The name “Tel Quel Carignan” is an echo of the other “Tel Quel” cuvee which is a 100% Cinsault. This name means “As it is” in french, and Elisabeth chose it because of the winemaking process.
The grapes were really good, and the wine was already just fine after the maceration so it didn’t need that much intervention.
It was just good as it is!
With “Tel Quel Carignan”, the grapes comes from a 60 years old vineyard. 2019 was a really good year and those Carignan vines produced enough grapes to make a monocepage cuvee, that is how “Tel Quel Carignan” was born.
However, in 2020 those vines didn’t produce enough so Elisabeth couldn’t replicate this 100% Carignan cuvee, which makes it a very rare cuvee of the Clos d’Elis domain.
The vinification process is really simple: at first she made a carbonic maceration of the grapes with their stems for 12 days. Then she pressed the grapes and let the juice ferment again.
After those two fermentations, she extracted the juice from the grapes deposit, and put the juice into 4oo liter barrels.Finally, she bottled the wines directly from the barrels.
