Chateau Angélus in Saint Emilion, Bordeaux, is not making hand sewn shoes but something of the sort – haute couture. They destem their grapes by hand. When you make red wine in nine cases out of ten (or more) you destem the grape bunches. Using a destemmer, you feed it with grape bunches and out comes at one end the separated grapes and at the other end the stems. Voilà. After that the grapes are (usually) crushed and the fermentation begins. At Chateau Angelus they think this is too brutal a treatment for the grapes so they recruited some 50 persons (we estimate) to do the destemming by hand, separating the berries from the stems… Does it make any difference? It is difficult to believe it does, but we have not made a comparative tasting. Watch the video here: www.chateau-angelus.com
