vintage that ended up superbly but which caused worries and tensions.
In the ongoing search for greater precision, Angélus regularly enhances the quality of its work in the vineyard. We spoke to you last spring about the implementation of TED, the over-the-row tractor robot, and then in the summer of the usefulness of seeds sown in the vineyard. For this winter, the focus is on pruning work.
At Angélus, the harvest began with the grapes from the young plantations on 18th September and, for questions of alcohol/acidity balance, on Monday 23rd for the Merlot. The water reserves that had built up during the spring proved vital for this summer, which shifted gear as from the first days of July. It was a surprising, hot, dry and sunny summer, which seemed to go on and on. A summer in which Angélus's great clay-limestone terroirs behaved in an amazing way, enabling a regular supply of moisture to the vines.
Since its arrival at the beginning of the year, the autonomous over-the-row robot “TED” has changed a great deal. Over the last three months, TED has made great progress, both technologically and agriculturally, thanks to constant support from Naïo and to Angélus’s expertise.
For several years now, Angélus has been fully committed to sustainable vine-growing practices and to increasing its range of viticultural methods. In line with this undertaking, our teams have been seeding different plant species in the vineyard, and this year common vetch, green pea and secale sylvestre have been sown in inter-rows that are usually ploughed. Commonly used in vine-growing, seeds are an additional agronomic lever supporting the work carried out by our vineyard crew throughout the year.