Quarry Road Gamay 2024

Before it was a vineyard, Quarry Road was a quarry. Roofing slate was cut here until 1931, and the floor of the working is a flat hectare of shattered stone with a thin skin of soil that has built up over ninety years of bracken growing and dying on it. It is the warmest ground on the estate by a distance: the cut face behind it holds the afternoon heat and gives it back at night.

We put Gamay in it because Gamay likes warmth, likes poor soil, and makes a wine people actually drink. Quarry Road is a quarter of everything we bottle. It pays for the Coldfoot.

Whole bunch, sealed tank

Every bunch goes into the tank whole, stems and all. We fill the tank, lay a blanket of CO₂ over the top, seal it and walk away for eleven days. Inside, the berries at the bottom are crushed by the weight above and ferment normally; the ones higher up ferment from the inside out, inside their own skins. It is the half-carbonic method from Beaujolais and it is the reason the wine smells of violets and pepper rather than of jam.

Then two concrete eggs for six months, because concrete breathes like wood without tasting of it, and the egg shape keeps the lees circulating without anyone having to stir.

In the glass

Sour Morello cherry, cracked black pepper, violet, and a dry, chalky dust on the finish that we like to think is the quarry and is probably the stems. Light enough to read through the glass. Low enough in alcohol to have a second one.