This wine comes from a tiny 1.5-hectare planting of Semillon from the 1940s, with 15 or so Ugni Blanc plants mixed in. From these old vines, they produce a mere handful of barrels each year of “Marie-Cecile”– named after ancestor Barthelemy’s wife, who made the wine and ran the estate in the 1870s when the men were off fighting in the war.
Marie-Cecile is pressed slowly, and undergoes natural fermentation without temperature control in old 228-liter barrels. It's never racked, and instead is “dynamized” every few days during its elevage, slowly absorbing all of the lees into the wine and giving it stability of structure. This allows it to be produced with no added sulfur whatsoever, thereby preserving the Semillon’s haunting texture in full. It's full bodied, golden in color, with powerful pear and white flower notes
