Soils and climate

Château Riousses, situated at the foot of the Alaric mountains, enjoys sumptuous sun drenched southern slopes and an intensively rich range of soils composed mainly of well-drained limestone, clay, and gravel.
The combination of unique soils, and a warm, sunny Mediterranean climate, provides the optimal ripening conditions for grapes, enabling them to produce full-bodied wines with generous personality

Vineyard, pruning and harvesting

Vineyard

Replanted over 25 years ago, the vineyard is home to a large variety of grapes: Syrah - Grenache - Mourvèdre - Carignan - Cinsault - Merlot - Pinot noir - Cabernet Franc and Viognier. The rich diversity of grapes allows the elaboration of AOC (controlled origin) Corbières and Pays d'Oc offered as varietals.

Pruning

To generate the best result for each variety, previous practices of thinning, stripping, green harvesting, 3 stringtie-ins, and close prunig were carefully analyzed and dramatically restructured. This was essential for the realization of our dual obljective: one, to reduce yields in order to better concentrate aromas, and two, to obtain maximum exposure for each leaf, neccesary for the optimal ripening of the grapes.
Moreover, the guyot pruning method was replaced by "cordon de royat" method, both single and double, in order to develop aromes and flavours.

Harvesting

The great majority of our harvest is done manually, from dawn to noon. This is especially true for our high end grapes. Harvest takes place between mid-September to mid-October, except for the "Viognier", which is ripe at the end of August. The exact choice of day for harvest is determined after oenological analysis of acidity, colouring intensity, pH, alcoholic level and tasting, to ensure the grapes have obtained perfect phoenolic maturity. The crop is then brought to the cellar tanks afte careful grape selection and destemming.

The cellar

The delicate care and utmost attention we give to our grapes would be in vain without corresponding efforts made to update and upgrade our production facilities.

Winemaking cellar

New smaller capacity inox and fiber glass vats were installed in order to separately operate and better monitor the winemaking of each plot. We still use traditional concrete vats due to their high thermic inertia, however, we renewed them with an epoxy interior coating in addition to stainless steel doors and hardware. Finally, a cold unit was put in place in order to better control the fermentation process through thermoregulation and cold maceration.

Barrels cellar

Our old arched barrel cellar was remodelled in 2000. Today, it comfortably accommodates one hundred oak barrels for refinef aging for a period of 8 to 15 months. Barrels are replaced by one third manually.

Storage cellar

In order to preserve the bottles in optimal conditions, a thermoregulated cellar was built on the property in 2003.