In 800 AD the Pope in Rome crowned Charlemagne King of Francia and Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, a region that included most of Western Europe and, by Christian alliances, all of Northern Spain. This ‘marriage’ of Church and State marked the dawn of a monastic vineyard and wine making industry that operated successfully throughout the Middle-Ages. The monastic network consisted of 314 abbeys, built by the Benedictine monks from Cluny, in southern Burgundy, between 910 and 1157 AD. The Cistercian reform that followed resulted in the establishment of even more abbeys right across western Europe. The Church-State relationship that developed encountered a crescendo of problems which peaked in 1309 with the Roman Pope challenging the authority of the King of France, Philippe IV, by moving the Vatican from Rome in the Papal States to Avignon in south-eastern France.

The Cluniac network of monastic vineyards was built around the pilgrimage routes that ran across France and Northern Spain and ended at Santiago De Compostella in Galicia. This medieval Christian shrine lay at the then ‘end of the world,’ and was considered to be the burial place of the Apostle Saint James. Pilgrims crossed from France to Spain at the Abbey of Roncevaux which lay in the Basque lands of French Navarre on the northern slopes of the western Pyrenees. The monastic network involved German, French and Spanish monks who followed the Benedictine rule and subsequently the Cistercian reformed rule. Modern European viticulture and winemaking was established during this period and the traditional, simple, hands on, art and craft of vine dressing and wine making was perfected by these monks. The notion of different vine groups, types and varieties emerged for the first time as the descendants of local wild vines, their spontaneous crosses with imported vines and their chance mutations, were collected, assembled, separated, named and classified.

Sons & Brothers is a handcrafted wine made in the traditional medieval manner. The fruit comes off a single vineyard site and from the vine to the bottle we rely on hand labour and small scale simple equipment. Unlike others we actually make our wine, we do not use a commercial contract wine making service to do it for us, ours is a specialist artisanal product. We mainly grow the variety Cabernet Sauvignon, the progeny of a spontaneous 16th century cross between the Sauvignon (from the upper Loire valley) and the Cabernet Franc (from the Basque country of south western France). We used to grow a small amount of Shiraz as well but this has been grafted over to Cabernet Sauvignon. Ten percent of the vineyard is planted to the old, pink fruited and high monoterpene producing form of the Savagnin that was grown in the Jura region of France prior to 1875 when the post Phylloxera replanting commenced.

We only make one wine a bottle aged dry red. It is a single vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon dominant blend in which the Cabernet component acts as a conduit for the Sons & Brothers terroir to be expressed. Sons & Brothers is made in the traditional French Cabernet style hence it is food friendly, age worthy, long lived, medium bodied, stylisticly elegant, intensely flavoured and tightly structured. In the best vinages the palate is long, broad and lingering. Flavour notes include mint, spice, black pepper, musk, cherry and plum. As it ages it displays layers of more complex flavours and aromas including cedar, cigar box and violets. Ideally it should be poured into a decanter one hour before consumption, to allow the fresh air to release the wines full flavour potential. In winter the wine must reach a normal warm room temperature (and definitely not be cold) before serving. This wine is at its best when served together with food. Well made Cabernet wines will evolve beautifully following extended bottle maturation provided they have been made to age and have been sealed with a reliable bottle closure. Sons & Brothers has been made to age and each bottle is closed with our unique, robust and reliable, long life seal. This consists of a corrosion-free, mechanically perfect, stainless steel crown cap placed over a tin/saran foil lined screw cap wad. This combination produces a perfect air tight, taint-free, robust and reliable long life seal.

Cabernet Sauvignon, the main variety in Sons & Brothers wine, contributes structure, character, complexity, and longevity. The small amount of Old Jura Savagnin (and in past vintages Shiraz) that we use softens the wine, fleshes it out, and increases the texture and palate weight. We are the first to use Savagnin in this way and are amazed by the synergy that occurs. Colour, aroma and flavour are all enhanced, the tannins softened, the texture smoothed, and the palate weight increased. The wine is more approachable at a younger age but still retains the capacity to age gracefully over 10 or more years. The Savagnin ripens before the Cabernet and so whole, undamaged, Savagnin bunches are carefully picked and air dried to partially raisin them whilst we wait for the Cabernet to fully ripen. Once the Cabernet has been picked the two varieties are then crushed and fermented together. Minor acid adjustments are made at the crusher and the maceration process is enzyme enhanced. Fermentation commences within hours of crushing, we use small open vats so that good oxygenation and skin/juice contact can occur, the ‘cap’ is hand plunged three times a day. The cellar temperature at harvest is always cool and this ensures a fermentation temperature of between about 12 and 22°C which preserves aroma compounds. To cope with these cooler temperatures we use a cold tolerant but malolactic friendly yeast known as S6U. The higher glycerol production of this yeast strengthens the middle palate of the wine.

Malolactic fermentation is initiated, after several days of primary fermentation. The bacillus we use is the cold tolerant Enoferm Alpha. Both fermentations continue simultaneously and are complete by the time the wine is ready to be pumped off the skins 30 days later. The residue of wet skins is then shoveled into two small hand ratcheted stainless steel basket presses to capture the first run light pressings, which are then added to the free run wine. The wine undergoes elevage in small (900 litre) stainless steel fixed capacity barrels. This can include a small amount of medium toasted, new French oak stave contact. The wine is racked and SO2 adjusted every three months and the final homogenous blend is neither fined nor filtered prior to bottling at 13 months. After this it is then laid down for an extended period of bottle maturation in our cool dark cellar prior to release for sale. Because Sons & Brothers is a single vineyard, hand crafted wine it will inevitably display vintage variation, but in a world full of mass produced, vintage consistent, industrial blando-vino this makes it a very interesting alternative.