Winemaking

Sociando Mallet is vinified traditionally. Only native yeast and bacteria naturally present on the grapes and at the estate are used. Sociando-Mallet has stainless steel and concrete vats, both of which are temperature-controlled. Once the wine is put into vat, the crushed grapes start to ferment thanks to the presence of yeast. The skins and pips float to the surface and form a cap above the must (fermenting grape juice). The vats are pumped over daily to extract colouring matter and aromas from this cap. Pumping over consists in spraying the cap with must taken from the bottom of the vat.

Winemaking

The wine stays on the skins for an average of 25-30 days depending on the vat and the vintage.

Then comes the running off when the free run wine is separated from the pomace (skins and pips). The press wine is produced by putting the pomace through a winepress. These wines are then put into vat for malolactic fermentation. This secondary fermentation occurs spontaneously due to friendly bacteria naturally present in the wine, which transform malic acid into lactic acid. This therefore makes the wine smoother and more balanced.

Winemaking

After this malolactic fermentation, lots chosen to become Sociando-Mallet are put into 100% new French oak barrels and aged for approximately 12 months. Only a quarter of the wine destined to be sold as Demoiselle de Sociando-Mallet is aged in new oak. The remainder is aged in vats until the blending to preserve this wine's suppleness and fruitiness.

Cellar ageing

La Demoiselle is aged for 15 months and Sociando-Mallet for 18 months before bottling at the château. Special attention is paid to the quality of the corks, which are purchased according to strict specifications. They must be good enough to ensure perfect ageing for long periods, sometimes more than 40 years.

Barrel ageing

For the first 3 or 4 months, the barrels are kept with a glass bung on top. As the new oak absorbs a lot of wine at the beginning of ageing, the amount that evaporates is replaced twice a week in a process called topping up.
After this period, we close the barrels with a wooden bung and we store it “bung on the side» to limit the evaporation and protect the wine from oxidation.

Barrel ageing

The wine is racked twice a year during ageing to separate it from the lees at the bottom of the barrel or vat. For the barrels, this operation is done the traditional way using gravity flow via the esquive, a small bunghole. At Sociando-Mallet, the esquive bungs are wrapped in dried reeds (called matrasse locally) to make the seal airtight. This plant, Typha latifolia (or broadleaf cattail in English), grows in marshland and ditches along the banks of the Gironde. Cellar workers pick the leaves twice a year.

The wine is not fined and is only lightly filtered before bottling to retain all its intrinsic qualities and preserve its outstanding ageing potential.