TWO FAMILIES, ONE PROJECT TO PRODUCE GREAT WINES
The Roquette & Cazes project represents, above all, the coming together of two friends, Jorge Roquette from Quinta do Crasto and Jean-Michel Cazes from Château Lynch-Bages.
In 2002, these two families decided to set up a company to produce great wines that would be distinguished by the natural characteristics of the Douro Valley and by the experience of the Cazes, who have been producing wines in Bordeaux for nearly a century.
A wine-making adventure
“Making a great wine using the Douro grape varieties, a wine with body and complexity which combines the power and the sun of Portugal with the elegance and finesse of Bordeaux” said Jean-Michel Cazes about this adventure.
Roquette Family
There were two major challenges:
– to respect the character of the Douro so as not to lose the local feel and touch;
– to bring two different teams of winemakers together that speak different languages and work 1,000 km apart from each other.
This is how Xisto – Roquette Cazes 2003, the first wine of this project, was born. The wine was released at Vinexpo 2005 and was included in the “Top Ten” and in the “Les 3 Exceptionnels” category by the jury “Découvertes 2005″, giving Xisto – Roquette Cazes 2003 immediate world-wide exposure.
After three successful vintages of Xisto – Roquette Cazes, the two families decided to create another wine, giving birth to Roquette Cazes 2006. This wine took the teachings of its elder brother Xisto – Roquette Cazes. Equally elegant, fine, with depth, but was allowed to age more time in the bottle in order to be ready to drink when released.
With the birth of this new wine, Jorge Roquette and Jean-Michel Cazes decided to reposition the oldest wine of the project Xisto – Roquette Cazes, to only bottle in years when the presence of fruit in the finished wine is so powerful, structured and prominent.
Adapting the knowledge to different natural conditions to produce great wines
In the Roquette & Cazes project, the whole process begins in the vineyard. From time to time, family Cazes’s winemaker Daniel Llose goes to the Douro to visit the vineyards along with Manuel Lobo, Quinta do Crasto’s winemaker.
The Cazes Family
The vinification process is conducted by the two winemakers and it takes place in Quinta do Crasto’s winery. In order to conserve, yet elegantly integrate, the Douro characteristics, a specific winemaking system was created. It includes a gentle pumping over process and long maceration periods which result in intense and elegant wines, with good structure and personality, deeply marked by the “terroir”.
The grapes come from vineyards located in different parts of the Douro Valley. The main grape varieties used are Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca and Tinta Roriz.
French oak barrels, which are provided by Château Lynch-Bages’s supplier, are used to mature the wine. Bottle ageing takes place in a temperature controlled environment in Quinta do Crasto’s warehouse.