With no threat of disease, we were able to start the harvests in Cuers on 22 September and in Trets on 5 September; all the grapes were picked by 30 September.

This year is our second organic vintage, for all of the family's vineyards: Château Coussin in Trets, Château l'Afrique in Cuers and Château Maupague in Puyloubier.

Thanks to the fine spring conditions, and to a hot summer, the grapes for the vintage 2011 achieved optimum ripeness and were in perfect health.

The manual harvests took place from 7am to 1pm, while the mechanical harvests were carried out between 2am and 10am in the morning, so as to obtain maximum benefit from the natural coolness of the nights.

Concerning the rosés; we decided to make the wines using exclusively direct pressing this year.

The presses fill up pretty fast with machine harvesting - in about an hour; a little quicker than when we harvest by hand.

In order to optimize the free-run juice, we added some of the initial pressed juices, thereby obtaining quite pale but very aromatic rosés. Most of the alcoholic fermentations have now finished.

For the reds, the vintage appears to be fairly similar to 2007, with exceptionally well-ripened grapes.

The fermentations are also in their final stages.

As for the whites, the Rolle was picked right at the very beginning of the harvests and the Ugni Blanc at the end; they too are very promising.

We are looking forward to some interesting tastings!