Pierre Damoy
Damoy is a funny young guy – very self-important. Very impish sort of face and it transpires that he drinks very little wine but what he does drink is very old. He always comes out with extraordinary comments.
He racks his wine at a cold temperature, to retain the CO2, which would come out if it was normal temperature. CO2 is an anti-oxidant, so by going through this process of chilling the wine when he racks, he retains that CO2. The 99 was a very easy vintage. Did it all on its own – very easy to vinify. An interesting point about malolactic fermentation is that it happens more quickly in wines that are in new oak, . Those wines in old oak, it appears to be slower. This leads to problems with assemblage times. You have to wait longer for wines to go through their malolactic fermentation. This is perhaps because old barrels have had sulphur in them to clean out the bacteria and this is perhaps affecting the lactic bacteria which are very sensitive.