caroline @ wildearthvineyards.com Tel: +33(0)553227271
Caroline & Seán Feely
Château Haut Garrigue
24240 Saussignac France
Haut Garrigue, Wild EARTH Vineyards is:
E: Excellent wines
A: Artisanal & hand-made
R: Respectful of the earth & you
T: True to its place & terroir
H: Historic
To make sure you get the scoop on each of our wine releases please email us on info@hautgarrigue.com or call us on +33 (0)553 227271 to subscribe. Trade buyers please contact us via email or phone for our latest depart property prices and availability.
Chateau Haut Garrigue’s award-winning wines include rich reds, a mineral rosé, refreshing dry whites & delectable dessert wines. These natural wines are created with artisanal practices in the vineyard and minimal intervention in the winery. No animal products are used in the winemaking and the wines are thus suitable for vegans. Our wines are certified organic with ecocert from 2009 (after 4 years of conversion) and we are in conversion to biodynamics with Demeter. To buy our wine online click IRELAND ORDERS, UK ORDERSor FRANCE ORDERS. If you live elsewhere please email us for details on how to get your hands on our wines.
New Releases of the wine styles that are currently sold out will be available in 2011.
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Sémillon/Sauvignon Blanc (dry white wine) 2006
Wine Critic's Comment: ‘Chateau Haut Garrigue Semillon-Sauvignon Blanc 2006 is a crisp dry wine with notes of citrus and pear and a smooth texture that augurs well for the Feely’s future’ Joe Breen, Irish Times, 15 September 2007
Wine Critic's Comment: "A clean, crisp wine, lipsmackingly tart at first. Warmer, silky honey tones build to a mid-palate as the semillon kicks in, with the complex heather and wet gravel characters of a Bordeaux white wine four times this price. A fine and engaging white wine" Tomas Clancy, Wine Correspondent, Sunday Business Post
La Source 2008, barrel-aged white
Sauvignon Blanc (dry white wine) 2006, 2007 & 2008: sold out
Wine Critic's Comments:
Rosé 2006, 2007: sold out
Wine Critic's Comment about our rosés: 'Your rosé is right on the money’ Martin Moran, Master of Wine, via email June 2007
Wine Critic's Comments: This wine also won a medal on the Bordeaux wine competition in 2008
Click this bolded text to read what Jon Rimmerman, wine retailer in the US says about this wine.Then read about our label designs and sensitive cristallisation.
Wine Critics' Comments:
Saussignac AOC (a semi-sweet apératif/ dessert wine) 2000
Saussignac Dessert Wine Seduction 2006: sold out
Tasting Notes: Golden and unctuous. Honey, passion fruit and a hint of almond on the nose. Notes of honeysuckle and orange blossom. Apricot and passion fruit the palate with an intense, long finish. Our panel of tasters also wrote ‘Outstanding’ & ‘this is a €100 a bottle wine’.
Wine Critics' Comments:
"This is a superstar dessert wine that deserves to be on every Irish wine shop shelf beside the Sauternes and Tokaji. Clean, bright apricot and acacia honey tones with great smoothness, then a classical botrytis cut that is the antithesis of unctuous." Tomas Clancy, Wine Correspondent, Sunday Business Post
Methode Traditionelle Quality Sparkling Wine: sold out
Customer Comment: 'We enjoyed your sparkling so much over Christmas please put us down for a couple of cases on your next delivery. Everyone raved about our excellent "Champagne".' Tom Rourke
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‘Your sémillon sauvignon blanc - excellent, refreshing and so good I’m sorry that we only had the single bottle’ Des, Dublin
‘We have just had Chateau Haut Garrigue sauvignon blanc with a little freshly caught wexford fish ... magnifique!’ Terry and Antoinette, New Ross
‘Your semillon/ sauvignon blanc is my wine of choice now and I am encouraging my local O’Briens to keep it in stock’ Joan, Naas
‘Your sémillon / sauvignon blanc wine tasted great at our dinner last Saturday!’ Paul, Dublin
‘I received my sauvignon blanc and it is lovely. I will be ordering it again.’ June, Rush
‘Superb, a delightful wine and one we will certainly recommend’ Ned and Nuala, Wicklow (about our 2006 Sauvignon blanc)
"I tried your merlot/cab lastnight and it was delicious." Wayne, Vancouver, Canada
"I just wanted to let you know that your wine is really superb." Bernie, Dublin
"We really enjoyed your wine. It was our style, easy to drink and not too heavy." Walter, Dublin
"Enjoyed your wine - very impressed!" Padraic, Dublin
"..Everyone we entertained over the holiday raved about your wine." Tom, Dublin
Why Organic? Why Biodynamic? Part 1
The simples way to see what this means is to look at the photo at right of a vineyard in Aquitaine that is farmed chemically. There is no biodiversity. There is no plant matter on the ground in the vineyard and no hedges or other plants nearby thanks to excessive herbicide use.
This is a classic monoculture where pest outbreaks are guaranteed. Not only that, uncovered earth means erosion when rain falls.
Part two to follow in our next newsletter.
EARL Chateau Haut Garrigue SIRET (company Registration): 48411928400012 TVA Intracommunautaire: FR47484119284
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Descriptions of our current wines and customer comments follow (click the text to jump to the wine): 
We harvest our white grapes in the cool of the night to keep the fresh fruit flavours and aromas. This wine is a voyage in itself offering a beautiful rainbow of flavours. 
Details: Flavours of grapefruit and gooseberry enchant the palate following through into a long mineral finish. Enjoy on its own or with foods like monkfish, salmon or shellfish. Only 150 cases produced per annum from designated vines. Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée Bergerac Sec. 13% alc vol 750ml 
‘This is sauvignon blanc like you have never tasted. There is a wild, earthy streak… with the crispness of grapefruit and a very individual mineral backbone' Raymond Blake, Wine Editor, Food & Wine
The saussignac botrytis dessert wine is truly a labour of love. The yield from a hectare of Saussignac is about 25% of the yield the same hectare would deliver of dry white. Unfortunately the price is never 4 times but fools like us continue to make it because it is truly exquisite. The grapes are hand-picked (sometimes individually) and deliver up a juice that is golden and heavenly. Once fermented a complex set of aromas develop… 
A delicious biscuity sparkling wine made in the traditional method just like they do in champagne with low SO2 and a second fermentation in the bottle to create the bubbles.
Certified organic is the only sure way to keep your grapes for the wine you drink free of highly carcinogenic pesticides. These sprays are so toxic they state on the box do not enter the vineyard for 48 hours after spraying. If something is this toxic you don't want it sprayed on something you are going to eat. Grapes are not washed before they are made into wine! 
With organic farming we have a balanced environment with much more biodiversity (photo below of Garrigue in Spring time) where we have never had any pest outbreaks. If we ever did we would treat it with natural means. Rosemary and ferns are both good natural pesticides. If you get ants coming into the house put a large sprig of rosemary at their entrance and they will leave. We have high populations of the good bugs like ladybirds that keep the bad guys in check. If there are a few bad guys (eg aphids) around they generally prefer the other plants in the vineyard to the vines. They would only eat the vines if there was nothing else like in the other vineyard where the only green things are the vines.