Mas des Centenaires
Mas des Centenaires
【A magical terroir shaped by Mediterranean breezes and centuries of history】
Ringed by olive trees more than a hundred years old and by great spreading oaks, Mas des Centenaires is a place where nature and the passage of time take on a different meaning — an almost magical spot where old vines flourish.
Less than two kilometres as the crow flies from the lagoons of the Petite Camargue nature reserve and under twenty kilometres from the Mediterranean, the estate enjoys an unusually gentle, settled climate created by the alternation of the Mistral and other inland winds with the sea breeze.
The growing season begins remarkably early here, and in a climate milder than anywhere else nearby the grapes ripen slowly and steadily over a long season.
The clos lies on a seven-hectare hillside at the heart of this privileged spot. The younger vines are planted north to south on the south-facing slope, while the old vines — Grenache, Syrah and Cinsault — run east to west on the south-eastern slope, trained en gobelet.
A few hundred metres south of the clos stands the mas itself, home to the winery and surrounded by a further 22 hectares of vines that share the same coastal blessings.
Picking is done entirely by hand, guided by daily tasting and visual assessment of the fruit so that each parcel comes in at its point of perfect balance.
The whites are pressed directly and given a relatively light, cool settling before fermenting in stainless steel, in barrel or in large wooden vessels.
Indigenous yeasts are preferred, and the whites do not go through malolactic fermentation. For the reds, maceration and alcoholic fermentation take place in concrete or stainless steel.
Here too fermentation relies on wild yeasts, with the fruit partially or entirely destemmed depending on the vintage, and extraction is handled chiefly by pumping over.
Ageing is decided vintage by vintage: in tank, in Burgundy- or Bordeaux-shaped barrels, or in natural stone vessels of various sizes.
For the reds, malolactic fermentation begins naturally in tank or barrel once the alcoholic fermentation has finished.
