Chapter 1106 This Is a Treasure Trove!

The next morning, Xia Yu, accompanied by Curtis Dubois, an executive in the investment department who completed the acquisition, went to Chateau Romanée-Conti.

Although the Brocher family and the Lehua family evacuated their family members from the Romanee-Conti winery after selling their shares, this does not mean that the winery is no longer available.

After all, Romanee-Conti Winery has a history of more than 900 years. Although there have been continuous flow of people in the past 900 years, there are still many small families that exist exclusively for Romanee-Conti Winery.

On the way there, Curtis Dubois first introduced the details of Romanee-Conti Chateau to Xia Yu.

Now, the most important thing for Chateau Romanee-Conti are two families that have been passed down for more than 400 years, namely the Noble family specializing in winemaking and the Faulkner family specializing in vineyard planting and fruit tree cultivation.

It is precisely because these two families have kept their original intentions, specialized in their respective fields for hundreds of years, and cooperated closely, so that Romanee-Conti wines can top the world with super high quality.

The Blochet family and the Lehua family, who had been in charge before, mainly played a role in operation and management.

Therefore, after the departure of the Blochet family and the Lehua family, the impact on the Romanee-Conti winery was not great.

Burgundy is located between the Jura Mountains and the southeastern tip of the Paris Basin, a passage area between the Rhine, Seine, Loire and Rhone rivers, 251 kilometers from Paris.

After nearly three hours' drive, Xia Yu arrived at Romanee Conti Winery at about eleven o'clock in the morning.

Curtis Dubois immediately summoned two old men, sixty-eight-year-old Andre Nobre and sixty-two-year-old Gar Faulkner.

"Boss, this is Andre Nobre."

"This is Gar Faulkner!"

"Old Noble, old Faulkner, this is what I told you, the real owner of the winery, Mr. Xia Yuxia!"

"..."

Xia Yu's gentle words gave people a feeling of spring breeze, which made Andre Nobre and Gar Faulkner feel no psychological pressure, and Xia Yu's praise and praise for them also made them feel happy.

After some small talk, Xia Yu decided to visit his vineyard first.

Under the leadership of Gar Faulkner, Xia Yu and others came to a small hill.

According to Gar Faulkner, standing on this hill, overlooking a large area of ​​vineyards, will have the best visual enjoyment.

Although it is a hill, there are still vines planted here. Standing on the hill, you can see rows of vines planted neatly, like dense green lines, each row is about one meter apart, very well-proportioned , this distance should be able to achieve the best ratio of grape lighting and land utilization.

But now it is February, and the vines are mostly green buds. Although it is not as visually striking as the dark green in June and July, the tender green gives people a healing visual enjoyment.

At this time, Standing Gar Faulkner began to introduce the whole vineyard to Xia Yu.

"Boss, the area of ​​our manor is 1.805 hectares. From 1580 to the present for more than 400 years, there has been no increase or decrease of even a centimeter of land.

"

"Although most of the vines died due to the severe hailstorm in the spring of 1945, we brought in older vines from the Latache Winery in the Night Hill. It was introduced from our estate after the insect plague, so now the vines in our vineyard are still pure-bred Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, and the trees are nearly fifty years old, and the quality remains very stable…”

Gar Faulkner pointed to the busy workers in the distance, and continued to introduce to Xia Yu: "Now our manor does not have any mechanized equipment, and the cultivation and care of the grapes are completely manual, without the use of chemical fertilizers, and the use of other chemical methods as little as possible. , After the grapes are ripe, only skilled workers are allowed to pick them, and after harvesting, strict screening is required to screen out the good grapes, and then use them for brewing..."

Xia Yu smiled and nodded in satisfaction.

In the era of rapidly changing winemaking technology, more scientific winemaking technology is widely used in winemaking, but Romanee Conti chose to be out of touch with the times.

But it is precisely because the cultivation, management, picking, and brewing of Romanee-Conti vineyards are not particularly different from those when winemaking began in the 11th century. This inheritance and persistence of traditions is what keeps Romanee-Conti wines as always. High quality is an important reason for being sought after by the world.

Xia Yu looked down at the nearly fifty-year-old vines, checked the growth of the vines, and returned to the brewing area.

In the winery area, Andre Nobre is in charge of explaining.

A stable and controllable temperature is an important factor for the perfect fermentation of wine.

Therefore, the wine cellars of most wine estates are underground, and the winery of Romanee-Conti is no exception.

After Andre Nobre opened the door, a strong aroma of wine came out. After entering, Xia Yu found that the whole wine cellar was filled with a strong aroma, which made people intoxicated.

"Boss, our wines are made in exquisite oak barrels, using local wild yeasts, not commercial yeasts and constant temperature stainless steel fermentation tanks like some wineries."

"Although we will make the process more complicated and more expensive, but only in this way can we guarantee the quality of our wines."

“This is because we grow Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, and oak barrels allow the ingredients in the wine to blend together, which is especially important for wines such as Chardonnay and Pinot Noir that are complex and suitable for aging. ."

"And oak barrels add aromas of vanilla, cloves, leaves, nuts, toast and caramel to wine, and oak barrels are also a place for secondary fermentation, which is unmatched by thermostatic stainless steel fermentation tanks..."

Andre Nobre pointed to the oak barrels stacked on the surrounding wooden shelves and introduced to Xia Yu.

Xia Yu walked over and touched an oak barrel, and looked at the time written on the bottom of the barrel, which was September 21, 1981.

Xia Yu looked at the wine barrels all around, and asked softly, "Old Noble, are all the wines here made last year?"

Andre Nobre shook his head, pointed to the two rows of oak barrels in front of him, and said: "No, only these two rows are the wines made last year. The annual output of our vineyard is about 2,500 liters, and It's not like those big wineries with 70,000 to 80,000 liters of production."

Then he pointed to the oak barrels not far away and said: "The two columns were harvested and brewed on September 28, 1980."

"The two furthest columns are wines harvested on September 25, 1979."

"There is no longer time, because the oak barrels will be scrapped after a maximum of three years, so the wine harvested on September 25, 1979, we will start bottling in March..."

Xia Yu nodded slightly, and then said to Andre Noble: "Where is the wine that has been bottled and stored before? Take me there to see."

"Okay, please come with me!"

After finishing speaking, Andre Noble took Xia Yu to turn left and right along a road and came to a large wooden door. After opening it, he turned on the light in the storage room.

Suddenly, the scene of the storage room came into view.

This is an arched straight passage. There seems to be a corner at the end, just like a brick kiln. On both sides of the passage, there are wooden wine racks that are supported at an inclination. Every position on the wine rack is placed with a wine, densely packed. Like a beehive, it gives a strong visual impact.

"Old Noble, how many bottles of wine are still in storage? Is there a list for each vintage?"

He took out a bottle of wine at close range, and found that it was marked 1964, which is also 18 years ago. Xia Yu put the wine back again, feeling that there was so much wine that he couldn't see it in a short time, so he asked Andre directly. Noble asked.

"Yes, every time you leave the warehouse and enter the warehouse, it will be registered. There is a special statistics room here, please come with me!"

After finishing speaking, Andre Nobre took Xia Yu for a while, came to an office, and took out a huge leather-cased book.

He put the book on the table, and after opening it, he introduced to Xia Yu: "Boss, the number of remaining wines of each age is registered here. Currently, the oldest wine in the warehouse was produced in 1754. Eleven bottles!"

Xia Yu raised his eyebrows in surprise, and looked at the top row of the table.

There is still wine from 1754, which is 228 years old!

Older than the 1787 Lafite from the Rothier family!

However, the quantity is only eleven bottles, which is indeed rare enough!

Then Xia Yu looked down along the table.

Five bottles of the 1755 wine are still in storage.

Three bottles of the 1756 wine are still in storage.

None from 1757 to 1761.

So directly below 1756 is 1762, and there are still thirteen bottles in storage.

There are many years of faults that follow.

According to Andre Nobre, it was because of the bad climate in those years, the tannins of the grapes produced were not full enough, so they could not have a long enough lifespan, and many of them were stored for decades or even hundreds of years. It is all emptied, and the long-term storage of wines with insufficient tannins will only make the taste worse and worse.

...

Until 1800, according to a statistic, there were still 129 bottles of wine before.

Then between 1801 and 1900, the number was a little more, reaching 525 bottles.

This is definitely a huge treasure trove!

The reason why Chateau Romanée-Conti is so valuable is that these aged wines stored are very important factors!

Looking after 1900, the amount of storage has increased as the time is closer to the present.

Of course, there is an exception. For example, in the year 1945, there are still 420 bottles in storage.

But in the six years from 1946 to 1951, not a single bottle of wine was stored.

Seeing Xia Yu's sight stop there, Andre Nobre immediately explained: "Boss, because the climate changes every year, the annual grape output will change, and the grapes produced in a high-yield year can even make nine thousand There are many wines, so the ratio of new wines to long-term storage is different every ten years, but in 1945, because of the hail attack, most of the vines died, and only 600 bottles of wine were made that year because of the small number of wines. , so the proportion of total storage is very high.”

"In the six years from 1946 to 1951, newly transplanted vines were cultivated, and because of the unstable quality, no wine was produced."

Xia Yu nodded slightly and said softly, "The total output in 1945 was only 600 bottles, and I am a little surprised that there are still 420 bottles left."

PS: The second one is sent, I wish you a happy weekend!

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