Domaine Jones Les Parcelles Vieilles Vignes Blanc

Description

Domaine Jones Les Parcelles Vieilles Vignes Blanc is a white wine from the Languedoc-Roussillon. It is a blend of Grenache Gris, Macabeu, Muscat and Grenache Blanc. Only 3,000 bottles were produced.

Domaine Jones is owned and run by Katie Jones. Katie was the Sales and Marketing Director for the Mont Tauch co-operative in the Languedoc for nearly twenty years until she fell in love with a small 3.5 hectare vineyard in the Maury Valley in 2007. The wine-making philosophy at Domaine Jones is to employ traditional, down-to-earth farming methods and innovative winemaking techniques to capture the characteristics of the terroir and the local area. Domaine Jones wines are only produced in tiny quantities – this truly is boutique wine-making. Katie Jones has recently acquired some more vineyards in the village of Tuchan and many of them are planted with low-yielding old vines with some up to 100 years old. The vineyards are planted with a mix of different grape varieties, co-planted in the same vineyard in place, which was a common way of planting in the early part of the last century. Katie initially made Domaine Jones Grenache Noir and White from her own vineyards and later purchased a vineyard in Fitou. Today she has even more projects including the Along Came Jones and La Perle Rare ranges.

Katie is a major fan of old vines and has been snapping up small, old vine vineyards near Tuchan as and when she can. She is a member of The Old Vine Conference and also runs an enormously popular “adopt an old vine” scheme on her website. Most of Katie’s production is single vineyard, old vine wine, so Les Parcelles is a small deviation in that the grapes are sourced from five different parcels of vines around Tuchan. Of the wine, Katie says that this wine is her interpretation of a white Fitou if such a thing were to exist (the Fitou AOC only allows for red wines).

As mentioned above, Domaine Jones Les Parcelles Vieilles Vignes Blanc is a blend of four grape varieties: Grenache Gris from La Grande Pièce, Macabeu from Colombier, Muscat and Grenache Blanc from Fourtalaise and Donneuve. The grapes are hand-picked into small crates, transported to La Gare winery and cooled overnight followed by a gentle pressing of the whole bunches. The juice is kept cold in vat, and the fermentation is long and controlled, lasting up to two weeks. Each variety is fermented separately, the free-run juice in vats and the press wine in oak barrels. Around 10% of the wine is aged in French oak barrels for 6 months.